Play Their Hearts Out

by George Dohrmann

  Still, cutting Andrew would have ramifications. Everyone associated with the team (except perhaps Tom) knew that Andrew was better than Tommy. Rob and Lisa and Andrew were also a link to the team’s honest beginnings, when Keller’s ambitions were interwoven with genuine concern for the boys and their families. Without them, without what they represented, Keller was just another basketball mercenary, no different from Pat Barrett and all the others.

  Keller understood the implications of cutting Andrew, and whenever I asked him about it he said, “I’m not sure what I am going to do.” But he was sure. He just wasn’t sure how to do it. Passing over to the dark side wasn’t easy for him, even if he had been toeing the line for a long time.

  It was no surprise that Keller ultimately chose the coward’s approach. At a tournament in September, he left Andrew on the bench, giving most of his minutes to Tommy. Given his past experiences, he knew that if he offended Andrew strongly enough, Rob would pull him off the team.

  Rob didn’t realize what Keller was up to at first. He asked John and Rome, Sr., if something had happened during one of the few practices he’d missed. Was Andrew slacking off? Were other players performing better? When the answers came back “no,” Rob assumed Keller had used that tournament to placate Tom, who hoped for a greater return on his investment than he’d gotten the previous season. But at a tournament in San Diego the following weekend, Keller left Andrew on the bench again. Something is up, Rob thought, and that led to a series of dinner-table talks between Rob and Lisa, after which they concluded that Rob had to confront Keller.

  Later that month, Rob cautiously approached Keller after a practice. It was not easy for him; he was demure and hated confrontation. He even cheered softly, never wanting to offend supporters of the opposing team.

  “Joe, the past couple tournaments, Andrew hasn’t been playing, and I think I need to know: Is Andrew your primary point guard?”

  Keller mumbled something about “seeing how things develop” and tried to walk past Rob, but Rob moved in front of him.

  “Joe, if you are not going to use Andrew, we are not going to keep him with you. He’s too good a player to be sitting.”

  Keller looked at Rob, looked down at the floor, and just walked away.

  Rob and Lisa decided that Keller’s actions at the next tournament would decide it. If Andrew played consistent minutes and started at least a few of the games, he would remain on the team. If not, they had no choice but to act. Keller knew Rob was at the threshold, and so he gave him one final push. At a tournament in Lakewood a few days later, not only did Keller sit Andrew for most of the game, he inserted Tommy into the starting lineup. His choice was made: cash over character.

  On the drive home from Lakewood, Andrew didn’t say much from the backseat as his parents discussed what to do. Lisa wanted to leave immediately; Rob hoped that Keller would change his mind, even though he knew from his years with the team that he rarely did. After several minutes of vacillating, Rob put the question to his son.

  “We’re thinking about leaving the team,” Rob said to Andrew. “What do you think?”

  “Fine,” Andrew said. He gazed out the window, expressionless.

  Rob took a deep breath. It was over, and he needed a few moments to let it settle in. He eventually called Keller’s cell phone.

  “Joe, that’s it. We’re leaving,” he said.

  “Okay,” Keller said tersely, which stung Rob. He wanted Keller to at least go through the motions of trying to talk him out of it.

  John and Rome, Sr., called Rob after receiving the news. They expressed disbelief and anger, consoling him with lines like: “It’s probably the best thing for Andrew.” None of them spoke to Keller about it, however. Relief that their child hadn’t been dumped exceeded their outrage.

  To avoid Andrew having to play against his old teammates, Rob placed him on a grassroots team a grade above the Inland Stars. He remained hurt for a long time, but Rob could never get to the point of hating Keller; that wasn’t his nature. “Joe, I guess, just doesn’t treat people the same way I was taught to treat people,” he said, as if Keller’s callousness was a hereditary defect. “Andrew will miss playing with D and Rome and all his friends, but maybe in the long run this will be for the best.”

  Keller showed regret about Andrew and Rob only once.

  A few weeks after they left the team, Keller rode in the passenger seat of a car headed north from San Diego to Fontana. Earlier, Keller’s team of mostly sixth- and seventh-graders had played three games against eighth-graders. It was called “playing up,” and Keller had begun scheduling more games against older competition to better challenge the boys. In the final, against players already into puberty, Demetrius scored more than 30 points and was the team’s only consistent threat during a 6-point loss. He shone mainly because of his speed, beating players to loose balls and on fast breaks. After the game, a man representing a Southern California track club approached Demetrius in the parking lot and handed him his business card. “You should be running track,” the man said. “I see you as a sprinter, in the four hundred and maybe the eight hundred. You could be in the Olympics. You’re the next Michael Johnson.”

  “Track,” Keller scoffed as we drove away. “There’s no money in that.”

  Keller was so giddy about Demetrius’s play that he waved off topics I hoped to discuss on the drive, Andrew’s exit chief among them. Whenever I brought it up or mentioned that I’d talked to Pe’Shon or Darius, he changed the subject.

  “You know, within six years I am going to be a millionaire,” he said at one point, cutting me off as I brought up Rob’s hurt feelings.

  I ignored him.

  “You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe I am going to be a millionaire.”

