Surprisingly, not much was said by the critics about the dangers of underage gambling or school and family values regarding gaming in general, except by the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA). Most seemed to be more interested in, even fascinated by, the mob’s involvement in Olivia Hill’s short, shady life.
My Chicago contact told me that the FBI had intensified their surveillance of the shady nightclub owner’s activities and had pressured mob informers to squeal about the circumstances of Olivia’s murder. The license plate number of the men that stole Olivia’s safe, and her off-shore account numbers had likely helped their investigation, he said. Agents were about to bust a large group of Chicago mobsters.
Mob connections in Indianapolis were also being squeezed and illegal gambling operations scrutinized. Charlie had heard his brother’s killer was also close to being caught for years of crimes related to loan-sharking and murder.
With the high school and college basketball seasons over, Charlie and I were at a loss as to what to do with our free time. We went to occasional Indiana Pacers games and hoped we’d be able to follow them soon to the play-offs. I’d put my new crime-writing career on hold, even after a couple of enticing employment opportunities, but was considering a lucrative offer related to writing a book about the Olivia Hill case next year. I looked forward to indulging myself with Charlie a bit longer.
After the racketeering indictments and all the media hype died down, Charlie asked me to marry him. I accepted, but only after an exhaustive background check, which I really felt was unnecessary. Until I reminded myself of my late friend, the endearing, but deceptive Olivia Hill.
Andrea Myers: Former Athletic Director at Indiana State
M. B. Dabney
When Andrea Myers was growing up in rural Dana, Indiana, near the Illinois state border, there were no competitive sports for girls at her high school. Nor were there any female coaches in boys sports. She graduated from high school in 1962, a decade before Title IX, the federal law that established a playing field – not just a level playing field – for girls sports.
Thankfully, a lot of things changed long before she retired in 2005 to play golf, travel a lot, and just relax and enjoy life.
“My first experience in competition was after I got to college,” says Myers, whom everyone calls Andi, referring to her time at Indiana State University. “And I loved the competition.”
She loved it so much she went on to have a four-decade career in college sports, starting with 15 years coaching women’s basketball at Vincennes University, and ending with 22 years as a women’s basketball coach and then athletic director at ISU, her alma mater.
Some of the high points of her career were at Vincennes, where she had an overall record of 209-95. “I started the (women’s) basketball program there,” she says. They offered girls scholarships as far back as 1973, and enjoyed strong teams for a number of years. She was also twice named Regional Basketball Coach of the Year.
Myers admits coaching at Indiana State was tough at first because her teams struggled. But also during her tenure she was once named Conference Coach of the Year. From 1999 to 2005, Myers was the athletic director at ISU, becoming the first woman to hold that position in the school’s history.
Myers has many honors from her time as a coach and college athletics administrator, including being named the 2002 Administrator of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators.
But perhaps the greatest honor is having had an impact on someone’s life.
“Not a week goes by when I don’t hear from one of the great former athletes I’ve coached,” she says. “And that’s special.”
MORE THAN THE GAME
Barbara Swander Miller
Too young to drive and too old to go looking for playmates, Tim figured he would take a walk. He headed up the gravel drive to County Road 100 West. Nothing like walking in Chicago, he thought. No people… no cars… Tim quickly scanned what was left of the little town. Nothing interesting here. Tim turned, noticing a weathered steeple. Wait a minute.
At the back corner of the lot, just beyond a thick sycamore, was a recently dug grave. Tim picked his way through the broken monuments to read the inscription.
Harold Eugene Brewster
A Friend to All, Gone Too Soon
October 1, 1933 to May 21, 2010
What! Brewster! This must be my grandpa’s grave. Harold! What a name! Tim instinctively stepped back from the mound. He stared at the dirt heaped over what surely was a casket hidden beneath, his mind churning. Tim eyed the engraving. “A Friend to All?” He wasn’t a friend to me… or to Dad. I didn’t even know him. Tim’s toe nudged the edge of the mound.
