We Will Rise

by Steve Beaven

  Eric was still a serious kid, more likely to be studying than drinking beer with his teammates. But after all of the uncertainty, after spending game upon game on the bench, he had returned to the starting lineup, wiser and more mature, as crucial as any player on the roster.

  The first half of that first Loyola game at Roberts Stadium—January 23, 1982—was as ugly as expected, punctuated by trash talk and stray elbows. But then it got worse, setting the tone for the two games that followed.

  Early on, Kenny Perry and Loyola forward Brian Liston jawed at each other, until referees had to separate them midway through the first half. But that was just the beginning. Referees later ejected Liston for throwing a punch at Perry, eliciting protests from Loyola coach Gene Sullivan, who claimed Perry started the whole thing by spitting at Liston. No matter the details, the lingering tension seemed to embolden the Aces. Bullock and Leaf played as if they had been preparing for the entire season to seize this very moment. Over and over, Leaf sneaked into the lane and drove to the rim past Sappleton’s outstretched arms, drawing fouls and draining free throws. He scored a career-high thirty-one points, despite feeling ill late in the game. Bullock dropped in twenty. When the buzzer sounded, the Aces left the floor with an 84–80 victory and a 13–3 record.

  It wasn’t a win-or-go-home game, and it did nothing to ease the antipathy between the two teams. But the victory gave the Aces a shot of adrenaline heading into the final six weeks of the season.

  Afterward, Perry shrugged off the confrontation with Liston. He admitted that, yes, perhaps he had elbowed the Loyola forward. But it wasn’t intentional. And he wasn’t about to apologize, not in the midst of this burgeoning rivalry.

  “Hey man,” he said, “it was either us or them.”

  The next morning, the Aces traveled to Dress Regional Airport to catch a flight to Detroit for a game the following night. Walking to their gate, they encountered several familiar faces. It just so happened that Loyola was waiting for its flight home. Brian Liston headed straight for Kenny Perry, sharing a few thoughts about their encounter the night before. Perry didn’t respond, and instead slipped into the middle of the UE entourage. Crisis averted.

  Loyola is a Jesuit school, with a Latin motto that translates as “For the greater glory of God.” Its fans, however, did not exemplify the university’s idealism. Loyola would host the Aces in four weeks, and the Ramblers didn’t intend to turn the other cheek.

  For all of Evansville’s success since Walters’s arrival—the steady ascent, year after year, the blue-chip recruits, the national media attention—there was one glaring gap on the Aces’ résumé: after four years in Division I, UE had still not beaten a big-name team or made it into the Top 20.

  Earning a spot in one of the weekly Top 20 polls would be another impressive milestone in Walters’s rebuilding project. But in practical terms, a Top 20 ranking had little bearing on whether UE would make the NCAA tournament. Beating a big-name school, however, would be a great leap forward for the Aces. A victory over an elite team would catapult UE into the national conversation on college basketball and bolster the Aces’ case for a spot in the NCAA tournament. It would also give UE a certain legitimacy, helping Walters and his program move past the crash and its aftermath.

  On February 10, UE traveled to Chicago to play DePaul. At 20–1, DePaul was ranked third in the country. The Blue Demons had won fifteen straight games and sixty-seven of sixty-eight at home. It was a dream matchup for Walters, played on his home turf and broadcast to seventeen million homes across the country on cable television’s WGN.

  The Aces led for most of the first half and trailed 59–58 with five seconds left and one final possession. A basket would give Evansville its most impressive win since the 1971 Division II championship game and a burst of momentum through the final weeks of the regular season. For the last shot, Walters called time-out and devised a strategy that surprised no one. On the inbounds pass, Eric Harris would look for Leaf and then Bullock, leaving the Aces’ fate in the hands of its seniors. It was only fitting. But it didn’t turn out the way Walters had drawn it up. On the inbounds play, Bullock slashed through the lane toward Harris but couldn’t shake his man. Leaf sprinted toward Harris from the top of the key, but was smothered by DePaul guard Skip Dillard. This left Eric with only one option. After he’d looked off Bullock and Leaf, Harris spotted Kenny Perry moving out past the free-throw line with his hands in the air. He whipped a high pass that Perry caught above his head. Moving to his left, Perry took one dribble and two steps before launching an off-balance fadeaway jumper with three seconds left. It was an ugly desperation shot and it caromed off the front of the rim as the buzzer sounded, leaving Evansville with another near miss and a 17–4 record. The loss gnawed at Walters for days.

