The Final Four

by Paul Volponi

  Suddenly, Malcolm felt like there was a pit bull behind that desk in front of him—a pit bull in stockings—to go with the photo on the windowsill.

  “When was a headstone first erected?”

  “I guess that would be in September of my senior year in high school, almost a year and a half ago,” answered Malcolm. “I remember because I had the tattoo of Trisha on my arm already, and I got that in August.”

  “The original headstone? The one your parents paid for?”

  “Yes,” said Malcolm, followed by a long breath.

  “And when was the new one erected?”

  “I’m not sure. The first time I saw it was that November, just about two months later. It was right after Thanksgiving.”

  Ms. Thad flipped through the calendar on her desk.

  “So that’s more than a year ago—approximately sixteen months. And you’d already committed to play at MSU by then?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Were your parents surprised the first time they saw the new headstone there?”

  “Yeah, my father was. I was there with him. He didn’t know about it. But there are lots of people who loved my sister. It could have been a gift from the marching band at our high school, or somebody rich who wanted to stay anonymous and do a good deed.”

  “What about your mother, Malcolm? Was she surprised by it?”

  “I guess. My father was the one who told her. After that, she wouldn’t talk about it. None of us would.”

  “I see.”

  “My parents didn’t go around trying to find out who did it. They just accepted it.”

  “That probably would have been fine,” said Ms. Thad, with her pen flying across the pad. “Only it turns out that the newspaper found a receipt for that headstone paid for by Detroit’s biggest sports agent, someone who represents several current NBA players. And that agent’s brother happens to be in a church choir with your mother.”

  “I’ve never been contacted by anybody like that. And neither have my parents. They would have told me for sure.”

  “Look, right now there’s no newspaper article. Things like that usually take a lot of time. They like to have multiple sources and check every fact to the umpteenth degree before they print. And there’s no NCAA investigation yet either. A headstone isn’t normally perceived as a gift. So maybe nothing’s going to come of this at all. But MSU needs to be prepared. I may have more questions for you at a later time. But for now, don’t speak to anyone about this.”

  “Does Coach know?”

  “He knows as much as I just told you.”

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen to me over something like this?” asked Malcolm. “I’d lose my eligibility? I couldn’t play in the NCAA Tournament next week?”

  “No, penalties would never come that fast. An investigation would most likely take several months, maybe a year,” said Ms. Thad. “I imagine you’d be in the NBA by then. MSU, the basketball program, and Coach Barker would eventually pay the price. You’d be free and clear of the NCAA’s authority.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel good? Because it doesn’t!” said Malcolm, getting up from his chair and then walking towards the frosted glass door. “I don’t need these headaches. None of us do. And over what? Nothing!”

  “[Basketball is] now a game for the whole world.”

  —Vlade Divac, a humanitarian and one of the first Eastern European players to compete in the NBA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ROKO BACIC

  8:05 P.M. [CT]

  With 3:10 remaining and the game still knotted up, Roko gets stripped of the ball by Malcolm’s lightning-swift hands. He tries to banish the thought of that turnover from his mind. It gets easier to do with the Spartans flying down the court in a wave, intent on seizing the lead. You can’t be a good point guard or a good defender without having a short memory, without the ability to forget about your last mistake.

  In the span of just a few backpedaling strides, Roko’s thoughts become clear and focused as he searches for an angle to cut off Malcolm’s dribble.

  To Roko’s left, Aaron arrives to double-team Malcolm, convinced he has no intention of passing the ball. That causes Roko to instantly readjust his calculations, and slightly turn his body.

  Roko and Aaron hang like a crimson shadow over Malcolm as he attacks the hoop on a driving layup.

  When Malcolm extends the rock in his right hand, both defenders go for the block. And for an instant, the hands of all three players are touching the ball.

  The ref’s whistle blows for a foul on the Trojans.

  “That was perfect defense!” screams Coach Kennedy from the sideline. “We tied him up! Where was the contact? You let them play like thugs, and we can’t breathe on anybody!”

  Roko raises his hand to say it’s on him. But the ref shakes his head, pointing at Aaron. It’s his fifth and final foul, so Aaron is now out of the game.

  “That’s it,” says Malcolm. “We’re going to pull their team apart piece by piece.”

  The Superdome crowd gives Aaron a standing ovation as he walks off the court. But the loudest applause is coming from his family and friends behind the Trojans’ bench. And Roko, along with his red-wigged surrogate parents, claps his hands harder and harder for him.

  A moment later, Malcolm sets his feet at the free-throw line.

  Putting that blown breakaway dunk behind him, he buries both foul shots.

  The Spartans lead the Trojans 88–86.

  March 29 (two days ago)

  This morning I walked into the Superdome for the first time. I couldn’t believe its incredible size. Maybe it’s big enough to land a jumbo jet inside, or build a small city beneath its roof. Before we went to our locker room to change, Coach Kennedy arranged for Aaron, his mother, and his aunt and uncle to take us on a special tour. They brought us to section 111 and we all sat down in the seats there. That’s the section where Aaron and his family stayed for two days and nights to survive Hurricane Katrina, back in the summer of 2005, when Aaron was fourteen years old. I knew it was going to be a serious talk from the heart because it was the only time that Aaron’s aunt and uncle (my official parents in New Orleans) took off their red curly wigs. So I pulled out a pen and my notebook.

