by Lance Allred
I mean this when I say it: Majerus loved his players. Did he have favorites? Yes. Was I one of them? Yes, for a time. He loved his players, and he loved to develop them, but he was also abusive to them, verbally and emotionally. And when you admired someone like him as much as I did, wanting to do anything to please him, yearning to receive even just a little praise, he had that much more control over you, and his criticisms were that much more crushing to your emotional state. I idolized the man. He was my God—not in the sense that I worshipped him, but he was my first thought and my last thought every day for three years. I wanted so badly to please him. And he broke my heart. But part of that blame lies with me, as I never should have let him have that much control over my life.
It was a custom in the LDS religion that, at the age of eighteen, a young man began to prepare to serve his two-year mission, dedicated to the converting of souls looking for answers in this world in regard to spirituality and life after death. I was not excited about going on a mission, but I felt that I had to. Having battled many demons inside my head while escaping the Allred Group and no longer letting dogmatic religion be a guiding factor or source of guilt in my life, I found the idea of going on an LDS mission, with religion ruling my every thought, day and night, 24/7, not an appealing one. But I played along for a while, convincing myself that I would eventually be excited to go. I even told Coach Majerus that I would be going on a mission.
As my senior year came to a close, Majerus called me up to a meeting with his entire coaching staff. “Lance,” he announced, “as I respect you going on a mission, I have laid out a plan for you. I have Chris Burgess from Duke who wants to transfer here, and the only scholarship that I can give him is yours. And since you’re planning on leaving on your mission, and rather than using your freshman year this upcoming season, then losing the practice as you leave for two years, I have decided that it would be better for all parties involved if you took a ‘gray shirt’ year, meaning you’ll forfeit your scholarship and go to school part-time for the fall semester, paying your own way, and then you’ll leave on your mission in the winter, when you turn nineteen. And that way, Chris gets a scholarship and can come play here and have a good experience. And then I get four straight years with you, without any interruption once you come back.”
While I knew this was a reasonable compromise, I really wanted to play for the U. It was my dream, and now I was being told I wouldn’t play basketball again for three seasons. That’s a long time. Basketball is all about timing and momentum.
That summer, I had very little motivation to do anything. What was the point in my spending the summer at the university weight room knowing that all the work I put in to get stronger and in good condition would be in vain, as I was leaving for a mission that coming winter? I became depressed and lazy. I attended weight-training sessions half the time I was expected to be there, and when I was there I put in half effort.
Mom and Dad never placed expectations on me, nor did they ever really talk to me about serving a mission. The expectations were from myself and the society I lived in. Having served on the seminary council my senior year at East, I was just that much more visible; and having been asked to be in such a visible position in the church, I felt it was my duty to continue to set a good example for my peers.
I was enrolled in fall classes part-time, as per NCAA rules. According to the rules, because I had signed a letter of intent the year before and then chosen not to accept the immediate scholarship for the year signed in intent, I couldn’t just walk on and practice with the team, nor could I attend school full-time (twelve hours or more a semester). I also had to pay my own way.
The first day of school, Coach Majerus called for a team meeting. We were all seated in the film room, and I showed up just in time. I immediately felt out of place. I was just that freshman kid who didn’t have a scholarship and thus wasn’t really on the team. I took a seat in the back. Coach Majerus came in and shook all of our hands. When he got to me, he said, “You need to get your ass in the weight room.”
Majerus walked up to the front and then began to address us, telling us about his expectations, then asking who had had a good summer, and then who had had a bad one. When it came to the bad one, he began with me, understandably. After he chastised me, going on to say he had given me a scholarship only because I was a hard worker with not a lot of real talent, he asked what good I was to him if I wasn’t even willing to use what he considered my only redeemable attribute. I knew that what he was saying was true.
Then he asked me a direct question that wasn’t rhetorical. The following ten seconds would in essence capture the problem with the next three years and why I failed at the University of Utah: “Lance, do you not feel that you have not been given the same opportunity as everyone else here to be successful in the weight room? Has Coach Kenn [the weight-training coach] not given you a fair chance?”
I sat there. For ten seconds I sat there replaying the question in my head, Do I not feel that I have not been given the same…? There I was, sitting in silence, thinking, OK, this is a double negative, so I cancel out the two “not”s and ask the question “Do I feel that I have been given the same chance…?” But does Coach know that? Is he expecting a “no”? But I have been given the same chance. Should I just not say either “yes” or “no” and just say, “I have been given the same chance”?
I sat there for ten seconds in frozen terror, analyzing a pithy question, a question that foreshadowed my experience at Utah. I failed at Utah because I thought and analyzed too much. Basketball is a thinking man’s game, but it is also not. When you think as much as I did, it becomes crippling. And when you admired a man like Coach Majerus as much as I did, wanting to please him and be in his good graces, you would be even more self-conscious and worried about making a mistake.
Coach Majerus barked, “Lance, I’m talking to you. Don’t sit back there and pretend that you cannot hear me!”
