He looked away. “Oh my goodness. You’re a girl.” Looking back at Sam, he said it again. “You’re a girl!”
“I know I’m a girl, Coach.”
“But why? Why here?”
“This is a college prep school and has good academics. I need that,” Sam said. “I love playing basketball and you are the best coach there is. So, it all worked out.”
Madison shook his head as the implications sank in. “I can’t have a girl on the team. It’s a boy’s team. No girls.”
Moving forward in her seat, Sam said, “Yes you can. There are no specific regulations against it. I checked.”
“You’re a girl. I can’t play you.”
“You’ve been playing me. What’s different?” she said. “I want to play. I need to play.”
“Sam, I can’t,” he said and stopped, as if the idea had just occurred to him. “Is that your real name?”
“Short for Samantha.”
“How did you get into the school?”
“I tested in, like everyone else in my class,” she said. “It’s me and my mom. I told you. She works a lot. But she signed the papers for me. She wanted me to take the college prep courses and finish here. She didn’t notice I only put down Sam as my name.”
“How do you get to school?”
“City bus.”
“You take the bus to school each day and no one sees where you live or your parents? Where do you live, by the way?”
“Fourteenth and Yandees, on the eastside.”
“Samantha, I have to drop you from the team. I can’t play a girl.”
“If you drop me, you won’t have enough players to make the squad. And you can’t call up a player from junior varsity. It’s too late,” she said. “You’ll have to forfeit this weekend. That’s not fair to the other players. Do you want that?”
Madison interlocked his fingers again and rested his chin on his hands. “I’ll check the regulations and if it’s okay, you can stay on the team. I won’t tell anyone but I can’t play you. Understand?”
“Coach,” Samantha said, standing up from the chair.
“There’s no other way. I can’t play a girl on the boy’s team. That’s my last word on the matter.”
Defeated, she stormed out of the office.
The interior of Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler University campus is an imposing site under normal circumstances. But on the basketball court, add nearly 10,000 screaming people in the stands and it can be overwhelming. The air is electric, the sound is deafening.
It’s Indiana basketball at its best.
Samantha practiced with the team on Saturday afternoon and dressed in the blue uniform for the game that night. But Madison kept to his word and benched her. From her seat at the end she took in the scene in the stands—a sea of Northridge’s blue and white colors—and hardly noticed the basketball court, where Gary Roosevelt badly out-played Northridge in the first half.
Dejected and dispirited, Samantha walked with her teammates to the locker room at the half. And as she was passing the coach, she heard a little girl directly behind him say, “You should put Sam in. Their players are too big. We can’t get to the basket.”
It was a good analysis. Roosevelt had two players over 6-11, including 7-foot center Ron Sweeney, while Donnie was Northridge’s tallest player at 6-foot-9. They dominated him on defense and completely covered him on offense, forcing Northridge to use up its guards with outside shots that weren’t going in. They were down 35-24 at the half.
The locker room pep talk was like all pep talks to underdogs being beaten. Keep your head up. Play your game, not their game. Keep it together and we can pull it out.
But Madison was nothing if not a motivator and his small squad came out looking for bear in the third quarter. They increased the pace and started connecting with outside shooting. It wasn’t pretty – they forced Roosevelt’s Sweeney into foul trouble – but they cut the deficit to five, 50-5 at the end of the third.
It didn’t hurt that Roosevelt’s big man was on the bench for nearly three minutes on the clock.
It was a brutal barroom fight in the fourth, ending in a tied score of 70-70 at the end of regulation. Samantha had not seen a minute of playing time and even the crowd was beginning to notice. She heard shouts from the stands for her to get into the game.
It didn’t happen in the first overtime period, which Northridge barely survived. Roosevelt’s Sweeney was called for a technical foul for throwing a punch at Donnie and ejected from the game.
Jesse Perkins sank the foul shot for the technical with 20 seconds on the clock and Northridge held on for another tie, 79-79.
