I took the SAT for the first time in May of last year, and it was awful. The supervisor was a woman with a very short body and very long hair, and her voice grated on my soul. She did give me a lefty desk, which was nice of her, but she refused to give us five-minute warnings, and, in front of everybody, she threatened to void one girl’s test because she was still holding her pencil when time was called.

For some reason, the makers of the SAT thought it would be a good idea to put the essay section first. It wasn’t. It would have been nice to have been able to warm up with a little multiple choice; a few none of the above’s for my bubblin’ pleasure. But instead, the first thing I encountered on my test was this question: Did I think society should place so much emphasis on “number one?”

Because it was early in the morning, I was frazzled, and the proctors wouldn’t let me eat my peanut M&Ms, I said no; I wrote something about diminishing the accomplishments of others and so forth. But I don’t think that that’s what I actually believe, or at least not in all cases. It isn’t fair to award one person a Nobel Prize when the criteria is as subjective as it is, but sometimes a number-one ranking just can’t be denied. If we didn’t emphasize number one, we wouldn’t have America’s Next Top Model, and I wouldn’t have won all that deodorant in the breath-holding contest at the mall when I was ten. We wouldn’t be able to elect a president. The Compare People application on Facebook wouldn’t exist; nor would valedictorians. And if we didn’t rank anyone number one, we wouldn’t have Tony Wroten.

See, here’s the thing about Tony Wroten. He’s a sophomore, and he is really, really good at basketball. Nationwide, he’s ranked number one in his class.

“If somebody’s gonna be rated ahead of him,” says Clark Francis, who compiles these rankings through Hoopscoop​.com in Kentucky, “they’ve gotta earn it. And right now, nobody’s even close to him. It’s not even negotiable.”

Brandon Roy, last year’s NBA Rookie of the Year and a member of this year’s All-Star Team, tells me, “He’s way better than I ever was at his age.”

“If he does what he’s supposed to do,” says Tony’s Boys and Girls Club coach Darryl Hennings, who has seen Roy, Jamaal Crawford, and number three-ranked senior Peyton Siva go through his program, “he’s gonna be one of those top NBA players. He could be number one overall, easily. I mean — Lebron James, and this is hard for me to say, because I’ve seen Lebron James in the sixth and seventh grade — and Tony’s better than he was in sixth and seventh grade. When Lebron was in the ninth grade, you know, he was about 6’5”, like Tony, he had somewhat of a similar game to Tony, but he wasn’t as strong as Tony. And he wasn’t quite as explosive as Tony.

“So,” he laughs, “just put that in perspective.”

Everybody wants to be really good at something, but only the number two-ranked sophomore in the nation is truly jealous of Tony Wroten. It takes being able to withstand an enormous amount of pressure to be what Tony is. It’s probably excruciatingly difficult to walk around all day with such a burden on one’s 15-year-old shoulders, without bursting out in tears with every paper cut or dirty look.

I wonder what Tony Wroten would have written in his essay.

The first time I meet Tony Wroten is during sixth period on a Tuesday. He is slumped over his desk until I ask to talk to him in the hall, and then he straightens up and slowly walks out. I am thunderstruck by how tall he is and how old he looks; he might actually be twenty-five. He’s very polite and gracious, and when I ask when we can do our first interview, he leans against the wall and says that anytime works for him.

He shows up for the first interview on time. He’s visibly nervous but he answers my questions like he’s had years of training. Afterwards, I ask if I can sit in on practice, I ask if I can talk to his parents and his coach and his friends. He agrees to everything, and when I ask him out to a lunch interview, he says sure.

The day of my hot date, I go to the Messenger room at the beginning of lunch, where we’ve agreed to meet. On my way there, I spot Tony loitering in the foyer; he’s fiddling with his right ear and seems unsure of what to do with himself. As I pass, he sees me but pretends not to. I go to the Messenger room and wait. Seven minutes later, I go back out the foyer to look for him, but he’s gone. I’ve been stood up. I approach him with some indignation when I see him after school, and he looks at me like I’m a little yappy dog running around his ankles, which I suppose isn’t terribly inaccurate. “Oh,” he says. “Uh…I forgot.” He doesn’t apologize.

