PART TWO
If no intermission, a pause of 5 seconds after blackout ending Part One. When lights rise again ASSISTANT COACH is discovered sitting alone. After brief pause HEAD COACH ENTERS.
HEAD COACH: It's no use—I couldn’t find her anywhere.
ASSISTANT COACH: Is that where you’ve been all this time—looking for your wife!
HEAD COACH: [Seating himself.] I had to make sure she wasn’t the victim of a heart attack or some sort of foul play. I needed to try, anyway—[Turns attention to bleachers.]
ASSISTANT COACH: I thought you had gone to the scorer’s table to ascertain what half this is.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] Why are the players back on the floor? Didn’t we call a timeout?
ASSISTANT COACH: The timeout has been over for some 5 or 10 seconds now.
HEAD COACH: That cannot be true—it is impossible! I was only gone for a matter of 15—or 20—seconds at the most!
ASSISTANT COACH: I am telling you it is over!
HEAD COACH: I dashed up the aisle to where Louise had been sitting. The man who had been seated next to her said they had left together—she and Damien. Not that he knew who they were, naturally—but he definitely remembered their departure; thinking at the time, he said, how strange it was for anyone to leave at such a crucial point in the game. He said he had assumed they were man and wife by the looks they frequently gave each other—looks one normally associates with a happily married couple. His guess at the time was that they had left because they considered the outcome of the final few seconds to be inconsequential—or "anticlimactic"—a word he distinctly recalled hearing one of them say; probably the "husband," he thought, because the husband had a tendency to use language that had "dramaturgical connotations"—as if he were a member of the theater arts faculty. At any rate he received a strong impression that the "husband" was more involved with the artistic than the athletic side of life while for her part the "wife" seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about basketball—and, although he found it difficult to say for a certainty which team they were rooting for, he guessed it was the team with the 2 point advantage because of the smiles they had on their faces when they made their exit. That was his impression, anyway. But he admitted he could have been prejudiced by his own loyalty to the team that was ahead at the time. The cause of their blissful, almost "rapturous" happiness could well have been one of which he was wholly unaware. At least that would seem to rule out any medical problems or foul play—which is a relief. As soon as I had that weight off of my mind I made my way back here ready to devote my full attention to the agenda of problems we had tabled for the timeout—only to be told I’d missed the boat, when in fact I couldn’t have been gone more than 20 seconds!
ASSISTANT COACH: You were gone at least 70 or 80 seconds, coach.
HEAD COACH: I know the difference between 20 and 80 seconds!
ASSISTANT COACH: None of that matters now—
HEAD COACH: Apparently not!
ASSISTANT COACH: The action is about to begin.
HEAD COACH: I see you have changed our lineup in my absence.
ASSISTANT COACH: I thought we agreed on a rebounding strategy!
HEAD COACH: Does that mean you instructed Kirby to miss his freethrow?
ASSISTANT COACH: No.
HEAD COACH: Since Kirby is a 95% shooter from the freethrow stripe the odds are against him missing the shot.
ASSISTANT COACH: The odds are against us all the way down the line, coach. I put our tallest timber in on a contingency basis only.
HEAD COACH: And what about the half—have we resolved the question of which half we are playing?
ASSISTANT COACH: I thought you were getting that information at the scorer’s table—
HEAD COACH: Good lord man—nothing was more important to me than solving the mystery of my wife’s disappearance!
ASSISTANT COACH: I didn’t realize your priorities were in that order. After all, you have done a considerable amount of preaching on the subject of putting one’s personal affairs on the back burner when the welfare of the team is at stake. [Pause, during which HEAD COACH returns his attention to bleachers.] Anyway, he said something about this stage of the game being "anticlimactic," didn’t he?
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] Who said what?
ASSISTANT COACH: The fellow sitting in the seat next to your wife and Damien. You said that he said he had overheard them saying these final seconds of the game would turn out to be "anticlimactic."
HEAD COACH: I don’t remember him telling me that.
ASSISTANT COACH: That is what you said he said.
HEAD COACH: No, no. He said they said "they were leaving because the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt." Those were his exact words.
ASSISTANT COACH: Meaning what?
