Last Shot

by John Feinstein

  “No, not really. I just know he’s close to Chip Graber.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that. We actually tried to get Koheen, the MSU president, too, but they said he had to go to a fund-raising brunch.”

  “Guess Dr. Sanford is right,” Stevie said.

  “Oh, he’s right,” Wallace said. “There’s no doubt he’s right.”

  They sat back in their seats to watch the game. Stevie couldn’t believe how the place had filled up. He looked up at the seats in the upper deck and saw they were completely full. Somewhere up there was his dad. “The players must look like ants from up in the top deck,” he commented to Susan Carol, thinking how lucky they were.

  Everything about the Final Four was big. The PA was loud, and the announcer seemed to take several days introducing the players. The TV time-outs seemed to last forever, no doubt because he couldn’t click to something else during the three minutes of commercials he knew CBS was showing.

  The game itself was intense, right from the start. Each team had a great guard whom the coaches built their offense around: Graber for MSU, Tommy Watson for the Hawks. Early on, St. Joe’s got several long threes from senior Pat Carroll, a skinny guy. Stevie thought he could be just like if not for the fact that Carroll was six foot five. But MSU was dominating under the net—sucking up every rebound. At halftime it was 33–30, St. Joe’s, and Stevie realized that he was pulling for Minnesota State, which would have been unthinkable twenty-four hours earlier. Graber had 15 of his team’s 30 points. Whiting couldn’t accuse him of not trying.

  When they got out of their seats at halftime, Stevie could barely walk—he must have had every muscle tensed while he was watching. He wasn’t sure if he’d even blinked in the last hour. They went to the press room for something to drink and to pick up statistics sheets. It occurred to Stevie that he hadn’t given even a little thought to what he might write. He was supposed to write some kind of feature off the first game, and Susan Carol would cover the second game.

  On the way back to their seats—there was plenty of time, since the halftimes were stretched out to twenty minutes so CBS could get in still more commercials—Stevie and Susan Carol walked past the radio locations on the third row. As they did, Stevie noticed someone staring at them. “Uh-oh,” he said. It was their friend from the hotel, Jerry Ventura. Clearly, he had recognized them, and, just as clearly, he was wondering what they were doing wearing press credentials. Susan Carol started to stop, but Stevie gave her a little shove to keep her walking. “I’ll tell you when we get to the seats,” he hissed.

  When he told her about Ventura, she said, “You’re sure he saw us?”

  “Positive.”

  “We should have thought about that,” she said.

  “We can avoid him,” he said.

  “Not once this game is over. We better come up with a story.”

  “That’s your department, Scarlett,” he said.

  She laughed. “Easy for you to say. Well, I’ve got the second half to think of something.”

  As it turned out, she had the second half and a five-minute overtime. St. Joe’s raced to a 10-point lead early in the second half, but then Graber really heated up. Everything in the MSU offense seemed geared to getting him shots. “Nice double-post,” Susan Carol said at one stage, pointing to two Purple Tide players out near the foul line. Their job was to set screens for Graber so he could get open shots before the defenders reached him.

  “Yeah—St. Joe’s can’t get to Chip because he’s got such a quick release,” Stevie said.

  A three pointer by Graber, which gave him 30 points for the night, tied the score at 67 with 2:12 to go, and the teams seesawed to the finish, trading baskets until a Watson jumper just before the buzzer tied the score at 75–75 and sent the game into overtime. The overtime was even more tense than regulation, if that was possible. Five minutes seemed to take five hours. Stevie looked at his watch. It was 7:50. The game had been going on for nearly three hours. With eleven seconds left, Graber, double-teamed, fed his center, Tammu Abate, for an open dunk that put MSU up, 83–82. Since St. Joe’s was out of time-outs, Watson came straight downcourt with the ball, drove the middle, and, as the defense collapsed on him, pitched the ball to Carroll, who buried a three to put them up 85–83 with 3.9 seconds on the clock. MSU called time-out.