Their trip from suburban Chicago to rural Indiana had been unexpected. Tim had stayed at school late for chess club that afternoon, the day the phone call came. He had just walked into the back door when he watched his dad lose it. His strong, steady dad, crumpled against the wall in the hallway, his six-foot frame reduced to a shaking ball. The cell phone fell from his dad’s right hand; a book tumbled from his left in his grief. Seeing his dad collapse rattled Tim. Not knowing what to say or do, Tim bolted for his room. He claimed he wasn’t hungry later when his mom called him for dinner.
That night in his bedroom, Tim overheard his parents talking downstairs. He wondered why they didn’t realize that the old gravity heat grate was a perfect conduit for their late-night conversations. If he put his head near the floor, the area rug channeled the voices straight to his ear.
“I just thought… I wanted him to see me finish,” his dad choked out.
Then all Tim heard were muffled sobs. Tim let the rug fall back over the grate and climbed into bed. He pulled the warm covers over his head, trying to forget his questions.
The next day, Tim’s mom updated him. “There’s not going to be a funeral, Tim. Your grandpa wanted it that way. You know he and your dad didn’t get along.”
That was her standard answer, and Tim had never really questioned her. When he was little, he had thought maybe it was his fault that he didn’t have a grandpa in his life. That was when he perfected his eavesdropping technique upstairs. Later, he had asked once when his grandpa called, but his dad had clammed up. Tim pretty much had stopped thinking about his grandpa…until now.
As soon as school was out, Tim’s mom told him, the three of them were going to Roll for a week to clean, pack, and get ready for the auction of the house and all its contents.
In the first couple of days at the old farmhouse, Tim had helped his mom wash dishes and pack household items in the kitchen and in the basement. He carried box after box to the garage where the auctioneers would load them. His dad was supposed to work in the den and his grandpa’s bedroom going through his father’s possessions. Each night at the dinner table, Tim and his mom talked about what they had accomplished and checked off tasks on their master list, but his dad was quiet. Why is Dad taking this so hard? He and Grandpa never talked.
After three days, the other bedrooms had been cleared out, the living room only had furniture left; the same for the dining room. The yard was empty, and the detached garage was filling up with stacked boxes.
“Hey, need some help? Maybe we can get back home sooner if I work, too,” Tim suggested to his dad who was sorting papers in the den.
“Nope. I can handle it. Go find something to do.”
Tim had already noticed the lonely rim mounted on the front of the garage door, but so far there was no basketball to be found. So Tim set off to explore and ended up in the graveyard standing next to his grandpa’s grave. I wonder why everyone else thought Mr. Harold Brewster was so great when he barely spoke to his own son, Tim wondered.
Tim wiped his forehead in the summer heat. Across the road, he heard a couple of cars crunching their way into a parking lot. The doors flung open, and some kids jumped out. Two of them sauntered up to the yellow brick building and disappeared through its double doors. The last ki
d stooped down to tie his shoelace. When he looked up, he spotted Tim in the churchyard and motioned him over.
It turned out that the doors opened to an old high school gym—no school in sight, just a gym. “This is cool!” Tim said to himself, as he stepped inside.
“Hey there, son!” called an older man who had a basketball resting on his hip. “Heard you were here. Wondered if you might show up.” The man strode across the wooden floor and stuck out his hand. “Bob Billings,” he said. “You must be Tim. I knew your grandpa.”
Taken aback, Tim nodded and firmed up his grip to match the man’s strong handshake.
“You play ball?” the man asked, looking at Tim closely, as if he were scouting for a college team.
“Uhh… yeah… some.” Tim’s eyes dropped to the floor, not sure if he was overstating his abilities.
“Well, come on.” Bob tossed a ball to Tim.
The truth was that Tim had played basketball some—mostly in PE class. But he had never been on a real team. Still, he knew how to dribble and he knew how to shoot, and the extra three inches he had grown the last year couldn’t hurt. So the next hour flew by as the guys split into teams and played each other under Bob’s coaching and cajoling.
After a close game, the guys sprawled out on the varnished bleachers to cool off. Tim ran his fingers over the numbers in faded black paint. He turned to Bob who rested in the first row rubbing his knee. “Did you play here when you were in school?”
