8. Ollie

In his first minute after being introduced as the new head coach at Hickory High, Coach Norman Dale had swiftly reduced his roster from a manageable number of seven players by ejecting a pair of disrespectful lads from practice. Upon examining the remaining quintet of Indiana farm boys, Dale acknowledges the five building blocks that will compose his team, but his math is disputed by one who states, “Well, it’s really four-and-a-half."

All eyes turn toward Ollie, a minuscule, blond-haired boy with a ball held over his belly. His eyes dart to the floor and remain there as he joins in the group chuckle, saying, “I’m not very good.”

Thus begins the story of Hoosiers. Thus continues the story of the playground junkie.

****

The first-string point guard on the freshman basketball team was a superior athlete. Mark was already in his physical prime – his body was the same at fourteen years old as it would be at twenty-two. He was strong, tough, and lightning fast. Unfortunately, his greatest strength as a basketball player was also his greatest weakness – he was too fast for rhythm. Rhythm, at least physical rhythm, is nothing more than the capacity to pause properly in the midst of movement. In basketball, as in many sports, a person must have the ability to perform movements both precisely and repetitively. The player must be able to do each portion of the movement the same every single time – with the same strength, at the same speed, and with the same slight pause between each portion. Mark couldn’t. He couldn’t pause. He couldn’t slow down, even slightly. As a result, he would never play beyond high school. But at this level, his physical gifts were more than sufficient to establish him as an elite point guard.

The second-string point guard was as advanced mentally as Mark was physically. Ken wasn’t a gifted basketball player, but he had an intensity and a focus, as well as an ability to grow facial hair, that was beyond the typical teenager. He possessed perhaps the greatest poker face I’ve ever seen – even when his mischievous side would emerge and allow him to unleash some prehistoric animal noise in the middle of an honors class, he would never get blamed, because no teacher could get a guilty smirk to crease his face. He would later be named captain of the school’s football and baseball teams, though he would quit the football team in the middle of his senior season to dedicate himself to his academics. I have no doubt he is now somewhere conquering his corner of the world.

The third-string point guard was a frequent starter at small forward, but he understood the game well enough to play any position, and the coach was not going to entrust the keys to the best freshman team in school history to anyone lower on the roster. Ryan was taller and slower than the typical point guard, but he was ornery. While Ken was unshakable, Ryan was more likely to impose his formidable will on opposing players. For that reason, he would ultimately earn a starting role on the varsity during his senior season. For that reason, the coach had him on the floor at the end of the regional semifinal of the state tournament that year. And for that reason, it was all the more shocking and shattering to see him, with the score tied, commit the turnover that led to the lay-up that ended both the season and his basketball career. I’m certain the ghost of that game still occasionally haunts him. Basketball is cruel sometimes.

The fourth-string point guard was perhaps the team’s prettiest player. He had long, dark hair that trailed behind him as he ran down the floor. Like Ken and Ryan, Shane never seemed hurried or stressed. Unlike Ken or Ryan, in Shane’s case, it was because he really didn’t care too much. Just like his hair, he simply flowed. He would quit the team a few weeks into the season, officially to try his hand at the wrestling team and perhaps in part because the fourth-string point guard sits on the bench quite a bit, but I think mostly because he just really, really liked marijuana. He was the only guy I ever heard of who smoked pot with his dad because his father wanted to teach him how to do it properly. If you could have sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, then I guess there really wasn’t a need for hoops.

The fifth-string point guard was a decent player. Eric could do everything that the other players could do; he just did it much slower. He was reliable; he was solid. He was also left-handed, which set him apart a bit, and he could be trusted to make a free throw and the occasional outside shot. Those skills alone earned him a spot above the bottom of the roster. By his junior season, he would see the writing on the wall and wouldn’t even make the attempt to play on the varsity, smartly sparing himself the certain anguish of being told he didn’t belong.

The sixth-string point guard was our “Ollie”, all the way down to the diminutive frame and the dirty blond hair. He was 5’4”, 105 pounds. He wasn’t as fast as Mark. He wasn’t as intense as Ken. He wasn’t as strong as Ryan. He wasn’t as likely to fail a drug test as Shane, so he had that going for him – then again, he wasn’t as happy as Shane either, so maybe not. He wasn’t as reliable as Eric. He couldn’t shoot and he struggled to defend. “Ollie” was too short and too slow for basketball, but he could dribble through a press, which is just about the only reason he was on the team.

Hoosiers' Ollie looked like this (far right of the picture):

Our “Ollie” was me. I was just happy to be there. It had already been a long freshman year.

****

My family had moved from Florida to the northern suburbs of Chicago shortly after the conclusion of my eighth-grade school year. My parents did their best to keep me occupied. They sent me to my high school-to-be’s basketball camp. They hung a punching bag in the basement. They sent me out in the yard to chop down the five-foot tall weeds that stood as grass around the house. They also took me to neighborhood pool parties, which indirectly led to my confrontation with the Magnificent Seven.

