Play Their Hearts Out

by George Dohrmann

  Carmen finally ended the conjecture surrounding Justin: She phoned Keller after the Portland tournament to inform him that Justin was leaving Team Cal immediately and would enroll at Woodland Hills Taft.

  “I don’t care about hotels and trips and shoes and all that stuff; I care about how you treat the kids,” she told Keller. “Justin has wanted to leave for a while. He is tired of all the lies and the put-downs.”

  Justin called Demetrius and explained his decision, and he got Kisha’s cell-phone number for his mom. (Keller refused to give it to other parents, most of all Carmen.)

  “I just want you to know that us leaving has nothing to do with D. We left because of issues we had with Joe,” Carmen told Kisha. “Every time someone leaves the team, Joe dogs them and tells people they left because they were jealous of Demetrius. He tries to build up animosity with D and with you. But we care about D and wish him the best.”

  Justin’s departure shook up the High School Master Plan in a way that Keller couldn’t have imagined. Carmen’s opinion was respected, and when she told other parents, “No way would I send my son to FoHi,” they began questioning the wisdom in sending their sons there as well. Her choice also opened the door for other parents to defy Keller; there was safety in not being the first to go against his wishes.

  Rachel quickly enrolled Terran at Taft High as well. Justin and Carmen helped push her to that choice, but the school was unquestionably a better fit. It was only a few miles from Terran’s home in Chatsworth, stronger academically, and more racially balanced. The basketball team had several young guards but few big men, and Terran would play a more prominent role there than he ever had on Team Cal.

  “Terran is from over near Taft, and when he walks onto campus it is like when I go over to Fontana. People are talking about him, and he likes that,” Demetrius said. “And Taft has a good football program and sends all these guys to USC. Terran is a beast on the football field, and if he decides his future is in football, it is smarter for him to be over there.”

  Keller tried to convince Bruce to move to the Inland Empire and coach under Soderberg, but Bruce said he would move only for a job as a head coach—plus, Roberto didn’t want to go to high school with Demetrius. Bruce took a position as an assistant coach at Santa Barbara High and announced his intention to enroll Roberto there.

  The High School Master Plan wasn’t coming together as Keller anticipated, but he didn’t panic. He still had Demetrius, Aaron, and Rome, a core with which Soderberg could build a great team. He also claimed to be in the process of importing two French kids, a seven-foot-one center from Africa, and a super-secret player that he would only say was from somewhere in the Midwest.

  In February, Barbara and Kisha filled out enrollment papers for Aaron and Demetrius at FoHi. Keller anticipated Rome, Sr., doing the same for Little Rome, but Rome, Sr., had been talking with John Finn about Etiwanda and, looking closer at that school, concluded it was a better fit. Sharon lived in the Etiwanda district, and Rome’s friends from middle school were headed there.

  As with Justin, Terran, and Roberto, Demetrius didn’t blame Rome for wanting to go elsewhere. “Rome has been taking a beating for five years, doing the dirty work for me, and for high school he wants to do his own thing,” Demetrius said. “I don’t blame him. I would do the same thing if I were him. … Coach has made all these promises: ‘Oh, you’re going to win state your sophomore, junior, and senior years. Oh, we’ll have kids from France and Nebraska or Michigan or somewhere. Oh, we’ll have Terran and Rome and everyone.’ Well, they’re not coming, and why would they come here to go to a sorry school? Coach has made all these promises, and he doesn’t live up to them.”

  Demetrius recalled the original plan: he, Andrew, Jordan, and Rome attending the same school. “Coach Joe messed up so many friendships. You know how nice it would be to go to high school with those guys? That’s how it should have been. But Coach Joe screwed those guys, and so now it’s just me and Aaron. And I’d say there is only a little chance that Aaron goes to FoHi. His mom doesn’t want to mess up her relationship with Coach Joe. She might send him to FoHi to keep Coach Joe taking care of her. But Coach Joe might just screw that up as well, and then it will be just me up there.”

  Asked why he didn’t investigate going to another school, Demetrius said, “I talk to my mom about it, but we beat around the bush about it and then nothing ever happens. I guess I gotta hope that Coach Joe can live up to all his promises. Hopefully, he’s got, you know, some sort of plan to make it all right.”

