Here he paused to see if his vocabulary impressed my father, but there was no response.
“We admitted military veterans in 1919 after what was called the Great War, and by 1928 the enrollment increased to twenty-five thousand. Our current enrollment is two hundred fifteen thousand undergraduates plus fifteen thousand graduate students. We’re the top-rated academic institution in the Southwest and we have about a hundred and fifty thousand annual applicants for our undergraduate program. And overall we have a seventy percent graduation rate.”
He flipped through several more pages. “These days, we have thirty-nine buildings spread over four hundred nineteen acres.”
“Lovely grounds,” said my mother.
“Yes, indeed. We’re in the Sonoran Desert, which has the most beautiful cactuses you’ll ever hope to see …”
“Cacti,” said Father.
“Oh, yes. Of course. Cacti . . . Anyway, the campus is surrounded by several mountain ranges, the biggest and most beautiful are the Santa Catalinas, which are snow-capped even in summer. . . . I wish I had photos of the glorious sunsets that can be seen.”
“Beautiful,” Mother chimed.
“The Grand Canyon is only a five-hour drive away, and Nogales, Mexico, is just sixty miles south. Nogales is famous for sightseeing and the low prices paid for excellent quality-clothing, rugs, and other locally made goods.”
When he turned another page, he looked at Father and not at me.
“Yearly tuition is fourteen thousand for in-state residents and thirty-five thousand for out-of-state students.”
“Wow,” said my mother. “That’s quite a discount.”
“But, of course, Elliot will get what we call a ‘full boat.’ That’s free tuition, free living accommodations, free meals, free books, and the free use of tutors if his schoolwork needs some help.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” my mother beamed, and Lee nodded.
“There are plenty of cultural activities at the university,” he continued. “Lectures, concerts, you name it. Plus there are many old adobe houses to visit in Tucson’s Historical District, as well as wonderful art galleries, nightclubs, and restaurants all along Fourth Avenue. I hope you like Mexican food, Elliot.”
“I guess so. I mean, yes. Sure I do.”
“And we’re only a hundred and sixteen miles from Phoenix and NBA basketball.”
“How nice. Elliot will certainly love that.”
“As far as academics are concerned . . . in addition to the central library there are several satellite libraries specializing in such areas as African-American, Asian, Chicano, American Indian, film and TV, biomedical studies, and more. In all, there are over two million books and countless magazines and scholarly journals. We have majors in dozens of fields, and nearly three thousand full-time faculty, which include twelve winners of either Nobel or Pulitzer prizes.”
He turned to another page. “And here’s our brand-new field house, where Elliot will be—”
“Excuse me,” Father said. “Who are the members of the English faculty?”
“Umm. I really don’t know, sir.”
“Well, then, go make a call and find out. It’s of critical importance.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lee stood up and my mother led him into the privacy of my father’s study.
I had sneaked in there several times in the past few years. A huge mahogany desk. A plump leather couch to accommodate his naps. All four walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases with a couple of sliding ladders to make the uppermost shelves readily available.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.
“Nobody’s stopping you,” said my father.
The downstairs bathroom was close by the study and, since Lee left the door to the study slightly ajar, I could see him extract a large portable phone from his briefcase. After his call was answered, he moved closer to the desk and out of sight, but I could hear bits of his conversation.
“Fine. It’s going fine. The kid is chomping at the bit and the mother is no problem. But the father wants to know who’s on the English faculty. . . . Yeah, I know. But what am I supposed to do? . . . Yeah. The faculty list. The English department . . . Yeah. Read me the names. . . . Okay. Okay. How do you spell that? . . . Okay. Got it. Okay. Thanks.”
Then he said something that made me a hundred percent positive that I would accept the “full boat” from USA.
“Yeah . . . I know . . . The father is a fucking asshole. See what kind of bullshit I have to put up with?”
Resuming our meeting, Lee read off the names.
“Dr. George Brodwin.”
“Ach,” sneered father. “One of those ‘new scholars,’ who are only interested in the text and ignore any social, cultural, or historic content. Avoid him, Elliot, if at all possible.”
As Lee ran down the list, Father had a comment for each of them.
“A minor poet . . . A one-book novelist . . . His dissertation was extremely derivative. . . . If his PhD adviser hadn’t been on the editorial board of MLB, he’d never get an article published. . . . Hasn’t had an original thought in years.”
“D. W. Robertson, Jr.”
“Ah, there’s a good one. His Preface to Chaucer is brilliant. He’s the one for you to study with, Elliot.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Here’s our brand-new field house.”
I’d seen the seven or eight home games that were shown on national or cable TV, and had been impressed. Holding about sixteen thousand fans, including hundreds of students with their faces painted in the school’s colors, half red and half yellow, plus beautiful acrobatic cheerleaders.
Then he turned to photos of the locker room, the weight room, and the training facilities. Wall-to-wall plush carpeting, several couches in the locker room, ten showers, five massage/taping tables, four trainers in white uniforms, all kinds of therapeutic machinery, a large room with cushioned seats and a gigantic TV for watching scouting and game tapes. It all looked like what I imagined to be the kind of upscale facilities that NBA teams had.
