SACCO: Just like breathing

STUARTS DRAFT
And you wonder what it’s like. Sweat dripping down your face, the crowd to your left, dressed to the nines in pink, screaming in your ears.

The crowd to the right, begging you, pleading for you to stop the shot.

Whatever it takes, they seem to will in unison, whatever it takes, Big Man.

The first 31 minutes of the game didn’t go exactly as you planned. You’re R.E. Lee’s Big Man, right J.R. Gray? You’re the inside scoring force. Correct?

But the only times Gray would put any balls in the bucket would be earlier in the first quarter when he buried a pair of free throws. The rest of the game was an exercise in frustration. A night of getting turned into 6-foot-10-inches of bumps and bruises. Especially in the end when the referees swallow their whistles and let you play.

When the crowd is as its loudest. When the chants of “You, you, you,” — in utter defiance of the Virginia High School League’s sportsmanship laws, despite the good-hearted fun everybody in the gym is having – become even louder.

When the fouls start racking up more than the points.

And with four fouls and only one to give, R.E. Lee coach Paul Hatcher had no other choice but to keep Gray in the game. Fort Defiance, a club as scrappy as the best of them, keeping pace in a back-and-forth affair that Lee didn’t swing ultimately to its favor until the end.

Pink Posse on one side, willing the Indians to an improbable victory.

Paul’s Posse on the other, a new T-shirt in honor of the legendary coach.

You know, the coach that kept you in the game because, much like you, he knows that scoring isn’t your only duty out there.

“He’s a presence in the middle,” Hatcher says. “And even with the fouls, I thought he made some big plays.”

You go through the motions. You make your switches. You hover on the floor like a ghost in shorts. You box out. You take the elbows. You hand a few out yourself.

Meanwhile, your team builds a six-point lead as you enter the final minute of play.

And your total points, Gray, haven’t changed one bit since the first quarter — stuck at two.

Your fouls stuck at four.

“It ain’t all about the scoring,” the senior says.

And with Lee holding onto that six-point lead, Fort Defiance’s DeMarcquis Smith — another big man saddled with four fouls — powers his way through the lane with under a minute left.

“It’s just like, you know, timing it and knowing what you’re doing,” Gray says.

And Smith, a scoring threat any time he touches the ball, goes up for the shot.

Gray, with his four fouls on his back, takes to the air and, with one huge left paw, swats the ball just enough to pop it into the air. And your fellow Leemen roll on a 5-0 run.

Game.

Set.

Tournament title.

“He’s a force,” Hatcher says. “He’s a force.”

And Gray, those blue-green eyes cutting through you like a blow torch, can only smile.

“It’s all about getting there and making the play,” he says.

Kind of like breathing, Mr. Gray?

“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “It just kind of happens.”