“Don’t get him started,” said Zach, laughing. Zach was the boy who had invited Tim to join the pick-up game. He wiped his forehead and grinned at the old man who owned the place now and opened it for the kids on most summer mornings.
Bob watched the boys walk across the floor to get water bottles from their bags. “Yep, I was a Roll Red Roller… and those were the days.” Tim smiled as Bob’s eyes settled on the stage end of the court. “Nothing else to do on Friday nights, so the whole town came to the games,” he recalled. “We were stars. Everybody knew our names.”
This sucks. My own grandpa could’ve told me these stories if I’d known him Or at least my dad could’ve. They both lived here.
“Yep, that Red-Roller steamroller came charging through the gym, right between lines of girls shakin’ their pompoms. And then we came bursting through the door at the top of the bleachers.” Bob pointed above the south bleachers. “There was a hallway right up there connected to the old school. Made a heckuva entrance!”
The other boys, who had heard Bob’s stories well enough to tell them, grinned at each other and wandered back on to the gym floor to shoot free throws. But Tim was intrigued. “Did you win a lot of games?”
“We sure did. For about three years, we were the best team around.” Bob paused to peer at Tim. “Had a forward that was something else. Newspapers around here called him ‘The Magic Genie.’ Surprised you never heard of him.”
Tim shook his head and shifted on the hard bench. “Uh… my dad doesn’t really talk about growing up here.”
“That’s a shame.” The old timer shook his head. “Looked like gods, we did! All those long arms and legs.” Bob leaned over closer and whispered, “Made ourselves look taller by rolling down our socks… kind of our… good luck charm.” Tim nodded uncomfortably. “You know… Red Rollers. Magic Genie thought it up… he always liked making puns.”
Bob held Tim’s eyes for several seconds, before Tim felt uncomfortable. Then the old man looked away quickly, his eyes misting. He must really miss those days, Tim thought. Maybe that’s what’s going on with Dad.
“That’s nice.” Tim said, not sure what else to say. He glanced back to the floor where the other boys dribbled and shot.
“You gonna play some more?” his teammate called.
“Yep.” Tim jumped up in relief.
With nothing else to do each morning, Tim was up by eight and out the door. After a day or two, Tim found that he was actually decent at basketball. Everyone at North Park knew him as a geek%the one whose dad was working on his Ph.D. in literature and who knew all the answers in English class. Tim had never had the nerve to try out for a sports team, but his parents had never cared. His dad always said being smart was more important than being athletic.
But it was more than the game and boredom that brought him back each morning. Tim loved the old gym and the stories about this place where his family had lived.
Each day, Bob told Tim a new one, like how one time he and Magic Genie went to May’s Restaurant after the county tourney and bought all their fans pop and hamburgers. And when Bob found out that Tim didn’t own a basketball, he even gave him one%he said basketball was in his blood now. Each day, more questions started gnawing at Tim. Roll was such a neat place. Everyone here is so nice. Why did Dad want to leave?
Later that week, an evening thunderstorm was brewing. His dad was so touchy that Tim had been avoiding him, and the muggy weather didn’t help. Exhausted from a long day at the gym, Tim kicked off his Chuck Taylors and stuffed his socks inside. He could wear them tomorrow. His shirt was another story. He peeled it off, wadded it up, and shot it into the hamper.
Flashes of light filtered through the dark clouds. His dad had called it heat lightning at dinner and said it wouldn’t amount to much, just “more damn heat tomorrow.” That was after he had chewed out Tim for spending so much time at the gym. I know Dad is stressed, but jeez…
Tim rolled his shoulders a few times and got into bed. Just as he began to drift off, he thought he heard a faint thumping, almost like a ball bouncing. Basketball really is in my blood, he thought, and then he was asleep.
Around midnight, the heat lightning turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm. Rain pelted the screens. The chill in the air and sharp cracks of thunder woke Tim. He fell out of bed, knowing that he should close the window, and he stumbled toward it. The full-length curtains whipped out from the window frame. Cold rain shot out from the fan and quickly chilled him. He heaved up the old window frame with one hand and tugged the fan from the window with the other. The heavy window banged down as Tim set the fan on the floor and turned the dial to off. Exhausted and feeling lightheaded from his sudden exertion, Tim turned back toward his bed. Without warning, an electric terror jolted through his body.
