THEY’LL NEVER KNOW

John Richmond

It was scheduled as just another, routine, away high school basketball game at a school out in the suburbs.

Tonight, though, this game was going to be different, almost pleasant.  You see, it was a brand new school, which meant a brand new building, basketball court and, especially, a brand new- fresh- locker room.

The entire team was looking forward to a reprieve from foul smells, rusting lockers and grungy showers.  Now, if that wasn’t enough, the home team was one of the worse teams in the league.

Which meant, tonight had all the makings if not “a walk in the park,” then, “a walk in the suburbs.”

Enter, “The Boy,” a junior, stepping off the team bus, travel bag in hand, heading into the gym and on to the visitor’s locker room.

“Amazing,” he said to himself as he took in the newly built looks, smells and feel of a beautiful place- pristine- a locker room that was almost begging you to walk around barefoot.

There were rows- aisles, really- of lockers with wooden benches down the middle of each.

“The Boy” made his way, with his teammates, trying to find a locker- and a spot on a bench opposite it.

However, as he scanned the lockers so as to pick one, he noticed the oddest thing- almost none of the lockers had locks on them.

“Suburban kids,” he told himself.

This realization caused him to stop and open one- it was loaded with clothing, sweats, towels and sneakers.

Finally, he found an empty locker, put his travel bag on the bench in front of it and proceeded to open it so as to get changed for the game- until.

Yes, until.  Until he took out his uniform and socks, then discovered he had failed to bring his sneakers.

“Damn it!” he shouted at the top of that extra pair of lungs that silently resided in his brain.

Checking his bag, again- all the way to the bottom- triggered another silent “Damn it!” even louder than the first one.

Immediately, he had two thoughts, one just slightly ahead of the other one.

The first one was- “I can’t believe it!”

His second thought was the more problematic one- “I can’t tell the coach about this- I just can’t!  He’ll go absolutely crazy!”

These two thoughts prompted him to sit down on the bench and try to think, try to find some way to avoid what soon- if left unaddressed- would become a major problem.

He sat there, now, his hands and fingers across his forehead, and shaking his head, ever so slightly in growing disbelief.

Gone at once was the internal debate- scrutiny- of how this could happen, replaced by the urgent need to find a solution.

His first thought was a completely idiotic and stupid one, though he entertained it just to get it out of his mind.

“I could ask if they’d let me play in my street shoes.”

Instantly, he checked himself with an equally absurd answer- “Sure kid, we spent tens of thousands of dollars on a brand new floor and we’d love it if you’d screw it up!”

The next thought?

Well, he wasn’t sure if it was a “more dumber” thought or a “less dumber” one, but for a moment he wondered if he could play in his socks.

Of course, traction would probably be at a minimum.

Quickly, he was at the end of any thoughts left in his mind, except to tell the coach and deal with the consequences.

It was at exactly at that moment that he brought his head and face up out of his hands and stared at the lockers in front of him.

His body moved up into a straight-up sitting position as an idea- perhaps the only one left- came to him.

“I know what I’ll do,” he advised himself as he stood up in front of the bank of lockers.

“Almost none of these kids put locks on their lockers.  So, I’m going to start going through them until I find a pair of sneakers that are my size.  I’ll use them for the game, then, after, I’ll put them back where I found them!”

This led him to smile as he approached the first locker, proud now of his larcenous-loan plan.

That first- almost ceremonial attempt- led to nothing.

After that, there were shoes that were too small, too big, too old, wrong color- they had to be white.

His preference was the Chuck Taylor high tops, but that quickly gave way to something- anything- that would be suitable in a basketball game.

After checking a couple of lockers, he found an old, worn pair, though, a good size match, but they did look like something you’d wear to the beach.

Regardless, he was relieved.

“These will have to do!” he told himself.

So, he suited up, put the sneakers on then headed out with the team for the warm-ups- trying to get used to them- yet understanding that they were fairly worn down, so getting up the court on a fast-break was going to suffer, but, still, he was out there at the start- so far so good.

Until that first jump ball, oh, his team won the tip, but as he pivoted to go after the ball, he slipped.

Initially, in the game, that slip proved to be no big deal, his team quickly got control of the flow- going up by fourteen points by the end of the first quarter- but throughout, he struggled, slipping some more, sliding, being faked out and unable to recover.

He became slower than his usual self, and he knew it, but more importantly, so did his coach.

It only took until the game got to the midway point in the second quarter for the coach to make his decision.

“Time out, Ref,” Steve heard the coach call out.

The five of them walked over to their bench.

“Bill!” the coach called down the bench, “you’re in for Steve.”

Hearing that, Bill headed down the court to report in at the scorer’s table.

The coach now turned to Steve.  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

Steve knew exactly where the Coach was headed.

“I think so, Coach.”

“You think so?” the Coach echoed.  “You think so, but you don’t look so good.  You seem off your game- slow, getting beat- like you’ve got lead in your feet.  What the hell is wrong with you?”

Steve looked from the Coach to his teammates and back at the Coach.

“I don’t know, Coach- it’s the floor, there’s something about the floor,” he concluded with a shrug.

The Coach ran his fingers across his forehead, thinking.

“Okay,” he finally said, “we’ve got this game easily.  We all know our next game against Tech is a big one.  I need you to be a hundred percent- you understand?”

“I understand, Coach,” he concurred.

The Coach reached over and patted him on the shoulder.

“Why don’t you call it a night, head over to the locker room, get changed and come back on the bench?” the Coach instructed, encouraged and ordered him in the most benign tone possible.

Steve nodded.

“Will do, Coach, will do,” he replied, then paused, “sorry about all this,” he concluded.

“That’s fine, we all have bad day.  Be happy that yours was against this team.  Okay?  Now, get going.”

With that Steve walked the length of the bench, turned up toward a hallway between two sets of bleacher seat and made his way to the locker room.

Once inside, he went over the bench across from the locker the shoes belonged to and took them off.

Picking them up, he opened the locker and prepared to return them to their rightful owner.  Yet, before he put them back in, he held them up for a moment so as to be eye-to-eye with the pair.

“Thank-you for being available, you got me out of a big jam.”

Then, he placed the sneakers back in the locker and took hold of the door, but before closing it, he said one last thing to the sneakers.

“Hey!  You guys and me- we’ve got a little secret.  Whoever you belong to, they’ll never know what went on tonight.”

That said, Steve closed the locker and returned to his own to get changed.

Once done, his walk to the locker room door albeit it in his own street shoes felt good both in body and mind, happy that he had the wherewithal to be able to dodge what would have been an embarrassing moment/experience.

Now, he was ready to rejoin the team as his new, old self.

photo: Lockers by Noah Nothman, 2026