  22

  Demetrius Walker taunting after a dunk

  Somewhere around Barstow, as the rental car crossed the desert between the Inland Empire and Las Vegas on a hazy spring morning, the old Joe Keller returned.

  He had sulked in the front seat for the first hour of the drive, barely speaking to Demetrius and Terran in the backseat. Other than to comment on how good the team looked in new black Adidas sweat suits, Keller showed no enthusiasm, not even for the trip to Sin City, one of his favorite haunts. Uncomfortable at the thought of a weekend around the parents who’d spoiled his high school plan, uncertain how the team would do in the Las Vegas Easter Classic against players a year older, and troubled by the decision facing him on whether or not to keep coaching Team Cal, he brooded.

  Then “Lovers & Friends” by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz came on the radio. Demetrius and Terran simultaneously screamed “OOOHHHH!” and danced in their seats to the opening groove. Keller slowly nodded his head with the beat, then a little more, and at the opening line he sang loudly in a surprisingly soulful voice: “ ‘Baby, how ya doin’? Hope that ’cha fine, wanna know what you got in mind.’ ”

  Keller knew every word to the song from his hours of chauffeuring Demetrius and Aaron. He knew as much about hip-hop music as most teenagers. “Lovers & Friends” featured three singers—Usher, Lil Jon, and Ludacris—and after Keller took Usher’s opening verse, Terran sang along with Ludacris and then Demetrius with Lil Jon. They stuck with their roles, often harmonizing behind one another or shouting a single word. By the final verse, the song flowed as if they’d practiced for months. Keller and Terran chanted shawty while Demetrius belted out Lil Jon’s lines:

  I’s been know you fo’ a long time (shawty),

  But fuckin’ never crossed my mind (shawty),

  But tonight, I seen sumthin’ in ya (shawty)

  When the song ended, Keller and the boys slapped hands. “That was live,” Demetrius said. “I wish we could do that again.” It was like the scene in the movie Almost Famous, when the band sings Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” on their bus and in the process forgets about their squabbles. Boyish and without pretension, the grand schemes forgotten for a moment, Keller was their friend, and five years of shared history connected them. But the tenderness of that scene also underscored how seldom that side of him had been displayed in the last few months. He was conflicted, torn between continuing to guide the boys and relinquishing control of the team and Demetrius to focus on his business ventures. Two additions to the team for the Las Vegas Easter Classic personified this conflict. Vondrae Tostenson, a six-foot-two guard Keller had moved to Fontana from Omaha, Nebraska, after weeks of dealing, would make his debut with the team. He was the mystery player from the Midwest who Keller had spoken of earlier and was a potential teammate for Demetrius at FoHi. The tournament would also be the first for Dave Taylor, a former assistant of Air Force, who ran camps for Adidas. Taylor would sit second chair to Keller during the Las Vegas Easter Classic. If Keller and, to a lesser extent, the boys were comfortable with him, he’d take over as Team Cal’s head coach.

  Keller’s uncertain future, Justin’s departure, the feud between Demetrius and Aaron, Keller’s resentment over the decision by parents not to send their kids to FoHi—all of this lingered over the team like the smog that perpetually blanketed the Inland Empire. But as the car crested the last of the Spring Mountains and with Las Vegas spread out before them, it seemed le
ss likely that those issues would tear the team apart.

  Keller realized that my digital recorder had caught their rendition of “Lovers & Friends,” and he played back the recording over and over, teasing Terran for being the voice that cracked and Demetrius for singing too high.

  “Coach, you’re so dumb,” Demetrius said, and with that Keller unbuckled his seat belt and climbed into the backseat, pinching Demetrius’s leg with one hand while fighting off Terran with the other.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Demetrius shouted through laughter, but no one wanted him to stop.

  On Wednesday afternoon, Team Cal routed their opening-game foe. The game was uneventful save for Taylor’s observation afterward, which he conveyed to the team at a meeting at their off-Strip hotel: “I’d swear, after watching you guys, you must hate basketball.” The players were seated before him on the floor of Keller’s room. “I mean, damn, no one on this team cheers for each other, no one slaps hands or slaps the floor on defense. There is no enthusiasm. I mean, damn, you guys play like you hate playing and like you aren’t friends.”

