Don't Put Me In, Coach: My Incredible NCAA Journey From the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench

by Mark Titus

  As soon as he hit his punch line, Coach Matta busted into laughter and walked away, leaving me speechless.

  Everything suddenly made sense—he hadn’t been laughing with everyone he talked to because he was laughing at their jokes. No, he was laughing at his own joke. I was stunned and immediately knew that he and I would have no problems getting along. In less than a minute after meeting the guy, he had already told me a joke that hit my trifecta of joke-telling: pass the joke off as if it’s a true story, make sure the joke is so corny/dumb that the average person will groan, and finish it off by laughing louder than your entire audience combined. Not only did he execute all three flawlessly, but he took the joke to a whole new level by failing to reach a logical conclusion, since he started by asking me if I knew how he got into coaching and then proceeded to tell a story that in no way explained how he got into coaching. It was pure genius and damn near brought a tear to my eye.

  Once I found out that Coach Matta and I had the exact same sense of humor, my nervousness subsided and I became genuinely excited about my role as team manager. All it took for this to change, though, was quickly discovering that “being on the practice team” was apparently another way for OSU basketball coaches to say “doing nothing but bitch work.” Sure I was naive to think I would actually practice with the team every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was entirely lied to and ended up doing everything I wanted to avoid. Instead of making it rain in practice, my responsibilities included filling up and handing out water bottles, wiping up sweat off the floor, rebounding for any player who asked me to, and doing anything else that needed to be done but nobody actually wanted to do.

  After about a week and a half, I made up some excuse about how I wanted to concentrate on my studies (more like concentrate on all those college babes, am I right?) when I told the graduate assistant who was in charge of all the managers that I was quitting and he could S my D. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I thought I was too good to be a manager or anything like that. I think college basketball managers are doing the Lord’s work and don’t get anywhere near the credit they deserve. Shoot, some of my favorite people from my four years at Ohio State were basketball managers (no—not you, Barrale), so I have a ton of respect for them and would have had no problem doing what they do. It’s just that … ah hell, who am I kidding? Of course I thought I was too good to be a manager. My ass could’ve played D1, yet there I was chasing down Daequan Cook’s errant shots and wiping up Greg Oden’s ball sweat. Screw that.

  A few weeks after I tendered my resignation (if you know what I mean), I got a phone call from the same coach who originally promised me I’d be on the practice team (even though Ohio State has no such thing) and then completely failed to deliver on his promise. This time around he told me that a few players had gotten injured and, because of that, the team didn’t even have enough guys to conduct a scrimmage in practice. I’ll be damned if the next words out of his mouth weren’t something about wanting to know if I would be willing to come back and serve as a practice player for the team.

  Apparently he and Coach Matta remembered watching me play in a few AAU games when they were recruiting Greg, Mike, and Daequan, and they therefore had a solid understanding of what I could bring to the table. Still, I was hesitant to accept his offer since it felt a lot like déjà vu, but when he went on to say that I would actually be a walk-on and would get to sit on the bench during all the games, I decided it was a risk I was willing to take. When I walked into the players’ locker room the next day and got ready for practice, Greg and Mike quickly figured out what was going on and came over to my locker to tell me how genuinely happy they were that I was on the team. Meanwhile, Daequan didn’t say anything and most likely thought to himself, Who the hell is this white boy? even though he and I had been AAU roommates for years.

  Once I was given a jersey and officially added to the roster, I felt a greater sense of power than I’d had when I was a manager. Sure going from manager to walk-on was only a step up in the college basketball hierarchy in the same way that going from Chris Kirkpatrick to Joey Fatone would be a step up in the *NSYNC hierarchy, but that didn’t matter to me. This promotion gave me the confidence to say and do things that no other person in my position would ever have had the balls to say or do. Throw in the combination of me being a longtime friend of the best player on the team and also being fairly confident that Coach Matta and I shared the same sense of humor, and suddenly I felt untouchable.

  In the next few days I threw some of my best jokes at Coach Matta to gauge how similar we really were, and he loved every one of them. From there, I made fun of a couple of my teammates in the locker room without any real consequence, either because they knew Greg had my back and could destroy all of them or because they were just laid-back guys. Either way, my confidence snowballed, and within a few weeks I had comfortably established myself as the comedic relief for our team. Coach Matta gave me the freedom to let me be myself, which was something I wanted so badly but was never allowed to do during high school, so I took the opportunity, ran with it, and made it the focal point of my four-year career at Ohio State.

  So there you have it. That pretty much sums up how a guy from rural Indiana with no discernible talent not only found his way onto the number-one-ranked basketball team in America but also became one of the loudest voices (and unquestionably the biggest smart-ass) in the locker room of said team. As my time at Ohio State wore on and my “story” got more and more national exposure, high school kids from all over the country would often ask me for advice, usually because they planned to follow in my footsteps and emulate my career as a manager turned walk-on. While I’m always flattered that people think anything that comes out of my mouth is worth listening to, the truth is that it’s really not that difficult to do what I did. All it takes is being born abnormally big, hitting puberty before everyone else your age, and taking a liking to basketball because you are so huge.

