Chapter One

Keep Your Hands and Feet Inside the Ride At All Times

Every member of the Westside High School girls’ varsity, junior varsity and freshman basketball teams had to report to the gym for a special meeting.

Kelsey Chinn and her fellow freshmen BFFs made sure to be there, but the newly selected frosh squad teammates would not have missed it for the world. They were especially excited that today could be the announcement for the new freshman team coach.

As agreed, they immediately sought each other out when they arrived ten minutes early, grouping together like the nervy youngest ducklings that they were, at least at Westside. In addition, as a show of solidarity, the girls wore their new Westside High N-95 masks, decorated in the school colors of royal blue and gold with the Westside High Warrior logo. They did so even though the nonsurgical masks for COVID protection were doled out back on the first day of basketball try-outs some two weeks earlier; after the exhausting workouts the masks were no longer so fresh and new.

Kelsey pushed her black rimmed glasses back in place and assumed the role of piloting her friends carefully up to vacant bleacher seats. They settled on the top row on the far side right, apart from the older girls. They wanted to be chill  and they certainly did not want to stand out.

A headstrong natural born leader and nerdy basketball savant, Kelsey’s overwhelming dream had been that she and her five best buds play hoop together for beloved Westside High. Each of them wanted it badly, had worked hard through try-outs, and now, with the start of team practices just on the horizon, reaching that dream was so close. Kelsey could barely control her excitement, but she remained calm, casual, setting a good example for the others. No need to act all geeked and uber-excited like little freshmen, although that’s exactly what they were, all of the above.

Little did she know that an emotional strata-coaster awaited, and her world was about to be crushed.

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick…

~ * ~

“Everyone sit down and be quiet, please. This meeting will come to order!”

Westside Coach Gerald Clark surveyed the scene from where he stood smack dab in the center and twenty feet back from the players seated on the wooden bleachers. A scratched up wooden podium squatted a few feet behind him, with a microphone turned on, but he wasn’t about to use it. Over the last twenty years, that booming voice was familiar to everyone who had ever played girls basketball at Westside High, and it was certainly loud enough that he did not need a microphone. The all-black mask he wore to stop pandemic virus germs would do absolutely nothing to diminish the volume, or tone, of his words.

Seated front and center in the bleachers was assistant basketball coach, Javanna Bixby. Also in place were the new Westside girls basketball team manager, thin, bespectacled freshman Dorothea Gibson, all ten of the girls who had made that year’s varsity squad, the twelve players who made up the junior varsity, along with only five of the eight girls from the frosh team. It sure wasn’t smart of the three freshman girls who hadn’t shown up for whatever reason, no telling what the coaches would do about them. Kelsey and her BFF teammates, plus Dorothea, another BFF, had made it. For now, these were the Westside girls hoop squads.

The players had naturally clustered together in the bleachers with their new teammates more or less following the health department and school masking and distancing requirements. The varsity team members looked bigger, older, and held themselves like confident young adults; JVers were slightly quieter, slightly smaller; and the freshmen were comparatively scrawny, obviously younger and looking visibly anxious, no matter how they tried to hide it.

“I see most of you made it,” the Coach bellowed at the group of girls sitting there.

Kelsey, and likely her friends, too, was feeling a bit disappointed. Only Coach Clark, varsity team head coach, and Coach Javanna, his assistant on varsity and the junior varsity team head coach, stood on the floor below them. Maybe they still hadn’t found a coach for the girls’ frosh team.

Coach Gerald Clark was a single, balding white man in his late fifties. He taught U.S. Government and was famous for his very quick temper. Players through the years had learned immediately he wanted things done his way, all the way and the only way, no questions asked. He was the Master and Commander of the World of Westside High School Girls Hoops, and he knew it.

Tough and set in his old-school basketball ways, if he noticed your game, it was probably because you were doing something he didn’t like, otherwise he rarely spoke to you. But he had won his fair share of games over the years, a few league championships, too, and a few girls he’d coached had gone on to play college ball. His reputation as a coach was solid.

“Glad to see you can follow directions and are wearing masks,” the coach barked. Everyone in the gym knew if she hadn’t worn a mask to the meeting as instructed, Clark would have kicked her out of the gym in a heartbeat.