I fume inwardly about this until I talk to Dan Finkley, Garfield’s recently ex-coach. “I’ll tell you a story,” he says. “Well, I guess it’s not a story, it’s just weird — whenever we go out to eat, he doesn’t want to eat in the restaurant. “He’ll be just standing around watching us — it’s like, Go sit down! And eat your food! He doesn’t want to sit down, so he’ll always cop an attitude.”
Recently, the team went to Denny’s on a Thursday night, and “he got mad,” says Finkley. “I said, ‘Nope, this time, we’re going to stay here; you’re gonna eat.’”

“I don’t wanna eat here,” said Tony.

“What do you mean you don’t want — everybody’s eating! Everybody’s socializing, having a good time!”

“I don’t like eating in restaurants.”

“You know, he was hot. Mad,” says Finkley. “He went and sat by himself, and then Glenn Brooks, one of the other teammates, went and sat with him in the booth and he ate his food. But he doesn’t like eating in restaurants. That’s weird, huh?”

I decide not to ask Tony out on another lunch date.

It’s fifth period, and Tony Wroten is fidgeting. He has several ways of doing this, and all are very distracting. While I’m talking to him, he’ll hold on to the leg of the table and rub his hand along it vigorously and rhythmically, producing a squeaky kind of noise and causing my recorder to skitter across the tabletop; or he’ll flip his hat on and off his head a million times, never satisfied with how it perches. My personal favorite is when, as he listens to me talk, he hunches his long, broad-shouldered body down to the desk to gnaw on the mouth of his VitaminWater bottle like a puppy. He watches me anxiously as he does this, and I do my best to disguise my laugh as a strangled cough.

Tony’s always fidgeting, but today it’s ridiculous. Tonight, Garfield has a home game against Franklin. Huge white banners hung in every hallway have been advertising this for weeks, and the school is buzzing with an energy that I haven’t felt since my freshman year. This is possibly the last time our basketball team will get a chance to play our rival school before the team switches divisions. It’s been a long time since we beat Franklin, but now we have Tony.

He really can’t sit still. “Oh man,” he says. “The gym’s gonna be burning hot. Everybody’s gonna be there.” Everyone’s talking about it, I tell him.

“I know. That’s why I can’t wait till tonight. I’ma go home…first I’m gonna get my hair cut, then go home and relax.”

I ask him if he always gets a haircut before a big game.

“Oh, no,” he says. “This is so big; I gotta get my hair cut. Last game we lost by fifteen, and that can’t happen again. We gotta win.”

Recently, Tony partook in a two-week whirlwind romance with — wait for it! — a Franklin cheerleader. “But I broke up with her,” he says. “I couldn’t date her. It’s like a rival school; one of the biggest rivalries…

“She used to tell me, ‘Oh, I don’t care if I’m cheering, I’m just gonna be cheering for you.’ That won’t look right, if she’s a Franklin cheerleader just cheering for me, stuff like that…I couldn’t date a cheerleader.”

“Tell me you didn’t break up with her because of this game.”

He pauses. “Well,” he says sheepishly, “I didn’t, but…the game had something to do with it.”

I ask what it’ll be like tonight, with Franklin Cheerleader and Tony’s other ex, Gabby, together in the same burning-hot gym.

Suddenly, Tony looks very old and tired. He slumps over, takes off his hat again, and rubs his soon-to-be-sheared head wearily before plopping his hat back on.

“Man. They both know they’re gonna be at the game.” He contemplates for a second. “The cheerleader said she’s not gonna be cheering for me.

“Gabby — I don’t know what she’s gonna do. She’s just gonna be quiet, not doing nothing.” Hat off. Hat on. “Hopefully they won’t even see each other.”

That night, it pours. A line winds halfway around the school. Even after the gym reaches its full capacity and the doors are locked, for a good hour, dozens of people wait outside, pressing up and pounding against the muggy windows, flashing twenties at Ms. Jackson-Williams, yelling and shoving and making the glass rattle in its panes.

I don’t find out if Franklin Cheerleader and Gabby ever see each other. But everybody watches as Garfield loses 79 to 50. I’ve rarely seen anyone work as hard as Tony does tonight, but everything still falls short.

Afterwards, I see him coming out of the locker room, and as he passes me I start to say his name. Without stopping, he shakes me off, and I quickly forget whatever inane question I was going to ask. Instead, I stand in the emptying gym and watch the back of Tony’s head, with its three freshly-shaved stripes, move swiftly through the double doors and disappear into the black rain.