  From there, you have to dominate local rec leagues to the point that refs feel the need to screw you over, and then consequently turn to AAU basketball in hopes of finding better competition. Next, make sure you play really well against one of the best AAU teams in the country (and make sure they’re from the same city as you), and in the process expose a serious flaw of theirs that could be alleviated with your skill set. When they inevitably ask you to join their team, become good friends with your new teammate who just so happens to be the number-one recruit in America and pray that the NBA institutes a rule that makes guys go to college for at least one year before they enter the draft. After that, cross your fingers that your own basketball recruitment goes down in flames so you can follow your friend to whatever college he goes to and he can use his power as the team’s best player to get you a manager gig.

  Do your best to make sure the basketball team you are a manager for only has 11 guys on it, and then hope that a few of those guys get hurt so that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be asked to join the team as a walk-on. From there, you’re going to want to make sure that you can make fun of your teammates without getting curb-stomped, but not before you check to see if the head coach has a similar sense of humor as you and is one of the only college basketball coaches in America who would let you get away with screwing around on a daily basis. And that’s really all it takes.

  In other words, you have to be one lucky sumbitch.

  PART TWO

  MY BOY DAVE LIGHTY SAID WAS UP??????????? WHAT U THINK ABOUT HIM CUZ HE SAID HE TRY N TO CHILL WITH U GET TO KNO U. THIS IS DAVE LIGHTY BY THE WAY :) LOL

  —Facebook message sent to a random girl from David Lighty (my teammate from 2006 to 2010) using my account

  SEVEN

  I was officially added to the Ohio State basketball roster exactly one day before the first game of the 2006–2007 season, which was pretty perfect for me since I was able to continue my streak of skipping preseason workouts that dated back to my freshman year of high school. When one of the assistant c
oaches called me on a Wednesday night and asked if I wanted to walk-on, I was actually in the middle of packing a suitcase because I had planned on leaving campus after my Thursday classes to go back home to Indiana for the weekend. My dad and I were also thinking of going to the Ohio State football game at Northwestern on that Saturday. Instead, I called my dad after I hung up with the assistant coach and told him that I wouldn’t be able to go to the game or even make it home for the weekend because something had come up.

  Being the parent of a kid he had just sent to college, he obviously assumed that “something has come up” meant that I either got arrested or got someone pregnant, or the opportunity had arisen to do things that could lead to getting arrested or getting someone pregnant. Since the public perception seems to be that playing college basketball is synonymous with being in trouble with the law and/or fathering handfuls of kids, I guess he wasn’t entirely wrong, but I still felt like I needed to assure him that I wasn’t in any kind of trouble. When I told him that the assistant coach had asked me to walk-on (even though I had quit my job as manager two weeks earlier), he let out a relieved sigh and told me how happy he was for me. I can’t say for sure, but I imagine my dad’s turn of emotions was the exact opposite of what Laurence Fishburne felt when his daughter called to tell him that she had landed her dream job and then went on to explain that her dream job involved a bunch of random men putting their wieners in her cinnamon ring.

  Shortly before practice started on Thursday, Coach Matta approached me in the practice gym and congratulated me before saying, “I hope you stayed in shape over the summer or you’re going to be hurting the next few weeks.” I assured him that I had been working out rigorously for the past few months and was in great shape, which was a claim that ranks right up there with “It’s not you, it’s me” and “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” on the list of the most blatant lies ever told. I’m pretty sure he could tell that I was lying (probably because I was 15 pounds overweight and had either barbecue sauce or Cheetos powder on every article of clothing I owned), but he nonetheless said okay and then started to walk away. After a few steps, though, he turned around and said, “I forgot to mention. Now that you’re on the team, I’m going to have to ask you to shave your beard. It’s nothing personal. Just a team rule.”

  As I told him that it wasn’t a big deal because I actually planned on shaving it anyway and just hadn’t gotten around to it yet, Greg walked by sporting a ferocious beard that made my beard look like Sidney Crosby’s wispy excuse for facial hair. When I pointed to Greg with a confused look on my face, Coach Matta laughed and said, “Well, he’s Greg Oden. You understand, right?” I shook my head in amazement at the blatant favoritism, laughed, walked to the court, started stretching for practice, and proceeded to ralph for the next two hours because I was so out of shape.

  The next day was our first game of the season against VMI, and while Greg couldn’t play because he was recovering from wrist surgery (he sat out our first seven games), Ohio State fans were obviously less concerned with Greg’s wrist and more concerned with whether or not I’d be suiting up. That’s because it was rumored throughout the day that there was a chance I couldn’t play in the game since our equipment guy wasn’t completely sure he’d get my jersey shipped from Nike in time, even though he had it express-delivered. Seriously.

  I was all sorts of nervous, not only because I wanted to dress for the game but also because I knew it would be a huge letdown for my family to see me on the bench in street clothes after driving three hours to Columbus, not to mention driving themselves into a frenzy for the previous 48 hours over the thought of me playing college basketball for a Big Ten team. But in the end there was nothing to worry about because our equipment guy got the jersey from UPS in the early afternoon and finished stitching my name and number onto it with a few hours to spare (which I’m sure was much to the dismay of all the seventh-graders in attendance who were hoping he would be in such a hurry to get my jersey done that he’d forget to include the “U” in my last name). Crisis averted.

