dawn drills: administering the academy is a discipline of dread

The institution seen from the top, as a load of managed anxiety: Tavis governs the body-machine by "cultivating a kind of reverse-Buddhism, a state of Total Worry" — matriculations, gender quotas, ranking-driven room assignments, drill schedules that reshuffle every time a player moves up or down a squad. The academy that drills serenity into its players' bodies is run, at the administrative level, on pure stress; the calm court is the output of a Headmaster standing at a dawn window with his lips moving soundlessly over permutations.