Play Their Hearts Out
Page 15
Tom knew better. The Inland Stars would breeze through their three games in pool play. They wouldn’t face a real challenge until the second round of bracket play at the earliest, which wasn’t until Wednesday. With minimal planning, Keller could witness his daughter’s birth Tuesday night, catch a red-eye to Washington, D.C., and be in Newport News for a late-morning tip-off Wednesday. “The team will be fine without you until then,” Tom said. “There isn’t a parent who thinks you shouldn’t be home with Violet. And if the kids don’t understand now, they will someday.”
Demetrius was the only player Keller told about the C-section, and Demetrius informed none of his teammates. It was a grown-up problem, he believed, which didn’t involve him or the others. He did tell Kisha, however, and she rushed to Violet for an explanation.
As Violet described it to Kisha, a victory at Nationals would get them out of that dinky apartment and into Violet’s dream home; it would enable them to buy a nicer car and to live more comfortably in every way. Listening to Violet, one would have thought that inside the glass-bowl trophy given to the national champions was the American dream.
“Of course I am mad,” Violet told Kisha. “But Joe told me how important it is.”
In Kisha’s mind, Violet wasn’t angry enough. “If I was married to Joe and he left, I would tell him not to come back.”
Even so, Kisha didn’t believe Keller was capable of missing the birth of his daughter. He would come to his senses, she thought. After all, he had once stopped coaching because Violet had a miscarriage. But on Thursday, July 10, Keller boarded a plane with the rest of the team at Los Angeles International Airport. On the flight, he barely mentioned Violet or the coming baby. All his talk and all his thoughts were focused squarely on basketball.
Late Monday night, on the eve of Violet’s C-section, Keller left his room at a Holiday Inn and walked across the hotel’s parking lot to a small bar set against a busy thoroughfare. In the many years I had known Keller, he had never been comfortable alone. Even for something as benign as a trip to the grocery store, he dragged along Demetrius. “I like to have my entourage with me,” he said. That he intended to have a contemplative drink by himself said something about his state of mind.
Keller ordered a Corona and then sat at the table farthest from the door. It was difficult to know what Keller thought about as he sat sipping his beer. He might have been replaying moments from the Inland Stars’ solid start at Nationals. They had won all three of their games in pool play by an average of 20 points and the following day would open elimination play against the Potomac Valley Capital Players, one of the weakest teams left in the field. Demetrius looked unstoppable, and several coaches had approached Keller between games to congratulate him on the praise Demetrius received in The Hoop Scoop. He might also have been looking ahead. If both the Inland Stars and Hoosier Hoops won the following day, they would meet in the Round of 16, fulfilling one of Keller’s hopes going into the tournament: to avenge last season’s loss to Deuce and his teammates. Most likely, Keller’s thoughts were with Violet. She was more than 2,000 miles away, probably alone in their apartment, holding firmly to the idea that her husband’s absence at a critical moment in their relationship was best for their future.
Up to that point, Keller’s affection for and commitment to his wife could not be questioned. He doted on her, publicly and privately. He didn’t just say that he loved her when they were alone; he declared it at times when the most people could hear. “Am I the luckiest guy or what?” he would say. “Violet puts up with all my shit. All she does is love me. She is the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean that; I wouldn’t be shit without Violet.” She put up with this rocky life of his choosing, believing unequivocally in his master plan. Her tolerance of his mood swings, his outbursts, his incessant talk of basketball, was remarkable. “Violet is like a saint,” Carmen said. Without Violet, “Coach Joe would probably forget where he lived,” Demetrius added.
Keller met the woman he’d dated before Violet, the one who gave birth to Joey, at Club Metro, a popular Inland Empire nightclub. She was wild, and Keller got custody of Joey for a brief period after she was arrested for drug possession. Violet, by contrast, never dated anyone before Keller, whom she met through her younger brother, a basketball player. She twice turned Keller down for dates before she agreed to go to the movies. “She wouldn’t even let me kiss her until we had gone on, like, fifteen dates,” Keller said. “I spent, like, two thousand dollars taking her out before I even got a kiss.” He proposed to her on Christmas Eve after a few months of dating. He put the box with the ring inside into her stocking, and when she reached in and felt the box, she started to cry before she even took it out. “What are you crying for?” Keller said. “There could be a gum ball in that box.”
