Foul Trouble

by John Feinstein

  “Not a school for the poor,” Danny said to Terrell as they made their way inside.

  “All boys,” Terrell said. “Not for me.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s just because you’re in love.”

  Danny had him there. If he wasn’t in love with Valerie Dove, he was pretty close to it. The only bad thing about being in this tournament was that he would be away for four days when neither of them had school to worry about. Valerie had been accepted to Harvard on December fifteenth, and Terrell could see that a great weight he hadn’t really known she’d been carrying had been lifted from her shoulders. She was still full of one-liners and had little patience for fools, but she laughed more easily and smiled more often. And sometimes she looked at him in a way that made Terrell feel at least partly responsible for her newfound happiness.

  Oak Hill Academy had just finished practicing when they walked in, and there were TV cameras and reporters all over the place. The practice schedule was set up with a thirty-minute break after each one-hour session, so that the media would have a chance to talk to the coaches and players.

  Terrell saw Jordan being led from one TV crew to another. Jordan looked up when he heard the sound of the Lexington players coming and smiled when he spotted Terrell and Danny.

  “The boys from Boston are here,” he said to no one in particular. But then Terrell noticed familiar faces standing not far from Jordan: Billy Tommasino, the director of the Brickley “School Comes First” camp; his pal Paul Judson, the agent; and Stan Montana—aka A-man. There were a couple of other men standing with them whom Terrell didn’t know but was afraid he would before the tournament was over.

  “Oh, goody,” Danny said. “The gang’s all here.”

  Jordan was waving them over to where he was about to conduct a TV interview. A tall blond woman was waiting, microphone in hand, to get started. She looked less than thrilled with the interruption.

  Jordan gave Terrell the full soul shake and hug. Danny had to settle for a handshake. Terrell noticed the TV woman looking at her watch while Jordan rattled on about how fired up he was to play against Terrell again. “I got some players with me now,” he said. “We’ve got four D-1 players on our team. You’ve just got you.”

  “And Danny,” Terrell replied. “He’s being recruited by Vanderbilt, GW, Richmond, and Harvard.”

  Jordan laughed. “Harvard?” He looked at Danny. “You gonna go to Harvard? Who do you play at Harvard? Yale? Princeton?”

  “Yup, they play Yale and Princeton,” Danny said. “They also played Connecticut, Florida State, and Boston College last year. They beat Florida State and BC. In fact, they’ve beaten BC five years in a row and, in case you missed it, they beat New Mexico in the tournament.”

  Jordan looked unimpressed. So did the TV woman.

  A short, older man who had been standing a few feet away jumped in. “Terrell, I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said. “I’m Charlie Brotman, I’m doing PR for the tournament. I know you have to get ready for practice, and we need to get Michael going with this interview.”

  The TV woman immediately reacted to hearing the name Terrell. It was as if someone had plugged her in and flipped a switch. “Terrell Jamerson?” she said, her bright eyes blinking. “Lorraine Yarney, from Channel Seven here in Washington. I’m so looking forward to talking to you after practice.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Terrell said. “This is my point guard, Danny Wilcox.”

  Ms. Yarney did not appear quite as excited to meet Danny. “Oh yes,” she said. “I know your name.”

  The person least happy with the exchange, clearly, was Michael Jordan. “We going to do this?” he asked. “I’ve got people waiting on me, you know.”

  “Absolutely,” Lorraine Yarney said. “See you later, Terrell. Let’s do this, guys.”

  She stepped back into position and turned on a bright smile.

  “Come on, Terrell,” Danny said. “Let’s see if we can get to the locker room without a full-on reunion.”

  Needless to say, that proved to be impossible. They hadn’t taken three steps before Billy Tommasino began calling their names. “Terrell, Danny—over here!” He was waving them over as if something very important was about to happen. Terrell wished Coach Wilcox was there, but he was at a pre-tournament coaches’ meeting. The other Minutemen had already disappeared into the locker room.

  “Let me handle this,” Danny said.

