Chapters (41)
- Cover
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Also by Mike Lupica
Little did they know.
FIVE
Gramps drove Lucas and Ryan to Claremont Middle for the Homestead game, which was scheduled for eleven o’clock on Saturday morning.
“Nothing better than Opening Day,” Gramps said when they were inside. “Always feels like New Year’s to me.”
They were the first ones to the gym.
Gramps was underneath the basket, feeding balls to Lucas and Ryan. Gramps even wanted layups shot the right way. He wanted everything done the right way.
“Don’t duck your head when you release the ball, Mr. Moretti,” Gramps said. “You pick a spot on the backboard and fix your eye on it like it’s a bull’s-eye.”
“But Mr. Winston,” Ryan said, “I never miss layups.”
“And if you keep focusing on the fundamentals,” Gramps said, “you never will.”
Gramps fed him another bounce pass. Ryan caught it, then laid the ball in off the backboard. Head up.
“Gramps,” Lucas said. “Sometimes I think you’d rather have fundamentals for breakfast instead of cereal.”
The old man managed a smile that seemed to fight its way through his game face.
The rest of the Wolves began to arrive. The six rows of bleachers began to fill up with parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters of the players. Lucas saw Maria up there too. Her brother, Neil, was the backup shooting guard, and sometimes replaced Ryan at small forward.
Lucas’s mom showed up about ten minutes before they were ready to start. She’d always told Lucas she was more of a game mom than a warm-up mom.
“I never miss the good parts,” she told Lucas.
“And what parts are those?” he said.
“They generally start when the ref hands you the ball,” she said.
Lucas was even more excited than normal today because not only was the Twin Lakes season about to begin, it was beginning with a rivalry game. Claremont and Homestead were neighboring towns. It only took about ten minutes, by car, to get from downtown Claremont to downtown Homestead, and so it didn’t matter what the sport was, at what age level. When it was Claremont vs. Homestead it was like the Yankees playing the Red Sox in baseball, or Duke playing North Carolina in basketball, or Ohio State and Michigan in college football.