Longshot

by Lance Allred

  I finished, breathing hard for air, and jogged over to the post to resume the demonstration.

  “Post position. Call for it. Meet it. Check your shoulder. Eyes up. Drop step….” Majerus choreographed as I followed the beat. “Stop! Don’t move.” I froze as Majerus walked up to me, touched my lead leg, and pointed at my toes. “Toes are not pointed to the sideline,” he explained to the audience. My toes were barely a few degrees shy of that, pointed to the corner. “Five sprints. Go!”

  I ran over to the side and put in five more sprints. My co-demonstrator, Cameron Koford, then stepped up to fill in for me while I was running, only to be sent on his own set of sprints for not calling for the ball loud enough. The audience waited for me to finish my sprints as Koford joined me on the side.

  We went through the motions again: Position. Call for it. Meet it. Check your shoulder. Eyes up. Drop step. What was hard was that we paused between every piece of the move to show the proper positioning, causing our legs to flare up with lactic acid and inducing incredible discomfort, not to mention killing any natural flow. “Lance will shoot a hook shot over his shoulder, with his arm raising up and releasing the ball between the 10 and 1 o’clock positions. Shoot it!”

  My legs, having stood in a half-squat position, shaking and burning for nearly thirty seconds after having run so many sprints in just the first two minutes, tried to leap as I took my shot, only to barely lift up off the ground. I shot my hook between the 10 and 1 o’clock positions. I missed it as it careened off the front of the rim.

  “Always aim at the back of the rim,” Majerus immediately began to lecture. “Never miss it short. Five sprints!” I ran back over to my side and ran some more.

  Koford filled in while I ran. I could never rely on Koford to give me a breather, as he always got sent on sprints much quicker than I ever did: “Post position. Call for it. Meet it. Check your shoulder. Eyes up. Drop step. Shoot it. Five sprints, Koford! For releasing the ball outside of the 10–1 o’clock position.”

  Koford rejoined me on the sideline. This went on for an hour. After our post demonstration, we were running a team defense demonstration. “Britton, toes not pointed to the rim!” Majerus chided as Britton Johnson caught the ball at the three-point line. “Five sprints, go! Lance, fill in while Britton runs.” I ran up and took my shirt off to go skin, as Britton had been a skin while demonstrating. “Lance, keep your shirt on. Go on the other team. Trace, go to the top.” I ran over, picked up my shirt, and fumbled to put it back on. “Lance, too slow! Five sprints.”

  By the end of the first day I was exhausted. As I was eating dinner in the dorms with one of the high school teams, their coach came over to me and patted me on the back as he set his tray down next to mine. “I’m going to sit next to this guy,” he told his team, “as Majerus is hardest on the players with most potential.” And to me: “Let’s see where you go.”

  I scoffed: “Careful what you wish for. You may be sent on sprints as well just for talking to me.”

  They thought I was joking. Most people didn’t know that even coaches were not spared the sprints. I had seen Coach Strohm, Coach Shelton, and Scott Garson run sprints. I had even seen Coach Rupp, in his own gym at East High School, run sprints assigned by Majerus.

  The week of team camp came to an end, only to usher in the Big Man–Guard Camp that weekend, where we simply pushed the reset button and repeated the cycle: Position. Arm bars high. Call for it. Meet it. Check shoulder. Drop step, stay low…. It was a forty-eight-hour camp, but it always felt like it lasted a week, as the two mornings always came early at six.

  The last hour on the last day I’m sure I set some sort of record for sprints in an hour. We recapped everything we had gone over in the last two days. But on this day, Koford went down with pain, leaving me as the lone guinea pig. I demonstrated and ran, and ran and demonstrated. Toward the very end of the final hour, Majerus was talking to the audience while my soaked shirt leaked sweat all over the baseline: “Lance is now going to catch the ball, then outlet and follow, and then…” For whatever reason, whether from sheer fatigue or because he was turned away from me, I didn’t understand what it was that he said or was ordering me to do. I gave him a quizzical look, and he noticed it.

