Authors: Paul Volponi
The Final Four (20 page)
She was an absolute hottie, probably in her early thirties. She usually wore skirts that hung just above her knees. So when she spoke, everybody on the team listened—and watched.
Ms. Thad stood up to shake Malcolm’s hand. When she sat back down behind her desk, and her legs disappeared from his view, Malcolm’s focus shifted to the framed photo of a brown and white pit bull on the windowsill behind her.
“Have a seat, Malcolm. I’m afraid that I have some difficult questions for you. I take it you understand the meaning of illegal benefits for student athletes?”
“
Illegal?
You mean against the real law, or against the NCAA law?” asked Malcolm, settling himself into a soft leather chair.
“The NCAA doesn’t have put-you-in-jail kinds of laws. It has bylaws—rules and regulations that we have to follow,” she said, pointing to a thick NCAA manual sitting on the corner of her desk. “I received a phone call today from a reporter who’s quite friendly towards MSU. This reporter gave me a heads-up that his newspaper is in the process of gathering information about a possible story concerning your family receiving illegal
benefits because of your position here on the basketball team.”
“That’s crazy. I don’t have a car, money, a job, or nothing like that. My parents drive the same old wreck, live in the exact same apartment. My father may even be getting laid off soon.”
“That’s what makes this so unusual and sensitive,” said Ms. Thad, who picked up a pen and a long yellow legal pad to take notes. “This doesn’t have to do with taking money, cars, a job, or a house. Unfortunately, I need to ask you about your sister’s headstone in Elmwood Cemetery.”
“What?” responded Malcolm, sitting up straighter. “What did you just say to me?”
“I know it’s difficult, but here’s my question to you. Was the headstone paid for by your parents?”
Malcolm slumped back in his chair and thought for a minute. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “That’s their daughter. They paid for everything. The funeral. The grave plot. A headstone. My parents had to spread that kind of money out over three different credit cards.”
“I’m sure they did. But is that the
same
headstone standing there now?”
After a long pause, Malcolm hung his head and answered, “No, it’s not. But why don’t you just leave this all alone?”
“Malcolm, it’s my job to get to the truth. I represent this university. My position is to protect MSU, to find violations that could potentially embarrass us. I’m sorry, but I have to ask you a few more questions concerning this matter.”
Suddenly, Malcolm felt like there was a pit bull behind that
desk in front of him—a pit bull in stockings—to go with the photo on the windowsill.
“When was a headstone first erected?”
“I guess that would be in September of my senior year in high school, almost a year and a half ago,” answered Malcolm. “I remember because I had the tattoo of Trisha on my arm already, and I got that in August.”
“The original headstone? The one your parents paid for?”
“Yes,” said Malcolm, followed by a long breath.
“And when was the new one erected?”
“I’m not sure. The first time I saw it was that November, just about two months later. It was right after Thanksgiving.”
Ms. Thad flipped through the calendar on her desk.
“So that’s more than a year ago—approximately sixteen months. And you’d already committed to play at MSU by then?”
“That’s right.”
“Were your parents surprised the first time they saw the new headstone there?”
“Yeah, my father was. I was there with him. He didn’t know about it. But there are lots of people who loved my sister. It could have been a gift from the marching band at our high school, or somebody rich who wanted to stay anonymous and do a good deed.”
“What about your mother, Malcolm? Was she surprised by it?”
“I guess. My father was the one who told her. After that, she wouldn’t talk about it. None of us would.”
“I see.”
“My parents didn’t go around trying to find out who did it. They just accepted it.”
“That probably would have been fine,” said Ms. Thad, with her pen flying across the pad. “Only it turns out that the newspaper found a receipt for that headstone paid for by Detroit’s biggest sports agent, someone who represents several current NBA players. And that agent’s brother happens to be in a church choir with your mother.”
“I’ve never been contacted by anybody like that. And neither have my parents. They would have told me for sure.”
