March Madness

The AD and the Dean were both there. There was no question of who should coach the team for the rest of that season and for the future.

I got a bump in salary. I still wasn't making anywhere near what the big guys made, but Gloria and I were more than comfortable. There was also the case that I was now free to pursue my own agenda. I started staking out the high schools and the play grounds in some of the more crime ridden and lower parts of the state. Places like Flint and Highland Park, were kids were more likely to go to jail than they were to college.

I spoke to a few parents and for the chance to get their kids not necessarily to the NBA but just for a chance at college and a decent future, transfers to different schools were made. My track record was terrible. Out of eight kids that I thought were promising, three joined gangs and went to prison before high-school ended. Another two dropped out of school before their senior year. One got his girlfriend pregnant and got a job. One more OD'd on drugs and the last one...He became my starting point guard. Jamal Johnson was as smooth as ice cream on a stick. He was totally unselfish as a player and also totally unflappable.

Jamal kept his nose clean, his grades up and enjoyed his first year in college. He made friends and did well in his studies. The only problem was he didn't fit in with the other players on our team. He had great leadership abilities but unfortunately, he was the only player on the team with the potential to go beyond the box we found ourselves in.

By the end of his first season, there were other schools trying to steal him away from me. That gave me an idea. If other schools could try to poach my players why couldn't I? I, of course, would stay within the rules. I wouldn't go after any team's active roster but what about their castoff kids?

During the summer I looked at nearly every team in existence. And I found what I was looking for. I found other players to put around Jamal. From Ohshiticantstandit Tech I found my shooting guard. Okay he wasn't much of a guard. He couldn't even dribble. But Timmy Turner could shoot the lights out from any place on the court. He'd already been cut from his small West Virginia technical school and was about to lose his basketball scholarship. He had two choices. Move to Michigan or move into the coal mines. It was a tough choice but he picked Michigan. My associate coaches looked at me as if I was crazy. "Have you seen any film on this guy?" they asked. I nodded.

"Can you prove to me that he can move?" some of them asked. I just smiled because I had a plan. Timmy reminded me of someone else.

My two forwards I found in two equally unlikely places. I found Igor Wastichevski in a Hamtramck bakery. He was on a break from making paczkis and I saw him playing against a bunch of black kids in the neighborhood. For a white guy he sounded like them. He kind of looked like a taller version of the rapper Eminem.

Joel Grissom I found in prison, of course. He been caught stealing everything in his neighborhood that wasn't nailed down. The judge had given him a choice. Go to the army, go to college or go to jail. Joel thought that if he went into the army he'd get killed. He tried his ass off but he couldn't get into a college to save his life.

After pulling a few strings and getting a judge to review his case, I managed to get Joel out of jail. His release was contingent on him getting into school. There was also the condition that he stayed clean and away from any type of criminal behavior. If his name was even linked with any type of wrong doing he'd be sent back to jail. The judge also had him fitted with a very sophisticated tether. It was different from the ones the guys on work release wore. Besides giving us his location at any given time, it would store everywhere he'd been. Joel was so tired of getting his asshole plugged in jail that he was ready to try anything to get out.

That second season we won a lot more games, even though my team hadn't really had a chance to gel yet. The only thing I was really missing was a big presence in the center. Even some of the major schools in our area were impressed with my team. They called them the best three and a half man team they'd ever seen.

That summer I found my missing piece. Surprisingly enough he was already right there under my nose. Billy Bathgate was a student at my own school. He was a wrestler of all things, from Boston. He was almost seven feet tall and still growing. He'd been kicked off of the wrestling team for being too aggressive and was about to lose his scholarship. I spent the summer teaching Billy the fundamentals of basketball. Unfortunately, his shots were hit and miss. Over the course of the summer I was able to impart a few basic skills to him. I taught him to pass, to dunk and to elbow.

Billy's job would be mostly to keep the opposing teams players out of the paint. Jamal would handle everything else.

