by Lance Allred
I could’ve held on to the money and carried it with me on the plane when I flew back to the States a week later for Tara’s wedding, but I just didn’t like the idea of carrying that much cash on me and the hassle of reporting it to customs. I had faith that Coach Oner would transfer the money for me through his own private bank account.
Coach Oner took me to my first-ever European soccer game. It was Galatasaray playing Ankara. I had never seen anything like it. I hardly watched the game. I just watched the crowd. It was amazing to see these thousands of people in different parts of the stadium who would carry through rally cries, cheers, and chants in harmonious timing, each section playing its part in the orchestra. Incredible. We don’t have fans like that in America, for any sport. I have never seen such tradition choreographed through the masses. Galatasaray won the game, and I got food poisoning. I had to be taken to the hospital because I had been vomiting every twenty minutes for eight hours straight through the night. Don’t get lamb kebabs from a vendor at a Turkish soccer game.
When the time came for me to fly back home for a few days for Tara’s wedding, the team was worried about letting me go, as they feared I might not come back or might weasel my way out of the contract and try to sign on with someone better for more money. But I told them they could trust me, even though my first paycheck was past due by four days at this point.
“You’ll have it when you get back,” the secretary assured me.
Eighteen hours is how long it takes to fly from Istanbul to Salt Lake City. I arrived in time to make the rehearsal dinner for Tara’s wedding, thanks to a little subterfuge on my part, when I snuck through security at O’Hare to make it to onto the plane just before it departed the gate. The door had already been shut. I may have violated international laws, but it didn’t weigh on my conscience, as I don’t buy into that speculative threat-level-red fear mongering. All I know is that I made it to the rehearsal dinner in one piece.
The wedding was the next day. It was a splendid event, and I was pleased to see that Tara, who had battled through reactive, self-destructive behavior, had found and was about to settle down with a high-quality guy such as John Greene. I got to see all my friends and loved ones and happily tell them about the situation in Istanbul, which by this point had exceeded my expectations.
I had invited Court to come with me when I first decided to go to Turkey. He loves traveling the world, experiencing new cultures, and is very good with languages. I wanted someone to come with me, as the idea of learning a new language, with my hearing impairment, was overwhelming. Plus, I wanted to take Mac, my dog, with me, and I needed someone to watch over him when I was gone on away games. Court had made up his mind to fly back with me.
The day after Tara’s wedding, I was startled to realize that Court had not yet packed or moved out of his apartment.
“Why haven’t you moved out?”
“Because I had no one to help me,” he said defensively, as though that absolved him of any wrongdoing, which it didn’t. Court also wanted to be bring his cat, Tommy. If it were not for the fact that Mac loves cats and was very good friends with Tommy, I wouldn’t have agreed to let the cat come. Tommy was a thorn in my side. He had nothing but total disregard for human authority and would openly challenge you for your food, jumping on the table right in front of you, racing to eat as much of it as possible before you could throw him off. No matter how many times you flicked or spanked him, or even threw him against a wall, he would never relent. His one redeeming quality was that he was best buds with Mac.
When we arrived in Istanbul with our pets in tow, the first thing Court noticed was the women. Turkish women are incredibly beautiful. And Court is obsessed with women. We took a taxi to my apartment, a three-bedroom flat. I also finally had my very own car: a beat-up used minivan. But I wasn’t complaining. I actually prefer to be assigned used beaters; that way, if you happen to ding them or wreck them, no one loses sleep over it.
I couldn’t stay in the apartment with Court for long, as one of the team managers was there waiting. He and I were going to take a ferry across the strait to the Asian side of Turkey, where we were to meet up with the team for a preseason tournament.
When I arrived, I met the new players on the team. Malik Dixon was an American point guard, and Malik spelled the end for me. He was a good guy. But he was a shoot-first point guard. And Coach Oner was giving Malik the green light to shoot whenever he wanted. I’m the type of big man who’s only as good as his point guard lets him be. The tournament lasted three days, and I didn’t play well. The team was used to me scoring twenty and ten before I left for the wedding and before Malik arrived. All I really scored that tournament was a set of stitches in my cheek.
Borak, the team captain, was back from an injury. He was a Turkish All-Star, and he was going to shoot it every chance he got. With Malik and Borak, there simply weren’t enough shots for anyone else. And then there was Hussein. This guy was trouble for me. He arrived late to the team for reasons I don’t know; I think there was a buyout with another team and Galatasaray quickly bought him. Hussein knew I was the obstacle standing in his way to starting and making more money in the future. So in practice, while taking it easy on the other guys, he would cheap-shot me and then initiate an altercation. Because he was such good friends with all the other guys and spoke Turkish, they gave him the benefit of the doubt, and they all began to think I was a just another whiny American. Hussein validated John’s warnings about the possibility that a teammate would try to make me look bad.
Even in games, Hussein would throw me difficult passes that were just out of reach or had too much heat on them. Or he would purposely miss my pass, so that I looked the part of the ass, giving me a turnover, and Coach Oner would take me out.
