Shoes lace; lives race.

My entire life, I have been bombarded with coaches. T-ball, softball, volleyball, and basketball: I've endured them all. But, through thick and thin, Coach Hardin is my biggest trophy. My favorite. My idol. My hero. My friend. My coach.
It's crystal clear in my mind. As I walk into chemistry, Blake Carter and Kevin Frisbee attack me. "Are you okay?" I quickly hear Kevin mutter. "What? Yeah. I'm fine, why?" Kevin and Blake usually joke with me about stupid information that I have learned to ignore. But as they stand there, staring blankly into each other's faces, I know I am missing some huge gossip. "What are you guys up to? What's going on, Kev?" He deeply inhales a gigantic breath. "It's Coach Hardin; he's leaving." It is almost immediate. As soon as those five short words tumble from his lips, tears fill my eyes; escaping my eye sockets, dripping onto my cheeks, streaking my make-up, and staining my clothes. "He's...leaving? Wh—what do you mean?" Blake and Kevin try to comfort me with a hug as I dodge them, and sprint to the bathroom. As I attempt to reconstruct my face by smearing the remains of my make-up onto my bare skin, I keep convincing myself this is only a dream. Tears Race.
I finally stop crying, until I see Marci, one of my best friends and team mate.
Apparently while I was painfully enduring another filling at the dentist, Coach Hardin and his wife, Mary-Katherine, bought lunch for the entire 2007-2008 Lady Pioneer basketball team; my team. During this luncheon, he confessed to my team his decision of leaving.
She is the first of my friends I see since the news. "Where were ya, kid?" She asks meekly. My eyes leak like a broken pipe as she holds me in her unusually muscled arms. "I know, Kam. I know." My heart is broken.

Only a few short months before, we were practicing. From 1:30 to 3:00, practice was lax. Coach Hardin had decided to end practice early and call a short meeting in our locker room. His "before Christmas break speech" was going as planned: run a plentiful amount, try to get off your butt a couple of minutes out of the day to shoot some hoops, don't indulge yourself in too much of grandma's pie, and have a wonderful holiday. Then, out of nowhere, he begins preaching on how one of our Lady Pioneers needed to get her act together. How he "never thought this young lady would ever disappoint him."
Previously in the year, Coach was having a rough day and took his anger out on us. He apparently saw me and my current flame kiss before I entered the gym for practice and told me, “to be more passionate about basketball than my love life."
"I've had problems with this young lady before, but she obviously took my command as a joke." My mind quickly hit the rewind button. Last few minutes before practice, last few minutes before practice... he kissed me today. Shoot. My head creeps up from my thinking position only to find him staring straight at me. Shivers slowly sneak down my spine, as my hands perspire. "Someone on this team has failed their drug test, and I think it's only fair to vote and see if this person should remain a part of our team, or hit the streets." Wheeeww. I am relieved! Never have I ever been tempted to try a drug, so I know for sure I am in the clear.
But, I, along with two other teammates of min, was tested only the week before. I don't know about the other girls, but I had my mind set on who this "druggie" was. She was new to the team, and kind of had a tough look to her. She was the only girl that the word "drugs" could even come close to describing.Yet suddenly, I hear a sigh and look only to see my coach's head drooping with shame. "Kam, come up here." I am awestruck. My mind is so jumbled. I don't know what to think. "Wha—what?"
"Come here."
Tears begin to fill my eyes as I try to convince myself this wasn't happening at all. As I stumble up to my idol, my hero, words begin to spill from my mouth like vomit. "How can this be? I don't do drugs, Coach Hardin. You know this." His disapproving stare pierces me. "I thought I knew that, Kam." His hands on my shoulders feel like 100 pound weights. As he spins me around to face my team, I see everyone’s reaction: mouths wide open, hands to each other's ears, whispering like middle school girls, and eyes as wide as a deer in headlights. "Everyone..." I cannot believe this is happening to me—my heart races. "...wish Kam a happy 16th birthday!"
Kaylin, my best friend, bursts with laughter, while the remainder of the team stares at her blankly. Turning around to face my coach, he holds a white box that, when opened display rows of cupcakes spelling out, Happy Birthday, Kam! "Your mom wanted you to have a surprise party", he chuckles with a smirk. And as I wipe tears away, a smile creeps across my face. "You scared me to death, you know."
"Haha. I know." He beams.
"I'm going to hurt you!" I say with an enormous grin, while I slyly grab a cupcake. I was literally scared for my life.

A few games after we returned from winter break, we played horribly. The game the night before didn't go so well. Actually, the game the night before didn't go well at all. It was like the entire team, yes, even the bench warmers, had given up. But never again would that happen, never again.
"Get on the line." A common quote by Coach Hardin himself has never roared so loud, or sounded so terrifying. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors shuffle our way to the base line, a place we had grown extremely familiar with. I know it. He knows it. They know it. Practice is going to be complete hell. But in our situation, it seems if hell is an understatement. As be begins to pick and chew at us, as if he were a T-REX and we were merely a piece of meat, I can feel my face fleshing with fear as beads of sweat fall from my forehead, slowly reaching the bottom of my jaw line.
Before making us run line drill after line drill, sprint after sprint, and a few 15-11-7-3's, he says something directed completely towards me, and almost forces me burst into tears. As he proceeded to preach and preach on how horrible some of our attitudes were, he stares at me and says, "Kam, why do you play basketball?" Before my brain could try to congregate the correct answer, my mouth blurts, "Because I love it. I love the game." "Did you hear that, everyone? Kam plays because she loves this game. She works her tail end off every day in practice. Even though she doesn't play varsity, you don't ever see her slacking off. The moment she steps foot in this gym, she works her butt off." Inside, I smile from ear to ear, massively hoping I'm not showing any emotion on the outer part of my body. He notices my work.
After he finishes up, we run. And run. And run. Sweat pours off of my arms, legs, and face, dripping to the ends of my hair. Sweat races. By the end of this dreadful practice, my legs feel like freshly churned butter. My quad muscles ache. I know from here on out, Coach Hardin knows how hard I work and how passionate I am for this game. There is no letting up; no, not now.
Now, as I start my junior year in high school, I begin to wonder, am I racing by my life? It seems as if I only met Coach Hardin the other day. I only have the rest of this year and the next before I enter the "real" world, a place not defined by lunch trays and hall passes and basketball coaches who care enough to impact lives. Am I ready? Life sprints harder than any line drill I’ve ever ran. Sometimes, more than anything, I live for that moment of clarity that can only come from the intensity of a basketball game with my team sweating in the center of it. Now, as the final buzzer of high school inches closer by the day, I can’t help but wonder: Me? A college student? Wow! Life races.