Keller’s intensity, his drive, came mostly from a belief that everyone questioned his ability to succeed. But Violet was not one of those people. She always had faith in him, even when he told her a basketball tournament was more important than their daughter’s birth. As he sat alone in that bar, he had to feel the weight of his betrayal.
That Keller regretted his decision was irrefutable. A few hours before leaving the hotel for the bar, he called Tom and said, “Please help me. I’ve got to get home. I don’t care how much it costs and I don’t care if I have to fly with the luggage. Just get me on a plane that gets me back to Violet in time.” Tom worked into Monday evening, calling airlines and travel agents, coming up with a single option that was neither cheap (more than $1,500) nor convenient. Keller would have to rent a car, drive to Washington Dulles, and catch a 6:00 a.m. flight that made one stop before landing at LAX around 4:00 p.m. Factoring in potential flight delays and rush-hour traffic along the fifty-nine-mile drive from LAX to Riverside Community Hospital, Keller’s chances of making the scheduled 7:00 p.m. C-section were fifty-fifty at best.
“Is there anything else?” Keller asked.
Tom sensed that the cost of the ticket was a problem. “Look, Joe, I’ll pay for the ticket. I’ll pay for it, and you don’t have to pay me back. Call it a baby present. That is how important I think it is for you to be there.”
“Hold on,” Keller said when Tom asked if he should book the ticket. “I’ve got to talk to Demetrius first.”
It was around 9:00 p.m. when Keller sat down with Demetrius in the hotel room they shared. There were two beds in the room, both covered by a coarse polyester comforter with a flowered print. The shades to the room were drawn, and the only light came from a lamp on the night-stand between the beds. Keller sat on a chair near a little desk in the corner.
“D, I need to know something. I need to know what you’d think if I went home to be with Violet.”
“What? You can’t. You can’t.”
Keller did not say anything for a moment. He stared at Demetrius, who was still three months shy of his thirteenth birthday.
“Violet’s gonna have the baby tomorrow. I can get there in time if I leave now. I will be back before the quarterfinals.”
“But you can’t. Who would coach the team?”
“Big Rome and Tom.”
“They don’t know our team. They’re not our coach. If you go, we don’t have a chance.”
Keller stood up and moved closer to Demetrius. He said softly, “We play the Capital Players tomorrow. They’re terrible.”
“We can’t win without you here.”
“Yes, you can.”
On this point, Keller was contradicting himself. For years he had professed how superior he was to other coaches, how vital a role he played in the team’s success. Demetrius believed him. Now he was supposed to understand that it was all a lie?
Keller moved close to where Demetrius sat on the bed, but Demetrius looked away and it was evident that they’d reached a stalemate. Keller retrieved his cell phone from the pocket of his shorts and flipped it open to check the time. If he wanted to catch the flight, he needed to leave soon.
“D?”
Keller put his cell phone back in his pocket and walked toward the door.
Down the hall, Tom waited in his room, ready with his credit card to pay for Keller’s ticket home. Keller entered and said, “I’m not going. D needs me.” Then he turned around and walked out.
A few hours later, Keller sat in the bar, drinking alone. He repeatedly swept his hand across the table, wiping it clean. At some point it became too much for him to ponder alone. How else to explain what he did next?
John was in his room, in bed, when his phone rang. He saw Keller’s number come up and figured he was calling to say he was racing home to be with Violet. But when John answered, making sure to whisper so as to not wake Jordan, Keller said, “Come over to the bar. We need to talk.” John put on a shirt and sweatpants and, in the dark, crossed the parking lot, wondering what was so important that Keller needed him in the middle of the night.
