Fifth-grader Steven Zecca swayed and lifted his legs as though he were enrolled in a particularly dull dance class, rather than stretching under the basket before his basketball team's fifth and penultimate game of the season. After a few seconds he decided his legs were warmed-up and began twitching his head from side to side.
"Feeling loose?" asked coach Chris Roser-Jones '02, grinning.
Zecca, now hopping up and down and abandoning even the pretense of organized exercise, nodded soberly. He was impatient because the team, La Borgata, was supposed to have taken the court 10 minutes earlier, but the game before was now in the middle of double overtime.
It was one of a myriad of games organized by the Dillon Youth Basketball League, which plays Saturday mornings on the first floor of Dillon Gym. Starting at 8:30 a.m., children aged eight to 13, parents and University students acting as coaches and spectators swarm in and out of the building as though it were an ant hill.
Standing under the basket, shifting from leg to leg, bored, the boys took time to eye their opponents, clothed in green and standing neatly along the sideline. The best team in the league, with a spotless 4-0 record, its two coaches were dressed in slacks, button-down shirts and ties. One wore a vest. They stood, arms folded, watching the game in front of them.
Roser-Jones, settled into the bleachers, was dressed in a gray sweatshirt and black shorts. His coaching efforts for the day would be unassisted, as co-coach Michael Chiswick-Patterson '02 was away at a college bowl meet at Harvard University.
Zecca was unimpressed with the opposing team's record. "They're 4-0, we're 0-4," he said, shrugging. It was clearly the same record — only reversed.
When a third overtime period ended with the game still tied, the referees refused to play another overtime and ruled the game a tie. As the players grudgingly shook hands, La Borgata scampered onto the court.
La Borgata won the tip-off, and on the first possession Zecca banked in a long jumper, sparking his team to a quick 2-0 lead. But then player Anthony Brown took over the game for the opposing team. Scoring a sizzling three straight baskets, and unveiling an array of fakes, deft passing and confident shooting, he would finish with 14 of his team's 22 points.
It was clear Brown had to be stopped. A hasty La Borgata half-time conference began with discussion of whether he should be double-teamed. Roser-Jones eventually advised his players simply to watch Brown and to help defend him when necessary, and talk quickly drifted into what innovative cheer they could shout — Bor-Ga-Ta!
In the end, La Borgata lost the game 22-14. But they went down scrambling. Though Zecca was one of the smallest players on the court, he popped out from the mass of defenders like a Jack-in-the-box to snatch rebounds and routinely squirted his way through four players to dribble to the basket. Sam Baxendale served as a steadying presence, while twins Matt and Peter Callahan injected energy onto the court for La Borgata.
In the final play, Zecca received a bullet pass directly under the basket. He hesitated, unable to shoot and searching for someone to pass to, but his vision was blocked by a mass of green wriggling in front of him. He put his head down and burrowed through bodies until he emerged just to the right side of the basket, and launched a backward lay-up, his body and head twisted the wrong way.
It sank in and his team roared. And then the game ended.
Another game, another loss. But La Borgata still left the court smiling. They knew they had turned in a perfectly respectable performance.
"We've improved a lot," said 10-year-old Conor Ryan, who scored two points. He looked up thoughtfully and summed up the season. "I think it was a good game," he said, "even though we got crushed."
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