  “If they lose, they certainly can’t say Chip didn’t give a hundred percent,” Susan Carol said to Stevie over the din, which, between the blaring bands and the screeching fans, was earsplitting. Everyone was on their feet.

  “Who knows what they’ll say,” Stevie said. “It’s a sure thing he’ll take the last shot. If he misses …”

  She put a hand on his shoulder as if to say the thought scared her. It scared Stevie, too. The teams lined up, and, sure enough, Graber circled back to take the inbounds pass, turned, and sprinted up the court with Watson all over him and two defenders coming to meet him. He cut to the right to try to clear some space and, still thirty-five feet from the basket, he pulled up as the clock hit one second. He was leaning to his right to get the ball off over Watson’s lunge, and as he released it, Stevie heard the buzzer go off. For an instant, everything seemed to go slo-mo as Stevie watched the ball arc toward the basket. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew it was going to go in. Then it looked as if he was wrong. The ball hit the backboard, bounced off it, and hit the front rim. The whole building held its breath. It hung on the rim for, Stevie guessed, an hour or so. Finally, it dropped into the basket.

  Never in his life had Stevie heard anything so loud. The place simply exploded with sound. Stevie found himself jumping up and down, hugging Susan Carol, which, if anyone had been paying attention to them, would have seemed awfully strange: the kid from Philadelphia hugging the kid from North Carolina because someone from Minnesota had hit a miraculous three-point shot at the buzzer to beat the team from Philly. Fortunately, no one was watching. Midway through the hug, Stevie realized what he was doing and awkwardly let go of Susan Carol.

  “Sorry,” he screamed.

  She didn’t answer. There was a wild celebration on the floor as Graber’s teammates piled on top of him. Stevie couldn’t help but look at Watson and Carroll, both of whom were sitting on the floor, watching in disbelief. Watson was almost on the spot where Graber had released the ball, having lunged at him as he shot. The Minnesota State band tried to storm the court, but they were turned back by security people, who appeared miraculously as soon as Graber’s shot went in.

  Susan Carol was shouting at him over the noise. He couldn’t hear her. She leaned in close. “Now we have no choice,” she said. “We have to get Chip out to see Dean Wojenski.”

  She was right. This game was over. But a far more dangerous one was now under way.

  The second game was anticlimactic. It was almost halftime by the time Stevie finished writing his story on the first game. Knowing that the Associated Press would fully cover all the details of the play-by-play and of Graber’s winning shot, he decided to write about the losers. He had never been in a more quiet place than the St. Joe’s locker room. The players handled themselves with amazing grace under the circumstances, answering everyone’s questions. So did Coach Phil Martelli. Stevie felt awful for them. He wondered if the other writers felt awful for them, too. As he was standing in a small circle around Tommy Watson’s locker, he felt someone nudge him.

  He looked up and saw Dick Jerardi, whom he hadn’t seen all weekend because he’d been assigned to stay with St. Joe’s every step of the way. “This is when the job is really hard,” Jerardi said softly. “No one deserves to lose like this. Especially a group of good kids like these guys. I feel terrible for them.”

  “But we still have a job to do, right?” Stevie said quietly.

  “Exactly right,” Jerardi said. “Their job is to talk no matter how much it hurts, and our job is to ask the questions and write the story—no matter how much it hurts.”

  Stevie wrote, filed, and headed back to the court. When he
reached press row, there were just under four minutes left in the half and Duke led 45–33, which was a surprise.

  “I think they want to get even for last year,” Susan Carol said.

  “We’ll see if it lasts,” Stevie said. He wondered again if there was any significance to Whiting’s comment to Chip Graber about MSU playing Duke in the final.

  It lasted. Connecticut cut the lead to 7 at one point in the second half, but J.J. Redick hit back-to-back three pointers to boost the lead back to 13, and Krzyzewski spread the floor, forcing UConn to foul in the last five minutes. Stevie expected Susan Carol to be ecstatic every time Duke hit a shot. If she was, she didn’t show it. When Connecticut made its run, if it made her nervous, he didn’t see it. She sat calmly taking notes. When Duke built the lead to 15 with 3:43 left, she turned to Stevie and said, “I’ll bet Chip’s back at the hotel by now.”