  “Bad idea,” Terrell said. “You’re gonna say something to piss them off.”

  “Which is why it’s a good idea,” Danny said.

  He had a point.

  They walked over and Billy Tommasino enveloped Terrell in a hug worthy of a long-lost brother. Paul Judson mercifully settled for a handshake, as did Montana.

  “Terrell, got a couple more people here you need to meet,” Tommasino said. “This is David Forcier—he’s a money manager. Genius, I’m telling you, he’s a genius. You got five bucks on you? Give it to him. He’ll turn it into a hundred by the end of the day.”

  “He’s exaggerating,” Forcier said, offering Terrell a handshake. “Anyway, I only work with guys who have a lot more than five dollars in their wallet.”

  “Then you don’t want to work with us,” said Danny, who no one had acknowledged yet. “We need to go get ready for practice.”

  “You coaching the team now, Danny?” Tommasino said.

  “No, but my dad’s at a coaches’ meeting, and Terrell and I are in charge of making sure everyone is ready to go when our practice time starts. We’ve only got an hour.” He gave Tommasino a smile that meant he was seriously considering starting a fight.

  Judson, ignoring Danny, turned to an older man dressed in an expensive suit. The man had silvery white hair and the look of someone who had once been an athlete.

  “Terrell, I’d like you to meet my boss,” he said. “This is Donald M. Johnston the Third—the founder of our company.”

  “Terrell, it’s a pleasure,” Donald M. Johnston III said. “Paul tells me you are exactly the kind of young man we like to represent. When the day comes that you need representation, I would very much like to talk to you about it personally. I’m semi-retired, so I only work with a handful of special clients. I suspect you are that kind of special.”

  Terrell was about to say something, but Danny jumped in first. “A semi-retired agent,” he said. “So does that mean you steal from people part-time instead of full-time?”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Paul Judson said, “Watch your mouth, punk. You don’t know who you’re talking to.”

  “It’s all right, Paul,” Mr. Johnston said. “This, I take it, is the angry young point guard? Every team has one of you, Mr. Wilcox. The player who isn’t good enough to merit attention, so he yaps at people in order to call attention to himself.”

  “Yup, that’s me,” Danny answered with a smile. “You know what, though? I may not make a living playing basketball someday, but I promise you I won’t make it calling myself ‘The Third’ and hanging out in high school gyms, sucking up to teenagers.”

  Terrell could tell by the look on Mr. Johnston’s face that Danny had scored. Judson took a step in Danny’s direction. Terrell grabbed Danny’s arm and turned to go.

  “Right. Like Danny said, we’ve got to get ready for practice,” he said. “Maybe we’ll see you all later.”

  Danny was half resisting as Terrell pushed him away, still shooting looks at the five men behind them.

  “You know what you said about pissing them off?” Terrell said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mission accomplished.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Terrell and Danny managed to escape from the gym after practice without any further incidents. Apparently, Tommasino and company had decided that hanging around and trying to get “Terrell Time,” as Danny had taken to calling it, wasn’t worth the effort, especially since there was a fairly sizeable media contingent waiting to talk to Terrell, Coach Wilcox, and, surprisingly, Dan
ny.

  “Hey, you got some pub,” Terrell said when Charlie Brotman finally excused them after Terrell had told the fifteenth different interviewer he still had no idea where he was going to college. “About time. What’d they ask you about?”

  “You,” Danny said, without cracking a smile. “Every question was about you.”

  “Ah, man, I’m sorry…”

  Danny waved him off. “Don’t sweat it. I’m used to it.”

  As instructed, they walked out of the gym and headed in the opposite direction from where their bus was parked. Terrell spotted a hand waving inside a car that was idling about halfway across the lot.

  “There he is,” Terrell said, nodding in the direction of the car.

  The car pulled up, and Danny and Terrell jumped in quickly to get out of the cold.

  “So, how’d the media blitz go?” Bobby Kelleher said.

  “It was fine,” Terrell answered. “Usual stuff.”

