January 5, 2006. Mesa Jr. vs. Stapley.
Christmas break brought good practices. Only problem was four of our top five guys never showed up. McEvers told the bench guys we would get to start the game against Stapley for showing up. However, when we were in the Stapley gym with the game about to start, he pulled us aside and said, "I wanna start my regular guys. I think it gives us the best chance to win. That ok with you guys?" The other four said yeah. I said screw that.
So, I started this game. After my guy scored two quick layups, I was on the bench until the fourth quarter. We were down 11-7 after one. 24-13 at half.46-21 after three.
Somewhere along the line I leaned over to assistant coach extraordinaire Max Hoshnic and said, "Put me in, and I'll foul them and injure them. Then I'll make a three." The ref heard it and called me for a technical foul. McEvers didn't like this at the time, but he learned to laugh it off later.
We wound up losing 63-29.
January 6, 2006. Mesa Jr. vs. Mesquite.
On the way to this game, McEvers had the bus driver stop at a Fry's or Safeway or somethin. He went in and came out with a big ol' Gatorade for each one of us.
Mesquite was probably the coolest gym we played in. The players had cushy seats and there were seats on both sides, and it was very well lit. I remember that.
We were down 8-6 after the first quarter. I got to play in the second quarter. I got a wide open shot. It was a long two. I took my time with it, and it barely rimmed out. I knew if I could've made that, I would've gotten to stay in the game. I got yanked. We were down 20-14 at half.
McEvers had a bunch of trouble with the refs in this game. We had seen the same refs a bunch of times playing teams in Mesa, but these were different ones and they wouldn't let him call a timeout. He was screaming for one and couldn't get it. Finally he wrote "TIMEOUT" really big on the back of his whiteboard and took 3 or 4 steps onto the court. Staring down the refs, he finally got his timeout. You could tell he wanted us to throttle Mesquite after that.
We were down 38-20 after three and lost 59-27.
On the bus ride back to Mesa Jr., McEvers was talking to someone and said, "I'm just looking at my situation, and would I rather be doing something else right now? The answer is yes."
Must be tough to coach a team to a 1-8 record.
2 comments:
Those first string lazy kids didn't seem to make much of a difference, did they? Coach would have gone up a notch in my estimation if he'd stuck to his word and kept them out....
Maybe he would have had a better team if he'd been a better coach.
That McEvers... at least he's honest about how he feels. Rather be doing something else...
Oh boy, these are great times.
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