As he walked into the bar, John saw Keller before Keller saw him, and in that moment he felt great sympathy for him. Despite their many battles over the years, Keller was in agony, and an urge to console him rushed through John. Yet at the same time he wondered if the pain Keller felt might change him. Perhaps this will make him treat people a little better, John thought.
As John sat down, Keller said, “Some big games tomorrow, huh?” He talked about how Hoosier Hoops appeared as strong as last year and how Team Maryland would surely adapt after losing to the Inland Stars in Baltimore. John couldn’t believe Keller had gotten him out of bed for this. He hurried through his beer, hoping he could leave when he finished, but then, while talking about a Team Maryland player, Keller abruptly stopped mid-sentence. He fell silent and looked down at the table.
“Joe?”
Keller didn’t look up.
“Joe?”
Keller slowly raised his head, and John thought he saw tears in his eyes.
“You know, Violet’s having the baby tomorrow,” Keller said quietly.
“I know.”
“I wish I could have been there, but … but … the kids would have been let down if I didn’t come.”
John nodded.
“I was going to fly back, but I talked to D and he begged me to stay. I can’t let him down. And we’ve worked so hard that it would be unfair to the kids and to the parents if I left everyone now. … And, you know, Violet didn’t even really want me there. She has her sisters and her mom. I’d just be in the way.”
There was so much John wanted to say, but he worried what Keller would do if he didn’t censor his remarks. If I say anything negative, he’ll hold it against Jordan, John thought. He’ll teach him another “lesson” like in Baltimore. Keller wanted John to say he’d made the right choice, that he had no other option but to put the team first. John couldn’t do that, but he had to say something.
“Joe, I’m sure Violet will be fine,” John finally said. “She has her mom there, the rest of her family. Everything will be okay.”
Keller smiled and sat back in his chair. He took a deep breath and said, “So, about tomorrow …”
About twenty hours later, at 7:56 p.m. (PST), Violet gave birth to Alyssa Nicole Keller at Riverside Community Hospital. Violet’s sister was in the birthing room in place of Keller and was the first to see her. “My gosh, she’s chunky!” she shouted. Violet didn’t get to see for herself, because a nurse rushed Alyssa to the neonatal intensive-care unit and placed her in an incubator. She weighed eight pounds fourteen ounces, but looked heavier. She was retaining fluid and would have to be monitored for a few days. It was not a serious complication, but it scared Violet. She hadn’t gotten to hold her daughter and couldn’t go to the NICU to see her through the glass because she was bedridden. For three days after the delivery, Violet’s only glimpses of Alyssa came from Polaroids that her sister brought her.
On the night his daughter was born, Keller was across the country, celebrating a 19-point blowout of the Capital Players, which put the Inland Stars in the Round of 16 against Hoosier Hoops. Keller did arrange for flowers to be delivered to Violet’s hospital room.
“I think they were lilies, Stargazers,” Violet would say later. “I don’t remember.”
The anticipated rematch with Hoosier Hoops was held in a gym abutted at one end by a raised stage that was hidden by a thick black curtain. With the only locker room occupied, Keller gathered the team for a pregame talk behind the curtain. It was a fitting metaphor, as Keller’s cries for vengeance were like something out of Shakespeare. “It’s time for revenge!” he yelled to the boys encircling him. “Remember last year? Now’s your chance for payback, for revenge!”
To Demetrius he said, “Last time, Deuce kind of kicked your ass, didn’t he?”
Demetrius nodded.
“This time he is going to be your bitch, right?”
“I know, Coach, I got you.”
Tom looked at each of the boys, trying to gauge their resoluteness, and was struck by the intensity in Demetrius’s eyes. Never before had he seen him so keyed up before a game. He hopped in place, unable to stand still, and as Keller talked he went to each of his teammates and slapped him hard on the back or butt. “Let’s go. Let’s go,” he said. When Keller was finished, Demetrius led the team out from behind the curtain, as poised as he’d ever been to put on a show.
