I woke up at eight thirty and, still in bed, reached over and tugged on the window shade. It snapped up with a crack to reveal the perfect morning dawning in the courtyard. Yawning, I stretched my arms above my head, tightening all the muscles in my body and then releasing them. For once, waking up on a Sunday morning, I wasn’t sore. The day before at Dominguez Hills I had sat the bench in street clothes. Coach made us dress up for away games. For me, that meant khakis, collared shirt and Sambas. During the game, I sat as far from Coach Eliot as possible and listened to the talk on the bench. Coach had a habit of playing the same eleven starters throughout the entire game with very few 74 Kate Christie substitutions, which left seven players on the bench watching game after game. Turned out the younger kids I had never paid much attention to, the players I’d thought were quiet and retiring, were funny as hell. We were winning, and they kept the jokes and cracks flying, making fun of the referee and the other team and even our teammates.