Going into Jamal's junior year was scary. I felt sure that we were on the verge of greatness, but my staff looked at my team like they were all from the island of misfit toys. Our offense was simple but devastating. The pick and roll had been employed by NBA teams and college teams since time began. It was all based on Jamal's reads and situation awareness.

Jamal was my unquestioned floor leader. He was the second coming of Jordan. He spread the ball around the floor so no one could ever tell who'd be the one in scoring position. He learned to use the weaknesses of the other players to our advantage.

Igor and Joel were both ball hogs who liked to score. Jamal had no problem drawing the attention to him-self and then passing to whichever one of them was in scoring position. That made the two of them deadlier. And since Jamal did most of the ball handling, it left the two of them free to get into scoring position. They ran around like track stars, getting free of defenders and waiting for the ball.

Billy had a tendency to foul out. And putting him on the foul line was a nightmare. We may as well as just put down zeros. His free throw percentage was in the low teens. We were all actually surprised when he made one. Surprisingly though, very few teams tried fouling him as a strategy. Billy had clotheslined a few players early in the season and most of our opponents wanted no part of him.

On the good side though, as Billy got more games under his belt he became a rebounding machine. It was a normal sight on both ends of the court to see him leap high in the air snatch the ball out of midair or an opponent's hand and deliver it to Jamal. If Jamal was covered, then the deadly elbows kept defenders at a distance until Jamal got clear.

That left only the immovable Timmy Turner. Timmy's job was not to run plays or even to try to defend overly hard. Timmy was as clumsy as the day is long. He had a habit of tripping over not only his own two feet but anyone he tried to defend. Timmy's job was to post up somewhere out in the boonies of three point land and get comfortable.

Most teams double teamed Jamal and or Billy, so if Jamal was double teamed and couldn't get free. He just chucked the ball out to the deadly accurate Timmy Turner in three point land and made the opposition pay.

If Jamal was my bargain basement Michael Jordan, then Billy was Bill Laimbeer and Timmy was Steve Kerr. During their junior year we rolled to the undisputed top spot in our conference and right into the NCAA tournament. It was the school's first time ever in the big dance. We would have made it a lot further than the first round, but my guys had no experience playing at that level. We also had no bench and no reserves. So If Bill fouled out, which wasn't uncommon or was thrown out of the game like he was against our first round opponent, things went downhill fast.

That brings us to this year. Over the summer I had a chance to develop every aspect of the player's game and even bring some of my supporting players' standards up as well. I brought them up at least to the level where if I had to take one of my Fab five out for a rest the whole game wouldn't collapse and we could at least stay close.

Billy actually developed a short distance hook shot and a very effective short distance jumper. He also developed acting skills. I sent him to improv classes in our performing arts department. The goal was to have him get some of those close calls by flopping and pretending to be hurt.

Over the season he was able to parlay his acting talents into possessions. Several times he'd actually run roughshod over opposing players, knock the shit out of them and make it seem like he had been the one who was fouled.

Everyone was taking notice of us. Not only around our own school but Sports Illustrated and ESPN were often at our games and on our campus. The AD and the Dean, both friends of mine, were ecstatic. Since during the course of the season we'd beaten many of the perennial big time champions, Las Vegas odds makers were calling us a certainty to be this year's Cinderella story.

All of the experts were predicting that we were an upset in the making and might possibly go as far as the final four or beyond.

Gloria seemed to be behind the team as much as I was. She did her brackets just like all of the guys around campus did and even asked me for help doing it. I was sure that she was making two and three dollar bets with the ladies from her club like everyone else on campus.

I'd been interviewed by so many magazines and sports shows that I couldn't keep them straight. Our first round opponents were beaten badly this year. We beat them by twenty points. We also broke their spirit in the process and did it with style. At our end of the court, Igor missed an easy jumper, but Billy got the offensive glass for a second chance. He fed the ball out to Jamal who immediately passed it across the court to Joel. Two defenders headed for Joel who immediately threw the ball upwards towards the basket in perfect position to Alley oop Jamal who slammed the ball into the net with unbridled ferocity.