  “I haven’t quit thinking about it yet,” he told one writer. “I can’t get to sleep at night from thinking about it.”

  It was too late for moral victories. But the loss served as a building block, preparing the Aces for the most important games to come.

  Alumni Gym was a relic, built in 1923 on the northwest side of the Loyola campus, not far from Lake Michigan. It was an unpleasant stop for visiting teams. Opposing players were forced to dress in the basement and climb two flights of stairs to the court. The gym was no more hospitable, with seating that nearly spilled onto the court. Sometimes players inbounding the ball had to step out of the way to let fans pass by. The stands, which included seating on a second-level track that encircled the court, held about twenty-five hundred fans whose screaming bounced off the walls in a deafening echo. Other than the court, the rest of the gym was dimly lit, contributing to an unsettling atmosphere that left visitors intimidated long before the opening tip. Loyola enjoyed an unmistakable home-court advantage at Alumni Gym. Over a period of eight days in early 1978, the Ramblers pulled off an improbable hat trick on their home floor, beating Marquette, Indiana State, and Georgetown. All three schools were ranked in the Top 15. Alumni Gym humbled even the greatest teams.

  When the Aces visited on February 20, Jerry Sloan showed up to cheer on his alma mater, just days after he’d been fired as head coach of the Bulls. Sloan was one of the few friendly faces among the three thousand fans who had wedged themselves into the stands, straddling the line between fervent and hysterical. During a time-out, the Evansville bench was splashed with beer by a fan seated on the balcony above. Ramblers fans hounded Kenny Perry, waving a spittoon and peppering him with obscenities. They also doused him with a cup of water. One loyal soul, in the name of Brian Liston and all that was righteous, spat at Perry as he headed to the locker room at halftime.

  Perry waited until late in the game to respond. Walters waved him onto the floor with 1:45 left. Perry had endured a disappointing sophomore season at UE. He’d started at center as a freshman, but Walters envisioned him at power forward, where he could loft feathery jumpers over smaller rivals. Perry started the first two games as a sophomore before Walters sent him to the bench in favor of the electrifying Richie Johnson, who started at power forward the rest of the season. But against Loyola, Perry provided a timely reminder of the skills that had made his arrival at UE such a coup. He played that night as if he had stumbled upon a pickup game at the South Spencer High School gym. With the Aces clinging to a 73–71 lead, he blocked a Loyola shot, drew a foul, and sank two free throws. He blocked another shot on Loyola’s next possession. Ramblers sub Gerry Mundt answered with a jumper from twenty-three feet to make it 75–73 with fifty seconds remaining. It felt for a moment like the thunderous Loyola crowd would bring Alumni Gym crumbling to the ground. But the noise and the pressure, the roar of the Rambler fans, the profanity, the projectiles, the pure hostility raining down on him throughout the game, none of it seemed to distract Kenny Perry. As the seconds ticked away on the scoreboard clock, he maintained his cool. With fourteen seconds left and the Aces up by four, he calmly sank two more free throws and then grabbed a rebound on Loyola’s final shot. The Aces sprinted
off the court with a victory and a 20–4 record, eliciting high praise from their most famous fan.

  “This,” Jerry Sloan said, “is as good a team as Evansville’s ever had.”

  It was only practice and it was almost over. But the pressure weighed on Emir Turam as he stood alone at the free-throw line, his teammates eyeing him hopefully. They’d run five lung-searing sprints, and each time a teammate missed a free throw, they lined up for another. Now they waited on Turam, a 58 percent free-throw shooter. When he missed, and the grumbling began, Walters interrupted to offer them a deal.

