Tipping the scales

An hour later my teammates and I were in the locker room circled around Trevor Windgate, who was on a scale, hands on hips and wearing only a burgundy pair of silk bikini briefs. If it had been two-hundred years earlier he might have been a Mandingo at a slave auction. Team trainer Danny Fazlow slid the scale’s metal weights forth and back until balance was achieved.

“Two hundred twenty-three pounds” Fazlow said. “You’ve arrived just as advertised.”

When the weigh-in ceremony ended I went my locker to get ready for practice. Next to me was last year’s starting guard, LeVoy Wiggin.

Wiggin raised an arm and applied a fresh layer of scented Red Zone deodorant. “You ever stop to think life might not be worth living?” he asked.

“Odd way to start a conversation,” I said.

“What better way to start one on a day like this? I’m the disappearing man. In fact, as of today I’m officially invisible. You won’t see me because I’m hidden behind the gigantic shadow of the new recruit.”

“C’mon, Wig, it’s exciting to have a guy like Windgate here.”

“Easy for you to say, you’ll still play. My second-to-last fucking year and I’m going to ride the bench. Next week I turn twenty-one and an eighteen-year-old has taken my place.”

“You’ll still get playing time.”

“Damn little. People are going to come out to see Windgate play. It might be college ball but this is still a business, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. The coaches are going to keep Windgate on the court forty minutes a game unless he gets into foul trouble, which probably won’t happen because from what I hear the guy

doesn’t play defense. All the motherfucker does is shoot the ball. You know what they called him in high school? Trevor ‘The Machine Gun’ Windgate. I heard that one game he passed the ball just twice, and one of those passes went out of bounds.”

“Work on your intermediate game and interior play. Forget the point or shooting guard positions and start thinking of yourself as the running forward. Reposition yourself. Readjust. Be a utility player.”

“A utility player?” LeVoy Wiggin screwed up his expression to convey his annoyance. “The fuck’s a utility player?”

“You know what I’m talking about. A guy the coach can plug in anywhere, someone he can count on for whatever the team needs – some defense, some rebounding, an effective screen.”

“Man, you got it all figured out, don’t you JT? I’m not even good enough to hold onto a starting slot, now you’re telling me to turn myself into Magic ‘Fucking’ Johnson. You got some fairy dust in that locker of yours that I can use, or you been smoking crack?”

By now I was naked and gave Wiggin a gesture that indicated surrender.

“Don’t be giving me the silent treatment. I ain’t done arguing with you.”

I stepped into my jockstrap and carefully adjusted my genitalia until molded into an aerodynamically-shaped lump.

Wiggin said, “Maybe I’ll get myself arrested for assaulting some delinquent at Paddy’s Bar & Grill, or driving under the influence. Might as well start acting out. Isn’t that what they call it? At least then I’ll get some attention from the coaches and see my name in the papers a couple times this season.”

“Now there’s a mature approach. Why not just get your hands on some coaxial cable and hang yourself by the neck from the Hawthorne Bridge. Is that a public enough humiliation for you? I’ll join the crowd that gathers and we can all watch you twitch to death.”

@copyright/Mike Consol