Features: Training Sam
Quickly Jim Ferris, his main trainer, mixed encouragement with demands: “Keep your back straight!” “What’s that word, Sam? It rhymes with ‘antique.’ … Technique. Is that the right technique for curling?” It is both refreshing and startling to place your child into the commanding presence of someone else — it wasn’t just running and weights, but focus, memory, even eye contact, working the whole enchilada of Sam. I said little, worked out myself, and worried; there was a wink and nod in Jim’s voice, but would Sam just hear it as criticism and withdraw further into I can’t? He worked. And Jim would tell me later that he knew he had reached him when Sam would bark back a little, when “What’s the position of your head, Sam? You forget! You can’t forget!” got an annoyed “I know!,” or Sam waving him off, taking responsibility. It took only a few sessions: Running in a line with half a dozen other kids in the leg-kick warm-ups, he was getting those knees high, and then his heels whacking against his butt. Suddenly it wasn’t the athletes, and Sam — he was part of the group. His running was much smoother, he learned to jump sideways over blocks, and back, and back again, controlling his body. He got much stronger.
Six weeks into it, we headed to the local park to shoot some baskets. A year earlier — hell, a month before — Sam would sometimes shoot the ball like he was hoisting a heavy box up to a shelf: two-handed, back on his heels. He was passive, not a player. Now, as I guarded him, he crouched, poised, bouncing the ball one hand to the other, and suddenly took me with a quick crossover dribble. Who was that? I played Sam and his younger brother Nick. Sam’s passes were crisp; he faked me with his eyes. This was a different kid. It wasn’t even so much his play — it was his physical command and control. He had purchase, a presence. He was up to something.
Everyone saw the change. He carried himself better, he looked different. When we visited my in-laws in Margate, he walked in like he owned the joint, and even talked. His trainers, too, saw a night-and-day shift, in how he moved, and in how he’d fool around with them. Matt Roscoe, who when we returned from vacation in late August yelled, “Sam! Where you been, Sam?,” went to him, picked him up in a bear hug, says Sam changed more in a couple months than anyone he’s ever seen at Summit.
Other kids and their parents give Summit the same sort of life-changing plugs; confidence is the word, along with dramatic drops in 40-yard times and gains in strength. Everyone pushed past his comfort zone, including the St. Joe’s players who made, according to coach Phil Martelli, “a stunning improvement” athletically at Summit on the way to last year’s number-one ranking. Ferris continued training Jameer Nelson last summer, on the verge of his first season with the Orlando Magic, the same way he trains Sam.
