Mr. Roberts yelled. We all stopped and held on to the balls, leaving the gym in silence. “I’m not going to say that was the worst practice in the history of basketball.” He paused. “Because I haven’t seen every practice in the history of basketball…but that was not very good. Although we are getting better each practice, and we will continue to get better, because as you all know, a winner doesn’t quit…” “…and a quitter doesn’t win!” we all yelled back. Mr. Roberts had lots of sayings and we knew them all. “Let’s get back to practice!” he called out. “Layup drill!” We got back into the two lines. One line went in for the layups and the other line got the rebound. I was tired of layup drills. I was tired of practicing the basketball basics over and over again, doing things that most of our team just didn’t seem to get. Our school team had always been good, but this season was probably going to be a long one. Aside from Kia and me, there really wasn’t anybody.
