“You won the contest. You’re writing stories like a real pro this weekend. And you’ve handled yourself very well. I think even Susan Carol is coming around. I heard her call you Stevie.”
“Come on, Dad.”
“Okay, you go. Have a great time. Just remember I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
As he gently shut the door behind him, he couldn’t help but wonder if what he had done that morning would make his dad proud, too.
All he could do was hope.
The walk over to the Superdome was a little bit like taking in all the sideshow acts at a circus at once. Stevie was convinced he saw a bearded lady at one point. There were several fortune-tellers, not to mention all the various ticket-scalpers and vendors selling “official” merchandise. Stevie looked around for Big Tex, but he was nowhere in sight. Stevie wondered for a moment if maybe Big Tex had been arrested. Unlikely, he thought.
They made it through security with relatively little hassle, helped by the fact that they were early and that they didn’t have to pick up credentials. The NCAA guy who had kept demanding Stevie’s driver’s license the previous day was still there, but he didn’t even look at Stevie or Weiss as they walked through the metal detectors. Once inside, they all headed straight to the workroom to set up their computers near telephones.
“I think we should walk out courtside,” Susan Carol said to Stevie once they had plugged their computers in and checked to make sure the electricity was working.
“Nothing going on out there right now,” Bill Brill said. “The teams probably aren’t even in the building yet. It’s only three o’clock.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Susan Carol. “But I kind of want to see the place fill up. For my story.”
That seemed to satisfy Brill. The two of them walked out to the arena floor, where the giant screens in each corner of the building were showing a replay of the 2004 final between Connecticut and Georgia Tech. Stevie remembered falling asleep at halftime with UConn in complete control.
“Duke should have been in that game, not Connecticut,” Susan Carol said.
“I know, I know. J.J. Redick got fouled on the last play.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, he was, but the worst call was on the play before when Emeka Okafor went over Luol Deng’s back for that offensive rebound.”
Stevie did recall thinking the same thing, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “Well, Okafor won’t be out there tonight,” he said.
“Neither will Deng—and he should be. It’s crazy to go pro after one year of college.”
Stevie didn’t answer because they had arrived on press row. There were very few people around. A couple of reporters at their seats writing pregame stories. And he could see Jim Nantz and Billy Packer standing near their seats with a coterie of people around them.
“Think I should go tell Nantz about Jan Miley?” he said.
“What? Who? Oh, the hostess. Absolutely. I’m sure Bonnie Bernstein will be quaking in her pumps.”
They sat down in an open area and Susan Carol glanced around at the empty building, partly for her story, but mostly to make sure no one could hear them. The fans had not yet been let in, so there were no more than 200 people—including all the ushers—in a place that would soon hold 65,000. Stevie liked the emptiness.
Susan Carol took another look around to be absolutely certain no one could hear them. “So, first I tried to find Chip’s Econ professor’s family, which was dead easy. His widow is still in Rochester—she was the only Scott in town. Plus, she was home. But that’s where our luck ran out. Professor Scott never kept any records at home, and his wife seemed sure they would have cleaned out his office at the college.
“But then I called this Braman woman’s number,” she said, “and I got voice mail.”
“Figures, on a Saturday—”
She put up a hand to stop him. “Right. And I’m about to hang up, because there’s no sense leaving a message, when I hear the tape say, ‘If this is Chip, please call me at home. My number is’ ”—she paused to pull out her notebook—“ ‘704-555-2346.’ ”
“Wow! So did you call?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And get this: she wasn’t home but her tape said, ‘Chip, if it’s you, either leave me a number where I can find you or call me back after four o’clock. I know you play at six, but I have that information you needed.’ ”
Stevie looked up at the giant digital clock on the scoreboard. It said 3:14. He noticed that fans were now starting to make their way into seats.
“So we have to wait another forty-five minutes and call back,” Susan Carol said.
“But we aren’t Chip,” Stevie said. “What are we going to—” He stopped himself in mid-sentence, suddenly struck by the last words on Christine Braman’s tape: You play at six.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “She’s in Charlotte. That means she’s on eastern time, which means it’s four-fifteen already. We need to call her now.”
Susan Carol smacked her fist lightly on the table in front of her. “I completely forgot,” she said. “How dumb am I? We’ve got to find a phone.”
“Preferably one with some privacy,” he said.
“Good point,” she said.
They were sitting at three seats that were all marked THE WASHINGTON POST. There was a phone that also said WASHINGTON POST on it sitting just to Stevie’s right. No one was anywhere near them.
“This might be as good a place as any,” he said. “It’s a zoo back there in the press room.”
“I wonder if I can call long-distance from here,” she said.
Stevie looked around. There was no one looking at them, and the closest people to them were the CBS types who were two rows and almost half the court away. “I don’t think one long-distance call is going to kill the Washington Post,” he said.
She nodded and opened her notebook again to the phone number. “Keep an eye out and nudge me if you see someone coming,” she said.
Stevie played guard for the next few minutes, walking up and down behind Susan Carol while she talked. He couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying, because she was practically whispering into the phone, but she was taking a lot of notes and there were periods where she just listened and wrote. He did hear her say one thing that baffled him: “Oh, I’m adopted.”