  “Lance, you look confused.”

  I shrugged and stammered.

  “It’s OK if you’re confused, just tell me.” He looked to his audience, smiling at himself, showing them his magnanimity.

  “Yeah. I don’t understand, Coach.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Twenty sprints!”

  I blinked in disbelief and looked to Coach Strohm, who was covering his mouth, disguising his laugh as he pretended to be rubbing his 5 o’clock shadow. I really think Majerus was trying to show his benevolent, caring side but had not expected me to accept it and admit my confusion—putting him in a bind. He was such an impatient man, he had not the motivation to follow through.

  When camp was over and the kids filtered out, all of my teammates gathered in the film room, waiting for Coach to come in and outline the rest of the summer and his expectations for us as a whole and individually. Scott handed us our handwritten checks, and Chris, who was seated next to me and had worked during the camps but not demonstrated due to his back problems, looked at my check and then did a double take on his.

  “How come you got so much more than me?” he asked.

  Without skipping a beat, I responded matter-of-factly, “I got a dollar for every sprint I ran more than you.”

  When school started, Coach Majerus felt that we were all soft and not tough enough. He had the idea that we should take boxing lessons as a form of both conditioning and toughening—two birds with one stone. I ignorantly at first thought that all boxers just stood there and punched. It wasn’t like they had to run and jump. I have since learned proper humility. I now have the utmost respect for boxers, because not only is it ridiculously tiring; you’re also getting punched in the head and stomach while at it.

  The first day of boxing lessons came after we’d lifted weights and were already tired. For the first two weeks we shadowboxed, working on simple jabs and hooks, progressing to combos as time went on. That first day, as we jabbed the air and jabbed some more, my shoulders burned like hot coals.

  After two weeks, we were finally taught how to wrap our knuckles, which took some of the gents about twenty minutes to figure out. We then were handed gloves and told to simply shadowbox each other. I was paired up with Koford, who was seven feet tall, with a seven-foot-three-inch wingspan. Even he didn’t understand and respect his reach. As the whistle blew, I gave Koford a couple of air jabs, clear away from his face. Koford then bared his teeth, shrilling like Chewbacca, and countered with his own air jab. The next thing I knew I was on my back, staring up at the many stars circling the blazing midday sun, which was piercing through my blackout.

  “Koford, what the hell are you doing?!” Jason Veltkamp, our strength coach, screamed from across the turf field.

  Koford held up his hands in genuine confusion: “I was just boxing. I didn’t mean to hit him.” I sat up, not noticing the blood that was gushing down my nose. Koford could never do anything right.

  A week later, the kid gloves came off and we were unleashed. Jason even had a tournament pool allowing bets to be placed on us. Trace Caton, the team heartthrob, and Chris Burgess were paired up one day. It didn’t last very long. On first glance, you placed money on Chris, due to his size. But Jason knew to put money on Trace and was videotaping the fight.

  Chris went for a full hip-powered hook on Trace, who ducked and uppercut Chris right in the gut. Chris immediately hunched over in reflex, allowing Trace to follow with his strong hand and power-punch Chris right in the head. Even though they were wearing helmets, it really made no difference, as Chris dropped like a bag of potatoes. It took twenty minutes for Chris to come to and walk out on his own. Once Chris was able to give a thumbs-up to signal he was OK, which proved quite difficult for him, such was h
is daze, Jason immediately took his video camera to his office and replayed the fight, and replayed it some more, until his whole office was packed with football players narrating the force of the crushing blow inflicted upon Chris: “Oh! Ah! Bam!” Coach Majerus even requested a copy when he heard about it from Scott and Strohm, who laughed themselves silly upon seeing it. Everyone thought it hilarious except for Chris, of course.

  16

  Sophomore season began in November, and it went as expected, with all the usual name-calling and degrading insults one would expect. Usually I was referred to as “Cunt Extraordinaire,” or else Coach would finger-spell “cunt” to me to make sure there was “no miscommunication between us.” Why was coach being so mean? Coach was irritated with me because I had been instructed by our trainer not to practice in the tail-end section of two-a-day practices to keep my back from flaring up again.

