by Lance Allred
I spoke nonchalantly, doing my best to downplay my shock and even more so my fear that the link would be found and I’d be labeled a porn addict, sent to the office, and confronted awkwardly by my father yet again about my phantom homosexuality. “Yeah, as you can see,” I explained, “I have my basketball icons here and a comment and suggestion board up and running and various links and info about all the players and statistics for the University of Utah.” I continued on, saying nothing important as I clicked on various parts of the page, including ncaa.com and espn.com but purposely skipping the treacherous nba.com. The teacher bought my performance, making no further comment as he nodded at my page.
“Well done, Lance.”
“Thank you.”
Greg raised his hand.
“Yes, Greg?” Mr. Stoker asked.
“Yeah, what’s on nba.com?”
High school is a difficult time even when you’re not (a) hearing impaired and (b) a freakish giant. I was trying to make a name for myself and establish a firm standing at my new school. One night after a football game, I found myself walking home with Jeff Adams, one of my teammates. Jeff had dated a girl named Jamie Stephensen throughout junior high, but they had broken up freshman year, and Jeff wanted her back.
As Jeff and I were walking, he told me he had overheard during that night’s game that Jamie and two other friends were sleeping over at her house, babysitting her younger brothers for her parents. It was then that I was introduced to the term stealthing.
Stealthing: the act of moving in a group of two or more people (never just one, as this is part of the definition of stalking) in reconnaissance around a fixed parameter, which encases a group of the opposite sex (never just one, as this is also part of the definition of stalking) to gain knowledge of the general consensus or feelings of the targeted party in regard to various topics such as boys, school, teachers, rivals for affection, and so forth.
I had never spoken to Jamie before and didn’t think she even knew my name, but I knew who she was. More than wanting the potential of socializing with members of the opposite sex, I welcomed the opportunity to fraternize with Jeff. And so I tagged along. We made it to Jamie’s house, where most of the lights were off. Since Jeff knew Jamie very well, I assumed we were going to knock on the door. But he had other plans. Jeff wanted the truth, and in his search for it, nearly in a crawl, he found his way up the driveway and stopped around a lit basement window. He leaned his head next to the glass.
“I can hear them talking, but I can’t make out what they’re saying,” Jeff said, rubbing his knuckles in frustration. The suffering was too much, and he was aching to know if Jamie still thought of him, because he did of her.
I then had an epiphany and saw a golden opportunity to present my worth. I pulled out my hearing aid, leaving it on, and handed to Jeff: “Here, try this out. It should help you hear a little better.”
I don’t remember what he heard, but as sophomore year ended, Jeff and Jamie got back together.
The summer after sophomore year, while most of my teammates were on vacation, I met Coach Rupp every morning at seven-thirty in the weight room and the gym. Later in June, Coach Rupp took me with him to the Rick Majerus Big Man–Guard Camp. It was the first time I ever saw Coach Majerus, the University of Utah’s head basketball coach at the time. Most people, upon first seeing him, notice how fat he is. But that wasn’t what I saw. I noticed how, when he first entered the gym, it went silent and he went to work right away, before he even stepped on the hardwood—barking orders, directing traffic, having us sit around the perimeter as he conducted drills for his players. He ran it like a perfectly well oiled machine. I love organization.
After witnessing the attention he commanded and the knowledge he possessed, I knew that I wanted to play for him. Big Man Camp was intense. It was a forty-eight-hour camp, and you slept only twelve of those hours. Hundreds of big men, many bigger and some exponentially better than me, were there going through the drills, demonstrating their skill. There were a few really good players there, men who are well-known NBA stars today, and I saw how much they respected Majerus.
I knew that if I was ever welcomed into the graces of Majerus, I’d be in good company. Throughout the camp, Majerus showed us a wide variety of big-man skills that he had his players demonstrate. His team was coming off a run to the Elite Eight, and his star player, Keith Van Horn, had been the second pick in the NBA draft that week, behind Tim Duncan.
I saw how brutal Majerus was with his players in such a public setting, but in a sick and sadistic way I wanted to fill that role someday. Because I knew that if Majerus was riding you, in your face, demanding constantly from you, then you knew he cared about you and that he felt you could be a good player. If he didn’t have high hopes for you and felt you had limited potential, he would let you do your job without much conflict. But he demanded perfection from those he thought had talent.
We’d sit for long minutes in a defensive stance, basically a squat position, while Majerus told us to hold it as he walked around, his belly peeking out from under his shirt and slouching over his cotton waist shorts. He sometimes stopped to climb up onto the shoulders of a kid who wasn’t low enough, to emphasize his point. His language was shocking, as he used the word fuck in those two days more than I had heard it in my entire life up to that point.*
When the summer was over and school began, I saw Coach Gardner in the hall, and he came up to me. “Is it true?” he asked.
“What?”
“That you had one of the best off-seasons in the history of the coaching staff?”
I could only smile. Rupp had complimented me from time to time but had never hinted at anything like that to me. Rupp had a habit of doing this—constantly challenging me, keeping that carrot on the stick, pushing and pushing me to go just a little bit more and then a little bit more after that, but never using negativity as motivation.