  In the mayhem after the game, they had decided that trying to get to Chip in the Dome would be impossible. He had to do a postgame CBS interview, then go to the interview room, where he and his teammates would be called “student-athletes” fourteen times, and then he would be completely surrounded in the locker room until the room was cleared of media. Since Susan Carol had to write after the second game, Stevie would try to reach Chip, fill him in on the good news, and see what his schedule was for the next day.

  Stevie checked his watch and nodded. It was after ten. Chip might be free to answer his phone now. He stood up during the TV time-out, picked his way through the seats to press row, which was half empty now because some people were still writing off the first game and others had headed back to start writing the second game, since it appeared unlikely UConn was going to rally. Stevie worked his way to the aisle and headed for the tunnel. He had just reached the top of the ramp when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around with a smile on his face, expecting to see Weiss or Brill or perhaps Jerardi.

  “You and I need to have a chat, kid,” Jerry Ventura said. “Let’s go for a little walk.”

  13: NEXT STOP, BAY ST. LOUIS

  VENTURA KEPT A FIRM GRIP on Stevie’s arm as he steered him to the left at the top of the ramp. The press room was to the right. As far as Stevie could see, there was nothing in the direction Ventura was steering him. There were dark curtains on either side of them and a lone sign that said TECHNICAL SERVICES with an arrow pointing down the dark hallway. A runner, carrying stat sheets, walked quickly past without so much as a glance in their direction. Stevie wondered if he should scream for help. Ventura seemed to read his mind.

  “If you try to yell,” he said, “I will have you arrested for breaking into my room this morning.”

  If he was bluffing, it was a good bluff.

  “Okay, okay,” Stevie said. “I’m not going to yell.” Hearing his own voice made him feel a lot calmer for some reason. “I don’t need to yell. What exactly is your problem with me? What are you talking about?”

  Ventura’s face twisted into a smile that looked more like a snarl. “I’ll tell you my problem with you and your pretty friend,” he said. “You came at me with a bunch of crap this morning about what big MSU fans you were and how thrilled you would be to meet Mike and Trey and got me to give you my room key,” he said. “Now you better tell me who you really are and what the hell you wanted in my room.”

  Stevie now understood the meaning of the phrase “sweating bullets.” He had to think of something fast and, for the first time all weekend, he didn’t have Susan Carol to back him up. “We didn’t want anything in your room,” he said, speaking slowly, trying to stall for time so he could think of something. “We just wanted a soda.”

  Ventura tightened the grip on his arm. “Don’t give me that, kid. Don’t make me angrier. And don’t make me get Trey back here. Tell me why you and the girl have press passes and what you were up to this morning.”

  Stevie decided the truth would work as well as any story at this point, if only because it might give him a few extra seconds to think. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Let go of my arm and I’ll tell you.”

  Ventura softened his grip but didn’t let go. “Talk fast,” he said.

  “My name’s Stevie Thomas,” he said, giving away nothing, since it was right there on his credential, assuming Ventura could read. “The girl is Susan Carol Anderson. We both won the USBWA writing contest and—”

  “What’s the USBWA?” Ventura said.

  “United States Basketball Writers Association,” Stevie said slowly, still playing for time. “There were two winners.”

  “And two kids from the same family won?”

  He really was dumb, Stevie thought. “No,” he said. “She’s not my sister. I’m not even sure why she said that.”

  “What were you doing in my room?”

  “We weren’t in your room,” Stevie insisted. “We just went up to the lounge, got a couple of sodas, and came back downstairs.”

  “You were gone longer than that.”

  “We stopped to watch SportsCenter in the lounge. Vitale was on.”

  “Vitale’s always on. What were you doing?”

  “Okay. We wanted to get on a team floor because we were hoping to find people to interview—you know, we wanted a story no one else would have. Look, Mr. Ventura, was something missing from your room? Is that why you think we went in there? I’ll take a lie detector test that we never stole anything from your room.”

