Bend It Like Becker
Chapter 4 - HEAD OVER HEELS
...
"Okay, now switch to the other leg," Abby instructed, demonstrating the stretch as she bent back her right leg this time. "And...REACH."
Becker did as ordered and reached his arms forward. Being a good leader meant knowing when to delegate, so he'd asked Abby to lead the warm-up stretches. Back at lunch, when he'd approached her about it, he'd thought having her lead them would help the team see that this whole process truly needed to be a team effort. They all must work together in order to avoid looking like total fools at the match. But now he was especially thankful that he'd put Abby in charge of the warm-ups because it was giving him time to focus his thoughts.
Correction: his thoughts were already focussed at present, they just weren't focussed on football. Instead, all he could seem to focus on was Jess!
When she'd rung him and uttered those fateful words - "come rescue me" - he'd naturally assumed the worst. Perhaps a creature had escaped from the menagerie and had her cornered in Ops. Perhaps Connor had exploded something in his lab and now Jess was trapped by fire and debris. Or, worst of all, perhaps she'd been bitten by a bug and needed to be carried to medical, which was now well-stocked with epipens, thanks to him. He'd received his own burst of adrenaline upon hearing her words, and he'd rushed to Ops, not sure what he was going to find but prepared for anything.
Yet he hadn't been prepared for what he'd found. And now, no matter what he did, he couldn't get that image out of his mind!
He knew he shouldn't be thinking about Jess - his coworker, his teammate, his assistant coach, for goodness' sake - at least not like THAT. Instead he should be concentrating on how they should work together to run this practice, just as they'd discussed last night. But every time he looked over at her stretching on the grass, her high ponytail making her look even younger than she really was, all he could think of was-
"And...UP."
Abby stood, and the others reluctantly followed. After a few shoulder rolls and neck stretches, she gave Becker a questioning look, as if to ask, "How's that?" He nodded, and she returned to her place amongst the others as he offered, "Thanks, Abby."
As he took his position in front of the motley crew, he took a steeling breath, determined to be a good coach, even if that meant not looking at Jess for the next two hours.
"So...uh..."
Dammit, why did she have to be wearing red? With the others in mostly neutrals, his eye was naturally drawn to her brightly-coloured t-shirt.
He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure, before starting again. "As I was saying, we're playing on Saturday week, which means we don't have much time to..." He trailed off as he saw Connor's hand shoot up. Sighing, he asked, "What, Temple?"
"So who are we?"
Becker merely gave him an annoyed look - no wonder Connor was always chosen last for games.
"I mean, what's our team name?" Connor clarified. "We've got to know who we're playing for."
Becker shook his head. "We don't have a name. We're just the ARC team."
"Temple's right," Ghani spoke up. "We ought to have a proper team name."
Since the female soldier was the only one who had ever been on a proper team before, Becker didn't feel like he should argue the point. "Fine. Then pick a name."
"I was thinking we should be the Arthropleura," Connor suggested.
Abby gave him a look. "Why would we want our mascot to be giant Carboniferous centipedes?"
"Because they're rather 'footy', of course," Connor answered jokingly, resulting in a friendly shove from his fiance.
"How about the T-Rexes?" Duggan suggested.
"Or the G-Rexes?" Ghani offered with a grin.
"I think we should be the Coelurosauravus," Abby said before making a face. "Or maybe Coelurosauravuses? Coelurosauravae?"
"I don't think we should pick a mascot that we can't even pluralise correctly," Matt offered drily.
"I'm confused," Emily said. "What exactly is a mascot, and why do we need one?"
In answer to her question, everyone suddenly began talking at once. Becker simply stood there, feeling completely lost. He hadn't even been in charge of the team for more than a few minutes and it had already dissolved into chaos. Why had he thought he could do this coaching thing? Looking at them all, he realised just how hopeless this entire enterprise was. If they couldn't even decide on a team name, how would they ever be able to-
"We're going to be the Woolly Mammoths."
Jess spoke with such authority as she stepped up next to Becker that everyone instantly silenced.
"I prefer Columbian Mammoths, actually," Lester grumbled under his breath, but Jess didn't even acknowledge him.
Instead she continued, "I already bought us all matching t-shirts," she said, gesturing to her own. For the first time since they'd arrived at the park, Becker actually noticed the shirt she was wearing, which had a cartoon woolly mammoth upon it with "ARC" spellt out above.
"When did you get those?" Becker asked, incredulous.
"At lunch, when I went to pick up the balls." She then got a panicked look on her face and asked quietly, "That's okay, isn't it? I mean, I know I should've asked you first, since you're the coach, but I saw them and just thought-"
Becker nodded. "It's fine, Jess."
She grinned and turned back to the team. "All right, now since we have less than a fortnight to practice, we thought we'd spend this first week concentrating on skills, and then next week we can put those skills together and try actually playing. Now, the first skill we're going to work on..."
Becker watched in amazement as she began explaining the first drill they'd decided on last night. The way she simply captured everyone's attention was truly amazing.
And they hadn't even seen her in her bra!
...
This dribbling exercise was an absolute disaster. Neela, naturally, was brilliant, and Abby was the only other one who actually seemed to know what she was doing. The other soldiers, despite Neela constantly hollering at them to "control the ball", kept kicking too hard and then had to chase it across the field. Matt, on the other hand, was maintaining so much control that he could barely move. Lester clearly didn't want to scuff his shoes, and Jess had already scolded him that he must buy some trainers before tomorrow's practice. Emily was so intrigued by the ball that she just kept randomly kicking it to watch it roll. And then there was Connor & Jess.
It was no wonder Connor was always picked last for games; he was TERRIBLE! He clearly lacked basic eye-foot coordination, which meant he was constantly tripping over the ball and tumbling to the grass.