This was not The Magnificent Seven of Yul Brenner, Steven McQueen, or Charles Bronson. They were Dana, Megan, Lia, Kelly, Jennifer, Andrea, and… well, the seventh has my apologies because I forgot her name. At this rate, the rest of their names will likely also slip from my memory by the time I hit 140 years old. Other than Kelly, on whom I held a substantial crush for most of our freshman year (and, admittedly, sporadically thereafter), they did not play even a marginal role in my life other than this single night. But collectively, they will forever remain in my memory.

The evening was proceeding along the same course as nearly every other night that summer. I was up in my bedroom doing sit-ups and watching the 1989 Chicago Cubs during their dramatic run to the National League East pennant. My mother came up to my room, eyes a little wide, and said, “Um, you have a few… visitors.”

I tilted my head, not unlike a confused puppy, and slowly stood up. She grinned slightly, but offered no further scouting report on what awaited me in the foyer. I looked at her a moment longer, then walked out my door, down the hall, and to the top of the stairs. For the first of many times over the next half-hour, I froze. Arrayed on the first floor below were seven girls. As my sister would later famously say of middle-school females, they travel in herds.

This was a particularly attractive herd. They were my age, but they seemed much older. The giggled endearingly at me as I slowly walked down to meet them. I suppose the fact that seven girls had arrived at my doorstep should have inspired some confidence in me. I suppose that if I’d asked the reason that they had visited, they might’ve told me. (I think that Dana had seen me at the neighborhood pool party, though the link between that event and the Magnificent Seven arriving at my doorstep remains a mystery to me.) I supposed if I’d asked them anything about themselves, either individually or collectively, they would have been happy to talk about that, too. I suppose that if I’d even taken the cue from the t-shirts that a couple of them were wearing and said, “Hey, how ‘bout those New Kids on the Block?”, that would’ve kick-started a friendly conversation. I suppose that, if nothing else, if I’d have had the same dumb luck with the Magnificent Seven as I’d had on a basketball court as a third-grader banking in two free throws, my future interactions in social settings with the opposite sex, or with large groups, or both, might’ve been much different.

I suppose I talked. I don’t remember. I do remember that after a few minutes, they grew bored with me and simply started talking to each other. I remember that when they grew tired of that, they allowed a few awkward silences before deciding that there were better ways to spend their evening than with the dear deer-in-the-headlights standing across from them. I remember that when they left, I moved from the station I had assumed on the fresh carpet of the new house and looked down to see the deep imprint of each of my toes. I hadn’t moved in a solid half-hour, which might’ve been reasonable if I had been guarding Buckingham Palace, but probably wasn’t quite appropriate here. About my only contribution to the occasion had been that my frozen silence was uninterrupted by a loss of consciousness, so the girls were at least able to simply talk amongst themselves in peace without the distraction of helping me off of the floor.

So it was that I failed in my one chance to make a few friends prior to my first day of high school. Then again, if I had succeeded, the movie references might’ve ended here.

****

I love the movie Mean Girls. Despite the fact that I am a red-blooded heterosexual male who still likes to believe that he is young, it is not because of Lindsay Lohan. It is also not because of Rachel McAdams, though I have at least found her characters attractive in other films. It is entirely because of the writing. I love Tina Fey. I think she is among the finest things that the University of Virginia has ever produced. I love her intelligence, I love her sense of humor, and – every once in a while – I think we have something in common. Probably not intelligence and certainly not comedic talent, but, nonetheless, something.

There is a scene in the movie where Lohan’s character, after her role in a conspiracy is revealed to the school, is being shunned by all of her classmates. The camera catches her face as she slowly shuffles into a sea of angry stares from every corner of the cafeteria. She is decidedly not welcome. After looking around the room for a friendly face and finding none, she sighs. The camera cuts to an angle directly above a closed bathroom stall, where it finds Lohan with her tray perched upon her lap, sadly munching away at her afternoon fare. It is a quintessential image of high school alienation.

It is also how I spent my first two lunches as a high school student.

Well, except it was the boys’ bathroom. And I brought my lunch rather than purchasing it at school. And there was no soundtrack. And the stalls were red in my school. But you get the idea.

I was fine in the classroom. I was fine, though slightly fearful, in the crowded halls – during the Magnificent Seven’s visit, they had discussed rumors of seniors duct-taping freshmen to their lockers, and the image did not leave my fevered brain until several months into the school year. It was only in the lunchroom that I was truly terrified. The school contained two thousand students. There were dozens of tables arrayed throughout a few rooms and some staggered risers that allowed a non-conventional place to sit. I would quickly learn that I could sit in the risers without infringing on the conversations and social structures of my classmates. But that wasn’t until Day Three.

