I stood square to the basket when I caught the pass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flash of a red uniform scrambling towards me.
Too late!
In one fluid motion I jumped, extended my arms, and took the shot. I could tell by the way it rolled off my fingers it was going in.
Then I felt the collision with that scrambling red flash.
And one! The three-pointer I just hit tied the game and, with the ensuing foul shot, courtesy of Mr. Red Jersey, I had a chance to win the State Championship.
I’d been fouled like this nearly every game and was just about as skilled at taking a fall as I was at making shots. So when our legs tangled, I kept my composure, focusing on making sure a soft part of my body—not a bone—hit the floor first.
Red Flash had four or five inches of height on me though, and maybe as much in width. The force of our twisting, tumbling bodies was too much.
The back of my foot hit first. It came to an immediate stop, while the rest of my foot continued to rotate. Something had to give.
I screamed before I felt the pain. Yet the roar of only a thousand or so masked fans, sitting in alternate seats, was enough to drown me out. No one heard me, not even Mr. Red Jersey, who landed on top of me.
My hand shot towards my ankle, but the big oaf was in the way. I yelled at him, but he could not hear me. Pain exploded through my entire right side.
“Get off!” I screamed. Still no response. I kicked him with my good foot. That got his attention.
He jumped up, balled his fists and was about to retaliate when a huge referee grabbed him from behind. The ref said something to the oaf, and he unclenched his fists.
I rolled around the floor in agony until a medical technician rushed over, took one look and said, “His ankle’s broken. I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No!” I shouted.
Coach Green stepped in beside the med tech. “I know what I said yesterday,” he began. He’d been riding me hard all season, saying I was coasting on my talent and not pushing myself.
“But you’re really hurt,” he said. “I can’t let you take the shot. You could ruin your ankle–and you’ve got college recruiters scouting you.”
“You’re missing the point,” I fired back. “We don’t have any substitutes!” Everyone’s out with COVID. If I don’t take the shot we’ll down a man.”
Coach frowned. I realized the crowd had gone completely silent and were now hanging on our every word. “How would you even make it to the foul line?” He asked.
“You and a teammate could help me.”
“And how are you going to shoot?” he scoffed. “You going to balance on one leg?”
“Yes.”
Coach looked at me like I was insane.
“Mike and I practiced shooting foul shots from one leg. Don’t you remember? Yelling at us to stop fooling around. We actually got pretty good at it.”
Normally, if Coach Green told you to do something you’d better fall in line. But now, instead of ordering me onto an ambulance, he rubbed his forehead, weighing something. If I didn’t take the shot, we’d go into overtime, down five players to four. We’d almost certainly lose.
Something told me that wasn’t the reason for his hesitation.
He slowly turned his head, pausing on each of my four remaining teammates. They stood around me, wide-eyed, their ashen faces almost matching their white jerseys.
“Chase,” Coach said sternly, “help me lift him up.”
“What the hell are you doing?” The medical tech fumed.
“He’s earned the right to win the State Championship, and I’m going to let him,” Coach said as he and Chase knelt beside me.
I sat up, leaned on their shoulders, and they helped lift me onto my good leg.
At the foul line, I asked them to steady me, while I took a few practice air-shots. I moved my hands down around my waist, then up, as if releasing the ball.
Chase looked at me. “You doing it Rick Barry style?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Mike and I figured out that on one leg it was easier to shoot underhanded.”
I slowly took my weight off of Chase and Coach. Balancing on my one good leg, the ref handed me the ball. I looked up at the scoreboard.
Home: 61. Visitors: 61.
Even though we were at a neutral site, we were considered the home team, hence our white jerseys. I wished Mike wasn’t out with COVID. He was always good at cracking jokes to ease the tension. I could use a good laugh right now.
I shifted my leg around, searching for a comfortable position that wasn’t off-balanced. Then a thought hit me: What if I just touched the tip of my big toe to the floor? Not enough to put weight on it, just enough to steady myself. Maybe that would be enough to get the shot off.
The instant my toe grazed the hardwood, pain exploded through my ankle. My leg buckled and I hit the floor, biting my lip. Don’t Scream! I told myself. Don’t let them see how much it hurts. If they knew, they might not give me another chance.
“Oh my God,” Coach sounded out of breath when he reached me. I was sprawled out on the floor as he stood over me. “We’re calling an ambulance!”
“No Coach.” I meant to shout it, but it came out like a whimper, “I can do it.”
“You just fell on your broken ankle!”
“CALL AN AMBULANCE!!” I looked up into the crowd and saw my mom standing and screaming, “You’re hurting my son! Call an ambulance! NOW!!”
“Please Coach,” I pleaded. “Give me another chance. I can do it.”
Up in the stands I saw my dad lean back, out of mom’s line of sight and gave Coach a subtle nod. Coach nodded back.
