Free The Squared Circle by JAMES W. BENNETT Page A

but somehow in control. Here’s what I want to say to you: Some players will not lose . The tougher it gets, the more they turn up the switch. If you can learn something about mental toughness, you can be a great player.”
    Rice closed his eyes. A great player ? Sonny asked himself. Is that what he said? He studied Coach Rice, with the usual confusion. Could such a lard-ass as him ever really play the game? He was a sonofabitch but he was also a brilliant coach, the primary reason Sonny and his teammates whipsawed their way through every opponent. After the long silence Sonny asked, “Is it okay if I take my shower now, Coach?”
    Rice opened his eyes and leaned forward in the chair. “Just one more thing. Let me see your hands.”
    Puzzled, Sonny held out his hands. “Here, hold up your left one flat,” Rice instructed. When he did, Rice pressed his own large, fat hand against Sonny’s palm, fingers spread. Sonny’s fingers were longer.
    The coach told him, “Your hands are big and strong, Youngblood; you must have a twelve-inch span here. One of these days, you’re going to grow into them.”
    Once their hands were separated, Rice continued, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you grow to be six five or six six. If you do, you could play just about anywhere on the floor. Posting up, facing the basket, hell, your ball-handling is good enough you might even work as a big point guard.”
    Then the coach took his usual long pause to get his breathing reestablished. “Now look at your hands again. There’s two of them, not one. At this point, you’re too right-handed. You need to do everything you can to develop the left. Practice with your right arm tied or in your belt. Hell, you can even put it in your pocket if you don’t get distracted and start to play with yourself.”
    Sonny laughed. He was still looking at his hands held out in front, with his fingers spread. Feeling foolish, he put them down.
    â€œLeft hand, Youngblood, think left. Left hand, left hand, left hand. The more ambidextrous you are, the more versatile you become.”
    â€œThanks a lot, Coach.” Sonny wasn’t sure why he said it, but it seemed as appropriate as anything else.
    Brother Rice looked him in the eye. “Maybe I underestimate you, Youngblood. Maybe you do know how to take advice. Now go get a shower; you’re stinking up the place.”
    Workman was laughing. “He must have been a piece of work.”
    â€œI’d say so,” Sonny agreed. He noticed the roughness had gone out of the ride. “It looks like the turbulence is behind us,” he suggested to Workman.
    â€œLooks like,” Workman agreed. “Maybe Brother Rice was one of those evil geniuses. You run across people like that from time to time, and you can find them in any field, not just sports.”
    â€œMaybe. Whatever.” Sonny was very drowsy at this point. It must have been the pills kicking in. He fell sound asleep like a baby for the rest of the flight.
    The bleary-eyed players deplaned at 2:30 A.M. Central Standard Time at the Carbondale Airport. Even at that hour, and in freezing rain, more than a thousand fans waited to greet them. Monday morning’s USA Today would show that most polls now ranked the Salukis number four in the nation.
    Sissy’s house was in the high timber, about a mile above the artsy village of Makanda on the western edge of Giant City State Park. A narrow blacktop serpentined the incline to get there, but needed plenty of downshifting. Her property was at the road’s end, where the blacktop turned to rutted gravel for a couple of hundred yards. The cluster of old pines and cedars provided major shade even in late November, with the oak and sycamore branches stripped clean.
    Sonny asked her, “What do you do when there’s snow and ice?”
    â€œIt can get very tricky,” Sissy admitted. “Sometimes this road is