Then there was a glimpse into Coach Woody’s office, the walls hung with photos of his NCAA championship teams and All-American players. Plus, handshake photos of Coach Woody with Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and several other big-shot politicians I couldn’t recognize.
Lee closed his notebooks and photo album. “Oh, how could I forget? All of the intercollegiate athletic teams eat in a separate section of the dining hall, and our menu is a special one. All of it freshly prepared from fresh ingredients. No packaged food whatsoever. And the menus are drawn up by the school’s dietitian, so there’s always the proper proportion of protein, green vegetables, and carbohydrates. And there’s also a separate section of the dorms, so you’ll have your own room. But, after your sophomore year, you’ll have the option to live off-campus—at your own expense, of course. If that’s what you choose to do, or even if you want to remain in the dorms, we’ll get you a nice job that won’t interfere with either your studying time or your basketball time, and will also provide plenty of spending money.”
My mother was kvelling with delight.
“So, Elliot. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes, I do. It’s about Marwane Wright, who was a third-team All-American as a freshman last season. He plays shooting guard, the same position that I play. So how much playing time will I get?”
“A good question. Now, the situation is this . . . Glenn is going on nineteen and he wears a size-sixteen sneaker. So we expect that Glenn is still growing. Our orthopedic staff predicts he’ll top out at six-seven and two-twenty-five. So our game plan is to switch Glenn to small forward, since that’s the position that’ll best suit him for the NBA.”
He flipped open a notebook and said, “You’re a size thirteen, so you’ve probably reached you
r maximum growth. The perfect size to play shooting guard in the NBA. So there’s no conflict there. Obviously, it’ll take you a bit to get used to the college game, but I can promise you that we expect you to start as the shooting guard by the beginning of the spring semester.”
“Sounds great.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t think so, Coach.”
“Okay.” He stood up, saying, “Thank you, good folks, for your hospitality, and your cookies, Mrs. Hersch, were scrumptious.”
“Oh, let me get you a bag for the rest of them. I’m sure you could use a sweet snack on your long trip back.” And she scurried off to the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Lee pulled two of his cards from his wallet, giving the first one to my father and the second one to me. “Please call me if you have any more questions or concerns. Any time of the day. And we’re looking forward to having Elliot visit us during the three-week window in early June.”
“That won’t be necessary, Coach,” I said. Especially since Father would never permit me to ignore my schoolwork for a long weekend. “I’m in.”
“Terrific,” Lee said. “I’ll be in touch when it’s time to sign and commit. We’re thrilled to have you, and you won’t be disappointed, believe me.”
Which I did.
Another round of handshakes, easing up on his grip with me, and he was off.
“Well,” said Mother. What did you think of all that, Jonathan? Wasn’t he such a nice young man?”
“I’ve got some papers to mark. Call me when dinner’s ready.”
Chapter Three
Once all the appropriate forms had been signed and exchanged, Coach Lee sent me a catalog of classes and a preregistration form. He included a note saying that English Composition 101 and American History 101 were courses that entering freshman were required to take.
“The other courses are up to you. And I personally guarantee that, no matter how large the enrollment, we will make sure you will not be denied admission into any classes of your choosing.”
Father insisted that he himself study the catalog and make the selections. That was okay by me since all I was really interested in was playing basketball.
“These are the three additional classes that you should take,” he said. Sociology, Western Civilization Culture, and Survey of English Literature 101.”
“Fine.”
“That’s fifteen credits, Elliot. You’ll need eight semesters of fifteen credits each to complete the one hundred and twenty credits you’ll need to graduate. Unless, of course, you want to take fewer credits per semester and make up the difference in summer school.”
“No chance of that,” I said.
•••
After I graduated from Reagan HS (with a perfect 3.00 grade average), and made my dumb-ass “some cum louder” speech at our graduation ceremonies—the future belongs to us, yech!—all I wanted was to play ball.
The competition in the local schoolyards and playgrounds wasn’t very challenging, but it kept me in shape. Looking for a better run, one weekday afternoon I rode the iron lung down to Harlem and walked over to the court where the Rucker Tournament was played on summer evenings. As I expected, there was a shirts-and-skins pickup game under way with about fifteen guys on the sidelines waiting for their turn to play.
I came there because three of the starters and five of the subs at USA were blacks from various ghetto neighborhoods in Chicago, Detroit, Bed-Stuy, and Compton. I hoped to get some kind of a read on how my new teammates played the game without Coach Woody’s iron-clad discipline. Also to test my own game in the same circumstances.
I wasn’t at all surprised that the action was fast-paced and featured lots of madcap one-on-one adventures and very little discipline. Lots of dunks, whooping celebrations from the spectators after every spectacular shot, pass, steal, or blocked shot. A running, high-jumping game with lots of crazy shots, loud arguments, players beating the shit out of each other, and a very high level of joyous, freewheeling athleticism and talent.
I was the only paleface there.