12
When the junior season began, I was in high spirits. I had invested a long summer with Coach Rupp and was feeling good about my individual game and confident that I’d be able to contribute. After a solid fall workout regime with the team, training camp came in November, and to my frustration I saw that I wasn’t picking up the offensive plays as quickly as the others, who had been in varsity practices the year before.
Noah Eyre was my age but had played on the JV squad the year before. He was much better than me. Plus he was also the most popular guy in school: tall, dark, and handsome. By the time the first game came, Noah was starting at center and I was getting only a few minutes in a game. I started to feel depressed. There’s no “I” in team. I know the saying as well as anyone. My depression, though, wasn’t that I felt I should’ve been a star, but that I was looking back and asking, “What is all this for? What was all that hard work for?” It felt like I was in exactly the same place I’d have been in had I given only half the effort. Was Noah simply more talented? More experienced? Maybe both. But the root of my insecurity was that I had invested so much time the previous summer that I was now that much more emotionally involved. I saw myself only in one light, and that was as a basketball player. I felt that it was my only redeeming trait. I was so invested and eager to do well that I became crippled with apprehension, afraid to make a mistake. I was thinking too much.
Noah had a completely different personality than me. He was well rounded as a person: he had so many other things going on in his life, and he still worked hard in basketball. He was always able to put things in perspective, so that while he did care if we won or lost, he also knew that if we, and he, lost, there was still life after the game, and friends and family awaiting him.
I held everything on the line, feeling that my future hinged on every game. With that kind of pressure on myself, whenever I entered the game for Coach Rupp, I was paralyzed with nerves. You can’t play basketball when you’re afraid to make a mistake. Basketball is a game of constant mistakes, and while your coach may not forgive you for mistakes,
you have to at least be able to forgive yourself and move on to the next play. Otherwise, you’ll fail.
More than faith from your coach, you need faith in yourself to be a basketball player. If you can honestly answer that you did more good things than bad things in the game, you have won. I used to overlook all the good things I did and just dwell on all the bad things, replaying them in my head after every game. I wouldn’t sleep after games, emotionally flagellating myself with what-ifs. What if I had just been one more step back while blocking out my man? The ball wouldn’t have bounced over my head, and….
But all you need is one good game, one good shot, and then you’re rolling. My opportunity came a few months into the season when Noah was injured, against region-leading Olympus High School. I came out of nowhere and scored eleven points in the fourth quarter. Yeah, I know—whoop-de-do, eleven points! But when your head is in the tank, anything, anything at all, will usually do to help turn your self-perception around. Quicker than the blink of an eye, I was running the offense smoothly, my confidence was up, and I was playing slowly and under control. I was finally able to apply all of the skills I had invested in developing with Coach Rupp during the summer.
Eventually, Coach Rupp began to start me alongside Noah and I became the low-post option that Coach Rupp had planned for me to be. And in spite of the team’s rough start to the season, with a six-eleven record, we were finally able to climb back into the playoff picture.
Unfortunately, I pulled my hip flexor two days before we were set to play top-seeded Provo High, and I couldn’t play in the first round of the playoffs. Even though I had wanted to play and tried to warm up, I couldn’t get the hip loose, and the pain was too great. I hated myself when I had to tell Coach Rupp before the game that I couldn’t go on.
I went and cried in the bathroom. I had bled, sweated, and sacrificed with my teammates all season long. We were committed to each other, and I had to abandon them as they went off to battle. We lost that game by ten points.
When the game was over, some of us went to a local burger joint. We all sat there in Hires, not realizing that it would be the last time we’d all be together as a team. I have had enough of those moments since then—when a team is disbanding for good—to know them when they come, and I make sure I take in the moment.
Basketball bonds people, and ten years may pass before I run into a teammate, but I can still walk up to them and give them a hug. And while we may sometimes lack things to talk about except for the standard updates, there still is with us that bond that no one else knows, that only we share.
I joined high school choir only because everyone else was doing it. Sure, I love music; I love the notes and the harmony. I can hear those note shifts, albeit not like most people do, as my off-key singing will attest. But I hear the change in notes just as I hear the change in vowels when people are speaking. Still, this wasn’t why I joined choir.
Anybody who was anybody—the cool kids, my friends, the pretty girls, jocks, even regular kids—everyone was doing it. It was a chapel of tolerance, bringing people from all walks of life together, according to height. No matter what clique you ran with in the halls, at lunch, after school, it made no difference, as nature and genetics assigned you your new friends, who were very similar in height to you. Luckily I had Greg on my left. Greg Noble is to this day my dearest friend.
The mirror faced the choir bleachers. It put a spell on you, and you couldn’t help but look. It was a safe place that invited us to divulge our thoughts, secrets, and egos, and it would never betray us. Choir was really just a showcase of vanity, as we would all be lost in the gamut of mirrors in front of us, tilting our heads slightly from side to side to better appreciate our features. It gave immediate validation, as we could compare ourselves to someone else and have the instant gratification of realizing, You know what? I’m comparing my features and looks to Ben Johnson, and I really am much, much better looking than he is. What do all the girls see in him? He is small, doesn’t play football or basketball, but soccer. Soccer! Oh well, I’m gorgeous! Not as gorgeous as Noah, though.
