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CHAPTER1
Instead of being a professional basketball player, Zachary Rowling was nothing more than a high school coach of the Cupid, Texas, team.
For the last five years, he’d worked really hard to improve his students – make the team better and win more games. Jayden wasn’t a bad player, but Zach had spent the last hour showing the kid techniques that would improve his game.
It was late afternoon and they were working in the high school gym. Several times a week, he worked with players he thought showed promise of receiving a basketball scholarship.
These private one-on-one sessions were his way of paying back to those who helped him make it almost to the professionals. Almost. But not quite.
Jayden needed his help more than the others. In Jayden, he saw himself and that was why he helped the boy more. He wanted to do what he could to make this kid successful.
Just like his coach had helped him get that much-needed college scholarship. The scholarship that took him out of Cupid and away from his family who self-destructed while he was gone. Now his mom was gone, his brother dead, and his father sat in prison.
“Block me as I try to reach the basket,” he told the boy, dribbling the ball around him. “Put your body in between me and the goal. That’s it. Your job is to stop me from reaching the basket. Try to take the ball from me,” he told the kid, knowing he should have already tried several times.
The kid hit the ball with his fist, and it fell out of his hands and bounced on the court. Jayden pivoted, taking the ball and turning his back to his coach as he twisted toward the goal.
“Get low,” Zach shouted. “Stand on the balls of your feet and shoot.”
The kid shot the ball at the basket and it hit the rim and went in. The boy turned and grinned at him.
“Good job.” He glanced at his watch noting it was getting late. “We’ve got five minutes left in practice and I want you to spend some time shooting the ball from each corner of the court and even from directly beneath the basket. The more you practice, the better you’ll be. Five minutes of drills.”
He stepped off the court and the kid began to practice what he’d been shown as Zach watched him. He enjoyed his job, but he would much rather have been playing professional ball. But that wasn’t meant to be.
“Get low,” he yelled. “Jump.”
Standing there, he couldn’t help but be reminded of himself at that age. The kid was the poorest on his team and needed a scholarship to go to college. He needed to get better or he’d stay here in Cupid with his drunken father.
And that Zach knew all too well.
At five o’clock, the kid turned to him. “I’ve got to go, Coach, or my dad will get mad.”
He saw the fear in the boy’s eyes.
“Good practice, Jayden. Tomorrow at the same time,” he said.
“Yes, Coach,” he said, running toward the ball racks.
The boy put the basketball next to the others and then hurried into the locker room. Soon, the outside door opened and closed.
Jayden’s dad was a drunk just like Zach’s father had been, and he knew the kid was working hard to improve. Sometimes kids needed a hand up to get out of a bad situation. Coach Roberts had helped him, and Zach would be forever in his debt.
With a sigh, Zach turned out the lights in the gymnasium. He went into the boys’ locker room and closed and locked the doors before going to the teachers’ lounge where all the coaches sat around talking.
They glanced up at him. For almost five years, he’d worked with these men, growing from a rookie right out of college to the head basketball coach. Sometimes he thought he would be here forever even though he applied regularly to different college programs.
He wanted to be a college coach and maybe eventually move to a professional team.
“Why in the world are you working so hard with that kid? He’s not scholarship material,” Kyle said, slouched in the chair, chewing on a wooden toothpick between his lips.
Kyle had gone to one of Texas’s finest universities at the expense of his parents. Jayden didn’t have that opportunity. Zach had not had that luxury, and Kyle often forgot about the underdogs of the world.
Maybe the kid wasn’t scholarship material, but it was his only chance of going to college, and Zach would do everything he could to help him get out of poverty. In the years he’d been coaching, every season he tried to help at least one student if not more.
“He may not get a scholarship to a big school, but Wichita State, New Mexico State Aggies, or even Stephen F. Austin have programs he could be a player in. No, he’s not Duke material, but he could still get into a smaller school and they would pay for his education.”
“You’re dreaming,” Cody, the baseball coach said. “His father is going to want him to go to work with him in the construction business. The old man is a tyrant.”