  Coach loved his two-a-days. Every weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, for the first three weekends of the season, Coach had two-a-days. He would’ve had two-a-days every day were it not for school. Coach loved his practices. He got to listen to himself talk for three hours every day without interruption as we stood there on the baseline like bowling pins.

  After a late night where Coach kept us up until 2 a.m. watching film, we had to pack our bags and be at the airport by 6 a.m. to fly to Alabama. As a program, the University of Utah men’s basketball team was the epitome of logic in action.

  That morning, dazed and confused, I walked through the security checkpoint—my first time doing so since 9/11. I moseyed about looking for something to eat. I was minding my own business, just looking for a damn smoothie, when I heard Coach, with a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich stuffed in his mouth, say, “Lance, we’re meeting back in the security room to watch film! Just go—” He stopped and swallowed his food, his face growing red with irritation at me even though I had done nothing wrong, nor had I said anything. I knew full well we were meeting for film, which wasn’t for another ten minutes, more than enough time to get myself a smoothie. Sometimes I just need a smoothie.

  “You know what? You’re not going to set me off today, Lance.” He said this as though it was more for himself—an empowerment mantra. “Strohm!” Coach beckoned, and like Louis XIV, he waved me off.

  “Take Lance away.”

  I don’t know what surprised me more: the fact that I inadvertently required Coach to begin positive self-affirmation or that Coach was able to secure a security room to watch something as trivial as a basketball game on some security monitor so soon after 9/11. Either way, the smoothie would have to wait, although Coach still allowed himself enough time to eat his food.

  After watching film we got on the plane and flew to Alabama. During practice that day, Coach hurled obscenities at anyone who entered the arena, even a lowly janitorial assistant with Down syndrome. In Coach’s defense, his tirade began to lose wind once he realized that Jimmy the Janitor was special.

  The next night I scored ten points and grabbed five rebounds, even though we got a nice shellacking. I made my first bucket, but I totally traveled and luckily wasn’t called for it. It was the only field goal I attempted that game, and I made all eight of my free throws, much to Coach’s surprise. He had previously written me off as someone who couldn’t shoot the ball well and had allowed me to shoot only layups. There’s such a thing as overcoaching, and at some you point you just have to go out and play basketball.

  Toward the end of the game, after I made a great defensive play, blocking a dunk, Coach pulled me to the side in the huddle and said, “You really are a warrior.” It was to me, and only to me. There was no sarcasm, no showmanship, no audience. It was just me and Coach. And when he coached like that, he could be the most inspiring coach to play for. I’d have done anything he asked of me in that moment. If only he could have remained that way all the time.

  I was in Coach’s good graces for the next two days, as he recalled my toughness throughout the next few practices and the size of my testicles, metaphorically speaking. Coach was so complimentary toward me that my teammates began to tease me in the locker room. I was fine with that. It was nice being on top of the world, knowing that Coach was pleased. And yet I feared so much that I would let him down. I in no way thought I had arrived. I feared I’d lose it. And I did, the next game, against Arizona State.

  In the first sequence that I was subbed in for Chris, there was a loose ball on the floor, and we were on defense. I was the one nearest the ball, and I saw my teammate Jeff Johnson leaking out for a layup. I quickly tried to pick it up and lob it to him, going for the home-run play. Instead, an opposing player dove between my feet to knock the ball away into his teammate’s hands for an easy layup. Coach was livid. Had I made the play, I would’ve been a hero. But because I was a nanosecond too late, and the other guy dove for it and I didn’t, I came away looking the weak part. I’m not afraid to dive on the floor for loose balls, trust me. But if I see a quick two points for my team I’ll always go for them before I’ll go for a possibility of points from a quick hustle. Hustle points don’t count on a scoreboard, just like brownie points don’t really get you into heaven.