When you weren’t immersed in your own visage and facial structure, you could also pass the time playing eye tag with a cute someone, staring at their reflection in the mirror and then quickly looking away. It was very convenient for puppy-love purposes. Even if you were busted for checking out a girl, you couldn’t be held accountable, as the mirror was a safe buffer zone and couldn’t be used against you. Was some girl really going to say, I totally busted him looking at me through the mirror in choir today! The mirror was a deflector—not only in light, but in accountability as well.
Mrs. Applegate, the choir teacher, was scary and mean, very intolerant and impatient. She often stopped to call someone out. One time it was Greg as he was tiredly nodding off. Mrs. Applegate stopped class, not saying anything, but simply staring at him, while poor narcoleptic Greg had no idea the music had even stopped. Ten seconds passed while two hundred of his peers all looked in the mirror to see what the sudden silence was about. All eyes on him, I finally nudged him awake.
“Huh?” Greg said sleepily, wanting to know why I had ruined his nap time.
I motioned with my head toward Mrs. Applegate, who was staring at Greg with a look a stepmother would give a redheaded stepchild. “Care to join us today, Greg?” Mrs. Applegate asked, giving us a we’re-not-amused look while marking the roll-call sheet, letting us both know we had been “unsatisfactory” for the day.
“Ya, sorry,” Greg said politely. But it didn’t matter, because Greg never made a sound when he sang. He was in the choir only because he didn’t know how to draw. Greg was truly the only person who didn’t take advantage of the mirror. He didn’t care about girls. Whenever Greg caught me looking at myself in the mirror, he would turn and look directly at me to let me know I was incorrigible, rolling his eyes in the tired, annoyed way that only Greg Noble can.
While Greg just lip-synched, I was the maestro of the bel canto, wowing the world with my off-pitch vibrato, a sound that only a deaf person can make. I sounded like what you would expect a deaf person to sound like. With growing frustration, and to no avail, Mrs. Applegate scanned us with her calculating eyes to see who owned that beautiful voice that she heard but that eluded her every day—the sweet, painful, melancholy voice that, if harnessed correctly, could bring the world together. I never let her know it was me. When she looked at me, thinking she had finally found who had this majestic voice we’re speaking of, I went mute, mouthing the words. But when she turned away again, I resumed my singing, which carried so much emotion, it created waterfalls on the other side of the world.
I was afraid of the spotlight. I just wanted to sing with my friends, and to myself, alone in the shower. I was afraid of success. I didn’t want my peers to envy me for the power and beauty that nature had bestowed upon the sounds my vocal cords produced, as I was already blessed with size and a fine, classical facial-bone structure.
When it came time for auditions for small groups—barbershop and madrigals—I opted not to try out. Even though Mrs. Applegate asked me to, I humbly declined, as I didn’t want any extra school activities to conflict with my commitment to basketball.
I’m sure many of you, mostly my female readers, are wondering when the female protagonist will come in. Well, the reason you haven’t seen one is that I was terrified of girls. I wasn’t like, “Girls are gross!” No, I was a big fan of the ladies and had several crushes on them throughout my childhood. But I was so self-conscious of my hearing. I struggled, and still do, to hear high-pitched sounds even with my HAs in. I communicated much more easily with my father than I did with my mother mostly for this reason. Girls’ voices are just higher-pitched than boys’. If I tried to talk to girls, I’d often mishear something, and, thinking I had heard a question or comment correctly, I’d respond with something totally random and make a complete fool of myself.
Back in high school, when I overanalyzed everything and was so self-criti
cal, I took everything personally. I made it all about me—not in a selfish way, but in an “I have to be the one to fix things” kind of way. If something wasn’t working, it was always my fault. If a girl wasn’t talking to me, it was my fault because I wasn’t saying the right thing. If a girl was going to like me, it would be because I had won her affection. If a relationship was going to fail, it was always going to be because of me or something I said or did. It was all my fault and responsibility.
I was a wreck, a big ball of analysis, and I’m glad, for the sake of all girls, that none of them dated me in high school—not from a danger standpoint, but from an emotionally draining standpoint. I was too intense.
Midway through my senior year, I discovered that I was missing some science credits to meet the University of Utah admission criteria. Wanting to get the most out of my education, I enrolled in the freshman-level physics class. In lieu of papers, I made two epic movies for the class. They really were amazing. Let’s just say my movies involved me, Greg, and Jared, in the canyons near Park City, in the snow, with guns and dry-ice bombs and a clown mask.
When I enrolled in the class, I discovered to my relief that there was another senior in there with me. We even sat at the same table. Her name was Sharlie Ingles. She was very beautiful and tall and had the classical long neck that, if focused on directly, looked kind of odd but, in the context of the whole, was perfect. Sharlie was one of the student-body officers and editor of the school newspaper and yearbook. However, she wasn’t peppy and annoying. She was very mature and had her priorities straight, and though she was acquainted with the wild girls, she herself was never into drinking, but neither was she into the whole beautiful-people, backbiting scene. Sharlie just kind of fit in wherever she wanted.