Chapter 10 - First Day 5
Haikal finished the run in 20 minutes and 43 seconds while Badrul was right behind him with 20 minutes and 44 seconds.
Haikal was shocked that he took that long to finish the 5 laps. He even put in an effort to run a bit but still took that long.
'This is bad. I need to lower my time by 5 minutes. I wonder how long will I need to reach the 15 minutes mark?' Haikal thought.
Badrul was staring at the ground trying to catch his breath. Luckily the duo was not the worst of them all. There were three other students right behind them with a time not too far from them while there was one person who gave up the run and stood like an idiot on the running track.
"Everyone is here," Coach Kamarul spoke while he ignored the guy who gave up. Since he gave up, there was no need for him to care for that guy.
"Hmm…" he looked at the list of times and nodded. "The result is not that bad. 9 of you passes with seven of you passes excellently while another two barely enter the 15-minutes limit," Coach Kamarul smiled.
"8 of you failed but I applaud you for not giving up. If you work hard and go for a run every day, you will reach the target immediately. No need to worry about that," Coach Kamarul added.
"When you go home, you can download the tracking app from the club's website. You can use it to record your time wherever you go for a run and see the improvement you will have with the app."
"When you come back next week, you can immediately go for 5 laps around here and send your results to me after that. You guys are not kids anymore. There is no need for me to monitor you all the time. You can complete this simple stuff yourself."
"Remember that your running result is important if you want to participate in any of the competitions held this year. So, take your running seriously. If you need some help and tips, you can consult me."
"Your school's sports day will be at the end of this month. There will be a Shooter Ball Tournament too between classes and individuals. There is no requirement to be met since this is a school-level competition. Even if you cannot meet the 15 minutes range, you can still participate."
"Still, I am sure all of you are aware that school-level competition means nothing to your admission data. So, you still need to work hard to enter the 15 minutes range."
Everyone nodded because they knew that. Still, it was better to participate in them to make their admission resume look beautiful.
"As all of you are a member of the Shooter Ball Club, your participation is mandatory. No skipping. You can participate in other sports too if the schedules do not overlap but still, Shooter Ball will be your priority," Coach Kamarul reminded them.
"Well then, let's move back inside," he led the students back inside. As for the stranded guy, no one care about him.
"You, you and you, follow me," Coach Kamarul pointed at three students to follow him. They left the court assigned to them to the next building.
A few minutes later, they came back with a metal basket trolley filled with balls. There was a trolley with metal hoops too. Other than that, there was the adjustable camera stand with them too.
The three students put all of the equipment in front of them and got back in line. Coach Kamarul stood beside the equipment and spoke.
"As you guess, this is all Shooter Ball equipment. This is only used for training. The competition one will not be as shabby as this," he said.
"Adib should have known all of this, so you can take them and do self-training," Coach Kamarul said to Adib. Adib nodded and took three balls, three hoops, and three adjustable camera stands. He went to a corner of the court and set up all of them.
"As for you guys. Since this is your first day and first time with this sport, you need to be educated a bit about Shooter Ball," Kamarul smiled. "You can sit on the floor if you want to."
Haikal and Badrul did not sit on the ceremony and sat on the floor when Coach Kamarul said that. The others did the same too. Other than the experienced students, all of them were fatigued from running.
"For today, I will not be explaining the rules to all of you. We will only learn the basics. You can learn all of this online but I know you guys will never do that." Everyone smiled wryly. The coach guessed right.
"First of all, I know that everyone here is aware of the premise of the Shooter Ball. You throw a ball to a target to score points."
"The target will usually be these hoops," he held a metal hoop in his hand, "Or whatever else the organizer wants as the target. There are water bottles, rolling pins, and many more but usually, they will use hoops."
"In a big official competition or tournament, the target will always be hoops. Only the private competition or tournament held by certain big companies will usually use other things as the target," everyone nodded as they understood.
"Also, the hoops they used are not like this cheap hoop in my hand. It is a special hoop specifically used in Shooter Ball competitions. We have that too but you can only see it when we hold a competition ourselves."
"As you know, these will be the balls we will be using in Shooter Ball. It is made of rubber with a diameter of 15 cm and an approximate circumference of 94.25 cm. Here! You can try holding the ball," Coach Kamarul passed a ball to the students in front of him to let them feel the ball.
"Next, I will explain to all of you how you can hit the target with the ball. Throwing it is easiest but you can also kick the ball, slap it, punch, or whatever is comfortable with you. As long as the ball hits the target, the method is fine. But you cannot use a racket or baseball bat to do that. Only with your hand or leg directly."
"Can we kick the ball to score?" a student felt weird when he heard that.
"Yes. You can kick it. Usually, when the target is too far away, the player will kick the ball to reach the target. Still, if you are not good at kicking, it is not advisable to do that."
"If you have experience in football like him," Coach Kamarul pointed at the student who had experience in football, "You can try it. If you still want to kick a ball to score, you can practice kicking."
"That is why those who previously played in other ball sports like baseball, football, basketball, and dodgeball will have an edge in Shooter Ball. Imagine your opponent can only score by throwing the ball, an ex-football player can aim a further target by kicking the ball. If he manages to score, it will be a huge emotional blow to the opponent."
"Whoa~" everyone could imagine that. They started talking to each other about it.
Coach Kamarul let them make the noise for a few seconds before he said, "Okay then. For today, you guys will train in the most basic thing you need to do in Shooter Ball and that is throwing the ball to a target."