Training Camp

You know you are about to start an unusual book when you are asked to sign the following contract before you even read the first page of the text:

W

I, the Reader, hereby agree to learn
from Professor Rolabi Wizenard the
nature of all things.

This contract is bound by the laws
that govern the Kingdom of Granity.

Sign here

____________________________

Another unusual feature of Training Camp is that every chapter is introduced by a Wizenard Proverb, such as “The past is a gift. It reminds you that there is a future”, or “If you assume someone is perfect, you miss the opportunity to help them”. Each proverb speaks, in some way, to the contents of the chapter it introduces.

Training Camp is actually a blend of two genres – a basketball sports story and a fantasy. The volume contains five linked books that each span the same 10 days in July, with each book focusing on a member of the West Bottom Badgers, a basketball team that plays in the Elite Youth League. The 10 Badger team members are all 12-year-olds with the exception of one 11-year-old. The Bottom is the poorest region in the country of Dren, and personal achievement in the league can mean a way out of the Bottom’s poverty – an offer to play basketball at the college level which, in turn, could lead to a lucrative professional career. History, however, suggests that the odds of such success are against these boys. “No team from the Bottom had ever made the nationals. Fewer than ten had gotten a scholarship. Two had played in the Dren Basketball League...and neither had been close to a star.” When readers first meet this iteration of the Badgers, the team is about to begin its third season, having finished last in the league the previous two years.

Given the team’s poor performance, the Badgers’ owner has engaged a new coach who has announced that he will be holding a 10-day training camp and that the players, including the starters, must treat it as a tryout camp. “Everyone earns a place on my team.” Each day of the camp then becomes a chapter in each of the five players’ books. Consequently, readers see the same 10 days being repeated but from five different perspectives. And, while the same major daily events do occur in the lives of all five focal characters, there are enough different happenings impacting each book’s character that readers are not left feeling that they’ve just read the same book multiple times.

The opening book features Sean “Rain” Adams, the Badgers’ star player and the one who seemingly has the best chance of making it to the pros. Alfred “Twig” Zetz, who, because of his slight stature, is considered one of the team’s weaker players, is focused on next. The middle book belongs to Devon Jackson, a newcomer who later acquires the nickname “Cash”. Brothers Carlos “Peño” Juarez and Javi “Lab” Juarez, the latter the team’s only 11-year-old, are each central in the volume’s last two books.

Essentially, Training Camp is a series of character studies, and, in each book, the central figure must conquer a fear. For Rain, whose father had deserted the family, his concern is that he will not make it to the professional level and, therefore, will not have the money to reunite his family and take them out of the Bottom. Twig has body-image issues that are exacerbated by his demanding father who is trying to relive his own past sports glories through his son. Cash, the very large and muscular newcomer, also has body issues, but they are the very opposite of Twig’s. Brothers Peño and Lab are dealing in different ways with their mother’s cancer death three years earlier. As the older brother, Peño has dealt with his mother’s passing by assuming a parental role while Lab still remains grief-stricken.

To this point in the review of Training Camp, this book could appear to be just another realistic sports novel. The fantasy in Training Camp appears in the form of the team’s new coach, Professor Rolabi Wizenard (pronounced Role–ah–bee Whiz– an–Ard) and his unusual training methods. Rain, the first to describe Rolabi, says:

The figure was enormous–tall enough that he had to duck to step through the doorway, which must have been near seven feet, and his salted black hair brushed against the frame. He wore a full three-piece suit and polished black leather shoes....His skin was a warm light brown, marked with two white scars, thin as the edge of a knife, that ran from his cheeks to his chin....As the man approached, his eyes moved over them–a fiery green wreathed in a yellow aura. His dark pupils, at first pinpricks, began to steadily grow.

Seemingly able to magically appear and disappear at will, Rolabi, who can inject his thoughts into the players’ heads, obviously understands the finer points of how to play the game of basketball, but his daily training methods are most unusual. For instance, on the third day of training camp, Rolabi magically “removes” the players’ preferred hand, forcing them to run through the drills using only their non-dominant hand. On the eight day, as the players practice team offense, their shadows come alive and serve as their opposition.

Initially, exactly who, or what, Rolabi is remains a mystery, but, as the players’ books unfold, readers can gather information about him. Twig, for example, recalls having previously encountered the word “Granity” that appeared on the contract Rolabi required the players to sign. Later, Twig connects the term to a children’s story that had been read to him (or he had read ) a long time ago. “It had been about magic....” and that, in the book, Wizenard wasn’t a surname but a title. At home, Twig locates the book, The World of Grana.

It was about an island, a place far out in the ocean and marked with a single snowcapped mountain: the Kingdom of Granity. There were teachers there – women and men who traveled the world unlocking grana, moving in and out of societies like ghosts. They were called Wizenards.

While Rolabi employs his magic to make the West Bottom Badgers overall a better basketball team, he also uses it to make the individual players, especially the featured five, better human beings.

Near the end of Rain’s book, Rolabi tells him:

“After the camp, we will return to three evening practices a week until the start of the season. We will practice everything we have discussed here again and again until it becomes second nature. In your free time, you will focus on your mind. Read. Study. Learn to see. The mind and the body are intertwined; if you neglect one, the other will fail.”

The contents of Training Camp also hint at another plotline, one that will likely be developed in future books. It appears that magic once existed in Dren, but it had been suppressed by the nation’s president, President Talin. Reggie, who is one of the bench players, shares with Twig that his parents, both killed in an auto accident, had been reporters who had spoken out against Dren’s president.

The size of Training Camp may initially intimidate some potential readers, but, if they enter its pages, they will “learn from Professor Rolabi Wizenard the nature of all things”. Though the book is a fantasy, the many parallels to our contemporary world are obvious.