Every single prospecting athlete crowded the halfway line as one, formerly resigned to a life without Five Hundred Basketball, now they found their sporting spirits lifted once more. Yet following Butland's moving, if not hastened speech, he stood with his eyes downcast and his mind seemingly set in an effort of calm calculation.
I could read his mind if I'd wanted; I could even decide for him, but that decision would place me on par with the most despicable of creatures. Instead, I crossed my fingers. It was something I'd not done since I'd broken my father's antique vase as a young child barely out of diapers. I knew I'd done something wrong, and all my mother had to say was, "Just you wait until your father gets home" And waited, I did; it'd been the lengthiest hour of my life, and at the time, the scariest experience I'd encountered.
