FLINT, Mich. _ One by one, the boys slip on their jerseys. The new coach let them pick their numbers, seniors first, lending his players a tangible sense of ownership, acquired seamlessly through a transfer of black and teal polyester from hand to hand.
Over the last two basketball seasons, the Flint High Jaguars won a combined seven games, so this year's opening night comes with no fanfare. But the one thing their coach wants them to understand before jogging onto the floor is that these moments belong to them and nobody else.
The vertical mirror hanging on the locker room wall shows a team readying for battle, earphones in, focus fortified. Of course, a reflection can distort reality, ever so slightly. They will learn the truth soon.
Outside, at the entrance to the Bendle High gymnasium, they're handing out game programs. While the home Bendle Tigers roster is listed proudly, the adjacent space for the Flint Jaguars is blank. Just why is unclear, but the omission of the players' names is yet another slight, another indignity, for a team and city used to both.
Number 35 steps in front of the mirror, getting one last measure of himself as his final year of high school ball begins. His name is Dekobe Lemon. He's a sinewy point guard who only two months ago had decided he wasn't going to play this season after the last coach left. The new guy _ Flint's fourth coach in four seasons _ reeled him back in, telling Dekobe he would try to get him to a junior college for basketball.
In Flint, lofty promises often go unfulfilled. Yet here Dekobe stands on a Tuesday night in December with his city's name across his chest one more time, revealing a freshly inked tattoo on his inner left forearm. Stairs rise, encircling a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
For this to work, for Dekobe's belief to pay off, the Jaguars need No. 11 to be the best version of himself. His name is Taevion Rushing. He's a soft shooter with hard edges, a senior guard who has a star quality _ with bouncy dreadlocks, pretty-boy pink sneakers and undeniable personal magnetism _ but nothing to show for it through three years on varsity.
Some of the Jaguars remain leery of Tae. They think he was a big part of why last year's team played so selfishly. After he quit midseason, chemistry improved. Could a couple of weeks of Demarkus Jackson's running-heavy practices really have altered Tae's DNA?
As Jackson gathers his eight eligible players, a hollowed-out hoops town's leftovers, it is Tae who routinely responds affirmatively to the messaging, barked bitingly by a 29-year-old who speaks their language.
"Flint was not on nobody's list," Jackson says. "We a joke. We a joke to everybody."
"Let's make a statement," Tae jumps in.
Flint has always done its talking through basketball, particularly after the shops shuttered and moved elsewhere. These Jaguars grew up with the stories _ of a hard-working culture at General Motors, of a trio of young men from their neighborhoods who came together as the "Flintstones" to win a national basketball championship at Michigan State _ but little of the community investment to mold them in the same blue-collar way.
Beyond the sporting cliche of making a statement, what would the Jaguars say? And to whom would they say it? They can look at the sparse crowd on the road team side tonight and know that Jackson is right _ no one from Flint is thinking of them.
"Now it's up to us," Jackson says.
But the Jaguars come out flat. Tae scores the first nine points, keeping them in the game with Bendle, a small suburban school that traditionally would have been served up as red meat to Flint's finest.
By halftime the Jags are trailing by eight, and on his way to the locker room Jackson overhears Bendle players talking about running Flint out of the gym.
"That's how I know y'all soft as f---!" he tells his team. "This is ridiculous! We losing to Bendle! It's about pride, man! Everybody already said Flint doesn't care, and we proved them right. We practice one way and we come out here looking scared. Why? Because the crowd out here? Y'all want to be that same Flint team. That what it is?"
It only worsens.
"I should have transferred," Tae says during a timeout, loud enough for teammates to hear.
Moments later, his mouth earns him a technical foul.
Bendle beats Flint, 84-74.
The box score will say Tae, with 23 points, is the reason the Jaguars even had a chance. But did his outsized presence keep others from stepping into their roles?
"Man, where the f--- is Tae at? I can't see you!" Jackson says in the losing locker room.
Tae appears from behind a row of lockers, rejoining the Jags. But the team isn't together, regardless of what the mirror shows.
"The statement we made," Jackson says, "is we're still dirt as hell."