“Look, right now there’s no newspaper article. Things like that usually take a lot of time. They like to have multiple sources and check every fact to the umpteenth degree before they print. And there’s no NCAA investigation yet either. A headstone isn’t normally perceived as a gift. So maybe nothing’s going to come of this at all. But MSU needs to be prepared. I may have more questions for you at a later time. But for now, don’t speak to anyone about this.”
“Does Coach know?”
“He knows as much as I just told you.”
“What’s the worst thing that could happen to me over something like this?” asked Malcolm. “I’d lose my eligibility? I couldn’t play in the NCAA Tournament next week?”
“No, penalties would never come that fast. An investigation would most likely take several months, maybe a year,” said Ms. Thad. “I imagine you’d be in the NBA by then. MSU, the basketball program, and Coach Barker would eventually pay the
price. You’d be free and clear of the NCAA’s authority.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel good? Because it doesn’t!” said Malcolm, getting up from his chair and then walking towards the frosted glass door. “I don’t need these headaches. None of us do. And over what? Nothing!”
“[Basketball is] now a game for the whole world.”
—Vlade Divac, a humanitarian and one of the first Eastern European players to compete in the NBA
ROKO BACIC
8:05 P.M. [CT]
W
ith 3:10 remaining and the game still knotted up, Roko gets stripped of the ball by Malcolm’s lightning-swift hands. He tries to banish the thought of that turnover from his mind. It gets easier to do with the Spartans flying down the court in a wave, intent on seizing the lead. You can’t be a good point guard or a good defender without having a short memory, without the ability to forget about your last mistake.
In the span of just a few backpedaling strides, Roko’s thoughts become clear and focused as he searches for an angle to cut off Malcolm’s dribble.
To Roko’s left, Aaron arrives to double-team Malcolm,
convinced he has no intention of passing the ball. That causes Roko to instantly readjust his calculations, and slightly turn his body.
Roko and Aaron hang like a crimson shadow over Malcolm as he attacks the hoop on a driving layup.
When Malcolm extends the rock in his right hand, both defenders go for the block. And for an instant, the hands of all three players are touching the ball.
The ref’s whistle blows for a foul on the Trojans.
“That was perfect defense!” screams Coach Kennedy from the sideline. “We tied him up! Where was the contact? You let
them
play like thugs, and we can’t breathe on anybody!”
Roko raises his hand to say it’s on him. But the ref shakes his head, pointing at Aaron. It’s his fifth and final foul, so Aaron is now out of the game.
“That’s it,” says Malcolm. “We’re going to pull their team apart piece by piece.”
The Superdome crowd gives Aaron a standing ovation as he walks off the court. But the loudest applause is coming from his family and friends behind the Trojans’ bench. And Roko, along with his red-wigged surrogate parents, claps his hands harder and harder for him.
A moment later, Malcolm sets his feet at the free-throw line.
Putting that blown breakaway dunk behind him, he buries both foul shots.
The Spartans lead the Trojans 88–86.
March 29 (two days ago)
This morning I walked into the Superdome for the first time. I couldn’t believe its incredible size. Maybe it’s big enough to land a jumbo jet inside, or build a small city beneath its roof. Before we went to our locker room to change, Coach Kennedy arranged for Aaron, his mother, and his aunt and uncle to take us on a special tour. They brought us to section 111 and we all sat down in the seats there. That’s the section where Aaron and his family stayed for two days and nights to survive Hurricane Katrina, back in the summer of 2005, when Aaron was fourteen years old. I knew it was going to be a serious talk from the heart because it was the only time that Aaron’s aunt and uncle (my official parents in New Orleans) took off their red curly wigs. So I pulled out a pen and my notebook.
Aaron wanted his mother to speak. But she said, “These are your teammates. You share a bond with them that I don’t. They need to hear about what happened from you.” So Aaron told us about his first morning here. How it started out almost as a great adventure. “I kept looking at the football field on the floor, where the basketball court is laid out now. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here for free. It was like a dream,” said
Aaron. Then he told about how fast that dream turned into a living nightmare, like the Freddy Krueger character from the movies was suddenly turned loose on the thousands of people seeking shelter inside the Superdome.