No one came near them the entire time she was on the phone, which was a relief because he wasn’t sure what he would have said. After about ten minutes, she hung up. It had felt more like ten hours. She was clearly excited.
“Any luck?” he said, pretty certain she had at least had some.
“Yes, big time, I think,” she said. “She apparently transposed two numbers on Chip’s cell phone and couldn’t reach him. That’s why she left him that message on her phone at work.”
“Nice. Does she have a phone number for Wojenski?”
“Better than that. She told me he’s living in Mississippi in a place called Bay St. Louis.”
“Why have I heard of that place?”
“Because the local radio guy who was the MC at the breakfast yesterday said he lived there.”
“That’s right,” Stevie said. “He said he lived an hour and a lifetime from downtown New Orleans.”
“Ms. Braman said she was sure the dean wouldn’t mind her giving me his number and address.”
“Why did I hear you say something about being adopted?”
“Oh, yeah. I told her that I was Chip’s sister. She said she thought she had read that Chip was an only child. That was the best I could come up with.”
“Quick thinking there.”
She was staring at the number she had written down in her notebook.
“I know we need to call him,” she said. “But we may have caught a lucky break with him living so close. I figured he would be retired to Florida or someplace like that. If he’s this close, I think we should try to see him in person.”
“Journalism 101,” Stevie said, remembering ano
ther of Jerardi’s lessons. “Always interview in person whenever you can.”
Susan Carol smiled. “Right. Especially when a lot is at stake.” Her smile disappeared. “You know, you and I may never work on a bigger story than this one.”
Stevie felt a slight chill run through him. He knew there was a lot more at stake than the story. “Now all we have to do,” he said, “is figure out how to get to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.”
12: BUZZER BEATER
OF COURSE, before they figured out how to get to Bay St. Louis, they had to call Dean Wojenski and make sure he was willing and able to help. They didn’t really have much yet, but it still felt like a victory. By now the building was starting to fill up with people, and the St. Joe’s fans, who were directly behind the spot on press row where Stevie and Susan Carol were sitting, were exchanging cheers and insults with the Minnesota State fans, who were diagonally across the court from them. The two sections that Stevie guessed were for the Connecticut and Duke fans were still almost empty. Stevie could feel a buzz replacing the quiet that he had enjoyed when they first walked onto the court.
Susan Carol was about to dial Dean Wojenski’s number, when Stevie noticed Tony Kornheiser walking toward him, along with his TV partner, Michael Wilbon. He knew they both worked for the Washington Post when they weren’t doing their show, Pardon the Interruption, which was the only ESPN show Stevie watched. Every other show on the network was filled with shouting that, unlike Vitale’s good-natured shouting, had a nasty, angry edge.
“Put down the phone,” he said to Susan Carol. He jumped up and, as Kornheiser got close to him, said, “Did you ever get your suite, Mr. Kornheiser?”
Kornheiser looked at him for a moment as if he were from the moon. Then recognition registered on his face. “You’re the kid who was in the lobby the other night, right? You and your dad.”
“Right,” Stevie said. He put out his hand. “I’m Steve Thomas.” He turned to Susan Carol and said, “This is Susan Carol Anderson. We were the winners of the USBWA writing contest. That’s why we have”—he held up his credential as if Kornheiser couldn’t see it unless he did—“press passes.”
“Well, good for you,” Kornheiser said, shaking hands with him as Susan Carol stood up to shake hands, too. “Hey, Wilbon, here are a couple of real journalists, not talking heads like you and me.”
Wilbon was a lot taller than Stevie had imagined, probably about six foot three. His head was completely shaved, à la Michael Jordan, his self-confessed hero and role model in all things. Stevie remembered something Wilbon had written once when Jordan was still the star player in the NBA. Wilbon’s wife had complained during a play-off game, “You love Michael more than you love me.” To which Wilbon had supposedly replied, “But I love you more than Scottie,” a reference to Jordan’s Chicago Bulls sidekick, Scottie Pippen.
“Nice to meet you guys,” he said, shaking hands. He looked at both of them, pointed at Susan Carol, and said, “Let me guess: high school senior,” then, turning to Stevie, “high school sophomore.”
Stevie immediately liked him for thinking he was a sophomore. “I’ll bet you they’re both younger than that,” Kornheiser said. “First, you’re just sucking up to Stevie the way you always suck up to people when you meet them, because he’s no more than a freshman, probably an eighth grader.” He pointed at Susan Carol. “She’s tougher because she’s tall and because girls always look older. You know what? I say they’re both eighth graders.”
Wilbon laughed. “You’re crazy. She’s an eighth grader? No way.”
“I’m an eighth grader,” Susan Carol said.
“No you’re not,” Wilbon answered.
Kornheiser threw his hands into the air. “What are you, her father? You know how old she is, and she doesn’t know how old she is?”
“Right,” Wilbon said.
Stevie and Susan Carol were both laughing now. They were getting a real-life version of PTI, live and undoctored by tape or a producer.
