Bend It Like Becker

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Chapter 7 - DYNAMIC DISTRACTIONS

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After Abby's warm-ups, Becker announced to the team, "Football isn't just a game of skill; it's a game of endurance. To that end, we're going to start today with some laps."

As the others groaned, Emily simply asked, "What are laps?"

"Sheer and excruciating torture is what they are," Connor not-so-helpfully explained.

As Becker rolled his eyes, Jess jumped in with, "We're going to run, in this case around the perimeter of the field."

"How many times?" Duggan asked.

Becker shook his head. "This isn't about speed or distance; it's about endurance. So instead of giving you a number of laps to complete, we're giving you a number of minutes instead. Thirty, to be exact."

Everyone once again groaned at the prospect.

"Like Coach Becker said," Jess chimed in, and Becker suddenly found the new title strange to his ears, "footy is a fast-paced game, and we need to be able to keep going for the entire match. Now obviously everyone is at different fitness levels, so that's why we're setting a time limit, not a distance. You can run as slow or as fast as you want, but the rule is that you're not allowed to stop."

"Kill me now," Connor whined.

Lester was more acerbic. "If I die, may I stop?"

"No, Lester, you may not," Jess answered without batting an eye. "Didn't you hear me? Stopping's simply not allowed. No exceptions for death or anything else you might attempt to fake."

Lester scowled but didn't answer back, and Becker noticed the slight grin of victory on Jess's face. He was always amazed at how Jess didn't balk in the face of Lester's derision. Instead, she tended to treat him like a petulant child, not her boss. In this case, of course, "Coach Becker" was technically the boss, but the soldier knew he could never stand up to Lester the way Jess did, which gave him yet another reason to be thankful she was assisting him.

Becker turned back to the others, looking straight at Ghani and Abby as he added, "For those of you up to it, you should run with high knees." It was something that he'd noticed in the film last night and realised it would be a good thing for the true athletes in the group to try. Glancing at his watch, he announced, "Okay, your 30 minutes starts...now."

Even with the clock running, it took a few minutes for the team to actually get moving. As expected, the two athletic girls led the way, and Becker and the other soldiers followed. Matt and Emily trailed close behind, but the last two took quite a bit of coaxing to get started. Becker felt bad leaving Jess behind to sort them out, but he knew she was up to the task Before he was out of earshot, he overhead Jess complimenting Lester's new trainers before casually mentioning something about the Minister, so Becker wasn't surprised to soon see his guv'nor reluctantly starting his laps.

Running wasn't a problem for Becker - he ran most mornings anyway to stay in shape, though he hadn't been able to with Jess there this morning. Not that he'd minded, of course - he'd awoken so sore, he probably wouldn't have gone anyway. But it felt good now to loosen up his muscles a bit. And this was so much better than trying to run with a football betwixt his feet, though he knew they'd be getting to that again soon enough. In the meantime, he was just glad to run, free from distractions.

The park was small - Jess hadn't been able to reserve a real football field for practices till the following week - so Becker soon found himself coming up behind the slower members of the team. Lester, of course, was the slowest, practically running slower than he walked. But he was following Becker's (or, more accurately, Jess's) orders and not stopping, which, after practice yesterday, Becker realised was a huge accomplishment for the man. Jess kept turning around to yell encouraging things to Lester, and when she caught sight of Becker passing their boss, she flashed him a sweet smile.

As she turned back around, resuming her conversation with Connor, Becker noticed for the first time that she was wearing the same red t-shirt that she'd worn to practice yesterday, and it took a moment for his brain to figure out why- Abby had brought clean clothes for Jess to wear at work all day, but she hadn't remembered to bring new practice clothes as well. Becker still found her shirt's bright colour distracting, but he seemed to be winning the war against his libido today and was able to look at her shirt without instantly imagining what was underneath.

And as he approached her and Connor, he could hear them babbling away about some new computer program. Their conversation was animated, as if they were sitting around the canteen, not running laps at football practice. Passing them, he good-naturedly scolded, "Cut the chatter."

"Hey, I'm not Red Two," Temple yelled after him before bursting into laughter. Becker rolled his eyes, not understanding the comment but guessing it was some sort of dork reference, especially when he heard the conversation behind him suddenly switch from computers to Star Wars.

This next time around the field Becker began to take stock of the rest of the team. Ghani and Abby were going to be great, and the other soldiers would probably do fine, even though, if yesterday's practice was any indication, they, like Becker himself, clearly needed more control. Emily was taken care of, but Becker worried that Matt's cautious nature would not be so easily overcome. And of course there was still Connor and Lester, but Becker was at a loss as to what could be done about them.

Though Lester had not yet stopped running, Becker noticed as he passed his boss for the second time. Perhaps the solution for Lester was to simply put Jess in charge of him, for Lester seemed truly terrified of the petite girl.

And Temple still seemed content chatting away with Jess, even though he'd already completed several laps around the park. After the grousing he'd done all day, Becker found this to be a small miracle.

Though it wasn't until he was about to lap the pair for a second time that it occurred to Becker what she was doing. Jess was clearly distracting Connor with friendly conversation so that he wouldn't notice he was actually exercising. And from the smile on Connor's face, it seemed to be working like a charm.

Becker noticed something else, too. Even though Jess's pace was slow, no doubt to stay even with Connor (and not TOO far ahead of Lester so she could continue to offer him some encouragement), she was actually running with high knees, thus giving herself more of a workout even as she chatted away.

She truly was brilliant.

Though it did make Becker wonder if she was this talkative during other physical exertions.

Stop that!, the soldier scolded himself, realising he still had some work to do, after all, keeping his libido in check.

...

