"Don't worry about Haggerty," said Willard as they worked their way toward the field house. "The Chief will take good care of you."
"What chief?"
"Chief Thunder. The assistant coach, Boyd Preston."
"An Indian?"
"No, that's just what they call him."
"How come?"
Willard grinned. "You'll see."
Coming out of the cold and into the fieldhouse was like coming home for Christmas. The place was warm, brightly lit, and noisy. The stands were empty, but the team was on the court, working out under the eye of a short and wiry man with a clipboard and a whistle. Vince paused to let the heat sink in, and along with it the smells of sweat and liniment, the squeak of shoes on the hardwood floor, the grunts of the panting players, the slap of the ball, the pounding sound of a solitary runner circling the metal track high above the court, and over it all the booming voice of the man with the whistle.
"I wanna see some quick," he was shouting, "I wanna hear some thunder. Hey, Willy, move it, make him commit. That's it, hands up. Willy, move. You tired, son? You weary, Willy? You have a big time last night, you so weary? Let's see some feet, Willy, let's hear some thunder…"
The team was working a half-court drill, red shirts defending against the white shirts, and Vince tried to match numbers with the names on the sheet of paper that Willard had given him. Devereaux, Clancy, Holmes, Chambers, Jefferson. A white-shirted player cut to the basket, faked once, went up with a defender all over him, and passed off blind to another white shirt, who scored. Vince nodded in admiration. He thought little of basketball as a sporting event-there had to be something wrong with a game that depended on deliberate fouling as an essential tactic-but he was able to admire the balletic grace that the best of the players so casually displayed. As an exhibition of style, it was magnificent, but he couldn't take it seriously as a sport.
The man with the whistle tipped back his head, and roared up at the ceiling, "Melton!"
The lonely runner who had been circling the overhead track had stopped, and was leaning over the rail, staring down at the court. "Yeah, chief."
"I don't hear any thunder."
"Just taking a break."
"Thunder, Melton, thunder. Or maybe you're weary, like Willy over here. You weary, Melton?"
"No, chief, I'm okay."
"Then let me hear it."
Melton pushed himself away from the rail, and started up again, his feet pounding the track.
The chief smiled, and said, "Not bad, but I gotta have more thunder." He pointed a finger at a white-shirted player. Vince made him as Willy Holmes, a guard. "Willy, get up there and give me some thunder."
Holmes pulled a face. "Hey, chief…"
"Yeah, I know, you're weary. Twenty laps'11 fix you fine. Let's hear some thunder, son."
Holmes shook his head, but he trotted over to the stairs that led up to the track, and soon the sound of the pounding overhead doubled. The chief smiled again. "That's the way I like it, lots of thunder. Now, let me see some feet."
He started the two squads through the drills again. Vince said to Willard, "Chief Thunder, huh?"
Willard grinned. "Now you know. "
"When can I see him?"
"After the drills. Won't be long."
It took about ten minutes. Vince stood with Willard and watched the two squads work against each other, unhappily aware of what was coming. First this Chief, then the players; tap them all and find out how many of the kids were in on the fix. Because he knew now that Sammy had to be right. There had to be a fix. It was the only practical way for Domino to carry out his instructions, and besides, fixing basketball games was as American as-he searched for a simile, and let it go. It wasn't important. What was important was how many-and which ones. And, please, if there was any grace left in the world, not all of them would be black.
The Chief dismissed the squads with a blast of his whistle, and sent them to the showers. He strode over to Vince, and put out his hand.
"I'm Boyd Preston," he said.
Willard said quickly, "This is Mister Bonepart…"
"I know who he is," Preston interrupted. "The AD's office called. Hoops magazine, we're honored. I didn't think you people bothered with the teams down here in Division Two."
Vince said, "It's all basketball, coach."
"Call me Chief, everybody does. There's only one coach around here, and that's Haggerty. How come you're here?"
"You've got a big game coming up."
"We play Van Buren every year, but you never came around before."
"Then it's about time. How does the game look to you?"
"I'm not the one to ask, I just keep the troops marching. Coach Haggerty gives all the interviews, and he's out of town."
"So I heard. Well, what would he say if he were here?"
Preston smiled. "That's easy. If the coach was here, he'd say that Van Buren is a tough team that can't be underrated. He'd say that this is a traditional game coming up, and in traditional games the stats don't mean much. He'd say that on any given day any team can beat any other team, and that we can't afford to be overconfident. That's what the Coach would say."
Vince grinned his appreciation of the conventional wisdom that every coach in every sport spouts before a big game.
Preston went on. "But if you're asking me, which you're not, I'd say that we're going to wipe up the floor with Van Buren. They can't touch us. We're bigger, we're faster, we're smarter, and we play the Big D."
"Offense is skill," Vince quoted piously, "but defense is soul."
"Exactly, and our kids have the soul. We'll cream Van Buren, but you can't quote me on that. For the record, all I can say is that we can't afford to be overconfident."
Vince grinned again, warming to the man, and decided that it was time to tap him. He went into Preston 's head. He was in and out in a twinkle, but while he was there he found a neat and orderly mind. He found a fierce pride. He found a deep well of dedication. He found many other things, but he found no larceny. If the fix was on, Preston had nothing to do with it.
Satisfied, Vince said, "I'd like to speak to the players, if that's all right with you."
Preston frowned. "Let's go someplace where we can talk."
Preston 's office was a cubbyhole next to the head coach's office. Both rooms opened onto the locker area, the training center, and the showers. The locker room was hot and damp, and those players who had finished with their showers looked up curiously as Vince and Preston passed through. Preston closed his office door, and motioned Vince to a chair. He was still frowning.
"There's something you have to understand," he said. "You're probably used to schools like Indiana, and UCLA, and DePaul-you know, the basketball factories where the teams are half pro already. Maybe you don't know what it's like down here in Division Two. These kids of mine, that's all they are, just kids. They're good athletes, and they know how to play the game, but, let's face it, they're never going to play pro ball. Not in the NBA, not in the Continental, not even for some European team. They're just not good enough. When they leave here they go straight into the real world, nothing glitzy like the pros, and… my point is, I don't want them getting any kind of a swelled head because the man from Hoops is here. You understand?"
Vince nodded. "I'll go easy on them."
"Another thing. We both know how it works at some of those factories-athletes who never graduate, play four years and they're out on their ass with nothing to show for it. That doesn't happen here. Overall, Polk graduates ninety-two percent of its athletes. On this team, the average is even higher."
"Impressive."
"Let me give you a couple of examples. Take our starting five. As guards we have Willy Holmes and Jack Clancy. Holmes is the point guard, and he'll be in med school next year. Clancy's the shooting guard, and he's a Marketing major with a three-point-seven average. Center is Dion Devereaux, an English major, and the editor of the yearbook. He writes poetry and nobody makes jokes about it. The power forward is Jerry Jefferson who's doing Engineering, and the small forward is Ted Melton, and all I can say about Melton is that he's doing a double major in French and Economics with honors. Those are the starters, and the other seven men aren't all that different. No Phys Ed majors, no courses in Leisure Alternatives, you know? I'm not saying that we've got a bunch of geniuses here, 'cause we don't, but they're not just a bunch of jocks, either. I'd like you to remember that when you write about them."