Travel Team

“So, cool, he’d set aside this place in his heart for his dad and what his dad could give him. Wanting more but not expecting more, happy when his dad would show up, even unexpected, the way he did tonight, sad when he left.”

Danny learns so much about his dad over the course of the novel. At the start, they have a strained relationship in which his dad is only present periodically in his life. He wants nothing more than to feel his family reunited, and while Ali and Richie do not explicitly get back together by the end of the novel, both Ali and Danny have better relationships with Richie. 

“Danny was always struck first by how tall somebody was, was always playing off this adult’s height against somebody else’s. He did the same with kids, like he was comparison shopping, never really knowing how tall other kids were in feet and inches, even if he knew exactly what he was on a daily basis, exactly fifty-five inches—no sneakers—by his last check in the door frame of his room.”

Danny is constantly thinking about others’ height at the beginning of the novel, noticing how much taller others are than him. At first, he allows this to hurt his confidence, not sure that he can beat teams filled with larger players. He eventually lets himself accept the fact that his height doesn’t matter.

“One, if you’re open, shoot. Two, if somebody has a better shot than you, pass the ball, let him shoot. Three? Have fun.”

Richie, unlike Mr. Ross, is focused on making sure that his players enjoy the game. He doesn’t want the sport to be about the coach. Rather, it should be about the players. Therefore, he emphasizes the role of fun in the game.

“The only reason you play with me in the driveway when you show up is because it’s a way for us to have some kind of common language that doesn’t involve us talking.”

Danny’s relationship with Richie at the beginning of the novel is contentious. He doesn’t feel very connected to his father beyond the stories of Richie Walker’s basketball career. However, he has a much different relationship with his dad by the end. Their use of basketball as a language evolves, and Danny eventually takes over the reins of the Warriors when Richie is in his accident.

“Do I hate when happened to me? Yeah. Do I spend most of my life feeling sorry for myself? Yeah, I do, though I’m trying to cut down. I really hate what happened to me, that I never got the chance to find out how I stacked up against the big boys […] I hate that I don’t have the game in my hands anymore. Or ever again. But I don’t hate the game, bud, and I never will.”

Richie must grow out of feeling sorry for himself to move past the end of his career as a basketball player and to have a healthier relationship with Ali and Danny. He works continuously toward this, eventually coming clean about his accident and how he was drunk when he crashed the car.

“‘Let me tell you something I learned the hard way,’ Richie said. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad day if you’re playing. On a team you weren’t supposed to be on. In a season you weren’t even supposed to have.’”

Richie uses a positive tone when coaching the Warriors, save for when he shows up hungover to one practice. However, that is the only time in which he actively chastises the team in a mean way, which shows the distorting effects of alcohol. In general, Richie continues to center his rule that his players have fun, recognizing the game is about the players more than his own success.

“In a soft voice, one you could barely hear over the PlayStation crowd noises in the bedroom, Ty said, ‘Dude? I’d rather play on your team.’”

Ty’s relationship with his father is tense for most of the novel, all the way up to the moment in which Mr. Ross steps off the court when Ty enters as a Warrior. He sees in the Warriors a much more relaxed environment, one that values its players more than it values the coach’s ego or winning.

“Then they want back to fantasy basketball, which was almost always a lot simpler than real life.”

The virtual world provides another way of escaping for Danny. When he and Ty are playing video games, it erases the rivalry between their fathers. Instead, they can just focus on playing the game. Eventually, they can play together in real life, and both Ross parents recognize at different times that they should have been playing together all along.

“He wondered if the someone Richie Walk was trying to prove something to was himself.”

Richie admits that he came back to Middletown for himself. As Danny realizes this about his father, it foreshadows that Richie came back to be transformed. However, his decision to start a second travel team has a huge effect on Danny’s life.

“But it’s not a car wreck, kiddo. It’s just basketball. I used to think it was a matter of life and death, too. I found out the hard way that it wasn’t.”

Danny believes that Richie is more sensitive about his first accident than he is. However, Richie always uses this moment to teach Danny about how basketball isn’t necessarily about the competition; it’s about the players. It is more about having fun, which makes for a huge difference between the Warriors and the Vikings.

“‘I was on a team once they said made magic around here,’ Richie Walker said. ‘It’s time to make some again.’”

Richie’s travel team went all the way to nationals, kicking off the start of his professional career from a young age. He hopes to see the Warriors do the same, though he also wants to correct the fact that Danny didn’t make a travel team just because of his height. The magic that ends up happening is the team coming together. As a result, we don’t know what happens beyond the first level of the tournament in which they beat the Vikings, though it is implied that in beating the Vikings, they have overcome their most difficult competitor.

