We Will Rise

by Steve Beaven

  In suburban Pittsburgh in the late 1950s, Bobby Watson and his teammates wore their hair in flattops, said “yes sir” and “no sir,” and arrived for every game at the Bethel High School gym dressed in dark suits and white shirts, with narrow ties knotted neatly at the neck.

  “It’s a policy at our school,” said Preston Ditty, the athletic director. “We feel that our athletes should look like the boys they are: gentleman.”

  Carl Watson, Bobby’s dad, loved the suit-and-tie rule. It fit nicely with the rock-ribbed conservatism that defined his life. The Watsons joined thousands of families moving to Bethel Park, ten miles southwest of Pittsburgh. In the ’50s, when the borough’s population more than doubled to nearly twenty-four thousand, Carl bought his family a brand-new three-bedroom brick home with a big yard and a basketball hoop attached to the house. He was a burly, outgoing guy known as Big C who’d played football at Saint Vincent College, a small Catholic school in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He was an insurance adjuster, a Mason, a staunch Republican, and a member of the Bethel Park city council. Carl had been raised in a strict Methodist family and raised Bobby and his younger sister, Lois, in the same manner. Olga Watson, Bobby’s mom, grew up Catholic but converted when she married Carl.

  At Bethel High, Bobby grew about five inches between his sophomore and junior years and cut an imposing figure in the hallways. He was an engaging kid, popular among students and teachers, and captain of the basketball team as a senior. More than fifty colleges offered him scholarships. Coaches from Pittsburgh, Duke, and Oklahoma came to Bethel Park. So did Louis “Weenie” Miller, the coach at the Virginia Military Institute. Miller showed up nearly every week, it seemed, and sat down at the dinner table for a plate of Olga’s pasta. Bobby had never shown any interest in the military. But when Miller invited him to an elite summer camp he co-owned in Virginia, Bobby struck up a friendship with Bill Blair, a hotshot guard from Hazard, Kentucky. They were the same age, made their recruiting visits to VMI on the same weekend, and decided together they would play for the Keydets. In September 1960, they moved into the VMI barracks in Lexington, Virginia.

  The Virginia Military Institute built its reputation as a training ground for generations of great American military leaders. World War II general George S. Patton Jr. followed his father and grandfather to VMI, and Stonewall Jackson taught philosophy there before becoming commander of the Confederate Army during the Civil War. VMI molded cadets through strict discipline, rigorous academics, and a regimented campus life. A bugle awakened Watson and his classmates at 6:00 a.m., and together they marched to breakfast, to class, and to meals. Classes were Monday through Friday, with a half day on Saturday and inspection on Sunday. The honor code was simple: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do.” A single violation of the code resulted in expulsion. Watson was a good soldier, a three-year starter on the basketball team, and cocaptain his senior year. He took his leadership responsibilities seriously. He’d pull aside a teammate caught sneaking cigarettes to remind him that smoking was against team rules. But even the nonsmokers couldn’t keep up with teams like Davidson, Furman, and William & Mary. The basketball program at VMI was historically awful. After Miller became head coach in 1958, he led the Keydets to a total of fourteen wins in his first three seasons. But in 1964, when Watson was a senior, the basketball program enjoyed the greatest moment in its long and sorry history, making an unlikely postseason run and earning a bid to the NCAA tournament. The Keydets met Bill Bradley and his Princeton teammates in the first round, however, and Bobby’s college basketball career ended with an 86–60 rout.

  Watson majored in biology and planned on medical school. But VMI cadets were required to complete two years of military service after graduation. He taught and coached at a Virginia high school for a year, and then joined the army. First, he was assigned to Fort Bliss, in Texas, where he played basketball and made the all-army team. But then he was ordered to Vietnam.

  Watson’s reserve unit was called up the first time in May 1966. He was a medic, helping treat and evacuate injured soldiers from the battlefield. Twice, Vietcong machine gunners blasted his helicopters out of the air just after takeoff, knocking both to the ground. Watson also suffered a back injury when his jeep hit a mine, contracted malaria twice, and waded through rice paddies for hours at a time, leaving his feet white, raw, and bleeding. When he came home a year later, the confidence and certainty that had served him so well at VMI had been replaced by a weary gratitude. He told a sportswriter after he returned that he felt “fortunate just to be alive.”