  When I dejectedly inbounded the ball, Coach was standing at the half-court line, hollering for my attention: “Lance…Lance…you pussy!” It was a quiet gym, and everyone heard it. And I died inside. I wanted to hide. As I had feared, I lost Coach’s favor in just one game. The very next play, an opponent jumped up over me, over my block-out, and scored a layup off the offensive rebound. I was then immediately subbed out. “Are they too tough for you, Lance?” Coach asked sarcastically as he escorted me to my seat. “That’s what I get for trying to be positive with you. You thought you arrived, didn’t you?” For the rest of the year, Coach would commonly recall that play, referring to it as the play “Lance pussed out of, too scared to dive on the floor.”

  No one stays at the top forever. What goes up must come down.

  In December of my sophomore season Chris Burgess tore the plantar fascia in his foot. I became the default center. It was finally my time to play. I could hardly sleep those first few nights before my start, tossing and turning, obsessing about what-ifs. My obsessions would become self-fulfilling prophecies as I worked my mind into a state of cathartic attrition. My very first start, against lowly Stony Brook, was a disaster. I was terrible. I missed dunks, layups, bricked shots, and free throws. My hands were pasted with Crisco, as I couldn’t bring down any rebounds. And I was so worried about blocking out that I took myself out of rebound position.

  Yes, blocking out is important, but sometimes you have to abandon the block-out and just nut up and go get the damn thing. A good coach once told me, “Good rebounders block out. Great rebounders just go get the ball.” I’d never dare to go get the ball, so terrified was I of giving up an offensive rebound and drawing Coach’s ire. My lack of confidence and Coach’s bullying nature were just a poor combination. It was like pouring gasoline over hot coals. I was a poor rebounder at Utah because I played scared, never risking, always playing it safe, just settling for a block-out, happy that my man didn’t get the offensive rebound.

  After that Titanic of a first start, I was sitting at my locker with my head in my hands when Coach Rupp came up to me and said, “Lance, Coach wants to see you in his locker room.”

  I obeyed and entered Coach’s locker room to see him standing naked in his shower stall. He motioned for me to come closer. “Lance,” he began, as though it was perfectly normal for me to stand there in my clothes while he showered, “Gordon Monson, whose work I don’t care for, wants to interview you, and I answered for you and said no. He only wants to interview you because you’re deaf, not because you’re a good basketball player, which you’re not. It would be like him wanting to interview me because I’m fat, not because of my coaching ability.”

  Good talk, Coach. Good talk.

  Gordon Monson was a sportswriter for the Salt Lake Tribune. After his request to interview me, Coach’s hostil
ity toward me increased. I’d comically tell my family, “Gordon Monson was the man that ruined my life.” My relationship with Majerus continued to deteriorate rapidly. “You’re a cunt, Allred,” he’d say. “And go ahead and give me that blank stupid stare like you always do. If that doesn’t motivate you to grow a pair, then I don’t know what will. Go ahead and give me that stoic look and then go home and cry to Mommy.”

  I’d never go home and tell my parents of the abuse I endured. I didn’t tell anyone about what I saw each day. Instead I just went home and sat in silent recollection of the day’s practice, dreading the one that would inevitably come tomorrow. While a piece of me stayed true to myself, most of me began to at least entertain the notion that I wasn’t worth much, and I slowly began to fade away from my family and friends. I was a zombie, a dead man among the living.

  Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason: because they are, for the most part, true. History repeats itself, and when people are unable to learn vicariously from the mistakes of others and repeat those same mistakes, a stereotype results. I have had to battle many stereotypes in the basketball world.

  A final paper was due at the end of the semester in one of my history classes, and I presented a well-researched ten-page paper. Three days later I checked my grades online and saw all the grades I expected except for:

  Middle East Hist: Incomplete

  I began to panic, because I had never received an incomplete before. The professor didn’t answer at his office. It was only three blocks away from my house, so I typed up a letter, walked it up to his office, and slid it under his doorway. I didn’t hear from him for another two days, all the while fretting and obsessing about my grade.