Kornheiser and Wilbon were also laughing. Susan Carol said, “Listen, if I can prove to you that I’m really thirteen, can I use your phone for five minutes?”
“You can use our phone for as long as you want, no matter how old you are,” Wilbon said. “But you’re seventeen, trust me.” He put his computer down and walked by them to say hello to some other people farther down the row.
“Right. And you and I are thirty-nine,” Kornheiser said to Wilbon’s back as he left. He plunked his computer down on the table and looked at Stevie. “Can you believe I have to write live tonight? That’s not what I do. I’m not a writer anymore, I’m a yodeler.”
“They must not know who you are.”
Kornheiser patted him on the back. “Kid, you’ve got a future.” He pointed at Susan Carol. “If you’re smart, you stick with her. Because she definitely has a future. We need more women in sports.”
“She really is thirteen.”
“I know. Here’s the difference between Wilbon and me. I have a twenty-year-old daughter. I remember what she looked like at thirteen. He has no daughters and no clue.”
The fans were screaming Kornheiser’s name. He sighed. “This is why I hate being out in public,” he said. “Do you hear that? What am I supposed to do? Ignore them? I can’t do that. I have to go sign.”
“You have a very hard life, don’t you?” Stevie said.
“Son, you don’t know the half of it,” he said, and went off to pay the price for his fame by signing autographs.
As soon as they were gone, Susan Carol sat back down at the Post phone. It was getting louder in the building with each passing minute. To their right, the St. Joe’s band was filing into their seats in the end zone. “Better call right now,” he said. “It’s going to be impossible to hear soon.”
She was already dialing. “Dean Wojenski?” he heard her say a moment later. “I think you heard from Ms. Braman at Davidson about Chip Graber trying to track you down?”
Stevie didn’t try to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation. The band was starting to warm up and Susan Carol had to put a hand over her open ear as she talked. The last thing Stevie heard her do was give the doctor what sounded like an e-mail address: “It’s [email protected],” he heard her say.
She hung up. The band was now playing the St. Joe’s fight song full force. “Let’s go in back,” she shouted.
“Is he going to help?” he shouted back.
She nodded and pointed toward the tunnel. They stopped in the hallway, which was filled with people walking to and from the floor.
“He wants us to come out and see him tomorrow,” she said quietly when they found a spot where they could lean against the wall out of the way of all the traffic. “He said if Chip’s in trouble, he wants to help.”
“How in the world are we going to get there?” he said.
“I told him that might be a problem,” she said. “He said he didn’t want to come into New Orleans unless he absolutely had to. I said we would figure something out.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him that Chip had a serious problem and it was related to his transcript from last spring,” she said. “He said that Chip had always been a borderline student, but as far as he knew he was on probation but okay to play at the end of last year. I told him someone had doctored Chip’s transcript after he retired. That’s when he said we should come to the house. He said he still had lots of MSU stuff in files and that he’d look to see if he had his student records from last year. He suggested that if there was any way for Chip to come, he should be there, too.”
“Well, if they lose this game, Chip will have plenty of time tomorrow. And he can drive a car.”
“I think he’ll make the time one way or the other. This could be solid proof. Wojenski said he would e-mail me directions. He said it’s just about sixty miles from here to his house.”
That was what the e-mail address was about. “SCDevil?” he asked.
She didn’t even
blush a little. “Don’t start,” she said.
Stevie had one more thought. “Did you tell him you were Chip’s sister?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wouldn’t he know Chip’s an only child?”
“You know, that’s a good point,” she said. “It never came up.”
The rest of the evening passed Stevie like a train flashing by on a high-speed railroad track. Once the games began, it was all a blur. He and Susan Carol had much better seats than he had dared hope. They were in the second row of what was called overflow media, which meant they were sitting in the second row in the stands, just behind the three rows of press seating. Most of the other overflow media were reporters and producers from the local TV stations in each of the four towns where the teams were from. But there were some media celebrities, too, including Chris Wallace from Fox News, who was sitting right next to Susan Carol.
Susan Carol asked what he was doing at the Final Four. “We’re doing the show from here tomorrow,” he said. “We have a panel that’s going to discuss what’s wrong with college athletics.”
“I hope your show is at least four hours long,” Stevie said, realizing he had become a true cynic in just a couple of days.
“You aren’t the first person to say something like that,” Wallace said.
“Who’s on the panel?” Susan Carol asked.
“It’s an interesting group,” Wallace said. “We have Tom Izzo, the coach at Michigan State, and Roy Williams, the coach at North Carolina, to talk from the coaches’ point of view. Then, to talk about it from the academic side, we have the outgoing president of Duke—”
“Dr. Sanford?” Susan Carol said.
“Yes, good man, I think,” Wallace said. “I like the fact that he said he wants to retire and go back to teaching because he’s tired of being a glorified fund-raiser. And our fourth panelist is the faculty representative at Minnesota State, who is some kind of ethics expert.”
They both went wide-eyed. “Whiting?” Susan Carol said. “Thomas Whiting?”
“Yes. Why? You know him?”
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