  Of course I didn’t believe him. But I didn’t say so, because Demetrius was lying in the backseat. His size-15 shoes were slammed against one window because his expanding frame, now almost six foot one, didn’t fit across the width of a Taurus.

  “Demetrius goes to the NBA, that’s like $500,000 from his first contract right there,” Keller said. “Then when a couple of my other guys—Rome, Terran, Justin—go to college, I’ll get some money from that as well, from the schools and from agents, maybe $100,000 each. … You see how it all works? I’m going to be a millionaire.” Keller pretended to bang his fists against the dashboard. “Admit it,” he said. “You’re starting to believe.”

  Keller raised that question with increasing frequency. He meant: Did I believe, as he did, that Demetrius was destined for the NBA. I didn’t admit it, but after watching Demetrius play in San Diego I was less skeptical.

  I tried again to turn the conversation to Andrew and Rob, but Keller flipped open his cell phone and announced that he was calling Barrett. The charade of the Inland Stars playing under the SCA umbrella had ceased after Barrett failed to come through with money Keller wanted for new uniforms. Keller no longer paid lip service to a partnership but still kept in touch with Barrett, mostly to gloat about Demetrius. “You know what they say: Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,” he said as he put the phone to his ear.

  While Keller gushed to Barrett, Demetrius and I talked about his life at school, which pleased him greatly. It was as if no one asked him about such banalities.

  “Did you ever get into a fight when you were my age?” Demetrius said from the backseat while munching on potato chips. “Guys are always trying to start stuff with me because of who I am.” Girls had begun to notice how good he was at basketball, he explained, and other boys were getting jealous. “Oh, they know I am going to play in the NBA someday. They’re just hating. I don’t want to fight them. I just try to ignore them, but what am I going to do?”

  Later, I asked him if he had a girlfriend.

  “Oh, George, now, why would you want to know that?”

  I told him I was curious.

  “Oh, so you’re Curious George!” he said, and then out came that laugh, with i
ts piercing “Ha!”—and he rolled over in the seat, giggling.

  A short time later, while Demetrius slept, I succeeded in turning Keller’s attention to Andrew. While discussing the play of the backcourt in San Diego, I mentioned that the team could have used him. “I love Andrew, but he’s just too slow,” Keller said. He grew quiet and fiddled with his cell phone. “He peaked too soon.” He seemed to be anguishing not over having cut Andrew and betraying Rob’s trust but over the fact that a player he once hailed as second in ability only to Demetrius had failed to live up to the potential he saw in him. Andrew had let him down, not the other way around.

  I wondered: If he could treat Andrew that way, could turn the page on him so quickly, what about Demetrius? If Demetrius stopped growing or hurt his knee, would the player Keller claimed was like a son be cast away as well?

  “Joe, what happens if D doesn’t make the NBA?” I asked.

  Keller shot me a stare as if I had insulted his wife. It was the possibility you dared not speak of. “Now, why would you say that?”

  “Well, what if he doesn’t?”

  Keller thought for a moment and, before he answered, looked to the backseat to make sure Demetrius was still asleep. He was lying on his side, facing the front, and his hands were wrapped together and tucked under his cheek. He looked like a little boy lost in his dreams.

  “Well, then all this would have been a waste of time,” Keller said. “Demetrius would have been a bad investment.”

  PART TWO

  Starting to Believe

  11

  Sonny Vaccaro

  In Fall 2003, Keller drove his Ford Expedition into the Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu. In the passenger’s seat was Wayne Merino, the former coach at Artesia High in Lakewood, who had won three state titles in the 1990s but then lost his job in 1999 after the California Interscholastic Federation determined that foreign players using falsified visas had competed for the school. He had been floating around the youth-basketball scene ever since.

  The car approached a manned security gate at the entrance to Mountain View Estates, a lavish neighborhood in Calabasas, a city of less than 30,000 where actor Will Smith, composer James Horner, and other wealthy entertainers lived. Though it is only twenty-two miles from Los Angeles, Calabasas is a world away. Before leaving Fontana, Keller had fretted over what to wear, asking Violet repeatedly if his outfit was appropriate. He had swapped his usual shorts or jeans for tan slacks and a collared shirt.

  Once through the security gate, the car wound a mile farther into the mountains before making a left turn onto Collingwood Circle. The houses on this block looked like many in Southern California—stucco, with hints of Spanish architecture—but they were massive. It was a planned community, and the planners had targeted the super-wealthy. Keller parked the car in front of a white house with a wisp of creeping fig bending over the vaulted doorway. He followed Merino up the front walk and took a deep breath as he pressed the bell. The door opened almost immediately, which startled Keller but not as much as what happened next.

  “Joe!” Sonny Vaccaro yelled, and then the godfather of grassroots basketball hugged Keller as if he’d known him for years.

  Keller would say hard work had put him on Sonny Vaccaro’s doorstep, but a series of fortuitous events had helped pave the way. After failing to sign LeBron James to a shoe contract—despite offering more than the $90 million LeBron took from Nike—Reebok hired Vaccaro away from Adidas to, in his words, “establish Reebok as a basketball brand.” This was a seismic development in the grassroots world. For a decade, Nike and Adidas had been the only players in the youth game. Now Reebok decided to throw its shoe into the ring, and the hiring of Vaccaro announced the seriousness of its intent.

