A Season Inside

by John Feinstein

  Houston didn’t care about the reason for his invitation. All he had wanted was a chance and now he had it. “Whatever happens, I’ll go down swinging,” he said. “I’ve worked as hard for this as I’ve ever worked in my life and if I don’t make it, it will just be because there were other guys better than me. I can live with that. I can walk away and say, ‘Kevin, you were good, you did the best you could but you weren’t quite good enough.’ At least I won’t always wonder what would have happened if I had the chance. Now, I’ll have the chance. That’s all I’ve ever asked for.”

  Houston’s invitation ended the wondering, but it started the work. Knowing he was going to the trials, he picked up his practice time, working for hours and hours on his shot, knowing his ability as a three-point shooter represented his best chance to make the twelve-man team out of the eighty-plus players who would be at the trials.

  “This is my final chapter as a basketball player,” he said. “Anything after this will be just for laughs or to stay in shape or for the memories. I knew when I finished college that with the five-year Army commitment my chances to play in the NBA were almost none. This is the way I want to go out, taking a shot at playing for my country overseas. Whatever happens, I’ll have no regrets.” Houston was an early cut. But he had his chance. It was all he had ever asked.

  One year after he left N.C. State, Walker Lambiotte had no regrets either. His first season at Northwestern had often been frustrating. He had almost frozen to death more than once and he hadn’t been able to help a 7–21 team that badly needed help. But he was through all of that, his grades were good, and he knew he was an almost certain starter for 1988–89.

  “In some ways I expected it to be tougher than it was,” he said. “I like the school, I like the people, I feel like I fit in with the players and I really like the coaches. I’ve really got nothing to complain about. All I can say is, I can’t wait for October fifteenth.”

  That was a sentiment Lambiotte shared with many people. October 15 would bring many new questions and, already, the NCAA had another scandal to deal with. A package mailed from Kentucky Assistant Coach Dwain Casey to a recruit in California, Chris Mills, had been accidentally opened in transit and $1,000 in cash had fallen out. Kentucky, of course, claimed it had no idea how the money got in the package. It put out all sorts of statements, somehow involving an office secretary, implying that the courier company might be guilty somehow, and implying that a frame-up might have taken place.

  A representative of the courier company may have responded best to all of Kentucky’s various excuses when he said, “If you believe that, then you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.”

  Of course, two months earlier the NCAA had proven that it did believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny—and maybe the Wizard of Oz, too—when it had let Kentucky off the hook in the aftermath of the Lexington Herald–Leader stories detailing payoffs to at least twenty-six Kentucky players. Now, the NCAA was faced with Kentucky being caught once again red-handed and, naturally, denying, denying, denying.

  What would it do? Rex Chapman, the Boy King, decided not to wait for an answer. On May 13th, he announced he was passing up his last two years of eligibility to turn pro. Chapman insisted the Mills investigation had nothing to do with his decision. If you believe in that then you believe in Santa Claus and … you know the rest.

  Steve Kerr would also turn pro in 1988. His college career had not ended the way he dreamed or imagined. In a perfect world, Kerr would have finished his college career by hitting the winning shot for Arizona in the national championship game. But instead, he had shot horrendously in the national semifinals and Arizona had lost to Oklahoma.

  “I will always blame myself for us losing that game,” Kerr said. “People keep coming up to me and saying it wasn’t my fault but I really don’t believe that. I really think and I always will that if I had shot well we would have won that game. What people don’t understand is I can live with it. It will always bother me a little bit but that’s all. I didn’t choke or anything, I just had a bad shooting day. I’m a shooter and my shot was off at the worst possible time.

  “Because of what’s happened to me in my life, I’m not going to brood for that long about a college basketball game, even the most important one of my life. Was I down? Absolutely. Pissed off? You bet. But done in? No way. I’ve bounced back from losses a whole lot bigger than that one.”

  Which is, of course, the point. Losing a game always matters—up to a certain point. But in a larger sense, Arizona’s loss to Oklahoma didn’t matter at all. Nothing could ever change what the Wildcats in general and Kerr in particular had accomplished. Quite literally, Kerr and his teammates had reached into an entire city’s soul and brought out everything that was good in people. They had made themselves part of Tucson and Tucson part of them.

  That was never more evident than the day the team returned home. At the airport, the Wildcats were greeted by a huge throng and were escorted quickly to convertibles—one for each player—for a parade through downtown. They lined the streets of Tucson to cheer for this team because one loss couldn’t wipe out the feeling people had for them. “It was pretty amazing,” Kerr said. “But when we got to the football stadium, that’s when I really couldn’t believe it.”

  There were thirty thousand people in the football stadium, sitting in sweltering ninety-degree heat, waiting to welcome the team back. Then, and only then, did Kerr really understand the depth of feeling people had for him and for his team. “They didn’t just care when we won, they cared, period,” he said. “What we had done mattered to them and one disappointment didn’t change it. It’s really hard to put into words the way I felt when I looked up and saw all those people waiting for us.”

  Kerr told the people that and he also told them that he was thinking of trying out for quarterback on the football team in the fall because he liked the way cheering sounded in the football stadium. As he spoke, looking at the McKale Center—which is adjacent to the football stadium—Kerr knew the feeling he had standing there was one he would remember long after he had stopped playing basketball.

  All season, he had said over and over again, “I want to enjoy every minute of this because I know it will never be like this the rest of my life.”