Sitting on the edge of his bed was a young man.
Tim’s feet were rooted to the floor. Even if he had wanted to scream, he couldn’t have. His voice was gone. His mind was blank. He had no control. All he could do was stand and stare, his chest thumping.
The intruder ignored Tim, and in a brief flash of lightning, Tim saw that he was wearing shorts and a white tee shirt. Still not noticing Tim at the window, the young man lifted his lanky right leg across the other knee. His hands fidgeted with a small piece of cloth. After a few seconds, the young man uncrossed his legs, stood up and turned to the bedroom door, his back to Tim. Then he disappeared.
Tim shook his head to make sure he was awake. What was that? Tim blinked, but now there was no one in sight. He looked at his bed. Was someone just sitting there? Tim glanced at the door. It’s still closed. Am I dreaming? No, the window is closed, too. What the heck? Was that a ghost? Should I go get Mom and Dad?
Tim collapsed into the old armchair, his heart still racing. He was too spooked to move. His brain swam with questions. When his heart finally slowed, Tim reached over to his bed, tugged off the top sheet, and wrapped it around himself. Somehow, he felt safer covered. With his knees and the sheet pulled up to his chest, Tim was finally able to sleep again.
Dawn broke with a slight chill in the air. Tim kicked away the tangled bed sheet and stretched his legs. He knew he should get up and get dressed, but he was exhausted. Tim noticed his Chucks. What’re those on top? Tim swung his legs out of bed and leaned closer. That’s so weird. I didn’t leave my socks rolled like that. Tim got up and went to look. Wait a minute.… Is that what Bob meant about the Red Rollers’ socks? Holy crap! Tim stepped backward. Was that a ghost last night? Some kid who played bask
etball for Roll and died? Tim’s brain flashed. Is Grandpa’s house haunted? Tim had to get out of the house and think.
The morning stayed cool and overcast, and on the short walk to the highway, Tim debated about whether to tell the other guys and Bob about last night. They’ll probably think I’m nuts. Seeing ghosts that roll up socks!
Down at the gym, Bob met Tim with bad news. Closin’ up shop early,” he told Tim. “Headed down to Hartford City. Gotta do some banking. Wish your grandpa was here to let you guys play, but…” Bob turned to leave.
Grandpa helped Bob at the gym? Hmmm…. I didn’t know that. Tim pushed his thoughts aside before Bob could get away. “Could I lock up, Bob? That way, we could play for a while. We’ll be careful.”
Bob hesitated. “Don’t usually do this.” Then he tossed the keys to Tim. “Play for an hour or so, then drop ‘em off. I’ll find ‘em.”
After a close scrimmage, the guys were hot and tired. Nobody wanted to talk. The other boys headed out swigging Gatorade, while Tim jumped up onto the stage to find the circuit breakers. “See ya tomorrow,” Zach called.
“Yeah, see ya,” Tim called over his shoulder. He heard the old doors bang as he flicked off the breakers. Stepping back onto the stage, he smiled at the shafts of sunlight streaming through the upper windows onto the court. l bet Bob would say they’re spotlights for the old Roll Red Rollers. Tim narrowed his eyes. The sunlight was fading, and in its place, a foggy, gray mist was settling across the floor.
Suddenly, standing under the goal were three basketball players, dressed in silky, short gym trunks and sleeveless Roll jerseys. The stocky one passed the ball to the shortest player who dribbled under the basket and tossed up an easy lay-up. Then the first one circled around to get the rebound and pass it to Number 5, the tallest one. In an obviously choreographed drill, the tall one caught it easily, loped over to the goal and did a hook shot into the waiting net. Tim knew he should be scared, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Number 5, the star. There’s something about that guy, Tim thought. His long legs… When the player snagged his own rebound, he flashed a broad smile at Tim, and then rocketed the ball straight at him.
Hoosier Hoops and Hijinks Page 26