HEAD COACH: Meaning we would come back in the 2nd half according to our gameplan—a gameplan which anticipated the kind of high scoring 1st half standoff we are in the process of concluding—followed by a 2nd half in which our superior stamina becomes the decisive factor. Why else would Louise be so certain about the outcome when we are only down by a deuce with 2 seconds to go?
ASSISTANT COACH: I thought you said that fellow said it was not Louise but Damien who said the outcome of the game was a foregone conclusion.
HEAD COACH: Not so. I remember everything that was said quite vividly because at the time I realized our conversation was relevant to the question of whether we were indeed approaching the end of the 1st or 2nd half of the game.
ASSISTANT COACH: This is it! The referee is warning the players that Kirby has 1 shot coming and the ball will be in play on a miss!
HEAD COACH: So, we’re right back to where we were before this seemingly interminable discussion began!
ASSISTANT COACH: Except that now we have our best rebounders in the game.
HEAD COACH: At the cost of having removed our best ballhandlers!
ASSISTANT COACH: We have to get possession of the ball before we can handle it.
HEAD COACH: That applies only if Kirby misses his freethrow. If he makes it we will need our best ballhandlers out there to deal with their out-of-bounds play.
ASSISTANT COACH: That’s a chance we will have to take.
HEAD COACH: Have to take? In point of fact we have taken it already, have we not?
ASSISTANT COACH: Alright. Yes. We’ve already taken it. It is a calculated risk for which I accept full responsibility.
HEAD COACH: You say that, but you do not sound very concerned. You sound as if you are absolutely certain Kirby is going to miss making his freethrow!
ASSISTANT COACH: I’m only certain about my being responsible for whatever happens from here on out.
HEAD COACH: Did you or did you not discuss the possibility of missing his next freethrow with Kirby?
ASSISTANT COACH: We discussed the subject on a contingency basis; but I didn’t instruct him to miss it.
HEAD COACH: Not in so many words—but Kirby knows, does he not? He knows that you want him to miss.
ASSISTANT COACH: I told you I did not tell him anything.
HEAD COACH: But you put our best rebounders in.
ASSISTANT COACH: Yes. I put our best rebounders in.
HEAD COACH: Clearly indicating to Kirby you are anticipating a missed freethrow from a player who is a 95% freethrow shooter!
ASSISTANT COACH: I do not know what Kirby knows or does not know.
HEAD COACH: Did you discuss my theory?
ASSISTANT COACH: What theory is that?
HEAD COACH: My theory that after Kirby makes his freethrow they will mismanage their out-of-bounds play because of the enormous pressure that comes from simply contemplating the prospect of defeating a team of our caliber? My theory that the very fact they are within a hair’s breadth of ending the longest winning streak in the history of basketball and snatching a national championship in the bargain will operate to their disadvantage? My theory that they themselves will solve our problem with their out-of-bounds play?
ASSISTANT COACH: Now that you mention it I did mention your theory to the players.
HEAD COACH: You may have mentioned my theory—but that is not the same as seriously discussing it.
ASSISTANT COACH: We did discuss it. We actually discussed the possibility that Kirby might make his freethrow—
HEAD COACH: That is more than a possibility, is it not? It is a probability. 95% can hardly be called a "possibility!"
ASSISTANT COACH: In a clutch situation like this I rate even a shooter with Kirby’s credentials as having no more than a 5050 chance of scoring. But there is no sense in continuing this dialogue. All of the pregame coaching has been done. Now we just sit here and see what happens.
HEAD COACH: We still have 1 timeout remaining, have we not?
ASSISTANT COACH: There will not be enough time to call another timeout.
HEAD COACH: Because Kirby is not going to make his next freethrow, is he?
ASSISTANT COACH: That is my belief.
HEAD COACH: You said it was a 50-50 proposition!
ASSISTANT COACH: Statistically it is.
HEAD COACH: But you are not relying on statistics, are you!
ASSISTANT COACH: Kirby knows what must be done—
HEAD COACH: Are you telling me he is intellectualizing?
ASSISTANT COACH: I am telling you I think he is smart enough to understand the nature of the situation we find ourselves in.
HEAD COACH: Smart enough to think he can turn his shooting skills on and off!
ASSISTANT COACH: Maybe—and maybe he is construing this "problem" as a challenge.
HEAD COACH: A challenge to what?
