Basketball
In the world of high school athletics, the sport is really never just a game. Few stadiums sell out to watch a group of kids playing a game that doesn’t mean anything. The game has to mean something for it rise to the level of sports. All too often, of course, it really doesn’t mean what the metaphor implies:
“Following a terrific football season, LJ had received interest on the gridiron, but basketball was for him, according to his father, the moon and stars.”
School Shootings
Although it is clear from certain comments he makes regarding political issues that the coach Zanen is not exactly a deep thinker, he does voice a metaphorical observation about the school shooting crisis in America. Immediately afterward, he makes another observation which is enough to undo the intellectual foundation of the previous observation, but that happens:
“It’s just like suicide,” said Zanen. “It’s freaking contagious.”
Heavenly Gaze
Coaches tend to be a particularly religious lot at certain times. Most of the time, of course, there’s absolutely nothing spiritual about what they do. But at certain moments, under certain conditions, they are all—every one of them—true believers:
“Zanen rubbed his hands and whistled and looked upward as though manna had tumbled from the ceiling.”
The Manna
The metaphorical manna falling from the heavens which Zanen looked upward toward had to do with a rival coach making the mistake of boasting to a reporter about their plans for how an upcoming game with the Warriors would turn out. The coach, the team and pretty much everyone in the community did not take kindly to the boast. But it is Zanen and his players that respond. And the response is a bloodbath:
“A couple of minutes into the sublime evisceration, Phil flew down the court on a fast break.”
Suicide
Part of the story of the basketball team becomes the culture of suicide experienced in Montana and especially among Native Americans living on the reservations. The suicide rate in the state is well above the national average and the rate on the reservations is well above that of the state.
“Since the fall, the community had been in the midst of what public health officials called a suicide cluster, a darkness that spasmodically took its toll.”