  He was right. What makes college basketball different from the pro game is that no one plays more than four years. The names and faces always change. No one ever signs an extension on their contract because when your time is up, that’s it, you move on. Some move on to play more basketball, most do not. But all of them have memories, and the best of them provide memories.

  In that same perfect world where Steve Kerr wins the national championship, he is what college basketball is all about. Unfortunately, in real life college basketball is, all too often, cash stuffed in the mail and a governing body that believes in the Easter Bunny. It is about broken dreams and coaches who make promises they can’t and won’t keep.

  But the game not only survives, it prospers. It does so because of Billy King and because of Danny Manning and because of the Purdue seniors. And others like them. And because of Steve Kerr. Perhaps no one in the long history of college basketball went through more during a college career and refused, time and again, to allow himself to be beaten. He dealt with rejection before he ever played a college game and then the unspeakable tragedy of his father’s assassination, the heartbreak of his knee injury, and the sickness at Arizona State. Never once did Steve Kerr feel sorry for himself. More remarkably, he never let anyone else feel sorry for him. He made college basketball better by being a part of it. He was special, so the game he played was special too.

  He became a hero in Tucson not because of the way he played, but because of the way he lived. Always, the people of Tucson wanted to give Steve Kerr something. Always, he gave back. In the end, the trade they made was a fair one: Tucson gave its heart to Steve Kerr. And he gave his heart to Tucson. In the process, Steve Kerr made everyone who came to know his s
tory smile. He also made them laugh. And cry.

  His team lost its last basketball game. But no one has ever defeated Steve Kerr.

  For Mary Clare …

  who made it all worthwhile

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am beginning to think, now that I am a veteran of two books, that the most difficult thing to do in writing one is make certain you thank all the people without whom you could not have finished the project.

  To begin at the beginning, this book would not have happened without my editor at Villard, Peter Gethers, and my agent Esther (Sally UConn) Newberg. They were the first ones to believe this concept could work and they were the ones who bolstered me throughout the writing process.

  Once again, the powers-that-be at The Washington Post were patient and helpful in giving me the time I needed to run around the country and do the reporting. Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward were the two men responsible for this and I am forever grateful to them for their understanding. I would also like to thank Managing Editor Leonard Downie, Sports Editor George Solomon, his assistants, Leonard Shapiro, Sandy Bailey, and O. D. Wilson. Special thanks at the paper go to people like Kevin Coughlin, Elizabeth Cale, David Levine, and Ben Gieser, who took care of a million details I could not have done without. I would also be remiss if I did not give an extra thank-you to Joyce Manglass, who arranged every airplane, every hotel, and every car, and let me cry on her shoulder throughout.

  Then there are friends and family, too numerous to list, but I’ll try anyway. These are the people who put up with more than any friend should ask: Keith and Barbie Drum, Juan Williams, Dick (Hoops) Weiss, Michael Wilbon, Steve and Lexie Barr, Dave Kindred, Ken Denlinger, Bob and Anne DeStefano, David Maraniss, Jackson Dichl, Ray Ratto, Tom and Linda Mickle, Tony Kornheiser, John Caccese, John Hewig, Sandy Genelius, Lesley Visser, Bud and Mary Lou Collins, Pete Alfano, Susan Kerr, Norbert (noted sports authority) Doyle, Richard Justice, Sally Jenkins, Donald Huff, Larry Meyer, Martin Weil, Gene Bachinski, Bill Gildea, Mark Asher, Rich Pearson, Rick Brewer, Jeff Neuman, Lenis Edwards, and Jack Ketcham. My family can never receive enough thanks. My mother and father are always there when I need anything and my sister Margaret and my brother Bobby are everything an older brother could ask for and more.

  Last, but certainly not least, are the people who made this book: the players and coaches who gave remarkable amounts of time and understanding to what I was trying to do. The coaches: Rick Barnes, Larry Brown, Don DeVoe, Paul Evans, Rollie Massimino, Jim Valvano, Gary Williams, and Dale Brown. And the players: Kevin Houston; Steve Kerr; Billy King; Walker Lambiotte; Troy Lewis–Todd Mitchell–Everette Stephens; Danny Manning and his parents, Ed and Darnelle Manning; David Robinson. Also the high school recruits: Jerrod Mustaf, his father Sharr Mustaf, and DeMatha Coach Morgan Wootten; Chris Jent; Eric Riley; Keith Tower, and their families.

  At each school, there were others whose help was invaluable, including countless sports information directors and their staffs. A few stood out because of the extra time they gave me when I needed it: Mark Adams at Purdue; Butch Henry and Tom Duddleston at Arizona; Doug Vance at Kansas, a heroic figure if there has ever been one; Craig Miller at Villanova; and George Mason Athletic Director Jack Kvancz.

  Believe it or not, there are many others who should be thanked, including Bob Knight. After all, A Season on the Brink led to A Season Inside. No one understands that better than I do.

  ALSO BY JOHN FEINSTEIN

  A Season on the Brink

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOHN FEINSTEIN spent eleven years with The Washington Post. His first book, A Season on the Brink, spent twenty-five weeks on The New York Times best seller list, fourteen of those weeks at No. 1. He has also written for Sport, The Sporting News, Inside Sports, and is currently a special contributor to Sports Illustrated. His stories have appeared in five editions of Best Sports Stories, and he has won nine U.S. Basketball Writers awards. He is a 1977 graduate of Duke University, which he attended during the only four seasons in which the school finished last in the ACC in basketball.

  Mr. Feinstein lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and Shelter Island, New York, with his wife, Mary Clare.