  Watson didn’t share war stories. But his sister, Lois, saw the toll that Vietnam had taken. Once, at their parents’ house, Bobby was napping on the couch when Lois tapped him on the shoulder to awaken him. Watson leaped off the couch, confused, uncertain where he was.

  “When you wake me up,” he told her, “don’t ever touch me like that.”

  In Vietnam, he explained, they woke up soldiers by touching their shoulder rather than saying their names. For a brief, terrifying moment, he felt as if he had returned to the battlefield.

  After his first tour, Watson took a job as an assistant coach for George Krajack at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He lasted for a single season before his unit was called up again in 1968. Watson returned to Vietnam with a great sense of foreboding, as if fate had dealt him a bad hand. On the eve of his second tour, he hitched a ride to the Cincinnati airport with Jack Cherry, a buddy from the Xavier athletic department. When they parted, they shook hands, and Cherry wished him luck.

  “We’ll see you when you get home,” Cherry said.

  “I won’t be back,” Watson replied. “Medics don’t make it through two tours.”

  Watson survived. But when he was discharged in August 1969, he returned to Xavier with an edge, fidgety and uptight, like a rubber band stretched to its breaking point. There were moments when, at the slightest provocation, he snapped. Paul Ritter, who covered Xavier basketball for the Cincinnati Enquirer, recalled a night in Detroit when he shared a hotel room with Watson. Ritter entered the room first and stepped into the bathroom. When he came out, he startled Watson, who grabbed him and threw him against a wall, leaving Ritter terrified and confused. Then, just as suddenly, when Watson realized what he had done, he let Ritter go.

  “I’m sorry,” he told Ritter. “When I hear someone coming up behind me, I just react.”

  Another night, they went out for beers and Watson asked Ritter to ease up on his criticism of Krajack, whose job was in jeopardy. Watson feared his boss would be fired and worried about Krajack’s wife and kids. But Ritter told him that he had nothing to do with Krajack’s job security.

  “The hell you don’t,” Watson replied, and emptied a can of beer on Ritter’s head.

  It was Labor Day weekend, 1977, and Ed Siegel wanted to send his son Mark off to Evansville with a celebratory cookout, maybe slap a few steaks on the grill and invite friends over to wish the boy a fond farewell. Mark was a gifted point guard and a natural leader eager to make the move from Indianapolis, eager to bond with his new teammates, eager to prove that he was a legitimate Division I recruit.

  But Mark hadn’t been feeling well the last few weeks and suddenly the stomach cramps were unbearable. Appendicitis? Maybe. Ed called a family friend who was an abdominal surgeon at Methodist Hospital. Their friend told Ed and Carmen, Mark’s mom, to bring Mark in immediately so he could take a look at the boy’s stomach. After X-rays and tests, the doctor delivered the bad news. Mark suffered from diverticulitis, a digestive disease in which pouches that form in the wall of the colon become infected and inflamed. The doctor urged surgery to remove the diseased portion of the colon.

  This wasn’t how father and son had envisioned the start of Mark’s college basketball career.

  Ed and Mark were especially close. Mark had played point guard at Pike High School on the west side of Indianapolis, where Ed was the head coach. They rode to school together each morning, spent hou
rs at practice each afternoon, and then rode home together in the evening. Ed was a perfectionist, a screamer, and a profane father figure to many of his players. During his summer camps, he’d drive a bus full of sixth graders across the city to play kids from other camps. The next day, he’d punish those same sixth graders for blowing a drill by making them chase basketballs he’d kicked into the bleachers. Mark was Ed’s alter ego in a bowl cut, exuding a poise and confidence that earned him the respect of his teammates and opponents. When he brought the ball toward half-court, he was thinking ahead, calmly directing his teammates like a conductor in front of an orchestra. He knew where everyone should be, and he tried to get them the ball at that tiny and invisible spot on the floor where they were better than anyone else. As a senior at Pike, Mark averaged nineteen points a game and set career records for assists and steals. He was a member of the National Honor Society, vice president of the student council, and president of the school’s chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He also played baseball. But he wasn’t a prima donna. He didn’t need to be.