  For the first time, Ventura’s voice softened a little. “No, nothing was missing. It just looked like stuff had been moved around on my desk when I got back. I didn’t think much about it until I saw you kids tonight. Then I remembered the key.”

  “Had the maid cleaned the room when you got back? Could she have moved stuff?”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” he said. Stevie could feel the anger ebbing out of him. “So, did it work? Did you find your scoop?”

  “No, there was no one around. We really did watch Vitale.”

  “All right, kid, go ahead,” Ventura said, finally releasing his arm. “But I’m going to check your USBWA story out, and if it’s not true, I’ll find you again. I promise.”

  “You can walk into the press room with me right now and read the press release,” Stevie said. “It’s sitting right on the front table.”

  “Get going,” Ventura said, almost friendly now. “And stay out of trouble.”

  “You got it,” Stevie said.

  Ventura walked back down the hall, leaving Stevie alone in the darkness to catch his breath. That had been close, he thought. Too close.

  By the time Stevie made it into the press room, the game was just about over. Duke was shooting free throws and the clock was under a minute. He walked to the phone next to his computer. Weiss was sitting nearby writing. He looked up quickly. “Long time no see, kid,” he said. “Having fun?”

  “Oh yeah,” Stevie said. “Just need to use the phone.”

  “Have at it,” Weiss said.

  Stevie took out his notebook and found Chip’s cell phone number. He turned his back on Weiss, who was clearly focused on what he was writing. Graber answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Stevie,” he said, not wanting to say Graber’s name on the off chance someone might hear him.

  “Yeah. We’re eating right now,” Graber said softly. “What’s new?” He said it casually, clearly because people were around him.

  “Well, first, congratulations. That was amazing.”

  “Yeah. Very lucky. Thanks.”

  “Second, we need to talk. We found Wojenski and he’s actually near here. He thinks he can help and wants us to come see him.”

  There was a pause on the other end.

  “Oh my God. That’s incredible. Okay,” Graber said after a few seconds. He dropped his voice even lower. “Let’s do this. Meet me on the second floor of my hotel at eight in the morning. Where the radio guys were.”

  “Um, I don’t think I want to run into them again.”

  “You won’t. There won’t be
anyone around that early. Everyone will sleep in. Can you do it?”

  “We’ll do it.”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  He hung up. Stevie looked up to see people pouring into the press room. The second game had just ended.

  Susan Carol arrived with a big smile on her face. Why not? Her team had won.

  “Did you get him?” she said quietly when she reached him.

  “Yes. He wants us to meet him at eight in the morning on the second floor of his hotel near where we met the radio guys.”

  “Oooh,” she said, cringing slightly. “I don’t think I need to see those guys again.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Meantime, we have to figure a way to ditch our dads again tomorrow.”

  “We’ll deal with that later. Meantime, I have to get a story written.”

  “Let me help you,” he said. “It will save time. I can go to the interview room, you go to the locker room, or vice versa.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks. That would help a lot. I want to check out the locker room scene. And I need some interview room quotes from UConn on why they thought Duke was able to control the game so easily. One good quote from Coach Calhoun, maybe one good player quote.”

  “Done,” he said.

  They went in different directions and met thirty minutes later back at her computer. He fed her the quotes she wanted and she had the story finished in forty-five minutes. Once again, Dick Weiss was still working. Once again, Bill Brill was finished. “Do you have to do radio?” Stevie asked.

  “I have to do about five beers back at the hospitality room in the hotel,” Brill said. “Let’s go.”

  It was exactly midnight when they walked out of the building. A steady rain was falling and the walkway from the Dome to the hotel was almost empty. Stevie was glad they had Brill with them.

  They were all quite wet by the time they reached the entrance to the mall that led to the Hyatt, and relieved that it had not been locked. When they reached the hotel, Brill headed to the media hospitality room. Stevie and Susan Carol headed for the elevators. “We need to make a plan for the morning before we go to bed,” Stevie said. He could feel the exhaustion in his bones, but he was also buzzing with adrenaline from the day.