But Jesse paid the price for keeping Northridge in the game. With a minute left in the second OT, he was elbowed in the right eye under the basket, drawing another technical foul and a forced ejection. The crowd went wild as Jesse, his face bloodied, was escorted off the court by a doctor.
Northridge was still down by three.
With no one else to turn to, Madison signaled for Samantha. In the huddle, Madison laid out the plan, then looked at Samantha. “You’re out there only to even things up. Nothing more.”
Samantha’s heart was beating out of her chest. She in-bounded the ball to another guard who took it down court under a full-court press. He got the ball to Donnie, who drove down the lane. He missed the shot but got the offensive rebound amidst a flurry of arms and elbows. He shot again and scored. Northridge, down by one.
Roosevelt tried to slow the pace but missed a shot with less than 10 seconds on the clock. Northridge had the ball and Madison called timeout.
The plan was to get the ball to Donnie under the basket.
The ball was in-bounded to forward Charlie Lyle from mid-court with only seven seconds on the clock. He was quickly covered and Donnie was doubled-teamed. Glancing back away from the basket, Charlie saw Samantha, her arms up. She was wide open and at the top of the key. Three seconds left.
He passed the ball. She faked to the right, throwing off her defender, and planted her feet for the longest shot she had ever attempted in a game. Set, eyes focused on the basket, she lifted off. The buzzer sounded less than a second after the ball left her fingertips.
The oxygen was pulled from the fieldhouse as 10,000 people inhaled at once. The arc was high and good. Samantha landed on her feet and managed to jump again in anticipation as the ball seemed to hang in the air. Finally…
Swish. All net.
Madison could barely breathe as the exhausting 45-minute interview with the reporter drew to a close. He took long, raspy breaths. Margie was crying, but Ryan and Atwood hung on every word the coach spoke.
“We cut down the net. Sam included. And we got the gold medallions with blue ribbons,” Madison said.
“What happened to her, Dad?” Margie asked.
“She hugged me. Thanked me for letting her play. Gave me her medallion. Asked me to hold on to it on the way back to school. She didn’t want to lose it.”
“And you did,” Atwood commented.
“I took it. Looked for her on the bus. She wasn’t on it.”
“What happened at school, Dad?” asked the coach’s son-in-law. “On that Monday.”
“There was a pep rally but she wasn’t in school. No one could find her.”
“Didn’t someone look up her records in the school office?” Atwood asked. “Try to reach her that way.”
“Of course. I even went to the house on Yandees,” Madison said and coughed. “Empty. There’s a ramp to I-65 there now.”
“And no one found her? Sam Wilson. It’s a common enough name but no one knows what happened to her?” Atwood said.
“It’s a mystery,” Madison said. “And she never got the medallion.”
“Has anyone seen it?” Margie said.
“Not since that night,” Madison said. “I kept it in the house.”
“Did you ever mention to anyone that Sam was a girl?” Atwood asked.
“Not ‘til now.”<
br />
Atwood stopped recording and stood up. He reached down to take the coach’s hand. The grip was weak. “I’m so sorry, Coach. For everything,” he said, looking about.
The coach coughed again.
“This is a great story,” Atwood said, glancing more to Margie than to her father. “I’ll have to check it out, run down some other sources, of course. But I’m sure it won’t take much to convince the editors to run it on 1-A on Saturday. Lead story. Even better, the boy’s championship game is that night.”
Shortly before 4 in the morning, the coach’s eyes flickered open and his sudden raspy breathing caught Dr. Chandler’s immediate attention. She had been sleeping in the chair beside the bed since midnight, several hours after the reporter and the coach’s family left. She rose, glanced at the monitors then back down at the man who was clearly beginning his march toward death. The end was near. The interview had taken its toll.
“What can I do for you?” she said, leaning close to insure he heard.
“The drawer … beside … the bed,” he said, catching a breath between words. “It’s … there.”
