Foul Trouble

by John Feinstein

  Andy Wilcox nodded. “Fellas, it looks like Whytlaw is back in,” he said. “You still need to get back on defense better, but Danny, Jay, Jason—be prepared to double him in the post if they’re running their regular half-court offense.”

  As they walked back on court, Terrell nudged Danny. “Would you put him back in?” he said quietly.

  “Nope,” Danny said. “But their coach is probably worried about the coaches who are watching, the people running the camp, and Whytlaw’s posse.”

  The whistle blew, and as Danny started the ball up-court, Coach Wilcox held up three fingers, pointed downward. That meant he wanted Terrell to show himself in the low post and then come around a screen for a quick pass and shot. It was one of a handful of plays they had worked on during their three pre-camp practices. They hadn’t run the play very much during the week because the screener on the play was Swanson and his weak attempts at screening had done nothing to free Terrell.

  Danny looked surprised, but the call was clear. Danny held up his three fingers pointing at the floor and dribbled to his right. Terrell, having set up briefly in the low post, popped up from his stance, sprinted to the baseline, and turned back in the direction of the key, angling to the left of the lane. As Whytlaw tried to follow, he slammed full-force into Swanson, who had set a perfect screen. Danny fed the ball to Terrell, and Terrell caught it with his feet squared up just outside the three-point line, wide open thanks to Swanson’s jarring screen.

  The ball swished through with 3:37 on the clock for an 82–75 lead.

  The Crushes didn’t quit. Whytlaw had finally figured out that he couldn’t go through Terrell or put the ball on the floor when he was doubled. On two occasions, he pitched the ball to the perimeter and found open teammates for threes. On two other occasions, they threw the ball right back to him and, before Danny or Swanson could recover, he turned for short jumpers over Terrell in the lane.

  The Rebels led by two, 91–89, after another Whytlaw jumper with 5.7 seconds to go. The Crushes were out of time-outs, so Terrell grabbed the ball and inbounded it quickly to Danny, knowing the Crushes would foul right away—which they did. The clock was at 3.9 seconds as everyone walked to the far end for Danny to shoot. The Rebels were in the double bonus, so Danny had two shots.

  “No fouls!” his dad was screaming. “If Danny makes both, just let ’em go! If he misses one, run ninety-four.”

  Ninety-four was their full-court defense. If he missed a shot, the Crushes would need to get a three to tie the game, so the Rebels would do their best to kill off the clock before they could do that.

  Danny took a deep breath as the referee handed him the ball, and went through his routine. He calmly swished the first shot, and the lead was 92–89. If he made the second, they’d be in the final. Danny stepped back and nodded at the Crushes’ point guard George Smalls. “I’ve got ten,” he said, making sure everyone else knew who they were supposed to cover in case he missed.

  But Terrell knew he wouldn’t. He had never seen Danny miss when it mattered. Still, he took note of Whytlaw, who was standing at midcourt, hands on hips.

  Danny took another deep breath. Two dribbles and the ball was in the air. Swish again. He allowed himself a smile as he raced over to pick up Smalls, who was inbounding. Smalls tossed a quick pass to Whytlaw, who was a few steps beyond midcourt. Terrell wasn’t going to go anywhere near him and risk fouling him while he was attempting a three. That was the Crushes’ only chance—to make a three and get fouled in the act of shooting.

  Realizing that no one was near him, Whytlaw took the ball, dribbled straight to the basket, and went up for a ferocious two-handed dunk, no doubt figuring he might as well show off for the crowd since the game was lost and his run at this camp was over. Terrell heard the buzzer go off while Whytlaw was still swinging from the rim—a move that would have earned him a technical foul for showboating if the game hadn’t been over.

  Terrell was about to head for the handshake line when he noticed that Whytlaw was losing his grip on the rim. He saw him try to grab it, but to no avail. He plummeted downward and landed squarely on his back with an ominous thud that seemed to shake the whole gym. Terrell heard him let out a scream of pain. Instinctively, he began running in Omar’s direction.

  Coach Welch was the first one to get to Whytlaw. His teammates quickly surrounded him, and Terrell heard Coach Wilcox turn to the scorer’s table and say, “Call the EMTs—quick!”