ASSISTANT COACH: It is not that easy a thing to do—deliberately missing a freethrow in such a manner as to not only make it look legal but to also create an advantageous rebounding opportunity.
HEAD COACH: No. It is anything but easy! It requires skills of the utmost virtuosity! And this is not the time to improvise skills of that nature! At a time like this one must rely on the skills one has previously perfected through practice!
ASSISTANT COACH: Alright. You have made your point.
HEAD COACH: Have I?
ASSISTANT COACH: This is not an improvisation.
HEAD COACH: What does that mean?
ASSISTANT COACH: Kirby knows what he is doing and he is fully capable of doing it.
HEAD COACH: Do you know what you are doing?
ASSISTANT COACH: I think so. We will certainly find out in the next few seconds.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to bleachers.] When did all of this start?
ASSISTANT COACH: Is that important?
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] I think I have the right to know what has been going on behind my back all this time.
ASSISTANT COACH: It wasn’t like that.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to bleachers.] What wasn’t?
ASSISTANT COACH: You are making it sound like treason, when all that was involved was a little experimentation with a somewhat esoteric aspect of the game that is generally overlooked.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] Deliberately missing a freethrow is an aspect of the game—is that what you are saying?!
ASSISTANT COACH: A team that can execute the missed freethrow will have an advantage over a team that can’t—that’s what I am saying, yes.
HEAD COACH: So—a profound discovery has been made! A new frontier of human aspiration has been crossed!
ASSISTANT COACH: That is not what I am saying. The deliberately missed freethrow is merely another refinement of a game that is being continually refined.
HEAD COACH: I will tell you what the deliberately missed freethrow is, sonny boy: it is a deliberate attack on the very concept of sportsmanship! It is a slimy little loophole that only a human cockroach like you could crawl through!
ASSISTANT COACH: That is one way of looking at it. It is your way of looking at it. It is an archaic way of looking at it.
HEAD COACH: Is that what you think I am—archaic?
ASSISTANT COACH: I am not deprecating your contributions to the game.
HEAD COACH: How could you? I am the most prolific innovator this game has ever known!
ASSISTANT COACH: Indisputably you are the George Washington of basketball.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to bleachers.] And the Keppler. And the Newton. And the Copernicus. And the Einstein.
ASSISTANT COACH: O.k., you are the greatest. A towering figure in sports history—in the entire history of all human achievement! But there is still some room left for "cockroaches" like me to make our mark; still some small reason for our existence.
HEAD COACH: "The father of the missed freethrow!" Is that what you are aiming for? Is that where your sights are set? Is that to be the sum total of your destiny?
ASSISTANT COACH: I will take whatever I can get.
HEAD COACH: A scavenger! That is what you aspire to be!
ASSISTANT COACH: What else is there? When the Great Men have passed; when the forests have been leveled; when the seas have all been charted—what remains for little mediocrities like me?
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] Kirby has begun bouncing the basketball again.
ASSISTANT COACH: I want an answer. For once I want to hear you admit I am right!
HEAD COACH: About what? That Louise has finally run away with Damien?
ASSISTANT COACH: That there are no new frontiers left—that men like me can no longer gaze at the broad horizons you enjoyed but must look to the space between their own 2 feet to find an area of opportunity. I have run my ideas on the missed freethrow through a computer—
HEAD COACH: Computers!
ASSISTANT COACH: My study shows you can pick up an average of 3 points per game by deliberately missing the 2nd freethrow of all your 2-shot opportunities.
HEAD COACH: Yes. I know.
ASSISTANT COACH: You know?
HEAD COACH: I ran the same study 10 years ago!
ASSISTANT COACH: You seriously considered using the deliberately missed freethrow as a valid instrument of your coaching philosophy?
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to bleachers.] I have not left any possibility unconsidered.
ASSISTANT COACH: 3 additional points per game is nothing to sneer at.
HEAD COACH: So it might seem—in numerical terms.
ASSISTANT COACH: Numbers are nothing to sneer at!
