Summer Ball

Mike Lupica
Popular Fiction
Pages 157-214

The first day of practice Mr. Powers already shows that he is going to go hard on Danny because of hid grudge against his father. He makes Danny run laps around the court because made a noise when someone stepped on his foot. The coach barely plays him in games and when he does if Danny makes one bad decision he immediately gets taken out. He calls his father to get advice and his dad tells him to confront the coach and ask him what he needs to do better. When he goes to seek advice from the coach he is told that basketball isn't his sport and that he should play soccer instead. The next game Danny is put in towards the end and starts to do really good, he starts making his shots and beautiful no look passes. At the end of the game they are down one point and Danny does a double crossover to get past two defenders. He thinks he has an open layup and as he releases the ball and turn around to watch it drop though the net, he instead sees this huge 6'8" kid jumping so high that he could've put his elbow in the rim and grabbing the ball out of the air. The buzzer-ed went off and coach began giving it to Danny. The next games Danny didn't play at all and he decided to fake an injury to get out of camp. But then he remembers that Zach Fox looked up to him and what would he think if he quit so instead of giving in he doesn't quite and practices even harder. He and Rasheed become good friends and Rasheed knows Danny is by far one of the bets guards at the camp, even almost as good as him. Rasheed forgets about the past game and tells Danny that he was never friends with Lamar, who is a arrogant jerk. They make it to the championship game and Rasheed has convinced coach that Danny is really good, so he has been playing all throughout the playoffs and has been schooling everyone with Rasheed. Danny steals the ball from Lamar in the last possession of the game to beat his team and prove to coach he is a great basketball player.

Mike Lupica once again has successfully incorporated life messages into basketball. Instead of doing nothing about his problems Danny confronts his coach and asks for guidance. Even after being told he will never be good enough to play he almost quits, but then realizes if he quits at this he'll be a quitter the rest of his life. Therefore, Danny learns to never quit at something and to persevere through the struggles to achieve success. I also like how Rasheed and Danny were able to become friends after they got off on the wrong foot, both boys are really nice and good. In the end I'm happy Danny took it to Lamar and showed his coach that he really is a basketball player.