“First thing—boom, the AC stopped working. It got to be like 120 degrees in here with all the heat and humidity. Then more and more people came, lots of them in bad shape from the storm, adding more body heat. There were crazy long lines to get food. National Guard soldiers with machine guns handed out box lunches. Then they ran out of supplies and people started fighting over whatever food and water they could get their hands on,” Aaron said.
Aaron’s uncle told him not to forget about the bathrooms. But his uncle got so upset just mentioning it that he started to tell that part himself. “All the toilets backed up when the water pressure dropped, because of the floods in the streets. That stink was everywhere in the Superdome. You couldn’t escape it. You couldn’t step into a bathroom without getting sick to your stomach. So people started relieving themselves in every corner of this place,” said his uncle, sounding as angry as if it had happened yesterday.
When he said that, I thought about those terrible times as a small boy in Zagreb. The nights
we hid in my neighbor’s basement overnight with no bathroom, because of the exploding mortar shells outside.
Finally, Aaron’s mother spoke. She said, “It wasn’t all evil. There were some beautiful things that happened here too. They were things that would really touch your heart, like people doing good deeds for complete strangers, treating them like family, and sharing the last of their food and drink with the sickly and senior citizens. But lots of elderly folks died in the heat waiting for medical help. And none of us trapped here knew for sure if we’d have a home to go back to, or if our city would be completely washed away, killing off our culture, our roots. One of the only things that eased my mind was the fact that the football team that plays in this stadium is named the Saints. I took that as a sign and a blessing.”
Coach Kennedy stood up from his seat, like he was a student and Aaron’s mother was a professor. He asked her, “How do you feel when you look around the Superdome now and see all of it put back together, knowing your son will play here in the Final Four?” She thought about it for a few seconds and then said, “Part of me feels a real sense of triumph for my family and the people of New Orleans. Another part of me looks at the free
tickets we got for the game and says that isn’t nearly enough to make up for what we went through in this Superdome. So it’s all very mixed emotions for me. I guess I’m optimistic, grateful, and bitter all at the same time.”
As we left, I looked around at that perfect stadium and the hundreds of workers polishing things up like new for the Final Four. I thought about Croatia and wondered if my country would ever get put back together.
Maybe the souls of New Orleans and Zagreb are not so different.
Maybe Aaron is closer to being my brother than I ever knew.
“If you make every game a life-and-death proposition, you’re going to have problems. For one thing, you’ll be dead a lot.”
—Dean Smith, who coached the University of North Carolina for thirty-six years, winning two NCAA Championships and reaching the Final Four eleven times
CRISPIN RICE
8:07 P.M. [CT]
W
ithout the threat of the sharpshooting Aaron in the lineup, the Spartans blanket Crispin and Roko, stifling the Trojans’ offense. As the shot clock winds down, Crispin is forced into a tough off-balance floater in the lane. Michigan State hauls in the rebound. They head up court with Malcolm in control of the ball, looking to increase their two-point lead with 2:35 remaining.
Crispin is battling Grizzly Bear Cousins for position down low.
Then, suddenly, Grizzly steps out to set a hard screen on Roko.
The pair collides and the referee whistles Roko for the foul, his fourth of the game.
Coach Kennedy leaps off the bench and onto the court to argue the call.
“There’s no way that’s on us!” screams Kennedy, whose right arm slips loose from his suit jacket’s sleeve. “That’s bullshit! Fouls? All game long they’ve been getting away with felonies!”
Crispin sees his coach yank his other arm from its sleeve and fling his jacket to the floor.
That’s when Crispin jumps in front of Kennedy, pulling him away from the referee.
The ref has the whistle in his mouth and his hands ready to make the letter T.
The only things saving Kennedy from a technical foul and free throws by the Spartans is the ref’s patience and Crispin’s grip on his coach.
As Kennedy starts to simmer down and Crispin relaxes his hold, the coach tells him, “Don’t waste your strength. You’re going to need every bit of it on the court.”