The slam sent the entire backboard shaking and vibrating so loudly that the crowd was stunned into silence. We rolled onto fifteen more unanswered points and any question of us being a one and done team like last year were put to rest.

My team, my staff and my entire university celebrated the victory and looked forward to our next game. My starting five were on the cover of that week's Sports Illustrated with a small inset picture of me cheering them on.

It got to the point where I couldn't drive through the streets. Anywhere my Torch red Mustang was seen a riot ensued. My car's Magnaflow exhaust system was loud enough that it could be heard before I got to wherever I was going. I'd thought several times about getting a less noticeable car. But that car was the first thing I'd given myself and I loved it.

After two more victories against good teams, we were not only in the elite eight, but our path seemed clear. The next opponent we had to face was UNLV and we'd beaten them twice during the regular season. We'd beaten them both at home and on the road in front of their home crowd. ESPN thought that we were a shoe in for our first final four appearance.

That night I was so happy I didn't know what to do. I wanted to go out and celebrate after the game. I called Gloria but her phone went straight to voicemail. I figured she was out grabbing a drink with the girls the way she did after most games this season. The girls were the dean's wife Harriet and the AD's wife Millicent.

Over the past ten years that we'd been married, the years had been kind both to me and to Gloria. She'd picked up a few pounds, mostly around her breasts and her ass, but she was still beautiful. The slight curve to her tummy only served to enhance her femininity. She was just as sexy to me now as she'd been the day we met.

Harriet and Millicent were slightly older and though I couldn't exactly call them sexy, they were fun girls. We all got together for barbecues and had even taken a few trips together during the summers. I didn't begrudge Gloria a little bit of fun with her friends. God knew she deserved it for putting up with my obsession with the team during the season. The term basketball wives had been coined just for women like Gloria, Harriet and Millicent.

Since I couldn't find my wife, I decided to celebrate with my team. I figured a chance to bond would do us good. Especially since Jamal would be graduating this year. The other guys had another year of eligibility and I had a few recruits who might be able to fill a part of Jamal's shoes. I also had a few other players in mind. I was sure that next year's team might not be quite as good, but we had a good chance of making the tournament yet again. I was also beginning to get better quality recruits.

After making the tournament two years in a row, players were beginning to take our little school seriously. I'd gotten offers as well to coach at a couple of much bigger schools that bore looking at. I figured that after the tournament was over, Gloria and I would decide our future together the way we always had.

I walked out of the gym and dodged several reporters who wanted to interview me. Good Lord, we had a press conference scheduled for early tomorrow morning and another for the morning before the game in two days. Wasn't that enough? What more could I say that I hadn't said when they interviewed me before the game.

As I snuck into my Mustang, my cell phone rang. I started to ignore it. I looked to see if it was Gloria and it wasn't. But I recognized the area code and the number and answered it immediately.

"Hi Sheila," I said.

"Hi Jim," she replied. "I just called to thank you and to let you know that you made his last years, happy ones with what you did to the team. He always said that since we only had daughters, you were like the son he never had. He respected you both as a player and as a coach. He always said that you were the finest player he'd ever seen and that your knowledge of the game that you got on the floor was what made you the coach you became."

"Sheila, why are you talking in the past tense?" I asked.

"Jim, Jerry passed away an hour ago," she said. "He died cheering his team on and watching you lead them further into the tournament than he ever dreamed they'd go. If it makes a difference, he was happy. He died with a smile on his face. He'd just been telling some of our friends about the way that you always came to him for advice during the season and during the summer to plan next year's strategy. He'd just gotten quiet after bragging to some of them that he was going to be on the bench with you next year in the tournament if his health let him. He just got quiet and slipped away right after that."

I had no words. I just sat there in my car crying like a baby. Finally, I got myself together and started speaking to her again.