  Terrell had seen an ambulance parked out back, which he knew was routine at an event like this, but he had never given it any real thought. Whytlaw was still lying flat on his back, his arms at his sides, eyes wide open. He was moving his head from side to side, moaning loudly. Terrell didn’t know if it was from pain or fright or both.

  “Omar, don’t try to move,” Coach Welch said. “Stay calm. Help is on the way.”

  Terrell saw a man with short-cropped blond hair pushing through the crowd just as he noticed the back door open and saw a stretcher being pushed through it.

  “I’m a doctor,” the blond-haired man said. “Let me get a look at him.”

  He knelt next to Whytlaw. He was speaking very softly, but the gym had gone so quiet that Terrell could hear him.

  Terrell saw him squeeze Whytlaw’s leg. “Omar, did you feel anything just now?” he asked.

  Terrell could see Whytlaw crying. “Nothing, nothing. Doc, am I paralyzed?”

  “Easy, Omar,” the doctor said. “We’re just checking a couple things here.”

  He reached up and grabbed his arm. Whytlaw winced. The doctor nodded.

  “Good, Omar, your upper body seems fine.”

  Without saying anything, he reached down again, and Terrell saw him squeeze Whytlaw’s leg hard. There was no reaction from Whytlaw. The EMTs had now arrived with the stretcher. The doctor pulled one of them aside and spoke to him quietly. When he was finished, the EMT said, “Folks, we need some room here.”

  He knelt next to Whytlaw. “Omar, just to be extra careful, we’re going to put some apparatus on you to keep you from moving while we put you on the stretcher. This means nothing except we want to be sure we don’t hurt you when we move you.”

  Whytlaw was still crying, but he nodded.

  Terrell watched the doctor head slowly over to talk to Coach Wilcox and Coach Welch.

  “It’s definitely spinal,” Terrell heard him say. “No way to tell here if it’s permanent.”

  Terrell shuddered. He looked at Danny, who just shook his head, eyes wide.

  “You mean it might be?” Coach Welch asked.

  The doctor took a long, deep breath. “He’s got no feeling in his legs at all. That could change in an hour. Or it might never change at all.”

  THIRTEEN

  It took a solid twenty minutes for the EMTs to strap Whytlaw to the stretcher so they could roll him out to the ambulance. None of the players left the court, and many of the fans stayed where they were. Everyone had witnessed such a scene before, more often in football than in basketball. Most of the time the procedure was just a precaution. In this case, the words of the doctor echoed in Terrell’s head.

  As the EMTs worked, Terrell told Danny what he’d heard the doctor say. A few minutes later, Alex Mayer, who had been watching the end of the game from the stands, joined them.

  “This is worse than Lenny Cooke,” Mayer said quietly.

  “Way worse,” Terrell said. “I mean, what if—”

  “Don’t ‘what if,’ ” Danny said. “The doctor said he might be up walking around in an hour.”

  Or, Terrell thought, he might not. He shuddered and vowed to never again swing on the rim while dunking—something he often did in practice just for fun.

  When Whytlaw was finally on the stretcher and the EMTs began to roll him in the direction of the door, all the players formed what could have been a reception line as he went past. Some just said, “Good luck, Omar” or “You’ll be okay, Omar.” Others shook his hand. When the stretcher came by Terrell, Danny,
and Alex, Terrell grabbed Whytlaw by the hand. The EMTs actually stopped for a moment. “You listen to me,” he said, leaning down. “You’re gonna be okay. Believe it, okay?”

  “You have a great life,” Whytlaw said softly.

  Before Terrell could answer, one of the EMTs said, “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get going here. Time’s important.”

  Terrell nodded. He had tears in his eyes. So did Danny, who gave Whytlaw a quick handshake as he went by, as did Mayer. The people in the stands were applauding respectfully as the stretcher rolled out, and Whytlaw managed to give everyone a thumbs-up just before he disappeared through the door.

  “Okay, guys, I know this is tough, but we’ve got to get you all showered and dressed.”

