Chapter 76 Walking Back to Top 3
There was only one thing Jake did not expect to happen this week.
Teachers have long disliked their att.i.tude in the cla.s.sroom because Jake always reads other books, even if he answered all the questions correctly they still bothered about it.
So Jake hoped that after doing his first test at this school and getting the maximum grade the teachers would understand that he was different and then they would stop caring about him, he did not want special treatment, but only that they did not bother him.
But that did not happen, the teachers seemed more bothered by the fact that he took the maximum mark and although they did not bother him in cla.s.s, his att.i.tudes with him got worse and worse.
What Jake did not know was that they were bothered by sheer prejudice, the teachers received information that Jake came from a public school and had only gotten a scholars.h.i.+p to study at his high school for his sports skills.
So first they were already irritated by having a weaker student who would hinder the rest of the cla.s.s and promised to keep an eye out to see if Jake did anything different that would bother the other students and thus complain to the school board.
As they waited in the first week of school Jake had not paid attention in cla.s.s and just kept reading books about something else, teachers were more annoyed by a student who was weaker than the other cla.s.smates did not pay attention in cla.s.s.
So they were determined to find out what book Jake was reading and pa.s.s it to the board complaining, but when they saw which books they realized they could not use a language book and an advanced study book to complain about a student who could not study.
So they thought that even if the books were not harmful they still would not let him watch the cla.s.ses so they would ask several difficult questions by the time he was wrong they could complain.
But Jake answered all the questions including what they did about things that were not even taught in cla.s.s, as well as the last resort they could only let Jake read his books and when he was poor in the tests or a little below the average they would complain.
But Jake eventually sorted out all the test questions and so he had proved that he was better than the whole cla.s.s, but the teachers still focused irritably because it seemed like he was belittling their cla.s.ses because he already knew too much.
Which meant that the teachers were s.h.i.+fting their prejudices to Jake being the wrong one, forgetting that the problem at the beginning was whether Jake might or might not be on the same educational level as his peers which he proved to be up to.
If the teachers had only waited after having the first prejudice and waited to see what was going to happen none of this would have happened and they might even like Jake more because he was the smartest in his cla.s.s.
But their pride has disrupted their judgment and they will always have a more negative view of Jake.
But that was something Jake did not know and even if he knew he would have nothing to do about it, he was just thinking about the regional champions.h.i.+p final that would happen after the fourth game that they should win.
The fourth game also had a weak opponent, they seemed scared and prepared for defeat the moment they faced Jake"s team, they knew most of Jake who had been the MVP of the state champions.h.i.+p.
It was normal to see skilled players who had great talent and who dominated the trophies of the champions.h.i.+ps in 2 years until moving to another level.
And so it was an even easier game than the last ones, everyone always kept in good shape and they were always stable in their performances on the court, and with Jake organizing the whole team, all his teammates had only to think about defending and then scoring points.
After seeing some of Jake"s games, coach Mike finally realized because everyone said that Jake controlled the team and took the coach"s place, that was wrong and it was just something that happened on the court for his ability as a PG and captain, what happened, in fact, it was something else.
In all pre-game training and over the weeks Coach Mike trained and prepared the players, they trained various formations and tactics along with the positioning to make the plays well.
And what Jake did was learn all that the coach trained and prepared throughout the week and organize the team with their signs during the games on the court.
Since everyone had trained all those plays in the week they just needed to see the signs of Jake to know what to do, it was much easier than having to keep looking at the positioning of their teammates as well as their own as it was done in training.
So with Jake on the court, it was difficult to see his team erring their position and let their opponents take advantage of s.p.a.ces to score, and it also looked like it was Jake who thought of everything and controlled everyone on the court.
For the trained Mike as long as they could win he did not care much about what others thought.
So the game ended smoothly with Jake"s team winning by 20 points difference which is the average team in these champions.h.i.+p games.
After the game for the first time in the league, Eric appeared to do an interview.
"Hi Eric, I thought you"d stop being a reporter and just come to our games as a fan to watch as you did not ask for an interview."
"It"s not so easy to think about the right questions, you do not want me to ask silly questions like what you ate before the game or what you wanted to be when you were younger, right?"
"You"re right if you asked questions like that every game maybe I would not answer you anymore."
"I"m coming in every game to register all of your team"s games this season and take pictures of all of them, so once you"re a national champion I would have a more complete and better coverage than the others."
Jake did not expect Eric who was a reporter to be sure that Jake"s team could be the national champion, even though he was confident he could not be sure of his victory, after all, he had only experienced one round in the national champions.h.i.+p last year.
He just got safer when he got on his Carter team who had stayed in second last year and also thought that the Elite school had managed to form the best team in the champions.h.i.+p.
"I"ve been in the sports business for some time and I"ve even been to some NBA games, so it"s impossible that I do not know when one team is stronger than the others, I started to see that your team was favorite when you said that David would be on your team. "
"After all New York has many good players and almost always their teams that win the regional champions.h.i.+ps come close to the finals in the national champions.h.i.+p, so you and David who have won in the two ages that would partic.i.p.ate in the league miss easy to think about it, especially after I saw Carter and the others on your team. "
"Well I"ll ask my questions at once, how do you feel at your new school and with your new teammates, do you think you could go further than last year with this team?"
"I do believe, are very skilled players and received better training, not to mention that all have experience having played the champions.h.i.+p last year, even though I improved a lot with all the experience, and even more so with the defeat which all suffered last year we"re looking forward to the trophy this year. "
"In the final which is in a few weeks, the team you are going to face are the Tigers you"ve played with them and won with your old team, what"s the feeling of facing them again."
"It"s very different from last year and even knowing that their team may be better I have confidence that we will win and so we will become the champions and we will go to the state champions.h.i.+p later."
Jake was always honest with his interviews so Eric liked to talk to him, it was difficult when someone just kept dodging the reporters" responses, it also makes the reporter more willing to try to take something that accidentally escapes from the player.
After that Jake went home again to tell his mother the good news of another victory, Eva should be anxious now waiting for news of Jake"s victory.
If it was not for Jake to ask her not to go to her normal games and only in the finals, she would be there in every game, the good thing was that if Jake won that fourth game the next she could be there in the stands to see.
So after a while, Jake appeared with a smile and she knew it meant victory.