  Lots of colleges wanted Mark. Butler, Wake Forest, Virginia, and Rice were especially interested. So was an Oral Roberts coach named Bobby Watson. But despite Mark’s deep faith, he didn’t feel comfortable with the charismatic brand of Christianity peddled by the university’s founder, television evangelist Oral Roberts. The Siegels liked Watson, though, and soon after he took the job in Evansville, the Aces’ new coach headed for Indianapolis. He pulled up in front of the Siegels’ house at 7:00 p.m., walked through the front door, and gave Mark a hug. Then, for ninety minutes, he laid out his plans for UE basketball: No quick fixes . . . Build from the bottom up . . . Tough and hungry . . . Lots of freshmen recruits. Even more important for Mark, only one point guard would return from Arad McCutchan’s last team. He’d have an opportunity to play immediately.

  But the diverticulitis delayed his move to Evansville. As the first semester of his freshman year approached, Mark was stuck in the hospital, and alarming rumors about his illness had spread throughout Indiana coaching circles, where Ed and his son were well known and respected.

  On a weekday before Mark’s surgery, as Ed finished up a class at Pike High School, he looked into the hallway and saw Indiana University coach Bob Knight waiting for him. When the bell rang and the students filed out, Ed invited him into the classroom. Knight was only thirty-six, but his legend was ascendant. Indiana won the 1976 NCAA championship with a 32–0 record, earning Knight the dual reputation as a brilliant coach and unrepentant hothead. His genius was often obscured by tirades and tantrums of biblical proportions—on the court, in press conferences, and elsewhere. But Ed Siegel knew Knight as a generous man with a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Ed was a fiery coach, too, and understood Knight’s style better than most. They had always gotten along. Knight hadn’t recruited Mark, but he felt Ed’s son had a bright college career in front of him.

  The two men sat down in the empty classroom. Knight told Siegel he’d heard Mark was in the hospital and that the prognosis was dire. In fact, he’d heard that Mark had cancer. “No, no, no,” Ed told him. Mark would be fine. The two coaches talked for a half hour, and before he left, Knight asked for Mark’s address at the hospital. A few days later, Knight sent Mark a long letter, encouraging him to overcome the challenge of his illness and predicting he’d be ready for practice in no time.

  “You are playing for an outstanding person in Coach Watson,” Knight wrote, “and I believe that being part of the program at Evansville will be a very fine experience for you. Just make sure you don’t let yourself become discouraged with a momentary setback.”

  On September 13, a surgeon removed two inches of Mark’s small intestine. He was disappointed that his move to Evansville would be delayed. But the surgery was routine and his prognosis was excellent. He remained in Indianapolis to recover, and Watson sent the assistant coach, Stafford Stephenson, to deliver books and homework. Mark finally moved to Evansville, but doctors wouldn’t allow him to begin full practices until October 24. Soon after he suited up at Carson Center, Mark realized how far he’d fallen behind his new teammates, many of whom—like Duff and Kingston—had been playing together since the summer. It would be nearly two months before he earned the starting job.

  SIX

  Moving Up

  IN 1977, WALLACE GRAVES was fifty-five years old, a rangy Texan with a patrician air and a subtle nasal twang. He arrived at the University of Evansville from the University of the Pacific a decade before, and quickly earned credibility in a town that ran fakes and phonies to the city line. He was not always Wallace Billingsley Graves, PhD. Sometimes he was Wally, the guy in the coat and tie who celebrated with the players at Roberts Stadium after the 1971 national championship. He was as comfortable with the car dealers who funded the athletic department as he was with the music faculty at Wheeler Concert Hall. In a city where there was little distance between town and gown, Graves’s dual roles were a necessity.

  The Purple Aces’ ascension to Division I basketball fit squarely within Graves’s plans to transform an insular, hidebound university into a nationally recognized liberal arts institution. Graves proved a deft touch, re-creating the college as a destination for international scholarship while cultivating support from a community deeply resistant to change. Early in his tenure, the university opened a satellite campus in an old manor house in Harlaxton, England. He also upgraded the faculty, doubling the number who’d earned doctorates in his first ten years. His ambition for the basketball program mirrored his hopes for the rest of the university. But, truth be told, Graves had little choice. College basketball was changing fast, and UE had to move quickly to keep up.