  “You guys willing to gamble on Big E? I’ll give Emir another chance. If he hits, just the five laps you’ve already got. If he misses, ten. How about it?”

  Ten? It was hard to fathom ten. No one wanted to run ten. They wanted to shower. They wanted to go home. Studying seemed a better option than running ten more sprints. But the Aces were a team, tight as a fist. Theren Bullock spoke for all of them: “C’mon, Big E,” he muttered wearily. “Put it in.”

  Turam flicked his wrist, the ball floated toward the rim and then splashed through the net. His teammates converged on him at the free-throw line, celebrating, as Turam beamed in the middle of it all, enjoying the moment.

  It was not the first time Walters gave Turam a second chance, and it wasn’t the first time Emir nailed it. Turam’s solitary summer at Carson Center had paid off. He didn’t miss a single weight-lifting session at the Pit and reported to practice in October weighing 233 pounds, about fifteen more than in his freshman season. He came in with a new attitude, as well, playing with an aggression that had been absent the previous season. He’d grown accustomed to the more physical style of American players. He’d also added some variety to his offensive game, practicing ball fakes and short jumpers, setting picks and rolling to the basket, looking for a pass. Turam had played well during preseason scrimmages and scored ten points with ten rebounds in an exhibition game. Walters had made him a starter for the opener against Baltimore on November 30. By December, Turam had proved his worth to skeptical Aces fans and before the month was out had scored in double figures four times. His rebounding had improved and his size helped make the Aces’ zone defense one of the best in the country. His mere presence prompted rival coaches to change their offenses and forced shooters to alter their shots. His added muscle was evident against DePaul late in the season, when rugged all-American Terry Cummings tried to overpower him at the rim. Turam fouled him, but turned back Cummings’s dunk attempt, an achievement that would have been unfathomable twelve months before.

  He still struggled on some nights, hacking and bumping opposing centers who were quicker and stronger. During one stretch in January, he committed twenty-two fouls in five games, and scored a total of just seventeen points. As a result, Emir sometimes spent more time on the bench than in the game. Or he played with such timidity that rival big men battered him around the basket, scoring and rebounding at will. Wayne Sappleton, Loyola’s bruising center, humiliated Turam with thirty-four points when the Ramblers visited Roberts Stadium in January. Emir fouled out after missing his only two shots. For all of his improvement, he remained a work in progress.

  But when Emir felt good, after he’d hit a couple of jump hooks or short jumpers, he got confident, and when he got confident, he was hard to stop. At halftime of the Aces’ third game against Loyola, he told the coaches he wanted the ball. He knew he could beat Sappleton and he wanted to prove it.

  After three months, twenty-seven games, and twenty-two victories, the entire Evansville season came down once again to Loyola. The Aces and the Ramblers faced off one last time in the championship game of the Midwestern City Conference tournament in Tulsa. The winner earned a bid to the NCAA tournament. The loser hoped and prayed for an invitation to the NIT. To the rest of the world, this game was little more than a blip, two small schools from the Midwest battling for the championship of an obscure new conference stacked with a bunch of other small schools from the Midwest. But for Evansville and Loyola, this game was Ali versus Frazier III, the Thrilla in Manila, the fitting culmination of a nasty rivalry laced with genuine hatred.

  For Loyola, a win would salvage a season that had nearly spun out of control. The Ramblers entered the game rejuvenated. At 17–11, Loyola had won four straight after losing to the Aces in February. Darius Clemons had rebounded. After playing poorly in the first two games against Evansville, looking to pass more than shoot and scoring just nine points combined, Clemons dropped twenty-two on Xavier to lead Loyola into the championship game. For Evansville, a victory would be another milestone in the program’s unlikely revival. The Aces had improved steadily each season, from thirteen wins to eighteen and then nineteen. This year Evansville was 22–5, its best season in a decade. The Aces finished 12–1 at Roberts Stadium and filled the arena for nearly every game. This is precisely what UE fans had wanted since the first day Walters showed up in 1978, wearing that handsome pin-striped three-piece suit.

