“I have my school ID card,” Stevie said. “It has a photo on it. They accepted it at the airport.”
“Not government-issued,” the blue blazer said.
“Hang on a minute,” Weiss said. “Stevie, give me your ID.”
Stevie pulled out his wallet and handed Weiss the ID. Weiss looked at, turned it over, and smiled. “Look here at the bottom. It says, ‘Issued by Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.’ He goes to public school. The IDs are issued by the county. That’s a government. Hand over his pass.”
The blazer took the ID, looked at it for a minute as if it contained hieroglyphics that would unlock the secret to eternal life, then handed it back to Stevie with a disgusted look on his face.
“Okay,” he said, riffling through the envelopes and coming up with the one that said “Steven Thomas, USBWA.”
“Technically, it is supposed to be a U.S. government ID, but I’ll let it slide this once.”
“It’s that kind of out-of-the-box thinking that makes the NCAA the great organization it is,” Weiss said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Stevie was liking him more every minute. The blazer said nothing. He shoved a pen at Stevie and told him to sign the envelope.
“Next time,” he said, “bring your driver’s license.”
Stevie couldn’t resist. “If you can convince my father and the DMV to let me get one when I’m fourteen, I’ll gladly bring it,” he said.
Before the blazer could reply, Weiss pulled him away and, putting the credentials around their necks, they headed into the building. They followed various signs that pointed them to FLOOR, MEDIA AREAS, and LOCKER ROOMS. They stopped briefly in the huge media work area to drop off their computers, then walked out to the floor. After walking through an empty section of seats that was curtained off from the floor, they maneuvered around the curtain and found themselves at one end of the court.
Stevie had never been inside a dome before. Normally, domes were used for football and seated about 80,000 people. He couldn’t get over how big the place was. The entire Palestra would fit into the curtained-off area that wasn’t being used. He looked up at the upper-deck seats on the far side of the building. “People sit there?” he said, pointing.
“Absolutely,” Weiss said. “And they’re thrilled to be there.”
“How do they see? It looks like they’re about nine miles up.”
“They don’t,” Weiss said. He pointed at the hanging telescreens that hovered over each end of the court. “They watch the telescreens. I’ve gone up there. You should take a look at some point. It’s even higher than you think.”
They walked toward press row, which was filled with people lingering, chatting, killing time. The scoreboard clock read 8:30—and counting down—when Stevie and Hoops walked in. A few Duke players were on the floor, stretching or just talking. Managers stood near a couple of ball racks, as if waiting for their orders.
“What’s with the clock?” Stevie asked.
Weiss explained. “They can’t start practicing until noon,” he said. “Each team gets exactly fifty minutes on the floor. No more, no less. They can’t actually touch a basketball until that clock hits zero. And if a coach decides he doesn’t want to use the entire fifty minutes, his team has to stay on the floor until the fifty minutes is up, because that’s what the rule book says.”
“Do they need a government-issued ID to leave?” Stevie asked.
Weiss laughed. Behind them, someone was screaming at him. “Hoops! Hey, Hoops!”
Weiss and Stevie turned in the direction of the voice, and Stevie did a double take when he saw the source of the screaming. It was Dick Vitale, the ESPN announcer and probably the most famous person in the world of college basketball—more famous than Coach K or Bobby Knight and certainly more famous than any of the players. Stevie remembered Dick Jerardi telling him that the most amazing thing about Vitale was that he screamed and bounced off walls as much off the air as he did on the air. “It’s not an act,” Jerardi had said. “That’s who he really is.”
“Come on,” Weiss said. “I’ll introduce you to Dickie V.”
“Does he bite?” Stevie asked.
“Nah,” Weiss said, “the only thing he might do is break one of your eardrums.”
They walked over to a makeshift podium set up on one corner of the court. There was a neon sign on the front of it that said ESPN’S FINAL FOUR FRIDAY. Stevie had completely forgotten that the Final Four was now so big that ESPN actually televised all four practices live. As much as he loved basketball, he couldn’t imagine sitting around all afternoon watching teams practice and listening to coaches tell Dickie V and his fellow announcers how happy they were to be here.