With change in offensive schemes, Malik and Borak now carrying the weight of the offense, the team owners began to pressure Oner to bring in a more shot-blocking-minded center. The owners kept saying that I was a rookie and would eventually crack, that with so little experience I’d never be able to make it through the wear and tear of the long season. Plus, they wanted to make a real push for the championship this year and felt they truly needed to invest in a more experienced center, at least one that could block shots.
The revolving door was gaining inertia. Every week, for three weeks, the team brought in two new big guys, Americans, either veterans or shot blockers. They’d have them practice against me, believing that the next one would be the one who was better than me. Yet they kept sending all of them home because I was outplaying and outworking all of them in practice. This went on for three weeks. By now it was October, and aside from the $20,000 advance that I received upon arrival in August, I had not yet received a paycheck. We were coming up on the third payday, the previous two still unpaid.
As far as the advance, I had yet to see that safe in my bank account. Coach Oner kept messing up the transaction information, or maybe he was just holding on to it; I don’t know. It was lost somewhere in cyberspace. After six weeks of employment with Galatasaray, I had received not a dime for my work.
My gut instinct had proved true. I was now in the situation I had feared.
After practices, to ease my mind of the financial stress and the politics, Court and I went out into Istanbul and visited the sites. The Hagia Sofia is immaculate. To think that man, fifteen hundred years ago, created such a powerful structure is awe inspiring. The notion that Court thought he could possibly convince the guards, who spoke no English, to clean up the pigeon shit that had accrued on the walls of this famous piece of architecture, one that they took for granted, was inspiring in and of itself. They simply looked at him like all Europeans do: There goes another American thinking he rules the world.
In Istanbul, you don’t have to be wary of the enticements of harlots. Rather, you must be on the lookout for rug sellers. It’s illegal to solicit in public in most of Istanbul, but when you emerge from a taxi or car in the bazaars of the city’s old district, you find p
eople waiting, whistling and whispering into you ear. Public solicitation is legal here.
First they’ll whistle lightly under their tongue, like prostitutes calling their johns: “Hey…” Then, in a throaty voice that bespeaks years of cigarette-smoke intake, they’ll ask, “You want to buy a rug?”
The first time we were accosted, Court and I were flattered, as we had visions of pimping out our apartment with a nice handmade Persian rug but hadn’t known where to look for one. To our delight, one came looking for us—or rather, the seller of one. We followed him. He spoke to us in good yet broken English: “You chose right. Stay with me. Buy only from me. Trust no one. No one else. Just me, Hassan. Trust no one.” He reiterated this point several times as he took us to a shop in the back alleyway.
“You play for Galatasaray? That’s my team!” Hassan erupted, opening his jacket to display his Galatasaray shirt.
His partner supported the Fenerbahçe team, a rival club. “At Fenerbahçe, we at least pay our players on time,” he remarked, which, ironically, led me to explain my monetary situation.
“I have no cash right now. I’m sorry,” I told them.
“That’s OK.”
“I will come back when I have cash.”
“No worries,” Hassan said. “Take it now, come back and pay later. Trust no one.”
An image of my hand being held in a blender to pay off a debt while Court was plunged into ice water with a potato sack over his head flashed across my eyes. “Um…. Thanks, that’s really nice of you. But I prefer to pay as I go. Really. I’d feel too bad. But I promise when I get the money, I will come back to you. I love these rugs,” I said, panning over the rugs one last time. I really did love those rugs. I never broke my promise, because I never did receive my money.
It all became abundantly clear that my time with Galatasaray had come to an end the morning I showed up with the team to travel to the season opening tournament. When I showed up at 1100 hours for the bus, as the manager had told me, I was the only one there. The bus had departed two hours earlier.
The timing couldn’t have been more impeccable: as I was standing there at the chain-locked doors of the clubhouse, Coach Oner sent me a text: “I’m sorry, Lance. You’re my friend. I’m your friend. I’m sorry.”
“Lance, I just talked to Yaman. He has received the $20,000 that Coach Oner has been holding for you, and he will get it to you tonight. And it has to be tonight, as you and your brother are on a plane to France tomorrow.”
“OK, John. I got it. What is the name of the team in France?”
“Rouen. It’s a two-month contract, to fill in for an injury. They need help, and you’ll be playing. It’s a good league, and you’ll have the playing time to get the visibility you need. But right now, just worry about getting the money. Meet Yaman wherever he tells you to meet him.”
I hung up with John and then called Yaman, the Turkish counterpart to John. “Lance, I cannot be there tonight,” he told me, “but my assistant will meet you at the Atrium, where he will give you your money.”
The Atrium is always busy, people coming and going in the capitalistic-driven culture that is Istanbul. Honking cars and taxis drive up on the curbs and sidewalks to cheat their way past traffic that is often held up by a special someone who thinks they are important enough to park in the middle of the street and walk into the coffee shop to buy themselves a latte. In their defense, they turn on their hazard lights. Hazard lights make everything all better. They absolve idiots of any accountability. They really do.
It was the heart of Ramadan, the monthlong equivalent of Christmas in the Muslim world. People were racing home for their supper before evening fell and the Taraweeh, the evening prayer service, was read. Court and I walked up to the Atrium, only a few blocks from our apartment. We stood on the steps of the shopping mall waiting for whoever Yaman’s assistant was to find me, as I had no idea what he looked like.