  Nothing from the first two games suggested the third matchup against Loyola would be an easy one for the Aces. UE had won twice by a total of ten points, and the third meeting would be just as close.

  The Aces led by three at halftime, a lead Loyola erased in the first minutes of the second period. Then Emir Turam went to work, backing Sappleton down in the paint, taking the ball to the rim, using all of those lessons he’d learned working one-on-one with Gary Marriott at Carson Center. Loyola couldn’t stop him. Turam scored eight points in a four-minute stretch early in the second half, giving UE a 50–41 lead. He also blocked two of Sappleton’s shots and finished with fourteen points and twelve rebounds, his best game since stepping off the plane and into the humid Evansville summer eighteen months before. The Aces danced to the locker room with an 81–72 victory. The University of Evansville—and Emir Turam—had finally fulfilled their promise. After four years of playing the plucky underdog, pushing that boulder up the hill, inch by inch, shouldering the expectations of the entire city, the Aces were headed to the NCAA tournament, college basketball’s marquee event. It seemed almost like a fever dream, as if it had happened before our very eyes but was not, in fact, tangible and real. We had wanted it so desperately, and yet who among us really believed it could happen?

  Dick Walters believed. Absolutely and without reservation. All of the preposterous promises he’d made—the lofty predictions, demands for better hotels, upgrades to Roberts Stadium, new recliners in the locker room, the purple van, the billboards (“Welcome to Evansville, Where Basketball Is King”)—all of it led to this magnificent moment in this delirious locker room in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It could have been his moment alone, the culmination of his unceasing ambition, fuel for his insatiable ego. Instead, as his players and coaches celebrated, Walters paused to consider the meaning of the victory and all that the city had endured.

  “The Purple Aces didn’t win tonight,” he said. “Evansville did. This one’s for them.”

  The plane, an Eastern Air Lines jet, silver and blue, had begun its descent over Dress Regional Airport when the stewardess’s voice echoed through the cabin. “There are two thousand people at the terminal, awaiting the arrival of the Purple Aces,” she said.

  And sure enough, as Steve Sherwood emerged from the plane in his letterman’s jacket and peered out onto the tarmac, he saw thousands of rabid Aces fans lit by klieg lights from the TV cameras. The crowd numbered closer to five thousand, and many of the fans had been waiting for two hours—since 5:30 p.m.—in temperatures that dipped to twenty-seven degrees. Fans in the first row pressed against a waist-high fence, fathers holding toddlers aloft, decked out in purple; grade-school kids and college kids waving signs and gigantic foam fingers declaring the Aces No. 1. Someone had handed out white caps with “Aces” splashed in purple across the front. The tarmac was so crowded that those who couldn’t get outside formed a line that ran through the terminal and out the other side, to the front of the airport. Sherwood, carrying a purple travel bag, waved as he
climbed down the steps, and the crowd erupted. Then came Eric Harris, Richie Johnson, Kenny Perry, Brad Leaf, and Theren Bullock, each greeted with cheers and high fives. Turam was welcomed with a chant of “E-meer! E-meer!” The players gathered around a podium, and the crowd hushed when Walters, flanked by Leaf and Bullock, stepped up to the microphones.

  “This is the most heartwarming thing that’s ever happened to us,” Walters said. “We’re very, very proud to represent you.”

  This brought another roar, and soon the Aces waded through the joyous crowd, signing autographs, as they hurried to vans that would take them to Carson Center.

  Then, the thousands who’d come to welcome their arrival—the students, their parents, the kids in junior high, the TV guys, the newspaper reporters, and their photographers—all made their way back through the terminal and out to the parking lot, climbing into their cars and their pickups, heading home on a Sunday night. Just like that, the celebration ended in the very same place where we’d lost Bobby Watson, Mike Duff, John Ed Washington, and everyone else on Air Indiana Flight 216. We’d grieved their loss and welcomed their spectral presence at the campus memorial, at Roberts Stadium, and every year on December 13. But we put those thoughts aside that night for a few moments so we could celebrate these Aces and all the new memories they’d made for us.