As Weiss and Stevie approached, Vitale, who had been standing next to the podium, threw his arms open and screamed Weiss’s nickname again: “Hoops, my main man, how awesome is it to be in the Big Easy, baby?!!”
He hugged Weiss, who said something Stevie couldn’t hear in reply. Then Weiss said, “Dick, I want you to meet one of the winners of our writing contest—this is Steven Thomas. He’s a Philly guy.”
“Steve, baby!” Vitale screamed, pumping Stevie’s hand. “AWESOME to meet you, really AWESOME! Philly, huh? Gotta love the Big Five, baby, right? Who’s your favorite team? Saint Joe’s, like my Italian paisan Phil Martelli? He’s a PTPer, baby, he’s one of the best. Lemme tell you another thing, THIS is a PTPer right here, baby, my man Hoops. You want to be a big-time writer someday? This is the man right here. You just watch him in action, baby. Knows everyone. EVERYONE. Hey, he’s written three books on Dickie V! How awesome is that? So who do you like here, Stevie? You gotta love the Dookies, right? Wait, you’re from Philly, you’re probably a Big East guy! The Huskies, baby, all the way, right?!!”
Stevie was nodding his head, trying to remember what a PTPer was—it came to him, Prime-Time Player—and take in all that Vitale was saying while Vitale was still pumping his hand as if expecting water to come out of it.
Without waiting for Stevie to answer any of his questions, Vitale turned back to Weiss. “Hey, Hoops, did you hear the big rumor? Knight’s retiring. Got it from a great source. Check it out.”
“You going with it when you go on the air?” Weiss asked.
“No, the source isn’t THAT good. Hey, speaking of ‘on the air,’ we’re on in two minutes! Gotta go, baby! Stevie, great talking to you, kid! Come by anytime! Hey, let me get your address, I’ll send you some Dickie V stuff! I’ll send you my new book! Hoops wrote it for me! I’ll autograph it for you!”
Stevie started to say thank you and pull out his notebook to write down his address, but Vitale was off and running, jumping onto the podium. “Hey, give it to Hoops, okay, he’ll get it to me! Great meeting you! Hoops, you’re the best, baby! Check out that rumor; I’m telling you, it’s the real deal!”
“So, how was that?” Weiss said as Vitale put his headset on and they turned back to the court, where the clock was now under a minute.
“Exhausting,” Stevie said.
“He’s actually kind of calm today,” Weiss said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Krzyzewski. You can tell him what a big fan you are.”
Stevie laughed nervously. He had been at the Final Four for less than eight minutes and he was already feeling a little overwhelmed.
The buzzer sounded. The clock reset to fifty minutes and the Duke managers began grabbing balls and feeding them to the waiting players. He heard a cheer coming from a corner of the court where a group of Duke fans, dressed in blue and white, had gathered. He looked over and saw Krzyzewski walking out of the tunnel, dressed in sweats with a whistle around his neck.
“Showtime,” Weiss said.
Behind him, Stevie could hear Vitale. “I am just PUMPED to be here in the Big Easy! Hey, it’s Final Four Friday! It’s gonna be AWESOME, BABEEE!!!!”
4: “STUDENT-ATHLETES”
WEISS AND STEVIE maneuvered through a sea of Minicams and still photographers who were milling around at the end of the
court in the small area where they were allowed to be. An unsmiling NCAA official was standing there, warning them not to step over the line of tape that had been placed on the court as a stop sign.
“What happens if someone steps over the line?” Stevie asked Weiss.
“One of two things,” Weiss said. “They either lose their credential or they’re hung by their thumbs from the roof of the building.”
Judging by the look on the NCAA guy’s face, Stevie suspected Weiss wasn’t joking.
They walked along press row—there were actually three rows stretching the length of the court—in the direction of midcourt. Stevie could see that Krzyzewski was talking to Jim Nantz and Billy Packer of CBS, who were seated in what would undoubtedly be their seats the next day.
“The coaches have to spend a few minutes with the CBS guys,” Weiss explained to Stevie as they walked up. “Most of them are like Mike; they get it over with early.”