“He didn’t “want to feel better tonight. He wanted to feel like crap. He wanted to remember what this felt like so that maybe—maybe, maybe, maybe—he wouldn’t let everybody down the next time.”

Danny feels like he is predisposed to let people down because of his height. He does not feel confident when he’s on the court in front of other people, even though he practices constantly at home. As a result, he is especially hard on himself, not yet understanding that his team doesn’t blame him and that being on a team means having fun even when one doesn’t do well.

“Because once I stopped feeling sorry for myself I knew you weren’t the guy he wanted me to think you were.” Ty smiled. “He’s the guy he wanted me to think you were.”

Ty at first blames Danny for what happened with his wrist, despite their friendship. Like Richie with his basketball career, Ty feels sorry for himself, but once he can move past that, he is able to be the bigger person emotionally and reconcile with Danny, who legitimately feels bad for what happened.

“I knew that if I made enough money on the side I could buy myself the kind of Christmas-morning face I’m looking at right now.”

Ali loves Danny and does her best to raise him by herself after Richie leaves. She knows that he has a hard time because of his height, and both tries to foster grit in him and tries to make him feel like every other kid. Her attempt at Christmas to make him feel special with both a new computer and a new pair of basketball shoes helps with this.

“Danny had always known she was the toughest one of all of them.”

Danny has watched his mother be left by his father and has seen how hard she works to be a good parent. He knows that she is the one who is the most unselfish, the one who has given so much so that both he and his father can have good lives. When she tries to reassure Danny and take care of Richie, Danny sees that she too is holding back tears, trying to be strong for them both.

“Richie promised them all he’d be back before they knew it. The room then filled with the sound of Cool and That’s right and Now you’re talking, Coach. Even though they all knew he was lying, just by the looks of him, by what their own eyes were telling them.”

Richie doesn’t want the Warriors to give up when he has spent all season trying to show them that they have a shot of doing well as a team. He lies about his recovery time for them. Now, he is focused on helping his team to understand their value, even if they were rejected by the Vikings.

“‘I’m not a victim,’ his dad said. ‘Even though I’ve been playing one for a hell of a long time.’”

Richie’s recognition that he acts like a victim is key to his development as a character. It has been what alienated him from both his wife and son, especially because he obscured his role in his accident. He begins to take charge of his life, teaching Danny a valuable lesson.

“‘Why are you telling me this now?’ Danny said. ‘Why do I have to know this now? I know you drink, okay? I heard you and Mom that night at the gym. I heard her call you a drunk. Okay? I don’t need to know any more bad stuff right now.’”

Danny’s resistance to his father’s confession is understandable given their previous distance. It will take time for Danny to recognize the effort his father is showing by coming clean to Danny about his past.

“Somehow—and not just because Coach Kel was a high energy guy who always kept you fired up, about basketball and life—they all seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing tonight without being told.”

The Warriors have a steep learning curve, losing many of their first several games. However, they slowly start to mesh more and more. This is because of the environment that Richie has fostered, one in which the players work together and feel valued as members of the team.

“The two dads were coaching so fiercely, they were missing a great game.”

In this moment, Danny sees Mr. Ross and the coach of the other team are so insistent upon winning that they fail to see that there is something magical happening on the court: a competitive basketball with good players. This is something that should be a joy to see, but the two coaches are so focused on beating one another that they forget that the players themselves are what is important.

“They all seemed like they were afraid to enjoy doing something right, because in the very next moment they might be doing something wrong.”

Danny sees that the Vikings might be one of the best teams in the league, but they are also less important to their coach than his desire to win. As a result, when they should be having fun because they have been playing an exceptional game, they are terrified that they will anger Mr. Ross. This illustrates what happens when the players are not the coach’s focus. 

“‘Get it after it tomorrow, every minute you’re out there,’ he said. ‘On account of, you never know which day is gonna be the best day of your whole life.’”

Richie understands more than anyone what it means to have his life change overnight and in both directions. His travel team was the kickoff of his basketball career. His accident was one incident that changed his life forever by ending his career.

“He looked down at Danny. ‘You’re the biggest kid here,’ he said. ‘I just thought somebody needed to say that.’”

Will emphasizes that his physical size does not matter because he has learned so much and is a bigger person emotionally than their opponents in the Vikings. He knows better than anyone how hard it has been for Danny and works to help him understand his worth by saying this.