Coach Clark pointed up to a group in the center rows. “Let’s spread out a little up in the back there—yeah, Lavoie, you seniors and the rest, let’s go, a little distancing please.”

The other girls in the stands watched as Stacy Lavoie, senior captain and the best Var team player, Co-Captains Jen Blackwood and Mareesha Jackson, also seniors, along with two other probable starting junior members of the varsity, Sheila McBride and Grace Atkins, rolled their eyes as they slid a little further apart from each other in the middle row. Their teenage smirks were luckily hidden from Coach Clark by the masks they wore.

“Ok, thank you, was that so hard?” Coach Clark called up sarcastically. He took another moment to inspect his minions before continuing. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why we canceled the start of practices today so let’s get right down to it. Coach Javanna, you wanna give these players the lowdown?”

The athletic, pretty, thirty-something African American Coach J stood and turned to face the stands with a quick wave before moving towards the podium. She also wore an N-95 mask in Westside High colors of royal blue and gold.

Coach Javanna Bixby had been a two-time All-League basketball player for Westside in the nineties. She was good enough to play Division II ball at State College, even started as a sophomore guard. However, she blew out her ACL the summer before her junior year and her knee never made it back to full strength. Now graduated, she was in her third year as a Westside PE instructor, and second year as the Clark’s Var assistant coach and JV head coach. The three-year starting point guard on one of Coach Clark’s best basketball teams had come full circle.

With her long dreads pulled into a neat ponytail, Coach Javanna—the players fondly called her Coach J—looked exceptionally youthful, belying the fact that she had a husband and toddler daughter. Her knee had healed enough so she could routinely beat most of the high school girls one-on-one, as she liked to show rather than tell them how to play the game. As tough and competitive as Coach Clark, she was oppositely readily approachable, listening respectfully to the girls’ comments and questions and responding to them on even terms. The girls loved playing for her. However, make no mistake, you had to have tough skin at Westside High, even tougher if you wanted to play hoops. For Coach Clark and Coach J.

Coach Clark took a few steps back as the varsity assistant coach approached the podium and the microphone.

“Listen up, girls,” said Coach J. “Unfortunately, we received bad news this morning. Well, good and bad. First, the bad: league play is being delayed for at least another month because of the pandemic.”

A collective groan rose from the group followed immediately by growing chatter. What the heck? They were ready for some serious practice and to start playing pre-season games! How could this be?

Coach Clark bellowed, “Quiet down, quiet! Let Coach Javanna talk, please. Quiet!”

“Anyway, that’s the bad news,” Coach J continued. “League’s going to start in a month, we all hope, depending on how things go. Boys basketball, too. And fyi, the district has decided that at-home school is going to continue for now. That info was just sent out to your parents, guardians, everyone, at 3:30 p.m.”

The scattered protesting quickly died down as Coach Javanna raised her hands for quiet.

“As I said, that’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. The county and city are going to allow the All-City Boys and Girls Basketball Tournaments to be played right away instead of over the winter break. School leaders realize all league start-ups are being delayed, but since we’re still in the Red Tier II level of health controls and not in Purple Tier I, they’re okay with holding the All-City Tournament.”

As an excited buzz from the players grew, Coach Clark moved to the podium and, covering the microphone with a big paw, added loudly, “That’s for right now, ladies, and could change at any time and be over in a heartbeat. Extra safety precautions will be put in place. That means everyone—players, coaches and any other team staff—will be tested for the Coronavirus three times a week for the two weeks before the start of the four-day tournament and every day during.”

Coach Clark’s warning did not prevent a burst of delight from the players. Just knowing the All-City Basketball Tournament was still on was huge. The fact that they would get to play in some actual games, let alone the All-City Tournament, was ginormous! Everyone began talking at once, shouting out questions, expressing their joy.

Coach Clark stood at the podium for only a moment, hands on hips, head and chest thrust forward in a Brahma Bull stance, before his voice now boomed through the microphone and exploded above the din to snuff it out.

“Okay, quiet, there’s more!” The Coach scowled at the players. “Before the tournament there can be no visitors around—no friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents, grandparents, whatever—no one here in this gym unless you’re a coach, an assistant or a player. When the tournament starts, there will be no spectators, except those parents and guardians who have been tested, cleared and authorized. No questions asked. If you or anyone associated with you try to screw with these rules, in any fashion, you’ll be out on your butt!”

