The Game

By John Sparks

Ken Puckett was a typical fifteen year old growing up in a small town, USA. He was a big time sports fan, and all he wanted to do was play his sports. Sports were a major part of his young life. But what he found out as he started to become involved in organized school sports, was that he would not only be taught lessons on the football field and basketball court, but also lessons in life. That was the time he started to become a young man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 7, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462814190

John Sparks

John Sparks, born as Eulacriss Morrow grew up in smalltown, USA and did fall in love with sports at an early age. Not only did he enjoy playing sports, but also enjoyed reading juvenile sports stories. He started writing poems and short stories at an early age, and had a few published in regional magazines. His first attempt at a juvenile sport story took years to finish. Family, life, and other career goals got in the way of his writings. He currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and two kids.

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Copyright © 2009 by John Sparks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Foreword

Ken Puckett was a typical fifteen year old growing up in small town, USA. He was a big time sports fan, and all he wanted to do was play his sports. Sports were a major part of his young life. But what he found out as he started to become involved in organized school sports, was that he would not only be taught lessons on the football field and basketball court, but also lessons in life. That was the time he started to become a young man.

Chapter One

If there was anything typical about being a fifteen-year-old black kid growing up in a small town near the Kentucky/Tennessee border, then Ken Puckett could be called typical. He stood five feet, nine inches tall, and weighed one hundred and forty-five pounds at the most. Ken was an only child. He was born to Bob and Mary Puckett on June 10th, 1956. He had spent his whole life, a mere fifteen years, living in the town of Milford, Kentucky.

Milford’s population could have not been more then 20, 000 people. Its black population had to be somewhere around fifteen percent. Ken could not recall any real racial problems as he had grown up there, although at the age of fifteen, it had been a little more than two years since Martin Luther King had been assassinated. He lived through the civil rights era as a child, and the closest he could recall as a racial problem, was when some kid would yell a racial name at them, and then run away. But as far as the riots and problems that were seen on television, Milford didn’t have that problem. When integration of the schools came about in the late sixties, everything seemed to move along smoothly. Of course there were a number of fights that broke out, but it was nothing that got out of control. Blacks and whites seemed to embrace the change and move on with their lives.

One thing that occupied Ken’s mind, as well as a lot of the other teenagers in his town, was sports. He loved to read about sports, and enjoyed participating, once he got started. As a teenager sports and girls were all that were on his mind. But the girls were another story. He spent many days in the library reading the sport books about kids his own age. He read books about basketball, football, and sometimes, even baseball, although he never really developed a liking for playing baseball. He tried it one summer. That was his only and last time playing. He just couldn’t adapt to the long periods standing in the sun waiting on something to happen. His interest in football and basketball had peaked when he first started playing with his junior high team. Before that, he played a lot of sandlot games. He just didn’t know what he had been missing by not playing organized ball.

A typical childhood was how Ken would explain his. It was one filled with friends and the fun times they had. His father had worked at the local boot factory for thirty years, and finally was able to achieve his lifelong dream of retiring to his own farm in the country. The farm was located about fifteen miles from Milford, which was outside of the city limits. The main thing Ken hated about their move was that he would now have to attend one of the county schools. He wasn’t fond of that, but he knew how much everything meant to his dad. The farm was his dream, and he didn’t want to disappoint him by complaining.

One of the hardest things Ken would have to do was leave all the friends he had made over the years. His life was in Milford. The only time he had been away was the two weeks he spent with his cousins during summer vacation. He enjoyed the country living for those two weeks. But he had never thought he would one day live in the country. That meant he would have to attend one of the five surrounding county schools.

Alton High School was the one that Ken would be assigned to attend. It was located about twenty miles from Milford. Their home would be located just about in the middle of Alton and Milford, but about two miles outside Milford city limits. Therefore, he would be zoned for Alton. He knew very little about the school. He did know that both his junior high and freshman basketball teams had played them. They defeated them badly each time they played. And he did notice that they had only one black kid on the team at that time. The Milford players had referred to them as country hicks at the time. He couldn’t help but smile as he now pictured himself as a country hick.

Ken’s dad used to talk to him all the time about being born and raised on a farm. He felt like there was no other life. He loved working the land and roaming the wide-open fields. He had made it sound like a lot of fun. Ken knew from listening to his stories that he had missed it. Now, at the age of fifty-two years old, his dad was to see his dream come true. Ken’s mom also had her doubts about moving to the country. Milford was not a major city, but compared to Alton’s population of eleven hundred, their twenty thousand people made it seem so much bigger.

The house that they would live in was larger then the one they rented for the past ten years in Milford. The nearest neighbor would be over a mile away. Ken’s dad would have to start out small with his farming. They would have a couple of cows and a bull. They also would have a few hogs and a flock of chickens on the twenty-five acres. He would not raise any crops the first year, but would prepare the fields for the following year. His dad would make extra money helping some of the area farmers whom had larger farms. They didn’t have a lot, they would not make a lot of money, but his family had never been well off. His dad kept food on the table, a roof over their heads, and clothes on their backs. This move was a chance that his dad was taking. Ken knew, even at his young age, that sometimes you had to take chances in life. His dad had drilled that into his head. But he didn’t know how he would adjust to this new life. He