  It was an astute comment. After winning Nationals, the boys found it harder to get enthused for games. The goal Keller set before them since the team’s inception—to win Nationals—had been reached, and it was difficult to attach a new purpose to their effort. Keller talked of defending their title—when he was around—but his lack of passion for that aim was obvious. And, because they rarely practiced together, there were fewer shared experiences between tournaments. They showed up at a gym after a week or two of not seeing one another, played a couple of games, then left. They were more like a group of independent contractors than teammates.

  Taylor’s comment about the lack of camaraderie on the team was also on the mark. The boys were not all friends, not anymore. Aaron and Demetrius hated each other. Roberto and Demetrius hung out separately whenever possible. G.J. was not close with any of them, having been on the team such a short time and living in Arizona, and now the same was true for Vondrae. Justin’s departure also damaged solidarity because, like Rome, he could bridge the divides.

  Keller insisted that Demetrius and Aaron could hate each other off the court but get along between the lines. One could have nothing to do with the other. “You don’t have to be friends to be teammates,” he claimed. But they were teenagers, not college or professional players, and they didn’t have total control over their emotions.

  This was on display a few hours after Taylor’s speech at the hotel. The boys roamed the Adventuredome, an indoor theme park at Circus Circus, where they met up with Aaron’s girlfriend, who had traveled to Las Vegas with her mother to watch him play. Keller forbade anyone but family to be at away tournaments, but who was going to tell?

  Demetrius slipped away from the group and called his mother on his cell phone. Aaron had brought a girl to Las Vegas, he told her, and it wasn’t fair. He knew she would call Keller; in fact, he counted on it.

  Keller was at a P. F. Chang’s with G.J.’s parents when he received Kisha’s call. He had been jovial, drinking a Chinese beer and joking with Gerry about his younger son and his future with Team Cal, but then he answered the phone and his mood visibly changed. His face turned red as Kisha informed him of Aaron’s violation of team rules.

  “I’ll handle it, Kisha,” he said just before hanging up. “No, I will. I’ll take care of it.”

  Keller called Aaron on his cell phone and ordered him to meet him at the front of Circus Circus in fifteen minutes. He picked Aaron up and ordered the other boys to meet in Demetrius’s room back at the hotel.

  “The thing is, guys, at the end of the day, we all have little woodies that are hard,” Keller said, when he had the attention of the entire team at the hotel. He was leaning against a wall that separated the sitting area from a kitchenette. “I know D has a girlfriend. I know Terran is talking to some girl. I know Aaron has a girlfriend, and I know Rome had a girlfriend three months ago. Guys, I don’t mind that. I’d rather you tell me you have a girlfriend than that you have a boyfriend. But at the end of the day, don’t screw with our time and what our goals are. … Don’t fuck my shit up.”

  After fifteen more minutes of distributing wisdom along those lines, Keller turned to the dispute between Aaron and Demetrius. He had never addressed it directly with the team.

  “D, you as the leader—I am going to put you on the spot. I want us to quash all this bullshit. We need to end all this. I am not dumb. I know Aaron and Demetrius have been bumping heads for the last year. I don’t want Aaron and D not to get along. Look, I am not asking D and Aaron to play hopscotch together. I am asking that when you are around each other, you don’t talk trash about each other. You gotta cut that out, because it affects the way you play on the court. … I want you guys to stick together. I want no more of this little group stuff. It’s all over. You may not like each other, but you have to get along because you are going to spend more time together than with anyone but your family. This is your second family. … D, come up here. Talk about team. What does that mean to you?”

  Demetrius got up from the floor and stood next to Keller. He didn’t want to be there; it was a while before he spoke. “I don’t like people who talk trash all the time. There are people on this team who talk a lot of trash. A lot of trash. A lot of us are like brothers. Some of us aren’t. … Okay, I don’t like Aaron. I’ll be flat-out honest. I don’t like Aaron. He talks too much trash. But as Coach says, we gotta be a team. It doesn’t matter what I think about Aaron. Everybody else on this team, you are like brothers to me. I will always be there for you.”