“Why do they have to?” Stevie asked.
Weiss laughed. “I can give you about a billion reasons why,” he said. “As in, CBS is paying the NCAA a billion dollars for the TV rights and they want their announcers to be able to say ‘When we talked to Coach K yesterday, he told us …’ ”
Stevie nodded his head. He did hear announcers talking about what the coaches had told them the day before a game, all the time. And Vitale was always talking about having lunch or dinner with them.
Several other people were standing around trying to listen in on the conversation between the famous coach and the famous TV people. Two of them, Stevie noticed, were Bill Brill and Susan Carol Anderson. As Stevie and Weiss walked up to the group, Krzyzewski excused himself from Nantz and Packer and walked a couple of steps to his right, to where Brill and Susan Carol were standing. Stevie could see he had a broad smile on his face as he approached them.
“Well, Brill, I see that the quality of reporter you’re hanging around with has improved considerably,” he said, shaking hands with Brill and then with Susan Carol.
“This is about as close as I’ll ever get to being a writing-contest winner,” Brill answered. “Being a tour guide for someone who can actually write.”
Susan Carol was blushing. Stevie worried she might put a hand to her forehead and keel over in a dead faint when Krzyzewski said, “It’s nice to see you again. Congratulations.”
Brill apparently saw Weiss and Stevie coming, because he pointed to Stevie and said, “Here’s our other contest winner now.”
Stevie felt his stomach churn just a little as Krzyzewski, still smiling, turned to him and Weiss. “Hey, Hoops, how’s it going?” he said, shaking hands with Weiss. He turned to Stevie, put out his hand, and said, “I read your story on the Palestra in the USBWA newsletter. It was terrific. I love that place.”
Now it was Stevie’s turn to feel a hot flash across his face. Oh God, he thought, I’m blushing like a girl! Ever since winning the contest, he had fantasized about going to Krzyzewski’s press conference and being the only one in the room with the guts to stand up and say, “Coach, do you ever feel guilty about getting all the calls all the time?” Or “Coach, why do you think the referees let you get away with murder?” He knew Duke was good, but it seemed like the Blue Devils got all the breaks in close games.
He had envisioned the angry look on Krzyzewski’s face, had pictured him saying, “Who asked that question?” and him standing to say, “My name is Steve Thomas and, unlike the rest of these guys, you can’t intimidate me.” He would be the talk of the Final Four, the kid who stood up to the mighty and evil Coach K.
Now the mighty and evil Coach K was standing a foot away from him, a friendly smile on his face, telling him how much he enjoyed his work. Stevie was searching for his voice, knew it had to be somewhere inside his throat, but couldn’t find it. He finally managed to squeak, “Thanks, Coach.”
Everyone seemed amused by his clear discomfort. Brill jumped in to help. “You know, Mike, Steven’s a Big Five fan and a Big East guy. He’s not a Duke fan at all.”
“Why should he be?” Krzyzewski said. “When I was growing up in Chicago, I barely knew what the ACC was. I was a Big Ten guy all the way.” He gave Stevie a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Don’t let anyone tell you who to pull for.” He paused. “Of course, I know when you actually write about us, you’ll be fair, like all good reporters are. Right, Brill?”
Now everyone listening was having a good laugh. It was Susan Carol who jumped in at that point. “I think Mr. Brill is always fair,” she said.
“Absolutely,” Krzyzewski said. “So do I. Now, Roy Williams might have a different opinion.…”
“I get along just fine with Roy,” said Brill, who had now joined the blush parade. “He’s a good guy.”
“For someone from Carolina,” Krzyzewski said, as if finishing the sentence for him.
A whistle blew behind them. Krzyzewski shook hands all around again, saying to Stevie and Susan Carol, “You two have a great time this weekend. Watch these guys work, because, seriously, they’re the best at what they do.” Then he turned directly to Stevie. “And you come down and visit us at Duke sometime. Cameron’s not as old as the Palestra, but it’s pretty cool. Call my office and I’ll set you up with seats right behind our bench. Anytime.”