  Kelleher laughed. “This is the world today, eighteen-year-olds being bored by talking to the media.”

  “You won’t be bored by who we saw,” Danny said as Kelleher drove through the snow-covered campus.

  “Let me guess. Billy Tommasino…Paul Judson and his boss, that guy who always calls himself The Third…and Stan Montana.”

  “You missed one,” Danny said. “Some money manager. How’d you know?”

  “Saw them leaving as I arrived,” Kelleher said. “The other guy must have parked someplace else. I’ll bet it was David Forcier.”

  “Bingo,” Terrell said. “That’s impressive.”

  Kelleher had pulled into traffic after leaving Georgetown Prep. “Not really. I know the players,” he said. “I even know how they work. What would be impressive is if I could prove it.”

  Terrell smiled. “I might be able to help you there.”

  They drove a couple of miles down a busy road that Kelleher said was packed no matter what time of day. “The lights are perfectly coordinated; you can never make two in a row.”

  They finally pulled into the parking lot of a large shopping mall. “Pizza or Chinese?” Kelleher asked as they got out of the car.

  “You have good taste in pizza,” Danny said.

  They walked into a place called Bertucci’s, which was virtually empty because it was 3:30 in the afternoon. Once they were seated, Terrell updated Kelleher on what had been going on since the season started, including the time he had been spending with the dudes. He and Danny filled Kelleher in on their encounter at the gym with the money guys.

  Kelleher shook his head and, much to Terrell’s surprise, pointed a finger at Danny. “How many times do you have to be told that pissing these guys off is not the way to get the information we need?” he said. “Do you always have to prove you’re the smartest, toughest guy in the room? You’ve got two new players in this thing, and instead of giving Terrell a chance to find out what they’re up to, you drive them away.”

  “They’ll be back,” Danny said.

  Kelleher rolled his eyes. “You’re right, they will be. But next time will you please keep that big mouth of yours shut?”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that,” Terrell said with a laugh.

  “Hey!” Danny punched him. “No piling on.”

  Kelleher sighed. He took a long sip of the coffee he had ordered when they sat down. “Listen to me a second. Believe it or not, your friend Maurice may be the key to this whole thing,” Kelleher said. “Someone is paying him to try to steer you someplace—and I don’t mean just to college. It could be Judson or some other agent. It could be Montana, although I don’t think that’s likely because he’s been around a lot and doesn’t need a runner.”

  “Or it could be someone we’ve never seen,” Terrell said.

  “Right,” Kelleher said. “The really smart guys are the ones who stay invisible so they can deny any involvement if things go bad.”

  “So what do we do from here?” Terrell asked.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing. Next time one of them talks to you, apologize for Danny. Tell them he’s got a temper and that you understand they’re just doing their job. Let them give you the ‘We just want to help you out’ speech again and act as if, at the very least, you’re intrigued. They’ll buy in. Fortunately, they all think they’re the smartest guys in the room too.”

  The pizza arrived.

  As he was digging into his first slice, Terrell had a thought. “Have you been trying to talk to any of the other guys? You know, the other highly recruited players? Jordan? Alex Mayer? Jay Swanson?”

  Kelleher paused a second to swallow and nodded. “I talked to Jordan and his people some. And I hate to tell you, Danny, but I think Alex Mayer has gone over to the dark side. He talked to me most of the summer, but lately he’s been spending a lot of time with that Forcier guy, who mostly steers kids to the SEC or, lately, to Atlanta.”

  “A lot of guys are being guided there, I think,” Terrell said.

  “Oh yeah,” Kelleher said. “It’s Athena’s signature school right now. I’m not surprised to hear Forcier is hanging out with Montana. I’ve seen them together before.”

  “What about Jay Swanson?” Danny asked.

  “Very interesting question,” Kelleher said. “I had him pegged this summer as a guy with his hand out. In fact, I’m pretty sure he did have his hand out. Everyone thought he was going to sign early with Kentucky. Then there was a lot of talk that Tom Bogley was going with him in a package deal someplace.”

