Grace Of All Time
A display of basketball greatness in the face of a relentless student section
Two weeks ago, I willed myself forty miles through Chicago’s rush hour traffic to arrive in Elgin by 6 PM and watch the Willows Academy Lady Eagles high school basketball team play in their first Super Sectional in school history. Please clap.
It would take a miracle for the Eagz to win, but miracles happen all the time: Sister Jean and the Loyola Men’s Final Four run in 2018, #16 seed Harvard Women’s Basketball upsetting the #1 seed Stanford in 1998, NIU football beating Notre Dame in Week 2, Passover, Easter, the mere fact that you are reading this Substack post. All miracles! So what’s one more?
One of the perks of having a best friend as a head coach is free team merch. That Monday evening, I repped the Lady Eagle swag my friend Jodi had gifted me the day before—a white crew neck with interior fresh fuzz that hadn’t been washed yet. “Levels” by Avicii blared out of my car as I looped around the parking lot until I landed on empty real-estate near the back. I was so in-the-zone, hyping up my lungs to scream for the next two hours, that when my friend Martha sprouted out of her car from fifty feet away, it took my brain five seconds to process and return her “HI.”
The game was technically at a “neutral” site. The venue was four miles from the opposing team’s school and a twenty-seven-mile bus ride for the Lady Eagles. So very neutral. We flashed our $9 tickets to a smiley teen girl as the roars of high school boys resounded near the gym’s entrance. I had a hunch that these fellas were rooting for the bad guys, given that the Lady Eagles attend an all-girls Catholic school. We stepped inside the gym a few minutes into the first quarter, and my hunch was confirmed. In the bleachers to my right stood a flock of teens dressed in green and paper Burger King crowns (which still remain a mystery to me…their mascot is The Green Wave not The Green Whopper). A particularly rowdy group of boys claimed the first few rows and led the student section in chants.
“D-FENSE.” Stomp, stomp. “D-FENSE.” Stomp, stomp.
“Go Eagles!” I countered. “Offense!”
“D-FENSE.” Stomp, stomp.
Their feet rattled the bleachers as if a 7.0-magnitude earthquake had struck Elgin. I knew I had my work cut out for me.
My friends and I strutted past the crowd of green, hundreds of fans spanning the stands and upper balcony, until we found solace on the other end of the bleachers. Jodi’s mom waved as I tried to read her lips over the cheers and rumbles. Jodi’s dad rocked behind her, eyes glued to the court, earplugs budding out of his head. He wore some form of soundproof protection at every game (e.g., noise-canceling headphones, earplugs), and I never envied his self-constructed mute button until that night.
The first half was a dog fight. The Lady Eagles stayed within striking distance, trailing by single digits for most of the first sixteen minutes. Of course, the Burger King crowned teens never failed to remind us when their beloved Green Wave knocked down a big three or when they blocked a shot. “OOOOOH!!!” they thundered. But the Lady Eagles kept their poise and countered each punch with their own spurt of momentum—a pair of and-1 putbacks, baskets in transition, and defensive stops that riled up the bench.
Grace, a 5’9 senior and all-time leading scorer for the Lady Eagles, wore her stone-cold game face: blue eyes piercing through a black face mask that gave off big Batwoman vibes. She galloped up and down the court, smacked her hands on the ball when she caught it, set screens that were sturdier than a steel wall. I saw a familiar ghost when I watched Grace. She made one giant clap with her hands if she missed a shot, and muttered fudge under her breath when she was whistled for a foul. She was her biggest critic on the court, and her coaches knew that. When Grace glanced over at the bench, she was met with encouragement and positivity. This blonde Batwoman possessed the most dangerous trio in sports: grit, heart, and great coaches.
Despite all odds, at halftime the Lady Eagles were down by just seven measly points. *Cue Miracles Happen.* There was no halftime show, but there were eight minutes of relief from the Green Wave student section as they dispersed to concessions and bathrooms—another miracle in my book.
“We can win this,” I said to my friend Alissa.
“This is WAY better than I thought it would be,” she admitted.
I surveyed the bleachers and spotted blow-up posters bearing the faces of the Green Wave basketball team members. It was as if their fans had already packed their bags for Normal, where the state tournament finals would be held later in the week. Meanwhile, our lil posse of Eagle fans banded together with earplugs and portable backrests, manifesting a miracle.