  Terrell turned and saw Billy Tommasino standing behind the circle of players—some in uniform, some in street clothes, like Alex. Other camp functionaries had magically appeared, and now they were all practically herding the players in the direction of the locker room. No doubt Tommasino was noticing all the TV cameras that had gone from taping game highlights to taping the grisly scene that had just unfolded and was having nightmares about the news reports around the country that evening that would begin, “Tragedy struck this afternoon at the Brickley Shoes ‘School Comes First’ Camp in Teaneck, New Jersey…”

  Danny’s dad was waving everyone in the direction of the locker room, and so was Coach Welsh. They all followed instructions. No one was talking very much. Once they were inside the locker room, Tommasino raised his voice to get everyone’s attention.

  “Fellas, if you can all listen up for just a second,” he said, and everyone turned to him. “Look, I know we’re all upset about Omar, but the fact that he has use of his upper body is a very good sign, so let’s stay optimistic. There will be a lot of media outside wanting to talk about this. You were all at media training yesterday. Remember what you were told: In a crisis—and I’m not sure this is a crisis—don’t say more than you have to. So let’s all just say ‘We’re praying for Omar. We’re sure he’s going to be okay’ and leave it at that.”

  “How can we say we’re sure he’ll be okay?” Terrell asked, no doubt voicing what most people in the room were thinking.

  Tommasino looked annoyed, then forced a smile. “Terrell, I understand what you’re saying. But remember, we want to look at the bright side as best we can.”

  Uh-huh, Terrell thought. That and Billy Tommasino didn’t want any negative vibes coming out of his camp—especially with the championship game on national TV the next day.

  “Let’s get everyone out of here as soon as possible,” Coach Wilcox said. “Both teams have games to play tomorrow.”

  They all showered and dressed quickly. Terrell couldn’t remember ever being in a quieter locker room. When he and Danny walked back into the gym, the lights had been turned out and it was empty—except for a cadre of waiting media. TV lights immediately came on, blinding them for a moment, and then came a lot of shouted questions.

  Terrell was the focus of most of their attention, so Danny was able to slip away when he spotted Bobby Kelleher standing a few yards from the scrum. Terrell wished he could hear that conversation. Instead, he just heard reporters shouting questions he couldn’t begin to answer.

  “Don’t you want to hear what Terrell has to say?” Danny asked Kelleher.

  Kelleher shook his head. “Every kid who’s walked out that door has said the same thing: ‘We’re praying for Omar. We’re sure he’ll be okay.’ They might as well be reading off cue cards.”

  Danny nodded. “Do you have a secret camera set up inside the locker room?”

  “Don’t need one,” Kelleher said. “This isn’t my first rodeo. You were standing over there with the doctor and the EMTs. What’d you hear?”

  Danny shrugged. He had no problem telling Kelleher the truth. “The doctor said he could be up walking in an hour. Or he might never walk again.”

  Kelleher sighed. “That’s probably all they can know until they get an MRI and see how bad the damage to the spine was. It’s weird with falls like that. I’ve seen guys get back up and run downcourt after what looks at least as horrible as that one. And then, other times, they don’t move.”

  There was none of the usual Kelleher smart-guy tone as he spoke. Clearly, he was as shaken as everyone else. “Your games tomorrow should be called off if the word comes back that the kid is seriously hurt,” he said after a pause. “But they won’t be. TV won’t allow it, and Tommasino won’t pass on the national publicity.”

  Danny thought that might be an overreaction. “Call off the games?” he said. “Everyone’s worked pretty hard to get this far.”

  “Really?” Kelleher said. “You’ve been here since Tuesday. It’s a camp tournament. Everyone is just here to show off for the college coaches. You know that. And you’ve all already done that. But what the hell. The Olympics went on in 1972 after the Israeli athletes were murdered. That set the standard for tastelessness. Relatively speaking, this is nothing.”

  Danny didn’t really know what to say to that. But he was curious. “Why do you do this,” he asked, “when you’re so disgusted by everyone here?”

  Kelleher smiled. “Not everyone.” Then, after a pause, he continued. “I guess I like tilting at windmills. And this sport is about the biggest one out there right now.”

  They did play the games on Sunday.