The doctor opened the drawer and inside was the missing high school basketball championship winner’s medallion. Dr. Chandler reached inside and lifted out the gold object. She examined it without speaking for 30 seconds, feeling its weight in her hands, the blue ribbon hanging down between her fingers. It had been a long time.
When the doctor turned back to the old man, her eyes glistened. A single tear rolled down one cheek and into the corner of her mouth.
“It’s yours … Remember? Always … kept it … hidden. Didn’t know if … you wanted … your identity … known,” the coach said with difficulty. “I should’ve … played you … that night. You were … good. Made me … proud … to be … your coach.”
Dr. Samantha Wilson Chandler leaned over and kissed her former coach’s forehead. One of her tears fell onto his face.
“Thank you so much, Coach. My abusive dad saw the game on TV, found out where we were. Mom packed us up and we ran. It’s why I left Northridge,” she said. “But that basketball season was the best year of my life. I’d’ve never made it without you. And this,” she said, holding the medallion, “means everything to me.”
“Proud,” was all he said in reply. Speaking had become too difficult.
Sam reached down and took his hand. For a brief moment, the twinkle in the coach’s eyes from 40 years ago was there once again. Sam smiled in return just before his eyes went dark, and the coach was gone.
Brad Stevens
Tony Perona
To love fairy tales is to love the story of Brad Stevens, head coach at Butler University.
In 2000 he left the stability of a career with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly for a more uncertain dream career: coaching basketball. The first job he accepted after leaving Lilly was as a volunteer position at Butler. Stevens was prepared to work at Applebee’s to support his passion.
Just seven years later he became head coach at Butler after spending six seasons as assistant coach. In 2010 he coached his Cinderella team to the Final Four championship game. They repeated in 2011. Though they lost both their final games, Stevens’ decision to follow his dream had paid off. He’d risen to national prominence as a coach, winning or being a finalist for several prestigious awards. He’d even appeared on fellow Hoosier David Letterman’s talk show.
Stevens developed his love of basketball in Zionsville. Known for being a hard worker, he made the varsity team in high school and set many school records. Having decided his basketball skills were “modest,” he chose DePauw University for its academic reputation.
Stevens played basketball every year at DePauw and earned multiple all-conference and academic all-conference awards. During summer vacations, Stevens taught at Butler basketball camps. He graduated in 1999 with a degree in economics.
At DePauw he met his future wife Tracy. She played a major role in his decision to leave the secure job at Lilly. He consulted her when he was offered the volunteer job at Butler. After two hours of thinking it over, she told him to go for it. She reasoned they were only 23 and he would not have a better chance to follow his dream. They were married in 2003 and have two children, Brady and Kinsley.
HOOSIER BUSINESS
Sherita Saffer Campbell
Muncie sits on the River Bend where an early Native American said: “We moved here because of the bend in river. No tornadoes will hit here.” Further residents took this to heart and moved here expecting no tornadoes. Tornadoes came as first young boys and later girls whirled around the hardwood floors of The Muncie Field House so much that entire lives were spent around basketball. The kids growing up carried basketballs under their arms everywhere, dribbled them to school, slept with them. Basketball was the tornado that blew in and swept though the town. Hoops were the official sign of being a Hoosier. Everywhere. Hung on garages, trees, houses and poles were the certification that you were a Muncie Hoosier.
The High School gym floor, scene of The Basketball Finals, was lined in a scatter pattern. Boys with purple t-shirt tops lined up against boys with white t-shirt tops. The coach blew the whistle. “Move.”
“Faster.” His face was turning red.
The boys rushed down the wood floor, moving in and out, the ball handler driving and weaving in between the guards on the opposing side and his own men. Guards held their hands up, bent their elbows, wiggled them, stared head on at the boys on the opposite team. Arms, legs and shoulders well muscled now.
“Faster!” He yelled again. “This is called a fast break, not a waltz.” Muncie’s whole livelihood depended on these boys. The boys pushed faster and harder. Eyes glowed like hot coals, minds focused on the ball, their opponents and the floor.