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] I told you—you cannot turn a pure shooter’s shooting instincts on and off. Whatever you gain from the missed freethrow strategy you lose 5 or 6 times over again in shots that are missed from the field. It is as simple as that. You can’t allow the pure shooter to intellectually analyze the complexities of his shooting technique. He must shoot to score. That's all there is to it. It's a principle eternally etched into the bedrock of the game. Even if you occasionally have to lose a game or 2 because of it. If that's the price one must pay for the sake of adhering to one’s principles, then one must pay it.
ASSISTANT COACH: Kirby has stopped pumping! He is poised for the shot now! Our rebounders are preparing to leap!
HEAD COACH: You can see the way he’s holding the ball—that’s not his natural grip. It looks to me as if Kirby is having a tough time making the mental computations required to result in a miss that will produce the kind of rebound needed—one that will find its way to the fingertips of our tall timber. The normal flow of things has been impaired. All of his inner rhythms have been disrupted. Suddenly he’s being asked to send a swarm of signals to all those moving parts of his body that ordinarily function automatically. From the tips of his toes to the tips of his fingers a myriad of factors has arisen with which he is incapable of coping!
ASSISTANT COACH: Yes! It is difficult! It is not an easy thing to do! But that is in the nature of expanding one’s horizons!
HEAD COACH: You are asking the boy to perform a superhuman effort!
ASSISTANT COACH: And why not? Isn’t that what you have always done? Aren’t you the one who made the quantum leap in the theory of victory itself—so that now a coach no longer thinks of winning games but of winning entire seasons? Aren’t you the one who forced us to entertain the insane idea that it might just be possible for a coach to come along someday who would never lose—not one single game in his entire career?
HEAD COACH: Is that what you are planning to do?
ASSISTANT COACH: Why not? Why shouldn’t I strive for the 1st perfect record?
HEAD COACH: Because none of us can ever achieve perfection—[Turns attention to bleachers.]
ASSISTANT COACH: That is not what you tell your players. You are always telling them perfection is achievable.
HEAD COACH: They know I am speaking theoretically when I tell them that. There is no such thing as a perfect player—or a perfect coach.
ASSISTANT COACH: Perhaps, but you have coached your players into playing some perfect games.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] 3 or 4 perfect games out of 1200!
ASSISTANT COACH: Maybe I can improve on that record.
HEAD COACH: You cannot seriously hope not only to win all of your games, but to have them all played and coached perfectly!
ASSISTANT COACH: That is precisely what I hope to do! The 1st step toward reaching any goal is desire—isn’t that what you always told us? "Nothing is beyond the soaring reach of the motivated human spirit"—those are your words, not mine.
HEAD COACH: And your goal is what?
ASSISTANT COACH: To win 1000 perfect games.
HEAD COACH: 1000 perfect games with no losses—that’s insane!
ASSISTANT COACH: What else can I aspire toward to prove that I am not a cockroach?
HEAD COACH: Kirby is in the act of shooting!
ASSISTANT COACH: His legs are flexing!
HEAD COACH: They are fully flexed!
ASSISTANT COACH: His wrist is cocking!
HEAD COACH: It is fully cocked!
ASSISTANT COACH: The ball is being launched!
HEAD COACH: It is on its way!
ASSISTANT COACH: The trajectory seems on the high side—
HEAD COACH: Much higher than normal—
ASSISTANT COACH: Definitely an abnormal trajectory—
HEAD COACH: Normally Kirby’s trajectory is on the flat side—idiosyncratically flat—violating all of the rules for good shooting. But somehow Kirby’s "frozen rope" style of shooting transcends those rules. Consequently, it is more than madness to tamper with such a miraculous phenomenon—it is a sin.
ASSISTANT COACH: The ball is beginning its downward flight—
HEAD COACH: It is descending!
ASSISTANT COACH: The range looks good—the angle of deflection seems just about right!
HEAD COACH: The ball is approaching the rim!
ASSISTANT COACH: It is striking the rim—and bouncing upward—straight up—a mile high! Look at that bounce!
HEAD COACH: It’s true! I have never seen a missed freethrow bounce so high!
ASSISTANT COACH: No one has ever seen such a sight! Straight up and at least 20 feet high! And still within the cylinder of the basket! So, by the rules of the game the clock cannot be started. Technically it is not a missed freethrow yet. But that skyhigh bounce gives our rebounders time to get into position—thereby neutralizing the advantage given to a defensive team before the ball first makes contact with the rim.