Mom caught Coach’s gesture and turned and glared at dad. Despite being nearly a foot taller, Dad shrank under her stare, looking like a kid who just got caught red-handed.
Coach and Chase helped me to my feet. After they let me go, I was once again wobbling on one leg. I was thinking about how I was going to get the shot off when the ref bounce-passed me the ball. It was a little off to my side. Normally a routine catch, but even that slight reach threw me off. I was falling. Again.
Hands grabbed my shoulders before I hit the floor. Coach and Chase caught me.
“For the love of God, I can’t stand any more of this!” Mom cried, turning to Dad. “If he ends up not being able to walk, I’m never going to forgive you!” Then she covered her eyes and buried her head in her lap. You could hear a pin drop.
Red-faced from embarrassment the ref retrieved the ball and walked it over to me. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “That was stupid.”
“It’s OK,” I replied, though I was thinking of much more colorful words than ‘stupid’ to describe bounce passing the ball to someone with a broken ankle.
“It’s not OK,” he insisted. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” He put his hand to his heart and said. “Take as much time as you need to get set. I’ll hand you the ball this time.”
I nodded.
He took a deep breath. “Your mother is right though—there’s a big risk of further injury. I have to make this your last attempt.”
After the ref handed me the ball and walked away, I turned to Coach.
“Coach,” I said, not meeting his eyes. “It’s true that Mike and I got good at shooting one-legged foul shots. But it was from my right leg—the one that’s broken. I suck at shooting from my left.”
I hung my head, like the weight of my ankle was dragging it down. “Maybe Mom is right. Maybe we should call an ambulance.”
Coach ran his foot along the foul line before answering. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you either,” he said. “Truth is, I coasted in high school. I did well enough to get a scholarship, but not to a big school. If I’d have pushed harder, we might have won state, and I might’ve gone to a major university.”
“I rode you hard all season because I see a lot of myself in you. I didn’t want you looking back with the same regrets.”
He gestured his hand towards the crowd. To enforce social distancing, red X’s marked every other seat. Even with the gaps, people reached across the empty chairs to hold hands. Some even appeared to be praying.
“I won’t say you owe it to them to take the shot,” Coach continued. “You owe it to yourself. You’ve earned this. For the rest of your life, you’ll have this moment. No matter what happens, you’ll be able to look back and say, ‘I did that. Despite the pain and the fear, I didn’t give up. I took the shot.’ “
Chase nudged me. “Everyone is rooting for you too, dude. Even the other team’s parents.”
“You think they want me to make it?” I asked.
He grinned. “Maybe not to make it. But you know…maybe to just hit the rim.”
We laughed. I needed that laugh. Chase had stepped into Mike’s role, helping me relax—for the moment.
Then they stepped back, leaving me alone. I looked at my teammates lined up in the key. I thought of Coach, and my parents up in the stands. I held the ball between my hands and pushed them together until they shook. Simply shooting wasn’t going to be enough. I had to find a way to make it.
I locked my eyes on the basket and breathed deep. I stared up at the rim. Somehow, I managed to keep my body balanced long enough to let it fly.
I fell as soon as the ball left my hands. Immense pain ripped through me, but I forced it out of my mind.
The ball looked like a rocket sputtering towards the net. “Come on! Come on!” I screamed.
I never thought it would make it, yet somehow, there it was hovering above the basket. It hit the right side of the rim, bounced, then vanished from my view.
It must have hit the backboard, because a moment later, it grazed off the left side of the rim and spun around the orange, circular bar. Round and round, it went, disappearing and reappearing. Then it dropped to the floor.
Silence enveloped the gymnasium. Everything froze. Had it gone in? From where I lay, I couldn’t tell.
A whistle pierced the silence. The crowd erupted. The home score ticked to 62. We’d won! We were State Champions!!
As the roar of the crowd washed over me, the adrenaline faded and the pain returned with a vengeance. Then the world went black.
* * *
The ceiling above me was a maze of moving rafters. I was lying down. Someone was holding my hand. I followed the hand up to my mom’s face.
“He’s awake, “she said, squeezing my hand.
Cheers and whistles echoed around me. I was on a stretcher, being wheeled out of the gym. I lifted my free hand and was rewarded with a standing ovation.
“We won the championship,” I said out loud.
“We did, dude!” Chase called from my right.
“You took the shot,” Coach said, his voice cracking. “And made it.” (Later, he said he just got a little something in his eye.)
Little did I know what was in store for me. Months of rehab revealed the truth—my ankle was never going to be the same. Sharp cuts and hard stops were too much. I could still play, but not at the same level.
The recruiters moved on.
Still, I took the shot. And we were State Champions.
Everything that came after—the rehab, the hurt over not being the same player, the scholarship that never came—I always had that moment.
The memory fueled me. Whenever life knocked me down, I remembered balancing on one leg, staring up at the rim. The pain and the fear were real, but so was the choice to keep going.
Just like Coach said I would, I found the courage to take that next shot.