As the dribbling exercise wore on, the team naturally began separating itself into two sections, like cream rising to the top of fresh milk. In this case, the cream represented the true athletes in the bunch - Abby and the five soldiers had ended up on the far side of the field, and Jess could hear Neela shouting out helpful hints to all of them. Jess, however, seemed stuck behind with the milk: the pathetic group of players in front of her.

Emily was still staring intently at the ball as she ran the drill, though Jess didn't worry about her, knowing Emily wouldn't have much cause for dribbling during the game. But Matt was simply not improving, continuing to practically stand still as he tried to keep ultimate control over the ball. Jess tried to give Connor some of the tips Neela had given her yesterday, but regardless he kept tripping over the ball. And then there was her boss.

"What seems to be the problem, Lester?" Jess asked cheerily as she approached her guv'nor, trying to talk and dribble her own ball at the same time.

Lester gave her a withering look, as if any idiot could see that his problem was he was being forced to play this bloody game in the first place.

But Jess recognised the source of his other problem - he seemed reluctant to touch the filthy ball with his brand new white trainers for fear of getting them dirty.

And Jess knew just the solution.

"Hey!" Lester yelled as Jess carefully stepped on his foot. He tried to jump back, but she was persistent and managed to tread on both his shoes several times, leaving dirt and grass stains behind.

"Problem solved," Jess announced triumphantly as she took in her handiwork...or, more precisely, her footwork.

"I can have you sacked, you know," Lester grumbled as he bent down to try to wipe his new shoes clean.

"And then who would lie to the Minister about your whereabouts all afternoon?" Jess teased. "Now dribble! You have no excuse not to kick the ball now," she said as she dribbled her own ball away. Surreptitiously she stole a glance back and realised that Lester was, indeed, finally doing the drill properly, and Jess couldn't help but smile.

Soon Emily approached her with her football in hand. "Jess, I did some research this afternoon, and it seems that I won't have too much use for dribbling during the match."

Jess nodded. "But we still need you to practice handling the ball like everyone else. I promise, though, we'll come up with some goalkeep skills for you to work on tomorrow."

Emily shook her head. "That's not why I'm asking. I'm...," she looked nervously about her and lowered her voice before finishing, "...concerned about Matt."

The two girls turned and watched the team leader for a moment as he continued to dribble in practically the same place that he'd started. Jess nodded, saying, "I'm concerned, too, but I don't know what can be done."

"I was thinking, perhaps, that I could stop dribbling myself and pretend I was his opponent. I'm certain that he'd be less wary about moving across the lawn if he knew I was trying to steal the ball."

Jess smiled. "That's brilliant! Go ahead, and let's see if it works."

Jess watched as Emily tossed her own ball over towards the bag of extras and then stealthily approached Matt from behind. Before he was even aware of her presence, she kicked the ball out from between his legs and chased after it, leaving him standing there looking stupefied.

"Hey!" Matt complained, but Emily merely picked up the ball with her hands and tossed it to him with a satisfied grin.

"Being cautious doesn't necessarily mean being slow," Emily taunted as she approached Matt and, as soon as he began to dribble, once again managed to kick the ball away from him.

Jess realised that this might be a good exercise for the others as well. She walked over to Lester, who was finally doing some dribbling himself, and said, "Give me your ball, Lester. I want you to go steal Connor's."

Lester grumbled something under his breath but reluctantly did as he was asked. Unfortunately, he merely marched over and shoved Connor, knocking him to the ground, before picking up the ball.

"No, no, no!" Jess scolded, walking over and yanking the ball from Lester's hands. She then gave Connor a hand up as she instructed, "Watch how Emily does it."

The three of them watched, and it was amazing the way Matt's dribbling had instantly started to improve. True, he didn't have quite the same control over the ball as he'd previously had, but he was able to actually move and was even starting to learn how to change directions in his attempts to prevent Emily from stealing it.

"Here," Jess said, tossing the ball back to Connor. "Now you two try it."

It was just what Lester's confrontational nature needed. Obviously he would never be a brilliant footballer, but at least he was no longer afraid to go after the ball. Unfortunately Connor kept ending up on the ground, so eventually Jess had them switch roles.

Jess, herself, had stopped dribbling in order to try to give pointers to the others. She soon noticed that the players across the field had followed her lead, and they, too, were adding defense into their drill, with Neela demonstrating certain tricks for both the offense and the defense. Jess felt a twinge of jealousy, wishing she could be with them, but she knew she was helping the team by being over here.

Eventually Becker walked over, standing at Jess's side and watching the others for a few moments before speaking.

"You're brilliant. As always."

Jess smiled. "Actually it was Emily's idea," she confessed, but Becker didn't seem to care.

"Still, I can't believe the improvement."

Jess nodded. "I think it helps take their minds off how horrible they are," she blurted out, steeling a quick glance over towards the more skilled players across the field.

Becker frowned, looking back and forth between the two separated groups before calling out to them all, "Hey, let's gather 'round."

Jess wasn't sure what Becker was up to, but once the others walked up, he asked, "Ghani, can you lead the cool-down?"

"We're ending so soon?" Jess asked - they still had over 45 minutes left and were just starting to see some improvement.

But Becker shook his head. "No one said anything about practice ending." He then turned back to Neela, prompting, "Ghani? Cool-down?"

Jess was confused by his behaviour but mindlessly followed Neela's stretches, her mind racing, trying to guess Becker's strategy.

Once the cool-down was over, Becker announced, "And now we'll finish our practice at The Cat and Canary. First round's on me. But first, everyone grab a ball."

Becker picked up the net bag and held it open as everyone excitedly tossed in the balls and headed towards the car park.

"Practice at the pub?" Jess asked, still not certain what he had in mind.

But Becker merely nodded. "It's just what the team needs."

...

to be continued