HEAD COACH: It is coming down again—
ASSISTANT COACH: Our rebounders are in rebounding position; and we have an overwhelming height advantage—besides which, the element of surprise is working in our favor. The other team has been mesmerized by the unorthodox behavior of that ball!
HEAD COACH: It is striking the other side of the rim now and bouncing up again!
ASSISTANT COACH: This time when the ball comes down it should just graze the left side of the rim, go suddenly dead and drop just outside the cylinder of the basket where Scribner is waiting to stuff it in for the tying deuce.
HEAD COACH: There it goes—heading for the left side of the rim as you predicted it would!
ASSISTANT COACH: Their players are anticipating another high bounce—but you can see how Scribner is getting into position for what he knows will be a wounded goose when that ball just brushes the rim on its way into his outstretched hands!
HEAD COACH: It is happening!
ASSISTANT COACH: The players on the other team have jumped too soon and too high!
HEAD COACH: They are grasping nothing but the empty air above the rim!
ASSISTANT COACH: Scribner has the ball in his grasp!
HEAD COACH: He is lifting it back over the rim with both hands and stuffing it into that net with a vengeance that is wondrous to behold! It is 2 points for us!
ASSISTANT COACH: The referee is signaling that the basket is official! We have tied the score!!!
HEAD COACH: [After brief pause.] Yes, we have tied the score—but the clock has not started. There are still 2 seconds left to be played and they will have the ball out of bounds! So the game is not over after all—
ASSISTANT COACH: Now the monkey will be on their back.
HEAD COACH: What monkey?
ASSISTANT COACH: The one we just got rid of—the 2 seconds they have got to stretch into an eternity.
HEAD COACH: Unless they decide to settle for the tie in regulation and try for an overtime win.
ASSISTANT COACH: O.T. is no good for them. The momentum has shifted and they realize it. They have got to go for broke here and now. I’m betting they will throw the ball into the forecourt and try for a 35- or 40-footer. From here on out we are playing football!
HEAD COACH: You could be right. Their inbounder seems to be winding up as if to throw the ball the entire length of the court—
ASSISTANT COACH: They are gambling that because their lineup is quicker than ours footspeedwise, they will have a maneuverability advantage over us. But the basketball should be airborne long enough to give our tall timber the time to get back on defense. In a classic length-of-the-court passing situation like this it is height, not speed, that is usually the decisive factor.
HEAD COACH: And? If we do intercept their pass—what happens then?
ASSISTANT COACH: We call a timeout immediately to develop our own out-of-bounds strategy.
HEAD COACH: The ball is being inbounded! It is traveling the entire length of the court!
ASSISTANT COACH: It looks as if it will arrive just to the left of the freethrow line—
HEAD COACH: The players are converging on that very spot!
ASSISTANT COACH: The ball is descending!
HEAD COACH: The velocity factor will make it difficult to handle—
ASSISTANT COACH: Kirby is using his wide body to make space in that crowd for his superior leaping ability—
Sound of several whistles being blown. Both coaches are on their feet.
HEAD COACH: What happened?
ASSISTANT COACH: The officials have called a foul on Kirby! Our opponents will be going to the charity stripe for a pair of freethrows!
HEAD COACH: Apparently they called that foul on Kirby before the ball was touched. The clock has not restarted. There are still 2 seconds showing on it! It looks like their ballgame—
ASSISTANT COACH: We still have a chance.
HEAD COACH: A chance to do what? By making both of those freethrows they will have a 2 point margin over us!
ASSISTANT COACH: But there will still be those 2 seconds on the clock!
HEAD COACH: Unless they make the 1st freethrow and miss the 2nd. That would put them up by a single point and they could consume the remaining 2 seconds in the aftermath of that missed freethrow. Look! They are already attempting the 1st freethrow!
ASSISTANT COACH: That could be a good sign—
HEAD COACH: I don’t follow you—
ASSISTANT COACH: Their shooter is so concerned about being iced on the line if we call our final timeout he has decided to shoot without performing his customary prefreethrowing routine—
HEAD COACH: That turned out to be a wise decision—he has just made his 1st shot! The referee has given him the ball again and told everyone it will be in play on this shot—
ASSISTANT COACH: Once again he’s in a hurryup mode—
HEAD COACH: And why not? He seems quite comfortable with a tempo that doesn’t allow him to think about the enormity of his undertaking.