I heard him all right, but Majerus assumed that I was playing the deaf card, trying to sneak by a confrontation by pretending not to hear, which is something I have never done. I made a commitment to myself when I was a kid: if I wanted to be successful and normal and functioning in the real world, I could never fall back on my disability to bail myself out. I tried to clarify to Coach: “No, I can—”
“Speak up!”
I raised my voice. “I heard you, Coach.”
“Then why didn’t you answer me?”
Was I to be honest and say, Coach, I was analyzing the double negatives in your question and determining whether or not…? How was I supposed to explain that, when I was already red with embarrassment?
“Yes or no, Lance!” Coach barked.
“No!” I blurted out.
“No?!” Coach exclaimed. It was obviously the wrong answer. “You don’t think that all the coaches here have not been at your disposal?”
There was the double negative again. “No,” I said.
Coach was getting mad and impatient now. “No?!”
“I have been getting all the same treatment, Coach,” I clarified.
“Then why did you say no?”
Was I supposed to delve into the analysis of the negatives in his question? All I could say was, “I was just wanting to be sure that I answered your question right, Coach.”
“What is there to question, Lance? It’s a simple question: yes or no?”
And it was there, on that spot, that I learned how to answer Coach’s double-negative questions, which were standard and frequent: by saying yes and then repeating the question. “Yes, I have been given the same opportunity as everyone else.”
“Good.”
For the rest of my three years at Utah, Majerus would never let that incident die. He often recalled what I’m sure he thought of as the time Lance pretended like he couldn’t hear me. Majerus had a memory comparable to mine, but we obviously remembered the incident differently. No one could beat a dead horse like Coach Majerus. He would bring
up a bad play on your part from last season to add fuel to his berating of you in the current moment. And the time Lance pretended like he couldn’t hear me was no exception.
I still get a lazy eye just thinking about it.
A few weeks later, I opted not to go on a mission. But it was too late, as Majerus had already given out my scholarship and I couldn’t simply walk on, having signed the letter of intent.
Yet as the season began in November, it was Coach’s expectation that I be present at every practice, sitting in the stands, taking notes. Aside from a sick day or a test, I was present at every practice, dutifully watching and taking notes, which Coach would inspect every week to make sure I wasn’t doodling. He was very complimentary and generous with his praise, and loved to take my notebook and show it off to recruits or boosters who were sitting in on practice. Watching longingly as the guys practiced, I gained a very eye-opening view of just how long and demanding Coach Majerus’s practices were. But I wasn’t deterred by this. I had set a goal, and I wanted to achieve it.
Toward the end of my gray-shirt year, it was announced that my mother would be the commencement speaker for the University of Utah’s graduating class of the year 2000. It was quite a feeling to be attending school at the same time my mother was to be the graduation speaker. She gave a wonderful speech, and I was immensely proud of her. I wasn’t so proud of Vanessa, though, for waving at the JumboTron when the camera panned to Mom’s family during the speech.
Mom then enrolled in the University of Utah’s special-education graduate program, to achieve her master’s degree and finally receive certification as a teacher. Mom had been teaching at a unique school for nine years up to this point, without a college degree. She was incredible at her job, working with kids that others were ready to forsake. She dealt with teens who were on probation, addicted to drugs, schizophrenics, autistics, and sociopathic sex addicts. Yet my mother, through all of this, was able to keep her positive views on life. She never came home and played the weary victim of a long day of chaos, but instead always managed our lives flawlessly. She also tutored during this time to supplement her meager income. Mom soon had to turn down requests to tutor, as she just didn’t have the time. And now, this forty-five-year-old mother of five was enrolling at the University of Utah to earn her master’s. And she still made it to my basketball games.
And ironically, she would be enrolled in the special education program, learning the rules and standards that protect those with special needs, while her son, attending the same institution, would be enduring abuse and humiliation for his handicap at the hands of a school and state employee.
I’m proud of my mother. She is remarkable and has emerged as one of the finest and most astute minds in the state of Utah in the fields of autism and Asperger’s syndrome.
Court came home from his mission shortly after Mom’s commencement speech. He wasn’t well. I hardly recognized him. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This news affirmed my decision not to go on a mission. Although I would never say that Court’s mission caused his disorder, I know that being away from everything he knew didn’t help him. He was no longer the Court I knew, the Court I had grown up with. My big brother was gone, and in his place was a tortured soul whose mind was battling the conflicts of organized religion—a mind that had by now deteriorated to a state of chaos that not even I dared to explore.
The day finally came that following fall, in October 2000, when I was able to walk into the University of Utah locker room and find waiting for me my own jersey. I was the first one in the locker room, and I picked up my jersey and cried. I had waited for two years to wear this jersey and had worked and worked without much reward up to this point. I finally had a taste of it. I knew my place was low on the pole for playing time, but I was ready to play.