Again undeterred, the girls erupted at once, shouting out questions and, this time, to voice frustration. Immediately both coaches raised their arms to silence them.

“Listen, listen,” Coach J replied. “You don’t have to play in the tournament if you don’t want to, it’ll be your choice. Straight up: there’s still danger from close contact and germ spreading and infections, understand?”

Coach Clark added, “And you’ll have to get signed clearance from your parents and guardians and show only negative test results to even be allowed to start practicing and then to play. So, keep quiet for now and just hope this all goes well for you and everyone around you.”

Finally, that sobering bit of information jolted the girls back to reality and returned them all stoically to the state of the new pandemic world they were trying to exist in.

“Yeah, right, that’s what I thought,” Coach Clark replied to the quieted group. “It’s a helluva lot to think about. So, stay seated, hold your tongues, and listen up.”

The man continued.

“You don’t have to know all of the details, but it boils down to these things: the dang pandemic, the school district decisions, and what now has to be done to make sure everyone is safe and to keep everyone safe. If we do everything to minimize the health danger the way we are being required to do them, some of you may even get to play a few basketball games. There have to be changes, some hard ones, and I have to be the one to enforce them if we—Westside High—want to be in the tournament and compete in league, and that’s if we even have a league this year.”

The old head coach stopped to look across the bleacher expanse at the young basketball players. He turned briefly to Assistant Coach Javanna and gave her a half-hearted shrug. He’d never been through anything like this in all his years at Westside High. None of them had, and as tough as coaching girls high school basketball was in normal years, he hoped Coach Javanna understood how extremely difficult this situation was going to be.

True to Coach Clark’s reputation, grueling try-outs had taken place two weeks earlier, seven straight days of torture, and only these girls in the bleachers had survived and been selected to the Westside’s High School Girls basketball program. Unfortunately, not all who tried out made the cut for one of the teams, varsity, junior varsity or freshman. There were still mixed emotions as some good friends, who were also good players, had been told they weren’t quite good enough. Now this.

Coach Clark continued scanning the bleachers and the eyes of every basketball player. Finally, the coach took a deep breath and exhaled before he asked—no, challenged—them in his loud, booming voice, “Are we in?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, twenty-eight young voices exuberantly shouted right back: “Yes!”

“Okay, that’s what I wanted to hear,” Coach Clark replied with a nod and a clenched fist pump before placing both hands on the podium. “So now here’s more. Listen up. It’s the last thing but since I’m your head coach I get to deliver the extra-bad news.”

Like the others, Kelsey and the frosh players looked at each other in surprise, not knowing what more to expect. The pandemic had turned their lives upside down for many months now and they had already been jerked around and around in this meeting. Kelsey caught her breath, nervously shot a quick grimace to her friends and felt a sudden rush of cold air that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stick straight out.

“What the heck could be ‘extra-bad news’?” she wondered anxiously.

Coach Clark delivered it.

“Look, understand I had nothing to do with this, the rules are the rules and if we want Westside High Warrior Girls to be represented in the All-City Basketball Tournament, well, I have no choice…I mean, we have no choice.” He drew a deep breath behind his mask before continuing.

“In the past we’ve managed with this one gym for practice and games, with the boy’s teams, too. It was tough but we could always expand to other places when needed. Now we can’t find other places to practice because the pandemic has shut them all down. No one’s taking any chances. Worst of all is how much time and effort it’ll take to handle the new restrictions, including a ton of cleaning, disinfecting, and sterilizing requirements before and after every practice. A boatload of time. Unfortunately, when we increase cleaning time, we lose actual gym time.”

The players watched as the old coach squared his shoulders and squeezed both hands into tight fists, visibly bracing before continuing.

“Listen, I’m just going to cut to it: we can no longer make gym time available for the freshman teams, so this year Westside High will not have a freshman girls’ basketball team.”

Kelsey’s ears completely drowned out the eruption of noise around her, replaced by a sudden throbbing buzz. Eyes wide in disbelief, Kelsey sat completely crushed, removing her thick glasses and blinking in rapid succession. Had she heard right? No frosh team, just like that? Bloody hell!

Before the meeting started, Kelsey Chinn had lived on Planet Earth all of fifteen years, two months, three days, and eleven minutes. Twenty minutes later: life officially destroyed.