ASSISTANT COACH: Yes, but it is also a tempo which prevents his coach from intervening with some ideas of his own about the wisdom of making this next shot—a shot that will only increase the lead they already have, while giving us the opportunity of retying the game in the 2 seconds that yet remain to be played.
HEAD COACH: He is shooting his 2nd shot!
ASSISTANT COACH: It seems to have the same kind of high-arcing trajectory Kirby’s 2nd freethrow had—
HEAD COACH: The sonsofguns are hoisting us on our own petard!
ASSISTANT COACH: We’ll see about that. I think they are trying to improvise something which cannot be improvised.
HEAD COACH: The ball is bouncing off the rim—it seems to be reaching the type of altitude Kirby’s ball attained on his deliberately missed freethrow—
ASSISTANT COACH: But he hasn’t put nearly enough reverse English on the ball—
HEAD COACH: It is descending toward the opposite side of the rim just as Kirby’s 2nd shot did—
ASSISTANT COACH: We still have the advantage reboundingwise—
HEAD COACH: Are you sure about that? There are some 80 or 90 feet separating us from their basket and only 2 seconds—or less—in which to shoot what will have to be the outside shot to end all outside shots with our best outside shooters sitting on the bench pursuant to your "tall timber" strategy—
ASSISTANT COACH: There! The ball has ricocheted off the rim but—unlike Kirby’s 2nd freethrow—it has failed to achieve the necessary "wounded goose" effect, giving Scribner a golden opportunity to use his commanding height to its fullest advantage!
HEAD COACH: Which he is doing!
ASSISTANT COACH: Scribner has the basketball! [Several referee’s whistles are blown.] What are they calling now?
HEAD COACH: It looks like basket interference—
ASSISTANT COACH: Yes! The referee is ruling Scribner interfered with the ball while it was still in the cylinder: meaning that they get 1 more point, but those 2 seconds remain frozen on the clock! [Referee’s whistle is blown.] What was that whistle for?
HEAD COACH: They’re calling a technical foul on the other bench for protesting that last call! For some strange reason my opposite number was overly adamant in demanding his team should be awarded a pair of points on the interference call, claiming the ball had left the cylinder on the 1st bounce and then re-entered on the 2nd bounce—his theory being, I guess, that: Such a scenario altered the nature of the shot being interfered with from a made freethrow to the rebounding of a missed freethrow—a theory which is not as far fetched as it might at first sound!
ASSISTANT COACH: The referees is calling it a bench technical! Do you realize what that means? With 2 freethrows coming we have a chance to tie the game again—and the ball will be awarded to us out of bounds!
HEAD COACH: Who do we want to shoot the technicals?
ASSISTANT COACH: Can there be any doubt about that? Kirby is our best freethrower.
HEAD COACH: Yes, but he missed his last attempt.
ASSISTANT COACH: That was a deliberate miss!
HEAD COACH: He might be confused—
ASSISTANT COACH: There is nothing he can possibly be confused about. These 2 freethrows have to be made. There is no rebounding factor involved with shooting technicals. Can there be any doubt that the expression on Kirby’s face reflects his total understanding of the situation?
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to bleachers.] Someone else is sitting in their seats—
ASSISTANT COACH: Whose seats?
HEAD COACH: My wife’s—and Damien’s.
ASSISTANT COACH: The only question for us to consider, coach, is do we call our last timeout after Kirby makes the 2nd technical to set up our own out-of-bounds play. We don’t want to make the same fatal mistake our opposite numbers made.
HEAD COACH: But was it really fatal? Aren’t you forgetting that we never did settle the question of what half we are playing. If this is the 1st half it is a fairly safe assumption that Louise and Damien have merely gone to the refreshment stand—in which case there is nothing necessarily sinister in their behavior.
ASSISTANT COACH: Well coach, what do you think? Time’s running out and the decision is yours to make.
HEAD COACH: [Turns attention to court.] All things considered, I think this is the end of the game and, at long last, Louise has finally gone to Heidelberg with Damien—
Curtains close slowly as HEAD COACH and ASSISTANT COACH exchange looks of mutual perplexity.
End of Play