At that time, I thought I was much better than I actually was, but here is a news flash: every star in every profession gets to where they are by believing they’re better than they actually are. You don’t just wake up one day with a world of talent, skill, and experience and realize, Hey, I’m pretty good. Especially in the cutthroat, dog-eat-dog profession of basketball, where everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie, you have to be a little cocky. Because the minute you doubt yourself is the minute you lose. Many people will never know the pressures of a live game, with thousands watching and critiquing your every move. With that pressure, you have to guard yourself, and you do it by convincing yourself you’re better than you are, because if you don’t, you’ll never have the courage to even step onto the floor.
To give you a sense of the kind of life we lived as Majerus athletes, I’ll provide a diarylike summary of our days.
THE LIFE OF LANCE ALLRED DURING A MAJERUS TWO-A-DAY
Saturday, October 14, 2000
7:25 a.m.
After a haunting night filled with fear, insomnia, and cold-sweat dreams (I think I changed about six shirts over the course of the night), I’m awakened by a squealing high-pitched radio alarm and wonder where in the name of all that’s holy that awful sound is coming from. Then after a second of reflection I realize someone left the radio tuned to 104.3 country. I condemn my alarm to the bloody bowels of hell and slap it off my dresser. I slump out of bed and try to stand, but a blanket is caught between my legs and takes one of my legs out from under me. I fall face flat on the floor. I then very gentlemanly lift myself up and proceed to curse my blankets to hell as well.
8:00 a.m.
I arrive at the Huntsman Center [the university’s sports arena] and am the second player in the locker room. I find my own personalized jersey in my own locker and have to sit down and let it soak in. I stare at my jersey and hold it and then realize it has all been worth it.
9:00 a.m.
All the players are out on the court warming up and getting loose for practice. An eerie darkness settles in, and the Empire theme from Star Wars begins to play as Majerus enters the arena, wearing his black shirt with a white EA Sports logo, which reminds me of an eight ball. Before he is even halfway down the steps, he is barking orders, and by the time he steps on the court, several drills are going on at once. There is one drill station that isn’t up and running. Coach sends that assistant coach on sprints (poor Jason Shelton).
9:15 a.m.
I realize that, no, it has not all been worthwhile. I realize this while my team and I are in the fifteenth sprint (down to the far baseline and back) because one of the junior college transfers decided to wear his earring this morning when he arrived at the Huntsman. All told, I think we hit twenty-two sprints.
9:45 a.m.
Coach Majerus talks to us for twenty minutes in the middle of practice and somehow times it perfectly for our legs to stiffen up; then in no time at all he has us running five more sprints. I’m panicking that my kneecap will randomly fall off due to stiffness.
10:05 a.m.
In a conversion defense drill, I fail to pick up the opposing point guard driving into the lane in good time, and Coach stops practice and begins to insult my character and then proceeds to insult my family name, and if that wasn’t enough, he further insults my mother and her dignity.
10:07 a.m.
After being totally inconsolable for about two minutes, I realize Hey, it could be worse, I could be a lanky deaf kid struggling to get by, oh wait… I then am substituted back into the drill, and this time I succeed in accomplishing the previous wishes of Coach. But then he once again stops practice and begins to yell rather insulting one-liners in my general direction. Then I realize it’s me he is talking to, and I have a puzzled look on my face. “Oh, don’t throw that bail-out excuse that you can’t hear me, Allred!” he yells. More difficult for me than being insulted is trying not to crack a smile in front of Coach. Luckily I succeed, but I now have tooth prints on my tongue.
10:35 a.m.
As I’m currently struggling to hold off Big Nate, our senior six-foot-eleven 270-pounder, I wonder in my mind what Mom will have cooked for me when I
get home for lunch.
10:36 a.m.
I manage to hold off Nate. I get the rebound, sprint the fast break, and follow the shot with an offensive rebound put-back. Coach stops practice and begins to praise my “balls of steel.”
10:47 a.m.
My “balls of steel” are violated as they’re crushed by my teammate’s knee on a rebounding collision.
11:00 a.m.
The women’s team comes onto the floor, as they have been granted that time slot. Assuming practice is over, I begin to cry, “Hosanna!” Coach says, “All right, everybody up to the auxiliary gym.” I then cry, “Dammit!”
11:02 a.m.
After sprinting up the tunnel to the gym, we’re rather fatigued. We stretch a little. Coach comes barging in with a bagel in his mouth and cream cheese smeared over his cheek, and then decides to give us more sprints. I suddenly come to the realization that I have seen the face of Lucifer himself.
Tuesday, October 17, 2000
8:30 a.m.
I’m awakened by my biological clock as I have been the previous two mornings, probably because my senses are engulfed in fear and my body is counting the number of hours until practice begins today. Although I’m awake, I am somehow victim to a slight case of amnesia, for I can’t remember who I am or where I am for at least twenty seconds. I start to panic, but then my memory comes back. I slowly begin to remember I’m Lance Allred and I’m a Ute. I’m calm. Thank heavens! I then remember that I’m still in the first week of Majerus preseason. I begin to panic again. I’m Lance Allred and I’m a Ute. Four hours to practice.