Jack had not seen Derrick all day at school. He usually ran into the twins in between his third and fourth hour class, but did not see either one of them during the regular time. As he changed for practice with Ox he wondered if Derrick was truly alright.
"Did you see Derrick today Ox?"
"Nah...I's ain't seein' dem twins til' practice."
"Do you think he'll be back at practice today?"
"Not sure, dem twins is sometimes wit der pa doin' church stuff."
"Well...I hope he's ok."
"Me too...les go...we's got practice in one minute."
Jack and Ox ran out of the locker room and into the gym. When they walked into the gym Jack saw David stretching out and Derrick with a cast on his hand. The twins' dad was speaking with Mr. Roderick. Jack hurried over to mid court to start stretching, but kept on eye on Derrick and Mr. Roderick. David and Derrick's dad eventually left with Derrick after Mr. Roderick shook his hand.
"Alright gentlemen gather round here. I've got an announcement before we start practicing."
The team gathered around Mr. Roderick and instinctively took a knee.
"I just finished speaking with Derrick and David's father. He has informed me that Derrick has a broken wrist. It will probably be six to eight weeks before Derrick can play for the team again. Derrick will start practicing with us tomorrow, but he will be limited to conditioning drills only. His dad is going to bring in an exercise bike for him to use when we're running plays and practicing defense so that he can at least observe what we're doing as a team...In the meantime we need to figure out how to get ready to play the Bulldogs this week. I've decided to elevate Jack to the starting team. Cisco will be our sixth man and Cedric will take Cisco's spot. I'm also going to run another try out this week to see if we can pick up a couple more players for the bench. I usually like to have four players coming off the bench, but I couldn't afford to try and develop players who can't pass my running test. Any player we bring onto this team will still need to pass my running test. I do not want to diminish the fact that you fine gentlemen passed that test. Does anyone have any questions about this?"
Jack looked around and most of the boys seemed to be agreeing with Mr. Roderick, but Jack had a question and was sure if he didn't ask it now he wouldn't have another opportunity. He rose his hand and Mr. Roderick called on him.
"Are you sure I'm the one who should be starting Mr. Roderick?"
All the other boys except Ox snickered briefly before Mr. Roderick stared them down to silence.
"Listen Mr. Hampton. You are hands down the best shooter on our team and I'd be a terrible coach if I didn't give you this opportunity to show what you can do...Now let's go!"
Jack didn't know if he felt his question was answered or not, all he knew was that he had a full week of practice before his game on Saturday. He felt good that Mr. Roderick placed trust in him, but he wasn't sure if he could trust himself to carry the load of a full game on his shoulders. Before Jack could think any further Mr. Roderick had the team running up downs and then immediately transitioned into the "hands up" drill.
Practice did not let up the rest of the afternoon and by the end of practice Jack felt the satisfaction of letting go of his worries while being engulfed in basketball. As he and Ox sat on the public bus on the way home he wondered what it would be like to actually start a game. He wished he could talk to Ox about his thoughts, but Ox had already fallen asleep and knew that he had plenty of homework to keep him busy once he got home. He would just have to wait and see what would happen on Saturday.