“D-FENSE.” Stomp, stomp. “D-FENSE.” Stomp, stomp.
The Elgin earthquake reawakened to start the third quarter. The Lady Eagles now shot on the basket closest to us, and opposite from the student section. Maybe the change of scenery would work in our favor. With the shrieks of those Burger King buffoons further away, maybe the basket would appear bigger. Maybe we’d hit logo threes like fellow Catholic-school girl Caitlin Clark.
“AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!” The student section wailed from across the gym in response to a missed shot by Grace that didn’t see the rim.
“AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!” Their chant continued as Grace hustled back on defense. Her face mask morphed into the blinders of a racehorse, as she remained tunnel-visioned on the court and unbothered by the peripheral noise.
Now, IMO, the airball chant is a rite of passage. You have not achieved basketball greatness until an opposing team has taunted you with that awful two-syllable word. I remember my first airball chant like it was yesterday. I was in high school, playing an away game against our arch nemesis Deerfield. The second my shot missed the entire basket it was like a fire alarm had been pulled. “AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!” rang through the gym, as the opposing student section motioned their hands back and forth.
If that was greatness, then Grace had climbed the pedestal to GOAT (“Greatest of All Time,” for all my baby boomers). For the duration of the game, every time Grace touched the ball, the Green Wave student section erupted in the airball chant. I wish I was exaggerating. Imagine: “AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!” on and off for thirty minutes. By the fifth airball chant, I was livid. I rolled up my sleeves as my skin boiled inside my fuzzy crew neck.
“Can’t they come up with some new content?!” I snapped at Alissa. “Something more original.”
Grace remained unfazed, not once making eye contact with the mob of Burger King hats. The Lady Eagles cut the deficit to six points by the end of the third. Between quarters, a man at the scorer’s table spoke over a microphone to remind attendees of fandom etiquette. And in classic teenage fashion: the students didn’t listen.
“AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!” they continued in the fourth quarter. Every time Grace’s hand so much as tickled the orange leather ball, the student section erupted in jeers. The fact that multiple players from both teams had airballed a shot since Grace’s doozy in the third didn’t seem to matter to the student section, who continued to focus their efforts on Batwoman flying down the court.
The Green Wave went on a run to open the fourth quarter and took a double-digit lead. Time was winding down, and the ESPN win probability reeling through my head slowly converged to zero. You’d think that under such circumstances the opposing team’s fans would let up, cut the girls some slack and show a lil thing called sympathy. Think again!
As Grace approached her final moments of high school basketball, a familiar cry consumed the gym.
“AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!” The crowd showed no mercy. At this point, I was two seconds away from walking over to the student section and confronting their meanie Burger King butts. But for as appalled as I was, Grace didn’t flinch. She just kept playing. Even when the game was all but over, even when she had every right to throw up a middle finger and give the student section a big FUDGE YOU. She didn’t. She just played ball.
If you look up “grace” in the dictionary, you will see words like elegance, beauty, kindness and divine assistance—all of which are necessary traits to endure thirty minutes of “AIRBALL!” But my favorite definition Google provides me for grace is a verb that means “to do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence.” Used in a sentence: Grace graced basketball.
The final buzzer sounded, and a giant green mosh pit formed at center court. My friends and I loitered near the Lady Eagles’ assigned locker room as the team trickled out the door with backpacks and puffy red eyes.
I never know how much to interact with the girls on Jodi’s team. I don’t really know them, but about two games a year I will scream my heart out for them as if they were my own offspring.
Grace and I had exchanged maybe twenty words over the course of her high school career, but I knew I couldn’t leave the gym without saying something to her.
Grace rejected my high five and gave me a hug. From there, she said my greatest love language.
“I read your blog!” I melted. Her mom joined us to form a little huddle outside the locker room door.
“I respect how you didn’t let the student section get to you,” I turned toward her mom, who nodded in agreement. Grace shook it off like no biggie. I ranted about all the things I would’ve done if a crowd of Burger King crowns ever heckled me like that. Her mom validated me with more head nods as Grace stood there solid as a rock.
“Anyways, I respect that a lot.” I told her. “That’s going to take you a lot further than a three-point shot.”
We parted ways, and approximately one hour later I knew that THIS was a story I had to share with all of you miracles out there.
So let’s raise a toast to the Lady Eagles and Grace—to grit, to heart, and to great fudging coaches.