  For decades, NCAA schools competed in either the University or the College Division, depending on the size of the institution and the scope of its athletic program. But in 1973, school presidents scrapped that alignment and created three divisions, forcing institutions to choose at which level they’d compete. Small schools that offered no athletic scholarships opted for Division III, and big state schools like Indiana and Kentucky played in Division I. The University of Evansville at first chose Division II. It seemed like a natural fit. UE had always competed in the College Division, even after changing its name in 1967. Most of the schools on its schedule played in the same division, and each year, Roberts Stadium hosted the College Division national championships. But some of UE’s traditional rivals, including Indiana State and Southern Illinois, had moved to Division I. UE boosters and administrators feared that remaining in Division II would doom the basketball program, which supported the entire athletic department. Crowds at Roberts Stadium had already begun to dwindle. If the Division I schools stopped coming to Evansville, attendance and revenue would spiral, the best players would choose other schools, and one of the city’s defining institutions—Aces basketball—would fade into mediocrity, or worse. UE also had to contend with Indiana State University–Evansville, the new branch campus on the city’s west side that fielded an improving Division II basketball program. Graves wanted to differentiate the University of Evansville from ISUE in every way.

  Dissenters among faculty and fans feared that the Aces wouldn’t be able to keep up with bigger schools and that Division I would be too costly. But those fears were unfounded. Moving up was a declaration of the university’s ambition that reflected the optimism of Aces fans who believed their team was poised for national prominence.

  John Ed Washington, a slender lefty from Indianapolis, returned to Evansville in the fall of 1977, eager to begin his own unlikely rise to Division I basketball. He was a senior, 6'3", a good defender, and an excellent passer who sliced and twisted through the lane like an acrobat. An unreliable jump shot had scared off recruiters from big schools. But Arad McCutchan took a chance and John Ed flourished in Evansville, leading the 1976–77 team in scoring, with more than fifteen points a game. By the time Bobby Watson came to UE, John Ed had played more than anyone else on the roster. In a pre
season marked by momentous change at UE, John Ed was one of the few certainties.

  John Ed grew up on Indianapolis’s northeast side, the fourth of six children. He was a gleefully mischievous kid who’d secretly tie your shoelaces together and then catch you when you tripped. John Washington, his father, mined coal in West Virginia with a pick and shovel in the late 1950s. But when the coal industry moved toward mechanized mining, John Washington moved his family to Indianapolis. He did welding and such at a battery factory and then for an air-conditioner manufacturer, steady work in an era when manufacturing jobs were plentiful in Indianapolis and paid enough to buy a house and raise a family. John spoiled his kids, and the cars he bought for John Ed were Exhibit A. But Sammie Washington, John Ed’s mom, ran the house like a business. Sammie did not suffer fools. She paid the bills each month and managed her husband’s generosity. She sang in the choir at a Baptist church, and if John Ed or his siblings complained they were too sick to go with her, she told them they could stay inside all day and do homework. When they were little, Sammie read to her children from the Bible, a set of encyclopedias, Jet magazine, and children’s stories like “The Tortoise and the Hare.”

  The Washington family lived on a quiet stretch of Tallman Avenue, where John Ed, his siblings, and their friends played kickball and four square in the middle of the road. John Ed’s best buddy, Wayne Radford, lived across the street. Wayne and John Ed were ferocious competitors who shared a hardheaded determination each time they stepped onto the court. The Indiana Pacers were their yardstick. The franchise was a charter member of the old American Basketball Association and one of the league’s best teams, winner of three championships in the early 1970s. John Ed and his friends saw as many games as they could, scraping together money for a single ticket so Wayne could get inside the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum and sneak his pals in through a side door. They played basketball all year, at school and in their neighborhood. Wayne’s dad put a hoop on a two-and-a-half-car garage he’d built behind their house. The court was in the alley, part pavement, part gravel, and usually covered in coal ash that neighbors shoveled from their furnaces.