A throng of smelly kids sat cloistered on the floor of a gymnasium with most wearing sad-coloured sweatpants. They and I waited for minutes until the moment from an office a tall and handsome man emerged from an office. Coach Eubanks was the tallest man I’d encountered and in a neighbourhood of nearly all brown-folk his much darker skin made him even more impressive. He had a walk too that’s hard to describe but implied that he owned all the space around and that included that which we shared with him.
In the shortest time we learned he was a no none sense trainer and he respected basketball and the lessons he told us the sport would teach us if we were bright enough to pay attention. The man had no patient for slackers and we learned fast not to test him. About the third practice he caught on to me that several of the boys had trouble with lay-ups and I was the worst of the bunch.
Fed up with our attempts he stopped practice cold and gathered us all. Coach them asked us if we loved pie. Puzzled some answered yes. I hesitated (I don’t like sweets). He snapped at me and tersely asked me again and fearing wrath I answered in the affirmative. Satisfied he told us in a hushed dramatic tone to close our eyes and imagine an apple pie sitting on the window sill of a house. He told us all about the crusts color, the aroma it wafted in the air and how delicate of a pastry it was. Then he made us all turn our right palms up in the air and imagine him placing the warm apple-dessert flatly on it and implored us not to drop it. All 14 of us boys ran about laps about the gym with pretend pies in the air. The next day the present pies were replaced by basketballs as we ran laps. The day after that we started to make approaches towards the basket and hopping at the end as if we had to skip over a pretend obstacle. Finally on the fourth day we started making baskets again and interestingly enough our accuracy had much improved. Even I had much improved.
I had forgotten about the pies until yesterday while shooting hoops with my own sweaty-kid who inherited my awkward gene.
Thanks Coach Eubanks!
