Patterned from Jean-Paul Sartre's "Nick's Bar, New York City". Standard disclaimers apply.
The Shohoku Basketball Team
For Hikoichi's sister, basketball is like war: always rough, always inclusive of strategic forecasts. While most professional sport journalists bypass her, others like students still envy her from owning the most thorough research on high-school-basketball; fanatics have thereby relied on her intelligence while the woman strive for more epistemic glory. She goes first of all to Ryonan - apparently from her obsession over a spike-haired lad - and finds out that indeed basketball is rough, never detached from the realm of the physical. On the other side, Shoyo basketball players were always ahead of themselves: they think like the mystics, and they always foretell which perspective is best in shooting the ball. Observing Kainan players only affirms her point; they train like soldiers and learn the astrology in basketball at the end of the day.
Basketball is always like this, she now claims; every Kanagawa high school hopes for an opportunity at National Championship, every Kanagawa high school wants to be glorified. With this objective, two schemes have been formulated in order to achieve this overwhelming goal - first, of rigorous physical training; and second, of rigorous strategy-training. This, of course, is no more than mere attempt to historically define such intricate sport.
She enters the Shohoku Basketball Gymnasium only to deduce this certain situation: the captain shouts and they oblige, even the infamous redhead. No one complains. Several others would line up to practice some shooting, several others would spar, several others would come undone from too much nonsense like idle talk. A practice game ends the monotonous day.
They play. She observes. She advises herself to bring some coffee next time. Rukawa charges and Mitsui tries to block, and they don't even care at Sakuragi's deafening accusations of underestimating him. Kogure tries a lay-up, and Akagi unsurprisingly blocks. Miyagi fakes, and several others would be amazed. The ball makes a sound as if time stops, and their sweat are visible to her eyes. The chairs seem to move, and Ayako halts the first quarter. They are rough, she tells herself: they must be always boisterously rough and never in sympathy of the gymnasium shaking like San Andres Fault. At the break they converse about strategically playing basketball, about their hopes and dreams - their emotional fuel.
In the end, Shohoku's Basketball Team is never excused from the fact that they either assert a rigorous science of physical or mental training, or even both. But what keeps the journalist immersed from the practice? Surprisingly, the practice game grabs her. The team rhythmically grabs her. The game resumes. The ball moves like a star across the universe. Arms wrestle each other, the ball rolls, sneakers penetrate the floor. They do not demand attention of course. They sweat, bodies gyrate towards some more refined shooting, their eyes roll at the direction of the ball. They don't feel monotonous anymore. Their whistles and whispers reverberate. They become tense, and she herself become tense, immersed, almost feeling like she was holding the ball herself, trying to shoot the ball, trying so hard not to fall from Sakuragi's teasing, trying so hard to escape from Mitsui's defense. She becomes immersed at Kogure's encouragement.
And suddenly the whistle echoes and the practice game halts. You hear relieved sighs and you're suddenly pissed at such abridged situation. The quarter is over. Ayako gives her some more notes to write on, and her hands reach for her handkerchief to wipe those sweat from her forehead, and she says perfectly, "not bad," and Ayako would only grin, and the fourth game shall commence.
And she'd start watching those repetitive scenes again and she begins to shout, she begins to yell at the stupidity of Yasuda or strictness of Akagi. She stands up and shouts at Rukawa for being apathetic. She raises her hand to cheer for Kogure. She becomes possessed. She'd tell herself that it wasn't a basketball practice anymore. It was something like orgasm, or even better. It was like transcendence. Shohoku's Basketball Team's schemes for victory are never what she can deduce, after all; they are not in the realms of the strategist and the physically brute - they are in the realms of the transcendent ego.
She leaves the Shohoku Gymnasium feeling exhausted. Later, she'd firmly settle on the resolve to burn her so-called thorough research on high-school-basketball, and she won't feel sorry, and ascertains even more that basketball is her favorite sport.