  “Who’s Tom Bogley?”

  “High school coach.”

  “But Swanson didn’t sign early,” Terrell said.

  “No—which was a surprise. Now I’m hearing that Duke and North Carolina and—get this—Penn are involved.”

  “Penn? Ivy League?”

  “He’s a Northeast kid. Very good student. Apparently, his dad is from Philly, and he’s gone to games at the Palestra all his life.”

  “Yeah, but Penn’s not paying,” Danny said. “Neither is Duke or Carolina.”

  “I know. That’s what I can’t figure out. I need to talk to him here this week.”

  “Are you going to come to the games?” Terrell asked.

  “I’ll be there,” Kelleher said. “But I’m going to keep a low profile. No sense making myself any more visible than necessary.”

  “Boy,” Terrell said. “Wouldn’t it be fun to just play basketball for three days?”

  Danny laughed. “That ship sailed long ago, my friend.”

  In truth, the three days that followed weren’t all that bad, if only because Coach Wilcox kept the team on a pretty tight schedule.

  They played their first game at 11:00 a.m., so Coach Wilcox made plans for them to go sightseeing in Washington in the afternoon. Less than an hour after finishing off an easy 87–65 win over Georgetown Prep, Terrell and Danny found themselves on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They had not been terribly happy when they learned they would be eating a box lunch on the bus as soon as the game was over instead of going back to the hotel, but they had to admit that standing on the top step of the memorial, with Lincoln sitting in his chair behind them and the Mall and the Washington Monument in front of them, was pretty cool.

  “Looks even better in person than on television,” Terrell commented.

  “Yeah, impressive,” Danny said. “But I don’t know why we couldn’t have come here on Sunday, after the tournament’s over.”

  “Because it’s packed around here on Sunday,” Coach Wilcox said, coming up behind them. “Come on, we’re going on a tour. The tournament people set this up for us. You both better shut up and listen, because if I ask you what was said later and you don’t know, you’ll be running all next week.” He was smiling when he said it, but there was no doubt that he was completely serious.

  Terrell and Danny both groaned but followed their coach to where the tour guide was waiting for them. It turned out to be a lot more interesting than Terrell thought. He had always liked history�
�it was his one consistent A in school—and the guide told them stories about Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, and a lot of the Founding Fathers who didn’t have monuments in their names.

  As they headed back to the bus, Coach Wilcox said, “I hope you guys enjoyed that. Tomorrow, we’re going to the Vietnam Memorial.”

  He wasn’t kidding. They didn’t have a game until five o’clock, so they were back on the bus the next morning for the trip downtown.

  What struck Terrell about the Vietnam Memorial was how quiet it was. At the other monuments, there was a constant cacophony—people laughing, talking, shouting. Along the wall of the Vietnam Memorial, people spoke quietly to one another. There were people standing silently in front of the wall, staring at the names, or Terrell assumed, one name, in particular. Many had tears in their eyes.

  Terrell could see that Danny had noticed too. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, taking it all in.

  The bus ride back to the hotel was noticeably quieter than normal. When they walked back into the hotel lobby, Terrell was shaken from his thoughts about the Vietnam War and the wars going on right now by a sight he hadn’t expected to see on this trip: the dudes.

  Coach Wilcox spotted them too. “Maurice, guys, good of you to make the trip,” he said. “We’re eating our pre-game meal in ten minutes, and I need Terrell there.”

  “Not a problem, Coach,” Maurice said in a friendly tone, giving him a big smile. “We just want to say hello.”

  Coach Wilcox nodded. “See you in ten, Terrell.” He turned in the direction of the elevators.

  Maurice’s eyes followed him until he rounded the corner. The fake smile was gone when he turned back to Terrell. “Surprised to see us?” he said.

  “Well, yeah. It’s a long way to come for a tournament,” Terrell said.

  “We weren’t planning to come, actually,” Maurice said. “But we got a phone call saying we should probably make the trip.”