The thirty-two minutes of action from that game would be talked about for years by the followers of the team. John, who videotaped it, would watch the tape whenever he wanted to be reminded of how perfect the team, and Demetrius, were capable of playing. Everything that had gone wrong for the Inland Stars in the teams’ first meeting was reversed. Terran’s presence on the floor meant Van Treese and Bloom, Indiana’s skilled frontcourt duo, couldn’t double-team Demetrius, and he tormented them inside. Deuce had his hands full guarding Pe’Shon, which enabled Jordan and Andrew to get open shots on the perimeter. When Indiana had the ball, Terran and Xavier matched up well enough with Indiana’s big men that Demetrius could act as a sort of freelance defender, blocking shots and helping Pe’Shon and Justin, who took turns smothering Deuce. At the start of the second half, Deuce was so worn down from the big, rangy defenders Keller rolled at him, he looked as if he didn’t want to go on.
Demetrius scored 30 points, but his offensive output was not his most impressive feat. It was the totality of the effort he put forth. He contested every shot close to him and chased down loose balls, even ones that were clearly headed out of bounds, diving into the stands after them. He fought so hard for rebounds that he often took them away from teammates. Most important to Keller: No one could watch that game and come away thinking that Demetrius wasn’t twice the player Deuce was.
Early in the third quarter, with Inland Stars up 24, Tom and Rome, Sr., began discussing their next opponent, which they expected to be Team Maryland. Sitting at the end of the bench, they talked about resting as many of their stars as possible. There was no sense in expending all the boys’ energy in a game that was clearly over when they would have to play again in a few hours.
“Joe, you need to think about getting D out of there, saving him for Maryland,” Tom said after walking down the sideline to where Keller stood.
Keller shot him a bewildered stare. “Are you crazy? D is killing out there.”
Seated high in the bleachers, John had the same thought. Demetrius was still in the game, still going full bore when the outcome had been decided. At the end of the third quarter, he shut off his video recorder and walked down the stands to the court. He squatted behind the bench and spoke to Tom.
“We need to get D out of there. We need to start thinking about tonight.”
“I already tried,” Tom said.
“Try again.”
This time Rome, Sr., went to Keller and pleaded with him to rest Demetrius. Keller waved him off. He was having too much fun watching Demetrius embarrass Deuce.
At the final buzzer, Demetrius was still on the floor, still competing madly, even though the Inland Stars led 61–31. As John walked onto the court to congratulate him and the boys, Keller grabbed him by the arm and screamed, “Who is the best player in the country now?”
————
Playing two games four hours apart was nothing new to the Inland Stars. They often played three in a single Saturday and then two more on Sunday. The kids were resilient, and Keller had them in great shape. But playing two games in a row at Nationals was different. It was not just physically taxing. Demetrius and the others had been in such a lather to avenge their loss from the previous year that it would be difficult for them to find that level of intensity again only a few hours later.
Coaches often talk about the possibility of a “letdown” after a momentous victory. They guard against it by resting players but also by plotting a larger journey for the team. No one game is considered more important than the one that follows it. Keeping the players’ intensity at a constant rate (rather than at a succession of peaks) is also vital. Controlling emotions, especially those of boys so young, can be difficult, but the surest method is to continually downplay the significance of the challenges before them. Keeping them focused on the nuts and bolts of the game prevents them from succumbing to their emotions.
Louis Wilson, the coach of Team Maryland, understood that well from his time as a player at Howard University, as a coach at the high school level in Maryland, and now at the grassroots level. He treated the Round of 16 matchup against the Atlanta Celtics as just another game, and when his team jumped to an early lead, he sent his best players to the bench. Team Maryland won by 32, but the real victory was in advancing to the next round without exhausting the team’s best players or allowing them to think their work was finished.
When the two teams arrived at the gym, Team Maryland’s players took up space off to a side of the stands. Chad Wilson and a few other players stretched; some dribbled basketballs. The Inland Stars grouped together at one end of the bleachers. Demetrius immediately lay down on a bench and closed his eyes. Rome sat slumped with his back resting against the row of seats behind him, staring motionless toward the court as if he’d been entranced.