"Sheila, he'll be there with me wherever I go not only for next season but for all the ones that follow. Please call me with the arrangements so I can attend the ceremony."

I started my car and the Mustang's normal aggressive growl was a little bit more subdued than normal. I'm sure that most of you think that it was me. That maybe I'd changed my driving style because of my own personal sadness. I really believed that that car sensed my pain and responded accordingly.

I drove to the motel that my players were staying at. There seemed to be a party going on. God damn it, I thought at first. Those guys should know better. But then I thought about it again and decided that life was too short; especially for young guys like them. There was simply too much uncertainty. You were riding high one day and the next day it was all taken away from you. My case had been a perfect example of that. I went up for a shot as the best player on my team, with a bright future ahead of me and came down a coach.

There was no way I could begrudge them something as simple as a party. As I drew closer to their room, the alarm bells went off in my head. Oh shit, they had girls in there with them. That was a huge violation of both the university's and the conference's rules. Sure they were rules that most of the time got glossed over, everyone knew that healthy young kids were going to pursue their fun. But the policies had been set up to make sure that any abuses or orgies or things of that nature didn't reflect back on the member universities or the conference.

That kept me from going in. But I did look in the window. I wish to hell I hadn't though, and to this day it's still the worst memory I'll ever have.

I saw Igor, all six foot six of him ramming his long thin dick into some chubby blonde girl. She was pushing her hips back at him and matching every stroke he made. Billy was shoving his dick down her throat and she was bobbing her head up and down on it like there was no tomorrow.

Joel was fucking another woman. I called her a woman because she looked older to me. She was bent over the arm of the sofa and he was slapping her ass while he fucked her. Timmy was next to the woman Joel was pumping, he was sitting on the sofa that she was bent over. He was licking one of her huge saggy breasts while yet another woman sucked his dick.

Suddenly recognition sank in. The woman sucking Timmy's dick was Millicent, The Athletic Director's wife. She was at least fifty if she was a day.

The woman Joel was fucking turned towards me and I saw that it was Harriet. I looked back to the other side of the room and there was no doubt that the younger woman being double teamed was my own wife, Gloria.

The pain that flashed through me at that moment is incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't personally experienced it. It was like death. Gloria was more than my wife, she was my partner in life, my best friend my confidante and my lover all rolled into one being.

Gloria, more than anyone else, was responsible for giving me my second chance. Without her, I'd probably be dead or rotting away in some dive bar right now. I wouldn't have the lease on life that I have now or any of the success. I felt like screaming or doing something but I did nothing. I just stood there. I did pull out my iPhone and take a few seconds of video but I didn't go into the room and confront them. I didn't know what I'd say.

I felt betrayed. Not only by the woman who had just that morning swore to me again that she loved me more than anyone or anything on earth, but by the team of misfits who I'd given a second chance at success as surely as Gloria had given me mine.

As I turned to go, I noticed a couple walking towards me. It was Jamal of course. He had his arms around a woman...no this one was a girl; a really pretty Asian girl. Oh shit. I recognized her too. One of my assistant coaches was Jin Shu. The girl was his daughter and she was all over Jamal. I knew that her father didn't want her dating. He was very old school and had also intended for her to marry an Asian man. As they got closer to me Jamal noticed me and stiffened. He very gently grabbed her hand and stopped her from rubbing the front of his pants. There was no doubt where they were headed.

Obviously, when the orgy started Jamal went out to get his woman too.

"Coach, none of this is her fault," he said. "I forced her."

I just shook my head and looked at him. It was obvious that there had been no force used. It was also obvious that he loved her. The way he'd tried to stand up for her and lie for her when only seconds before he'd had to move her hand off of his dick allowed no other interpretation of the facts.

I just rushed past them and didn't say anything. I got back in my car and started driving. I pulled into the parking lot of the first bar I found. I ordered a drink and just kept drinking them until I didn't remember why I was doing it.