It was quite scary just being there, mostly because the only black player on the Reagan HS team was also the president of the chess club, the editor of the school newspaper, and played a savvy under-control game as our backup point guard. Moreover, the teams we were playing against had perhaps two black players each, but they all played grind-it-out basketball and they only ran after generating a turnover. Really the same basic game plan employed in the NBA by Phil Jackson’s Bulls, Gregg Popovich’s Spurs, Jerry Sloan’s Jazz, Lenny Wilkins’s Cavs, and just about all of the elite teams. White man’s basketball, no matter how many blacks were on the court.
But what was going on in the Harlem playground was a different kind of atmosphere and a different kind of game.
I figured out the routine, kept track of who had next, after-next, after-after-next, then staked my claim. “I’ve got next after him,” I announced, pointing to a muscular guard wearing Georgetown sweats and a red bandanna.
Nobody seemed to hear me, and nobody even looked at me.
So I patiently waited until I was sure it was my turn.
“That’s me,” I said after a game was finished. “I’ve got next.”
“No, no,” said a big burly guy with a Fu Manchu mustache. “Freddie Co here got next. Then Big Train’s after him.”
“But I was here before either of these guys got here.”
He just shrugged and walked away.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I got next after Big Train.”
No, I didn’t, because when my turn finally came, there were apparently two more guys ahead of me.
They weren’t at all hostile. They simply dismissed the righteousness of any claims I had. It was their neighborhood, their game, and their rules.
But by my rules, it was cheating.
As I turned to leave, I said over my shoulder loud enough for some of them to hear, “Screw you guys. Wait till I’m in the NBA and you’ll all line up to kiss my ass.”
A few of them stirred and gave me dire looks, so I made a fast break back to the subway.
•••
I spent most of the summer working as a counselor at Stony Hollow, a sleepaway camp near Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Coach Fletcher got me the job, which paid $300, since the camp was owned by his sister-in-law’s cousin and was famous for attracting outstanding hoopers to its staff.
That much was certainly true. We played three-on-three every chance we got. During rest hours when the kids were confined to their bunks. After dinner, when there was a free-play period. We also snuck out to the outdoor court during the bogus Friday-night services and the Saturday-night movies as well. Flickering, sound-stuttering versions of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and other otherwise forgettable musicals.
Even better, we played home and away games against counselor teams from other camps in the area—and never lost.
At center was big Charley Ross, who had set several scoring and rebounding records during his recently concluded junior season at Hunter College. For sure he could score points by the dozen—he got 50 against a really good team at Camp Orinsekwa—but he wouldn’t/couldn’t pass.
Richie Goldberg, who’d started at point guard for Southern Mississippi as a sophomore, had slow feet, quick hands, a dead-eye shot, and a great feel for the game.
George Grodzicki from Richmond was a thin, high-jumping, powerless forward. Johnny Wyles started for CCNY and Stony Hollow at small forward.
Me? I got most of Charley’s leftover shots, plus the ones I could run myself into. Maybe I averaged about 15 points per game, but I must confess to having been somewhat resentful of Charley’s selfish game plan. After all, I was The Man, right? The guy who had the ball on a string, doled out shots to my teammates, and took as many shots as I wanted.
It was red-headed, always
cheerful, wise-beyond-his-years Richie who put me wise. “When you get down to USA, you’ll start out as a shit-ass freshman and strictly a role player. Especially with Marwane Wright being the go-to scorer. So, Elliot, you’ve got to learn how to make adjustments. And this is a good place to start.”
Great advice, which I followed, haunted by only a lingering ghost of resentment.
Supervising and living in a rather primitive bunk along with six rich, goofy, good-natured, surprisingly not-spoiled, pre–Bar Mitzvah kids was usually interesting.
For about two weeks they called themselves the Blue Flames and set about igniting their farts with lit wooden matches. Then they rigged up a contraption that dumped a pail of water on anybody who came in through the only door. One of the boys had a record player equipped with a spindle for 45 rpm disks, along with dozens of oldie records. The Flamingos. The Platters. Sonny Til and the Orioles. Songs and singers who were popular years before these kids were born. But they all hummed and sang along as they made their beds in the morning, changed their clothes to go from one activity to another, and got ready for bed.
Most of them were fairly good athletes, except for Matthew, who was so poorly coordinated that he couldn’t catch a cold. When we played softball, I pitched for both teams and endeavored to make contact with Matthew’s awkward, jerky swing. When I was successful and the ball bounced into fair territory, he didn’t know which way to run. But his bunkmates were solicitous and made him feel special.
Matthew was also what we called a “Marine,” meaning he had to be woken before I went to bed at about eleven, taken to the toilet, and coaxed into peeing so he wouldn’t wet his bed. However, Matthew never went to bed without his favorite Donald Duck flashlight. So what he often did was to shine the light into the toilet bowl and then pee in his pajamas.
Poor Matthew was also in the habit of taking a dump, wiping his ass, then crumpling the shitty toilet paper and tossing it into the wastebasket. I mean the poor kid rarely spoke, and mostly stumbled around like he’d been lobotomized.
When his mother visited on Parents’ Day, the word got out that six months ago her husband had hanged himself in Matthew’s bedroom because he had gotten his wife’s best friend pregnant. Matthew was the first one to find him, blue-faced and dangling from an electric cord fastened to a sturdy ceiling light fixture.
Trouthe, Lies, and Basketball Page 2