  The news on Omar from the camp officials wasn’t encouraging: “He’s in the hospital, being observed and undergoing further tests.” But as far as Danny could tell, there was never even any discussion about calling the games off.

  Coach Wilcox had met with camp officials and the TV network people on Sunday morning to go over what would be expected of them during the telecast.

  “I suggested that the players wear some kind of patch, to acknowledge that Omar had been hurt,” he told Danny and Terrell. “One of the TV guys practically jumped down my throat. He said, ‘The kid wouldn’t have been in the championship game anyway. The game his team is playing today isn’t on our air. You wear patches and the announcers will have to explain what they’re for. Forget it.’ ”

  Omar Whytlaw, as far as the TV and camp people were concerned, had already ceased to exist.

  But most of the players couldn’t forget. The championship game between two powerhouse teams was oddly slow. Even the fans, many of whom had been in the gym when Whytlaw went down, seemed muted. Terrell knew he felt sluggish, and he could see that Danny, who loved to play so much, was having trouble putting his heart into the game. Even Jay Swanson wasn’t himself. Once, when Danny fired a wayward pass to him on the wing that he had no chance to get more than a hand on, Swanson just shook his head and said, “Don’t worry, Wilcox. Next time.”

  There was one player on the court who seemed completely unaffected by what had happened to Whytlaw: Michael Jordan. Alex Mayer had mentioned to Terrell and Danny during warm-ups that Jordan hadn’t stayed for the second game, so he hadn’t seen what had happened to Whytlaw.

  “All he cares about is showing everyone he’s better than you,” Mayer said to Terrell. “He’s like all these camp and TV guys—Omar Whytlaw doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Jordan certainly played that way. He looked a step quicker than everyone on the court. Terrell was trying as hard as he could, but he felt as if he was running in mud. Danny and the rest of the Rebels looked the same way. The Riverboats kept going back to the same play: a clear-out for Jordan, leaving him one-on-one with Terrell. Jordan couldn’t miss. If Terrell came up on him, he drove past him and simply soared over anyone who came to help as he went to the basket. If Terrell took a step back, Jordan was happy to shoot a three. By the end of the first quarter he had made four threes and four twos on ten shots, and he was four-of-four from the foul line. That gave him 24 of his team’s 28 points. The Riverboats led, 28–14.

  During the break at the end of the quarter, the sideline reporter from the UBS cable outfit asked to speak to Terrell on-camera. This wasn�
��t so much a request as a demand: The teams had been told before the game that there would be in-game interviews and the coaches had to deliver whoever was asked for.

  Coach Wilcox sighed when the production assistant tapped him on the shoulder and said, “We need Terrell.”

  “I need him more than you do,” he replied, but he nodded at Terrell, who slumped his shoulders and walked over to where the sideline guy was standing, microphone in hand.

  “What do you guys need to do better to stop Jordan?” was the first, entirely predictable question.

  “Play better,” Terrell said, shrugging. “He’s more ready to play, I guess, than the rest of us. No excuses, but it’s hard to come out and play after what happened to Omar last night. It was scary, and I think we’re all kind of shaken up.”

  That clearly wasn’t the answer the sideline guy was looking for, and Terrell was standing close enough to hear shouting coming through the guy’s earpiece.

  “Terrell, there’s been a lot of emphasis put on nonbasketball things, like your education, at this camp. What have you learned this week?”

  Terrell wasn’t up for playing the Gee-this-camp-has-been-great game, especially since what the guy was saying was dead wrong. “What have I learned?” he repeated. “I’ve learned to watch what I say to the media and to be careful who I trust.” He heard more shouting from the earpiece.

  “Thanks, Terrell,” the guy said, sounding glum.

  At last, Terrell was allowed to go back to basketball. It didn’t do a lot of good. Jordan cooled a bit in the second quarter, but he had 33 points at halftime, and the margin was the same: Riverboats 51, Rebels 37. Terrell saw the sideline guy interviewing Coach Welsh as everyone else trudged to the locker room. Unlike the round-robin games, there was a real fifteen-minute halftime for the championship game.

  They were all just sitting down and opening bottles of water and Gatorade when the door burst open and Billy Tommasino came in. He was followed by one of the people Terrell remembered as being from UBS.