  Aaron wanted his mother to speak. But she said, “These are your teammates. You share a bond with them that I don’t. They need to hear about what happened from you.” So Aaron told us about his first morning here. How it started out almost as a great adventure. “I kept looking at the football field on the floor, where the basketball court is laid out now. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here for free. It was like a dream,” said Aaron. Then he told about how fast that dream turned into a living nightmare, like the Freddy Krueger character from the movies was suddenly turned loose on the thousands of people seeking shelter inside the Superdome.

  “First thing—boom, the AC stopped working. It got to be like 120 degrees in here with all the heat and humidity. Then more and more people came, lots of them in bad shape from the storm, adding more body heat. There were crazy long lines to get food. National Guard soldiers with machine guns handed out box lunches. Then they ran out of supplies and people started fighting over whatever food and water they could get their hands on,” Aaron said.

  Aaron’s uncle told him not to forget about the bathrooms. But his uncle got so upset just mentioning it that he started to tell that part himself. “All the toilets backed up when the water pressure dropped, because of the floods in the streets. That stink was everywhere in the Superdome. You couldn’t escape it. You couldn’t step into a bathroom without getting sick to your stomach. So people started relieving themselves in every corner of this place,” said his uncle, sounding as angry as if it had happened yesterday.

  When he said that, I thought about those terrible times as a small boy in Zagreb. The nights we hid in my neighbor’s basement overnight with no bathroom, because of the exploding mortar shells outside.

>   Finally, Aaron’s mother spoke. She said, “It wasn’t all evil. There were some beautiful things that happened here too. They were things that would really touch your heart, like people doing good deeds for complete strangers, treating them like family, and sharing the last of their food and drink with the sickly and senior citizens. But lots of elderly folks died in the heat waiting for medical help. And none of us trapped here knew for sure if we’d have a home to go back to, or if our city would be completely washed away, killing off our culture, our roots. One of the only things that eased my mind was the fact that the football team that plays in this stadium is named the Saints. I took that as a sign and a blessing.”

  Coach Kennedy stood up from his seat, like he was a student and Aaron’s mother was a professor. He asked her, “How do you feel when you look around the Superdome now and see all of it put back together, knowing your son will play here in the Final Four?” She thought about it for a few seconds and then said, “Part of me feels a real sense of triumph for my family and the people of New Orleans. Another part of me looks at the free tickets we got for the game and says that isn’t nearly enough to make up for what we went through in this Superdome. So it’s all very mixed emotions for me. I guess I’m optimistic, grateful, and bitter all at the same time.”

  As we left, I looked around at that perfect stadium and the hundreds of workers polishing things up like new for the Final Four. I thought about Croatia and wondered if my country would ever get put back together.

  Maybe the souls of New Orleans and Zagreb are not so different.

  Maybe Aaron is closer to being my brother than I ever knew.

  “If you make every game a life-and-death proposition, you’re going to have problems. For one thing, you’ll be dead a lot.”

  —Dean Smith, who coached the University of North Carolina for thirty-six years, winning two NCAA Championships and reaching the Final Four eleven times

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CRISPIN RICE

  8:07 P.M. [CT]

  Without the threat of the sharpshooting Aaron in the lineup, the Spartans blanket Crispin and Roko, stifling the Trojans’ offense. As the shot clock winds down, Crispin is forced into a tough off-balance floater in the lane. Michigan State hauls in the rebound. They head up court with Malcolm in control of the ball, looking to increase their two-point lead with 2:35 remaining.

  Crispin is battling Grizzly Bear Cousins for position down low.

  Then, suddenly, Grizzly steps out to set a hard screen on Roko.

  The pair collides and the referee whistles Roko for the foul, his fourth of the game.

  Coach Kennedy leaps off the bench and onto the court to argue the call.

  “There’s no way that’s on us!” screams Kennedy, whose right arm slips loose from his suit jacket’s sleeve. “That’s bullshit! Fouls? All game long they’ve been getting away with felonies!”

  Crispin sees his coach yank his other arm from its sleeve and fling his jacket to the floor.

  That’s when Crispin jumps in front of Kennedy, pulling him away from the referee.

  The ref has the whistle in his mouth and his hands ready to make the letter T.

  The only things saving Kennedy from a technical foul and free throws by the Spartans is the ref’s patience and Crispin’s grip on his coach.

  As Kennedy starts to simmer down and Crispin relaxes his hold, the coach tells him, “Don’t waste your strength. You’re going to need every bit of it on the court.”

  “It’s no sweat, Coach,” says Crispin. “You’d do the same for me.”

  YESTERDAY

  Sitting in the middle of a semicircle, surrounded by his teammates in their locker room, Crispin carefully taped his hurting right pinkie to his ring finger for support.

  Hearing Coach Kennedy clear his throat, Crispin focused his eyes on the center of the room.