  When the game finally started, it was the most mentally draining experience of my life. At any given moment, I was either pinching myself because I was living out a dream I’d had since I was five, or I was trying to get prepared to go in because I was naive and thought that Coach Matta might have been dumb enough to play me significant minutes for whatever reason. As I sat on the bench and watched us match VMI’s up-tempo style of play, led by the nation’s leading scorer in Reggie Williams (who now plays for the Charlotte Bobcats), my palms started sweating at the thought of possibly having to play. After all, the key to success against VMI is to have a team full of good ballhandlers in excellent physical condition (coincidentally, that’s also the key to running a successful brothel), and those were two of my biggest weaknesses on a basketball court. In other words, the fact that disaster was inevitable was weighing heavily on my mind.

  As the game progressed I realized that I wasn’t going to see the court unless we got a big lead, thanks largely in part to an assistant coach telling me during a time-out, “You aren’t going to see the court unless we get a big lead.” This was originally a huge relief for me, but it didn’t take long for us to build an insurmountable lead and make me start sweating bullets again. Then, with the game completely out of hand and only a few minutes left, Coach Matta finally gave me the nod and put me out of my misery.

  I checked in with three minutes remaining, which was about 2 minutes and 45 seconds more than my body was physically prepared for, and said a quick prayer in which I asked God to not let me make an ass out of myself. Luckily, thanks to a little help from my adrenaline, the first two minutes went by in a flash. But when a VMI player shot a three in the last minute of play and the rebound fell into my hands, time seemed to stand still. I looked up to see a wide-open court ahead and did the only thing I thought made sense in that situation—I put my head down, started dribbling, and ran as fast as I could toward our basket. I didn’t exactly have a plan, but since I was incredibly slow I knew I’d have plenty of time to figure it out.

  Ultimately, I decided to try to score, most likely because I assumed the shot clock was about to run out after it took me an eternity to dribble down the court, and went up for a layup at the exact moment a VMI defender apparently wondered if he could shove his fist up my nose. I missed the layup, but since I was hammered, a foul was called and I was awarded two free throws. In that moment, I realized that I hadn’t given the situation enough thought, as having thousands of people focus solely on me while I shot free throws was the last thing my battered nerves needed. But since I didn’t have the wherewithal to fake an injury and let someone else shoot the free throws for me, I had no choice but to suck it up.

  As the ref bounced me the ball, I told myself over and over, Just don’t airball it, and did my best to deal with the sweat pouring from my palms. I took a deep breath, lined up the first shot, and let it go. What happened next is something I’ll never forget. As luck would have it, the ball slipped right out of my hands as I released it, missed the basket entirely, and landed a foot short of the baseline.

  Just kidding. I swished both of them bitches.

  And with that, my illustrious college basketball career was off to a blazing start.

  EIGHT

  We followed up our annihilation of VMI by beating Loyola Chicago and Kent State in consecutive days to win the BCA (Black Coaches and Administrators) Classic, which really wasn’t that big of a deal because everybody knows the BCA Classic is only three-fifths as prestigious a tournament as the WCA Classic. Nonetheless, winning the tournament was important to the guys on our team because, even though we had only played three games and all of our opponents were less than stellar, rattling off three straight wins with ease seemed to confirm our collective initial thought that we had a chance to be pretty special. After all, the chemistry we showed on the court was nothing more than an extension of the great team chemistry we had already established
off the court.

  The first time we all took notice of how well we worked together was at “The World’s Largest Pillow Fight,” which is an event held on Ohio State’s campus at the start of every academic year that has never once actually set the record as the world’s largest pillow fight. Because of the nature of the pillow fight, most of us saw this as our first team-building test, and if that is in fact what it was, there’s no denying that we passed with flying colors. And by “passed with flying colors” I obviously mean that everyone on the basketball team and I (I hadn’t been added to the team yet) picked out a couple of nerds, ganged up on them, and beat them senseless to the point that we probably could have been arrested for attempted murder.

  Sure it was alarming that to Jamar Butler, who once cracked the windshield of his own car when he punched it in a sudden fit of rage, a “pillow fight” apparently meant “wrap a tiny pillow around your knuckles and punch people in the face.” And sure it was probably not great for society that a bunch of big, strong athletes (and me) basically brutally assaulted a handful of defenseless kids, but you know what? I’m willing to look past all of that because what really mattered was that we assaulted those kids as a team. When Jamar noticed that Daequan was having trouble making a kid’s face bleed, he showed Daequan that he had his back by connecting a vicious right hook to the kid’s schnoz. And when Jamar failed to knock another nerd completely unconscious, Daequan returned the favor and put the kid’s lights out. Meanwhile, I filled in wherever I could and used my Ultimate Warrior Wrestling Buddy to blindside as many people as possible. It was the kind of teamwork that would have made any coach proud. And just so we’re clear, what I wrote in this paragraph is only a slight exaggeration of what actually happened.