  To build Reebok’s profile, Vaccaro needed influential grassroots coaches in key areas of the country. Some Adidas-sponsored coaches would follow him to Reebok, but he would need more. This gave the best coaches leverage to get a sweeter deal from Nike or Adidas or to move to Reebok for more money and gear. Reebok’s leap into the market also gave small-time coaches out on the competitive fringe hope that they might finally land a deal.

  Given the consistent flow of talent from Southern California, Vaccaro needed to establish a presence there. His roots were in the East, and he would sign up established coaches from there, but Nike and Adidas had a grip on the Southern California market. They also paid their coaches handsomely, so Vaccaro scouted for unaffiliated coaches he could build up.

  Keller should not have been under consideration. His players were thought to be too young to be effective marketing tools for the shoe companies. But Vaccaro heard from other coaches that Adidas had its eye on Keller and that the company had considered signing him to a shoe deal to gain access to the young phenoms he controlled. Vaccaro wondered if the Inland Stars wouldn’t be a good long-term investment for Reebok. Sponsor them now and then wait for the payoff in a few years when Demetrius reached high school. At the very least, he thought it advantageous to establish a relationship with Keller.

  Keller was in his car when he received the call from Merino informing him that Vaccaro wanted to meet. He remained composed on the phone, but once off the line his excitement boiled over. “It’s all working out, the big plan,” he said. He started to call Violet but then stopped, as he was only a few miles from his apartment. He paused, unsure if he should call someone else before he got home. “This is it. This is it,” he said. It was like being summoned to meet his king. “I can’t believe it. Sonny. I am meeting with Sonny.”

  A week later, Keller and Merino stood on Vaccaro’s doorstep.

  Vaccaro, sixty-five, was wearing a black sweat suit and socks but no shoes. He was shorter than Keller had imagined, maybe five foot six, and had raccoon eyes and gray stubble on his cheeks. He looked like an old Italian mobster enjoying his day off.

  Vaccaro’s apparent lack of polish was part of his charm. He was a millionaire, one of the most powerful men in basketball, the guy who’d spotted Michael Jordan’s potential as a marketing star before anyone else, yet he lacked pretension of any kind. It didn’t matter if you were a waiter, a cabby, a sixteen-year-old basketball star, or Nike founder Phil Knight. He treated everyone the same: as if they were the most important and brilliant person. He often forgot names or became confused during the telling of a story, but his wife, Pam, had a sharp mind for details and would jump in, and this further coated him with a sort of grandfatherly innocence.

  Vaccaro led Keller and Merino over a large Victorian carpet in the entry, where a round table topped with white orchids centered the room. To the left was a winding staircase that led to the second level, and Keller noticed paintings there and on other walls of the house—one of a lone cypress tree, another of children playing at the beach. “Those were all done by my mother-in-law,” Vaccaro said. “She just took up painting a few years ago. She’s gotten pretty good, don’t you think?” To the right of the entry was a formal living room with shiny couches that looked untouched, but straight ahead was a more informal sitting area with a large television and deep couches. To the right of that was the kitchen, where Vaccaro and Pam spent most of their time. Beyond two picture windows was a giant pool, and beside that were two flowering trees, around which were more than a dozen hummingbirds, drawn to six feeders hanging from branches. Ducks had recently taken up residence in his pool, Vaccaro said, and he loved feeding them. But then Pam called the Humane Society and learned that if they kept at it, the ducks might stop migrating. “Now we shoo them away with a broom or the pool sweep,” Vaccaro said.

  Pam joined the three men for lunch at a round table in the kitchen. The focus was entirely on Keller, as Vaccaro and Pam wanted to know his story. He talked about how he’d put the team together, how it was “like a family,” and how fortunate he had been to find so many talented kids. To support this, Keller cited the recent Hoop Scoop rankings of the top seventh-graders in the country, eight of whom had played for Keller the previous season: Demetrius
(1), Pe’Shon (10), Justin (20), Rome (22), Terran (24), Jordan (31), Xavier (37), and Andrew (59). Vaccaro knew Clark Francis’s rankings were mostly unsubstantiated hype (how else to explain seven of the top 37 kids all on the same team?), but it proved that people had taken notice of Keller’s work.

  Keller came across as assured yet grounded, Vaccaro would say later, and also a little naïve. But naïve was good. Vaccaro loved to mentor young coaches and athletes.

  After lunch, Vaccaro took Keller to his office upstairs. On the walls were pictures of him with past and present NBA stars—Alonzo Mourning, Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, Charles Barkley—and some of the coaching fraternity’s biggest names. In one corner was a chair from the 2000 NCAA Championship game, signed by the University of Florida basketball team. Vaccaro showed Keller one of his prized possessions: a Nike shoe Michael Jordan wore in a game in 1992.

  Once back downstairs, they settled into the comfortable couches in the television room.

  “I think we can work together,” Vaccaro said. “As Wayne probably told you, I am looking for a team in Southern California. So, tell me, how can I help you?”