  “Coach Barker has more experience than I do. He’s been here before and won. So somewhere along the line I’ll probably cost us a point or two. And the rest of you will have to make up for that,” said Coach Kennedy, taking a step closer to his players and leaving the Xs and Os on the board behind him. “The Spartans’ biggest advantage is Malcolm McBride. He’s the best athlete on the court. But their biggest disadvantage can also be McBride. Sometimes he doesn’t get it. He thinks the basketball belongs to him, that it has his name on it.”

  Crispin held the tape taut with his teeth, and then he ripped it from the roll, before pulling the piece even tighter around that pair of fingers.

  “So Mr. One and Done never heard that Phil Jackson quote you’re always pushing?” asked Aaron. “The one that goes, ‘Basketball is sharing.’”

  “If he has heard it, apparently it’s never made much of an impression on him,” said Kennedy.

  “Coach, you think we can help him to feel that way—that the rock is really his?” asked Roko, from Crispin’s immediate left.

  “I’ll bet Roko can do it. And maybe the Red Bull can bring it out in McBride even more,” said Crispin, to the murmuring approval of his teammates.

  “You guys might be on to something,” said Kennedy, with a grin. “But don’t become overly concerned with McBride, or the size of their big men. Remember, our biggest plus is us. We’ve been looking after each other since the beginning of the season, way before we ever got this far. We believed in each other before anybody outside of this room ever did. That means we were winners before our record proved it. Just don’t get caught up in the media hype that this moment is too big for a team from Troy, Alabama.”

  That’s when a player shouted out one of the clichés he’d read about his team’s chances. “They’re content just to be here.”

  Then a few more voices followed after him.

  “This experience is something Troy can build on next year.”

  “Cinderella’s always gone before midnight.”

  “Will they melt in the glare of the national stoplight?”

  “I see you guys have been reading your own press. That can be a dangerous thing,” said Kennedy. “The reporters who write those stories—they’re outsiders. They don’t really know us or how we’ll respond to the pressure. Crispin, you’re a senior. You’ve seen this team take shape over the past four years. How do you think we’ll respond?”

  “I think that any pressure will disappear once the game starts. We’ll just clear our minds and we’ll be in the flow.”

  “I agree. By the way, Crispin tells me he has an announcement to share with the team,” said Kennedy.

  Crispin took a deep breath, looking around him, from side to side, before he spoke again.

  “There’s been a lot of attention on this ‘Hope of Troy’ thing. How Hope’s been our good luck charm and stuff. I wanted to say something here that’s private, intended for our ears only,” said Crispin, squeezing the five fingers on his right hand together. “This morning, Hope and I decided to put our engagement off for a while. Neither one of us is really ready for it. I wanted you to hear it from me. And to know that it’s not going to affect my play. We’re a team, and a good one, too. That’s how we got this far. We don’t need good luck charms. We just need to continue to play together, and support each other on the court.”

  “You’ll have our support, always,” said Roko, touching a closed fist to Crispin’s left biceps. “We’re more than a team here. We’re a family.”

  Then other voices echoed that feeling through the locker room.

  “Win or lose, brothers to the end.”

  “Yeah, we’re here for you, Crisp. All of us.”

  “If all I’m remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I’ve done a bad job with the rest of my life.”

  —Isiah Thomas, former NCAA and NBA Champion

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  MICHAEL JORDAN

  8:09 P.M. [CT]

  MJ shadows his man on defense as the Spartans protect a slim two-point lead. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Red Bull slip free from Malco
lm, beginning his drive to the basket. Without hesitation, MJ slides over into Roko’s path, leaving his man alone. But as MJ commits himself, he sees Roko’s eyes shift to the open spot on the court that MJ just left.

  Roko delivers the ball to MJ’s wide-open man.

  No Spartan helps out to cover him, and MJ can only sprint back there, too late to stop the shot.

  “Stay with your man, not mine!” Malcolm roars at MJ as the ball rips through the netting. “Know your place out here! Find it and stay there!”

  With the score now tied 88–88 with 1:45 left, the Spartans advance the ball.

  The Trojans are focused on Malcolm, waiting for him to jet to the basket.

  Coach Barker holds two palms out in front of him, telling his team to take their time. Malcolm passes off to his teammates, with the rock always coming right back into his hands.

  As the shot clock ticks down to ten seconds, Malcolm gets more serious about his coming assault on the rim. His final pass is to MJ, whose defender has backed way off of him, cheating towards Malcolm.

  Then, with the memory of Barker’s speech about taking the open shot scorched into his brain, MJ fakes the pass back to Malcolm.

  The feint buys him even more room, and MJ takes a long breath before he goes into his shooting motion.

  MJ blocks out everything around him—Malcolm, the defenders, the crowd, and even how much that one shot means.

  Gliding off his fingertips, the ball feels almost weightless to MJ.

  The crowd noise explodes in his ears as the Spartans regain the lead.

  LAST NIGHT

  MJ was looking out a window at the lights of New Orleans when Malcolm stepped out of his bedroom in the hotel suite they were sharing.

  “My own bedroom and my own toilet—now this is class,” said Malcolm, wearing a green sweat suit and walking barefoot. “Not like that joke of a room they give us in the athletes’ dorm—four walls, two beds, two desks, one cramped toilet.”