“They’re working on their fast breaks. Them boys always do them runs up the floor…steal the ball and head to the basket. And hit it every time.” Lawrence Edward, one of the janitors, rested on his broom a minute to watch the team.
“Yep, they’re real Bearcats. See you’re filling in today for Jesse?” Ross, the maintenance chief, asked. He was on a break from office work to watch the ‘Cats practice.
“Jesse fell off the scaffold working on the skylight last night. Banged him up real good. Probably will miss the game.” He shook his head. “Said I would help out so old Jess could keep his job.” The other janitors nodded. Ross looked at Lawrence. He thought Lawrence always worked at the junior high. He must have a talk with the sheriff. Then the Union Hall. Something wasn’t right here. Sheriff told him to call if anything changed. He owed the sheriff his job.
A little bet was exchanged between the two on little bits of paper. Lawrence looked at it. “That much of a spread?” he asked. “No way, here.” He handed back his piece of paper. “They are the Muncie Central Bearcats. They grab the ball, run down the court and hit a basket at the last minute. That’s why they are called Bearcats. They’ll win by more than that.” The other janitor nodded. He looked at the paper and wrote down another figure.
“Use the damn floor,” the coach shouted. This was the only time his mind was off the bicycle shop where he worked part time. Basketball and bicycles were all he thought about, except helping the sheriff. He’d talked to him today. Was glad they got the old bikes to the garage to be fixed. He yawned. He was tired. Been up all night. It was going to work.
Paul Jefferson stood outside the gym trying to listen to the shouts and noises of practice. He was almost as tall as the sheriff. He didn’t like to read much about the world but he was a good intense listener. He could watch and listen with the best of them. He heard that new man Lawrence Edward telling the guys about Jesse. He’d best tell the sheriff about Jesse. The sheriff had him watching and listening for anything that seemed out of place. If he had to, he could and would do anything the sheriff wanted him to do.
After practice he walked into Orv’s drive-in. This was one of Muncie’s gathering places for food, Cokes, dates and information. Everyo
ne stopped by once a day to find out what was going on. Kids were listening to the jukebox. They danced in place. You couldn’t dance on the floor with a partner unless you were over 21 or the place had a special license and the license cost too much for Orv’s. Paul looked at the door that led to the back where big money was made playing draw poker. Lots of money. He shook his head. It was supposed to be a big secret. The best kept one. Everyone knew.
“Hey Paul, get to work.”
He nodded. Headed into the kitchen. He could see across the counter where he washed the dishes into “the dining area.” He turned on the taps and watched the water fill with suds as he poured in the powder. The sheriff walked up. Handed him a glass.
“Got any water there buddy?”
Paul nodded and filled a glass from the tap. Put it on the counter with his right hand as he palmed the note he had written about Jesse getting hurt. What could this mean?
Paul felt the piece of paper slip into the sheriff’s hand.
Paul kept washing dishes, rinsing them under the water, trying to pretend he was listening to the jukebox playing, “There Stands the Glass.” He felt that it was going to be a long afternoon of washing dishes. The sheriff was here and so was one of the big guys in town and one man he didn’t know at all. The Big Boys had landed and were sitting at the same table with the chief of police and the sheriff. No one was even pretending to go into the back room. It was an open meeting. Something they wanted folks to see. He shook his head. He didn’t understand these things. Trouble ahead. Big trouble. He could smell it. He waited. He peeked out the windows that surrounded the drive-in. The sheriff got up, walked away from the direction of city hall down the street. Paul smiled. Sheriff Rawlins was going to the tobacco shop where the basketball talk would be bigger and the money flowing.
Down the street at the tobacco shop a man walked in, laid a large bill on the counter and a card. His face was flushed after a long talk with the sheriff while drinking a double chocolate soda at Orv’s. Sweat started to form on his forehead. He had better produce what the sheriff wanted or else. Now he needed a drink.
Hoosier Hoops and Hijinks Page 7