Jess, too, kept tripping over the ball, though it wasn't due to inherent lack of athletic ability. No, her problem was entirely due to lack of concentration.
But how could she concentrate on dribbling the ball when clearly Becker was furious with her? She hadn't meant to step on his toes with the whole team name business - she'd simply thought the woolly mammoth design was cute and thought it might help them feel more like a team to have matching shirts for the game. But obviously Becker was deeply offended that she hadn't consulted him first for he'd spent the entire drill trying to avoid her. And whenever he did catch a glimpse of her team shirt, he'd frown and instantly turn away. Jess felt terrible and wanted to apologise, but she couldn't do it here in front of everyone in case he chose to yell at her, which seemed likely. So she just kept trying to think of something she could do to make it up to him instead of thinking about the football at her feet, and thus she kept ending up in the grass, feeling the fool.
After nearly half an hour, she eventually found herself near Becker by accident. He'd been chasing after his football, which he'd once again kicked too hard, and nearly collided with her. As he blurted out an automatic, "Sorry," his eyes drifted down to her shirt. He frowned and started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. "I think everyone's had enough of the dribbling for now. Do you think we should move on to the next drill?"
Becker glanced around the field before nodding. "Yeah, clearly no one's going to get any better today. Let's do the passing."
Jess nodded, waiting for him to stop the others, not wanting to take over again. Yet he just stood there, not making any effort to call a halt to the current drill, so finally she did it herself.
"Okay, everyone," Jess said, clapping her hands together. "Let's gather 'round. It's time to move onto our next drill."
"Thank God," Lester mumbled under his breath, and the others clearly felt the same way.
After everyone was gathered, Jess turned to Becker, waiting for him to start, but instead he just gave her an annoyed look, as if to say, "You're running everything else, just go ahead."
Jess gulped nervously, feeling terrible for having upset him so, before forcing herself to bear up and smile. "All right, um, so the next thing we're going to work on is passing. Let's queue up in two lines, and, um, those on this queue can just put your balls off to one side."
Scott sniggered at this comment, and Jess could feel her cheeks turning red.
Becker, however, merely rolled his eyes at the immature response and nodded his head towards Neela. "Why don't you demonstrate for everyone?"
The female soldier nodded and gestured for Abby to be her partner. The two girls moved down the field together, with Neela demonstrating how to dribble the ball for a few steps before passing it.
"You want to make sure you kick with your laces - that is, the inside of your foot - and NOT your toes. Remember, this is FOOTball, not TOEball. And see how you want you and your partner to be constantly moving forward? You don't want your partner to have to stop and wait for the ball. Therefore, you need to kick it to where your teammate is going to be, not where she is now."
"So it's all just basic physics, momentum and stuff," Connor said. "Right. I can do that."
Jess saw both Becker and Neela give him a doubtful look.
"All right, let's do this," Jess said. "Matt and Emily, you go ahead."
Jess walked to the back of the queue, making sure to hang back so that she wouldn't be paired up with Becker, and then watched the others attempt the drill. Unfortunately, since this activity involved a new skill PLUS dribbling, which no one had yet mastered, the whole thing was even more of a fiasco. It was taking so long for Matt and Emily to move down the field, with Matt practically coming to a stop each time he attempted to dribble, that Jess suggested that the next pair start when the others were only halfway across. Connor's mad physics skills did seem to help, for he managed to pass the ball each time to where Lester should've been; unfortunately, Lester kept stopping after every pass to catch his breath and therefore was never where the ball ended up, so he kept yelling at Connor for making him chase after it.
And chasing after the ball seemed to be all that the soldiers were capable of - both Scott and Duggan and Becker and O'Rourke kept kicking the ball so hard that their partner had to sprint to track it down, making them all swear loudly at each other.
Jess finally found herself at the front of the queue, and Neela was now her partner, since there was an odd number on the team. For some reason, knowing that Becker was now angry with other people and not just her somehow made her feel better and helped her concentrate on what she was doing. Neela gave her several tips as they travelled down the field, and Jess started to feel better about her own abilities. Once they reached the end of the field, Neela dribbled the ball back as Jess went and got in the other queue so as to practice passing with her other foot.
She continued to watch the others, starting to feel very discouraged about the upcoming match. She wanted to win, but unless a miracle occurred, she simply didn't see how that was going to be possible. If only they could clone Neela, they might stand a chance, but she doubted Lester would give Connor approval to work on such a project. Thus Jess didn't see how they could manage not to humiliate themselves come match day.
Jess was still thinking this when she suddenly found herself at the front of the queue and turned to see that, instead of Neela, she was now partnered with Becker. He didn't look too thrilled about it either as he quickly looked away from her and down at his feet. He dribbled the ball for a few feet and then passed the ball without even looking over at her. As expected, the kick was way too hard, and Jess sprinted to catch up to it. She managed to stop it and began to dribble, trying to concentrate on the pointers that Neela had given her last time and not on the frowning soldier jogging across from her. After a moment she passed the ball back to Becker, placing it exactly where it belonged. She smiled smugly to herself, but the feeling didn't last long. Almost immediately he passed it back, and anticipating it to be too hard again, she sprinted to meet it. However, Becker seemed to be improving as well, and too late Jess realised she'd run too fast and found her foot coming down atop the ball. The next thing she knew she'd landed hard face-first in the grass.
Before she could even start to stand, Becker was at her side. "Jess, I'm sorry! That was totally my fault - I wasn't looking. Are you okay?" he asked, offering her a hand up. He was actually looking right at her, which he hadn't done all practice, and appeared so genuinely concerned that she suddenly didn't notice the pain radiating up her arms and legs.
She also didn't notice the way he frowned as he once again glanced at her red shirt, though his frown had absolutely nothing to do with the woolly mammoth upon it.
...
to be continued