He turned to join his players, who were assembling in a circle at midcourt. Weiss put an arm around Stevie. “Really bad guy, huh?”
“Well, I mean … Do you think he’s serious about those tickets?”
“Completely serious,” Weiss said. “Come on, let’s sit down and watch practice. You look like you need to catch your breath.”
Stevie had never seen a college basketball team practice before. In fact, the only practices he had ever taken in were the ones he took part in at school and in summer camp. This was light-years different. In Stevie’s practices at school there was one coach and ten players. Duke’s practice had more people involved than Stevie could possibly keep track of. There were, by his count, fourteen players in the blue-and-white practice gear. Then there were a bunch of people in sweat suits like the one Krzyzewski was wearing. Three he recognized as assistant coaches Johnny Dawkins, Chris Collins, and Steve Wojciechowski. There were no fewer than twenty others roaming around the court, including one group who were clearly managers. Every time a player fell or anyone got tangled up, several of them would sprint to the spot as soon as play went to the other end of the court and feverishly towel up any sweat that might have dropped to the floor.
“Who are all these people?” Stevie asked Weiss, once they had settled into seats marked NEW YORK TIMES and CHICAGO TRIBUNE that were located not far from the CBS people. Stevie tried to picture himself actually sitting in one of those seats during a Final Four game and became dizzy at the notion.
“There are twelve managers,” Weiss said. “They actually have to interview to get the job. The seniors interview freshmen and then pick them. It’s a big honor.”
“To wipe up sweat?”
“There’s more to it than that. You get to be inside a great basketball program. The best coaches have had managers who go on to be coaches in a lot of cases. Lawrence Frank was a manager for Bob Knight at Indiana. K’s had several managers become successful coaches, too.”
Stevie was slightly amazed at the thought that Lawrence Frank, who coached the New Jersey Nets, had once wiped perspiration for basketball players at Indiana.
“The older guys are the team trainers and doctors and their sports information people,” Weiss went on. “Big-time college basketball teams are a traveling circus. Today you’ve got a ringside seat.”
No kidding, Stevie thought. He glanced around and saw TV crews eagerly taping the practice from different angles. Dawkins, who Stevie’s dad had told him once played for the 76ers, thereby making him a good guy, was talking to someone who was scribbling notes as he spoke. In the corner, up on the little riser that was their set, Stevie could see the ESPN guys. Vitale was speaking and Digger Phelps and Chris Fowler were
listening. Or perhaps, Stevie thought, not listening.
Stevie noticed that the scoreboard clock had just ticked under forty minutes. “Isn’t fifty minutes kind of a short practice?” he asked.
“They’re not really practicing here,” Weiss said. “Watch, they won’t do anything very serious. They’ll all go practice someplace private later in the day once they get through with their press conferences.”
Hearing Weiss mention the press conferences made Stevie remember that he still had to come up with a story before the end of the day. He glanced down at Susan Carol, sitting a few seats away, seemingly enthralled by the Duke practice. He was, he realized, very jealous of her. She had already written her story, so she could just sit back and enjoy the day.
“When’s the first press conference?” he asked Weiss. “I need to come up with a story.”
“As soon as Duke finishes. They go first, then the other three schools come in after them for thirty minutes at a time.”
“Do the players go in to talk or just the coach?”
“Coach and two players. The other players have to stay in the locker room to be available during that same time period. Actually, you’re probably better off in there than in the press conferences. You get pretty boring, generic ‘We’re just glad to be here’ stuff in the press conferences. In the locker room, if you can find a guy who isn’t a star who has a story to tell, you might get lucky.”
Stevie’s hope to write something about Chip Graber seemed unlikely now. Graber wasn’t just the star of the Minnesota State team, he was the rock star of the team. He would certainly be one of the two Minnesota State players brought to the press conference, and each of the thousand reporters there that day would want to talk to him. “I guess writing about Chip Graber is out of the question,” he said.
Weiss laughed. “Well, if you want to write the same story that every non-basketball columnist in America is going to write, you can write Chip Graber,” he said.
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