Like the sounds of an orchestra setting the scene in a movie, the Taraweeh began to blast from the speakers of the towering mosque beside the Atrium, a gleaming crescent moon atop its towering spire. In the Taraweeh, one-thirtieth of the Koran is read each night of the month of Ramadan: Allahumma innaka afuwwun kareemun tuhib-bul af-wa fa-afo anni….
Those lacking in faith continue on with their shopping and day-today routine, but for the most part, everyone stops. Taxi drivers pull up on the curb, lay a towel out on the sidewalk, and humbly kneel to join in prayer with the rest of their world.
Modern men who don’t believe in such superstitious ways—Allah be damned along with Santa—stand and smoke at the steps of the Atrium, their unnaturally blond wives happily skipping out with full shopping bags spilling with shiny things. Money talks, while Muhammad does not. Stagh-firullah hallazi la-ila-ha illa huwal Hayyul Qayyumo wa atu-bu ilaihe….
A man, cigarette in mouth, approaches me. “Lance?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I work for Yaman. Here is your money.” Without caution or worry—even with total disregard—he pulls out an envelope and removes $20,000 in cash. Two men with long black ponytails, standing only a few feet from us, immediately see green and look over at me, eyeing all the Ben Franklins. One nudges the other and hints with a nod toward me. They begin to whisper. Court nudges me, hinting at them. The damage is done. Seeing no point in chiding Yaman’s assistant for his folly, I quickly take the money. “Tsekkur,” I say as we part ways.
Hoping to become lost in the crowd, Court and I quickly walk into the busy Atrium—a pointless exercise, as I stick out like a sore thumb with my blond hair. Being six-foot-eleven might have something to do with it, too. We walk toward the McDonald’s, finding solace in our American friend Ronald—the only time I have ever appreciated the sight of a clown; I hate clowns. I look over my shoulder to see the greased ponytails walking into the Atrium, eyeing us.
“Here, Court, take the envelope,” I say, giving it to him but leaving the cash in my pocket. “Go downstairs and exit through the grocery store, and I will keep walking out and exit the north side. Run back to the apartment, but make sure they’re not following you. I will meet you back there.”
We split and I continue down the busy corridor of the hexagon-shaped building. They stand and look at both me and Court as he rides down the escalator and I continue on. When I turn the corner, out of eyeshot, I take off in a dead sprint past the salon and candy shop and plow through the revolving door like a lineman.
“Inna anzalnahu fee lailatul Qadr, Wa maa adraka maa lailatul Qadr.” Words of the Koran bellow through the dusk of Istanbul as though they had been waiting for me, the infidel, to come back outside. My heart is beating. I turn a corner, and an elderly lady screams in fright as I—a giant of a man—dart past her. I awkwardly apologize in poor Turkish, “Uzgunum,” and continue on down the sidewalk toward another corner, where I dart behind a high wall of shrubs.
I’m now in a back alleyway, the walls on either side obscuring me from vision. I pause for a minute to peer around the corner from where I had just come. No one. I rocket down toward my apartment. Homeless dogs and cats prowling through trash cower out of my way. Pigeons disband and take flight, scattering in my wake. “Inna anzalnahu fee lailatul Qadr, Wa maa adraka maa lailatul Qadr!”
At this moment I think of Montana. I miss her. How did I, once merely a deaf polygamist kid and nothing more, find myself here at this very moment: on the other side of the world in a culture unlike any I have ever known, being followed by thugs, with $20,000 in my pocket and no place to put it?
“Salaamun heya hatta matla-il fajr….”
It’s a shame my first 20K run wasn’t a marathon.
Court and I arrived at the airport to fly to Paris the following day. As I sat there waiting for our flight, confident thoughts of rising above adversity mixed and matched with thoughts of self-doubt: Am I really not that good? Am I overrated? Was I really just a big fish in a little pond in the Big Sky Conference? Yes, yes, these may be true, but I’m more than
that. I’m more than that. I wish I could say that this pep talk I had with myself at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport was the only one I needed to give myself, but that would be lying. There was worse to come.
Court and I landed in Paris that night, October 16, 2005. We let our animals out of their cages to relieve themselves and then loaded them and our bags into the taxi van that promptly took us to Rouen, a forty-five-minute drive north of Paris, where we were met by Coach Michel and Pascal, the team manager. I knew enough about Rouen to know that at one point it had been the old capital of British Normandy and that both Henry II and his son were buried at Rouen Cathedral, and that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the very same city as well. I was actually very excited to visit Rouen and was looking forward to getting to know the city and its culture.
Monday practice came. Coach Michel walked me through the set plays a few times and asked if I had it. “Yes,” I answered, remembering most of the plays, as they were your basic elementary sets of wheel actions and all-American box plays.
Things were going along splendidly in practice until I mixed up one play. Michel, in a Jekyll and Hyde manner, blew his whistle and went red as he got in my face: “You said you knew the plays!”
Kenny Whitehead, a veteran American, gave Coach a stunned look and then turned to me and shrugged: “I have never seen Coach do that before. What did you do?”
