03-04-2011

I knew when I came up here to teach I would be experiencing many new things.  The obvious one was starting a new job.  Not so obvious was having to get on an airplane with five middle school basketball players and be in their charge.  After we had boarded the five-seat Cesena, the pilot looked at me and asked if we were ready.  I looked at him and squeaked out a weak “help!”  He must have thought I said, “Sure, I’m an adult and have chosen to be responsible for these five kids”, because he said, “Good” and started the engine.  I realized I had better become an adult fast. 

We landed in Marshall at 7:30 Friday night and were immediately shown our room.  Our room served as a 3^rd grade classroom just a few hours before.  The leftovers of a popcorn party remained on the same floor we were going to roll our sleeping bags out on.  We didn’t have to wait around for long because our first game was at 8.  The pregame pep talk consisted of me asking if anyone needed to pee.  When I was finished in the bathroom, we were ready to go. 

Deciding who started and who got to keep me company on the bench is easy when there are only five players.  The team is coed with one girl.  Shortly after the third quarter started, I had company.  One of our players fouled out about two minutes into the third quarter.  I’m convinced he fouled out because he just wanted to listen to me calmly guide my team from the front row.  I did find it odd that he wouldn’t come sit next to me.  Now we had only four players to finish the second half of the game.  I tried to recall some inspirational moments from the movie Hoosiers to tell the kids, but all I could do is ask if anyone had to pee. 

We limped through that game and then turned around and played the next game.  After two games in a row with no subs, our kids were dragging.  It was also getting late.  The curfew in Marshall is midnight, so they had time to play two more games which did not include us.  The other teams had plenty of players, so they had the luxury of having players who were not begging to come out of the game.  My players would ask, “Can I come out for a few minutes?”  I would explain to them that we couldn’t sit anyone out because we had nobody to come in for them.  They would listen intently, nod and ask, “Yeah, but can I come out for a few minutes?” 

That night the kids learned about leg cramps.  I shared the classroom with the four boys, and they thought they were about to loose their legs.  They spent over an hour cooped up in a small Cessna on the way up there, then played two games in the next two hours.  So when their legs started cramping, they became very interested in what I had to say about cramps.  I remembered my late father’s medical advice and passed it along to my players: "Does it hurt when you do that?  Don’t do that!"  They didn’t enjoy that.

We made it home the next day only a few hours late.  We were tired because we played two more games that morning before coming home.  I say we because I was up until 3am listening to them take turns complaining about the cramps.  Taking turns meant they were coming together as a team.  But their legs were healed by morning and I heard nothing more about them, even on the way home.  I sat up front in the co-pilot’s seat again, but this time a good-looking blond was the pilot.  And she is on the Flying Wild Alaska TV show.  I’m pretty sure she was hitting on me, but I’ll write about that in the next post.  First, I have to make a phone call to my wife and notify her about this.