Chapter 23
Puerto Rico, No Women Alloweed
Tuesday Afternoon
“Miss, we need to talk with you after practice.”
Juan said it formally.
Too formally.
The team stood behind him in a half-circle—
not boys complaining about extra running.
“Okay,” I said lightly.
But you know I can’t let you out of conditioning.”
“It’s not that.” He swallowed.
“It is serious.”
Serious.
The word lodged in my throat.
Dread had been living there all day.
I didn’t know why yet.
Practice ended.
They did not scatter.
They waited.
Juan stepped forward.
The head coach leaned against the gym door.
He watched but didn’t intervene.
That told me everything before Juan spoke again.
“Puerto Rico is machismo. Like Panama.”
I felt it then.
The drop.
The shift.
I was no longer the coach.
I was a woman.
“It is not good for us to take a woman coach there,”
Juan continued carefully.
“If we win—and we will win—they cannot lose to a woman.
It would cause fights.
You might be hurt.
We might be hurt.”
The gym felt smaller.
The boys would not meet my eyes now.
This had cost them something to say.
Part of me wanted to argue.
I had fought broken bikes and cultural puzzles that made no sense.
I had earned my place on that bench.
But another part of me saw what they were doing.
They were not dismissing me.
They were protecting me—and themselves from what would happen if pride exploded in a crowded Puerto Rican gym.
“We have another coach who can go,” Juan said.
“It is not fair to ask.
But it is for safety.”
Safety.
The word did not offend me—not compared to the word in my head.
I looked at my team — my boys — standing straighter than usual.
Trying to be men in a world that measured manhood loudly.
They needed permission.
Not to exclude me.
To survive in their own culture.
So, I reached backward into memory.
“Juan,” I said, steady now,
“I was a little girl in Huntsville, Alabama.
My mom took me to see the Harlem Globetrotters.”
Heads lifted.
“They always win,” one of them said.
“Not that day,” I replied.
“That day, they lost. It broke my heart.
My mother said one day I’d be glad I saw history.”
I paused.
“I think I may have bad luck when it matters most.
I would hate to travel all that way and see you lose.
I will stay here.
But you must win it for me.”
Relief passed through their faces like wind across water.
Juan’s eyes held mine.
He knew.
Each boy hugged me, even the ones who pretended not to need to.
The coach stopped me at the door.
“They talked to you.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am.”
He studied me.
“Were you really at that Globetrotter game?”
“You bet I was.”
And that part was true.
The rest was leadership.
They went to Puerto Rico.
They won.
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