In My Head

Make A Difference ~ Logan

There's nothing worse than following your team into the locker room after a challenging victory and changing out of your spotless, dry uniform while everyone else hits the showers. When I got to go in today, I started to hope that things would change. That maybe I'd finally feel like part of the team. Earn my keep and make a difference, you know?

Tonight, I finally got my shot, and I blew it.

I hang my head and change as fast as I can, while the whole team heads for the showers with a chorus of cheers and hollers and barking. "What team?! Bulldogs! What team?! Bulldogs! What team?! Bulldogs!"

I'm practically out the door when Coach Kingsly hustles in with a flurry of play book pages and the bounce of another victory in his step. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" He gives me that judgmental stare.

I drop my gaze and mumble something stupid about catching a ride home.

"How's your ankle?"

I shrug. It's only a dull ache now. "Okay, I guess."

Kingsly puts his hands on his hips. "I want to see you in my office. Now." Then he marches off in the direction of his office, which is past the showers. "Alright, Bulldogs! Alright!" he shouts, and the whole team barks back.

Suddenly my gym bag feels ten times heavier. I duck my head and sneak past everyone, slip through Kingsly's door, push it shut behind me, and lean back. Kingsly is at his desk, tidying up. I wait, but he doesn't look up. If he's going to chew me out for letting the team down, can't he just do it and get it over with?

Finally, Kingsly acknowledges me. "Don't stand there holding up the door. Sit."

I limp over and slump into the chair in front of his desk. Still, he doesn't look up, and now that I'm sitting in front of him, I start to really squirm.

After what feels like an eternity of waiting, he takes a breath to speak. "Why do you think I put you on this team?" He squints across his desk at me.

Here it comes. I brace myself for the harsh truth-I'm a useless waste of space and my spot is gone. I'm history.

He leans forward over his desk and jabs his finger at my chest. "Every team needs a player who can ride the pine and keep his head in the game. Get up and make a difference. Turn the tide." He sits back in his chair and looks me dead in the eye. "I saw that in you." My eyes skip over the room and land off to the side on the trophies decorating his filing cabinet. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, son."

I force myself to look at him. "Yes, sir," I say around the lump in my throat.

"Where is that player now?"

"I don't know," I say honestly.

"Don't give me that. You know damn well."

This sparks something inside me, and I sit up. "Yeah. Okay. Fine! You wanna know what happened to that player? He's gone, because he worked his butt off for you and for what? So he could warm the bench and play garbage time." My heart pounds hard against the back of my throat, and suddenly I can't talk anymore.

Coach Kingsly smirks at me. "Tell me something. Why did we have such a hard time with the Warriors' defense?"

The answer just pops into my head: their zone defense made it almost impossible for Kaden to get in an outside shot, and their best player was in the paint ready to stop anyone short of the hoop.

I know why, but I keep my mouth shut anyway.

"Why did their offense get by us so easily?" Kingsly asks.

We didn't deny the baseline, and we should have double teamed the post.

"Why was Tom in fouling trouble?"

"He was guarding number seventeen too tight," I blurt. "We should have double teamed the post to lift the pressure."

Kingsly snaps his fingers. "I bet you tonight's win that if I asked anybody else, they wouldn't have a clue. But you were on the bench the whole game, and you saw everything. That's why you stopped number seventeen when you went in."

But I didn't stop him. I stood there and let him run into me.

"You kept your head in the game, and you made a difference today. You turned the tide. We fed off of the energy you brought in, and we won that game because of you. Today you proved to me that you're my pinch player." Kingsly points at my chest again. "But there's something missing."

I lean forward and cock my head.

"It's your attitude, Hastings. You want to be my pinch player, then you got to show me that you can cheer on the team and stay positive until your time comes. You got that?"

I sag back. He's right. I've been so absorbed in feeling miserable on the bench wishing I could go out there and make a difference. I don't give any of my teammates the credit they deserve. All I see is their weaknesses and mistakes, and then I feel sorry for myself for knowing how to help but never getting the chance.

"You got that?!" Kingsly asks again.

I jump up from my chair. "Yes, sir!"

"That's what I thought!" Kingsly yells, but now I know that he was never mad at me. He was only trying to get me to feel something, so that I could get out of the funk I've been in lately. He gives me his big, sort of crooked grin and says, "Now get out there and celebrate your win, Bulldog."