  Keller wanted Demetrius to lead the team to the high road, for Aaron and Demetrius to shake hands and move on. But there were no hugs or handshakes. Demetrius did nothing more than make clear what everyone already knew: He hated Aaron. When Demetrius was done, he never looked toward Aaron, who sat on the arm of a sofa near the window, biting a fingernail.

  Keller called Aaron to the front next and told him to apologize to the team. He announced that he was taking away his cell phone and that he was on “probation.”

  In his room later, Aaron sat slouched on a blue couch and asked, “Why did D get to go up there and say all that? What good did that do? Coach just let him go up there and trash me in front of everybody.” When no answer was offered, he picked at a loose thread on the couch for a moment, then went back to biting his fingernails.

  ————

  Thursday afternoon, the boys took the court against Texas Showtime. Team Cal struggled before Roberto’s strong second half led to a 57–49 victory. The bench was chaotic. Keller screamed at the players and was particularly hard on Vondrae; his honeymoon with the team, if he ever had one, was over. Keller’s antics harkened back to his wild sideline behavior in Team Cal’s early years. He was once again the crazed coach who, at the tournament in Maryland in 2002, was handed a note by a mother from another team that read: “You belong at the National Zoo.”

  He even criticized Demetrius. After Demetrius threw an errant pass intended for Roberto, Keller shouted, “D, what the hell are you doing?” Demetrius felt that Roberto could have received the pass if he had kept running upcourt, and he yelled back, “Roberto needs to keep moving!” He then turned away and shook his head so demonstratively that no one in the gym could have missed it. Demetrius had returned Keller’s fire before but always during a time-out or break in the action, never when a gym full of people could see and hear him.

  Taylor spent most of the game pulling players aside after Keller berated them. To Rome, he said, “Keep your head up. You’re playing hard. But remember to keep your hands up on defense and cut off the baseline better.” To Aaron, he said, “Joe’s telling you to rebound better, but what he means is you need to do a better job boxing out. Find your man and get into him and then look for the ball.”

  Demetrius played poorly, which made his outburst at Keller all the more noticeable. It looked as if he was blaming his teammates, which in a sense he was. �
�When someone else is feeling it, I make sure to get them the ball. If G.J. is knocking down threes, I make sure he gets the ball. When Rome is knocking down mid-ranges, I make sure he gets it right there,” Demetrius said to Terran as they rode back to the hotel after the game. “But when I am feeling it, no one gets me the ball. It’s like I am always looking out for everybody else, but when Demetrius is feeling it, no one gives him the ball. … People are coming to the gym to see me play, and I can’t be struggling like I did today. People are expecting more from Demetrius Walker.”

  It was the first time I had heard Demetrius talk about himself in the third person, and it demonstrated the attitude change parents and teammates had whispered about since the Sports Illustrated article.

  Taylor’s earlier observation that the team played like a divided bunch echoed as the players branched off that night, finding dinner at different places close to the hotel. While Demetrius and Rome went to Taco Bell, Vondrae, Aaron, and Roberto went to Wingstop, where Vondrae and Aaron each ordered twenty chicken wings and then bet on who could eat them all.

  As they sat gnawing on wings, the boys talked of Vondrae’s move to California, which came after Keller made numerous promises to Vondrae’s uncle, his legal guardian. Roberto said he doubted Vondrae would put up with Keller for long, that he’d be back in Nebraska before the end of the summer. He then made a bolder prediction: “I’d bet this team ain’t together by Nationals. I’m just saying, the way things are going, people fighting and Coach doing his own thing, I bet we don’t even got a team by then.”

  Mats walked into the gym moments after Demetrius took a pass from G.J. in for a layup in a Friday afternoon game against the Arizona Stars. He didn’t look at the action on the floor but rather at the parents in the stands. He looked for the ones ready to move their sons to another team. “The vultures are circling,” Mats said at halftime. Earlier, he had warned Keller that Pat Barrett likely had his eyes on Aaron. “Joe, what you have created with Aaron and Barbara, Pat is going to steal that. Pat is going to up the ante. The way you have it set up with the mom, you are going to get outbid at some point. Pat is good at finding the weak and putting them under his spell. Pat likes the soft, sensitive guys. Aaron is all Pat Barrett. He is all Pat Barrett.”