kid from courage sample

The Kid from Courage (fiction), sample page:

I laughed heartily. At that moment I was struck by how comfortable I felt when I was around Mr. Johnson, and how much he made me believe that I could actually accomplish something in tennis. Nobody had ever made me feel like that before. Suddenly, without thinking, I blurted out, “Will you be my coach?”
     Mr. Johnson stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Because a lot of people would say that you’re making a mistake.”
     He was right. I was a ranked junior who had been taking lessons from legitimate teaching pros for several years. There was no question that I had improved. To switch over to Henry Johnson seemed utterly ridiculous and a huge gamble. Even though the old man had been a teaching pro in his younger days, his credentials were not exactly dazzling. His only claim to fame was that he had once coached a well-known junior, the one who died, but that was over fifty years ago.
     But the bottom line was that I had big-time dreams in tennis and, regardless of what anyone else might think, I had come to the conclusion that this grizzled old man could help me get there. He had coached that kid, Johnny Matthews, to the very brink of stardom. Could there be enough magic left in his old bones to do it again?
     “You with me, kid?” Mr. Johnson tried to jolt me from my daydream.
     “Yes, sir.” Our eyes met and I said, “There’s nothing in the world I want more than to become a great tennis player. Can you help me?”
     As if deep in thought, he looked past me and onto the tennis courts. A few seconds later he extended his hand and I shook it.
  “I think I can, Bryan. Be here tomorrow at three-thirty and we’ll get started. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”