The following weeks offered good moments and bad moments. A few guardian angels appeared. A boy named Ryan struck up a conversation about our English class. Another newcomer with dramatically superior social skills named Steve saw my North Carolina shirt and bonded with me over Dean Smith and Tar Heel hoops. A boy named Blake, who would become my best friend during high school, informed me of the open gym sessions that allowed students to play basketball after school. The beautiful Kelly complimented me on an essay I had written. (I would later figure out that she had a bit of a crush on me, too, but – as would become my habit – I figured it out too late.) Other boys teased; other girls giggled. A boy named Paul actually drew small cartoons on the back of my neck and ears during history class. He was bigger than me, so my only answer was to stoically refuse to acknowledge that he was affecting me. In time, he would become one of my closest friends, too. Still, almost three months into the school year, I was often alone, afraid, and insecure. It’s no way to live.

In seventh and eighth grade, I wanted to make the basketball team. In ninth grade, I needed to make the basketball team. It was like the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne is walking in the snow, symbolizing the dark winter of his first few years in Shawshank State Prison, while Red is saying, “If things had kept on that way, I do believe this place might’ve got the best of Andy.…”

I needed to make the basketball team to be allowed to do the thing that I loved every day. I needed it to make a few friends. I needed it to be part of something.

I needed it to get through the winter.

****

Eighty-three.

That’s how many freshmen boys tried out for the basketball team that year. Eighty-three. The vast majority had played for one of the half-dozen or so junior high school teams in the area. On the very first day, it was obvious that there were twenty-five to thirty players who simply didn’t belong. It was also obvious that there were fifteen to twenty players who were clearly superior to the rest of the group and would be donning the school’s jerseys that season. This left about five to ten spots for thirty to thirty-five players.

I fell into the last of these three categories, but it was hard to like my chances. I had not played in junior high school. In an environment where a person needed to stand out to survive, there was nothing about me that would capture someone’s attention. I was among the smallest players at the tryouts, and even if I had been a little larger, it’s still hard to stand out when surrounded by eighty-two other boys. It was a full week of basic drills and long scrimmages where players briefly rotated on to the court for a few moments and then were returned to the sideline to watch for extended stretches. When everyone gets a small chance, no one gets a big one. So when the coach dismissed us on the final day of the selection period, I had no idea whether I was among the chosen. We were simply told that the matter would be decided by the coaches that evening.

The following morning, as seemingly all Midwestern winter mornings in my memory, was gray and blustery. It was the kind of morning that drew your shoulders and chin closer together, as if held by an invisible drawstring being pulled tighter. The bus had dropped me off at its usual hour and I had rushed up the staircase to the left of the school’s entrance. The team was posted on a single sheet of paper in the hallway at the top of the stairs. The names were in alphabetical order. I found mine almost instantly, but I still read the list over a few times, if only to confirm that this was the list of players on the team and not the last set of cuts. Satisfied that my little dream had come true, I closed my eyes and rested a hand against a wall. It was a sweet mixture of joy and relief. My hand closed into a gentle fist, which I tapped on the wall before realizing that the warning bell was coming momentarily. I quickly called my mother from a pay phone to share the good news, then hustled off to my first class.

****

Have some pizza. Have some pop. Have a seat and watch the movie.

These were the first directions offered to the 1989-1990 Stevenson boys’ basketball program. The members of the freshman, sophomore, and varsity teams had assembled to celebrate the commencement of another season. In the past quarter century, the school’s squads had wallowed in bottom half of the North Suburban Conference, never surviving the first few rounds of the Illinois State Tournament. But on this night, we were undefeated, we were excited, and we were ready to be inspired. If the goal is basketball inspiration, there may be no better prescription than Hoosiers.

Hoosiers is the story of a team from a tiny school in rural Indiana that wins the 1954 Indiana High School basketball tournament. It is the story of turning a team of “Ollies” into a state champion. It is a story about second chances. It is a story about a tournament where everybody gets an equal opportunity. It is a story about taking a team of undersized and undermanned boys and reminding them that the basket is always 10 feet high, the free throw line is always 15 feet away, and if you play the game the right way, you can compete with anyone. It is a story about everything I wanted to be and everything I wanted to achieve.

At the end of the film, the freshman coach rose from his plastic chair. He described in a reverential tone how the regional finals of the state tournament were played in a relic of a gym in Waukegan, Illinois, that seemed lifted straight from Hoosiers. Unlike most high school gymnasiums, there were bleachers on all four sides of the court. Pillars rose periodically between the seats and created obstructed views that didn’t exist in more modern facilities. The seats were made of wood, rather than plastic, and the acoustics of the place were such that every bounce of the ball and squeak of the shoes echoed, only to be swallowed by the vast noise of a roaring crowd. It wasn’t heated, but with 4,000 or so tightly bunched bodies, even on the darkest February night, it never seemed cold. It was dimly lit, so that you could never see the further reaches of the seats, which made the gym feel even larger. It seemed that smoke puffed from cigarettes decades before still circled the ceiling, combining with the soft lamps above to create a grainy haze that washed across the court and transported the game to an earlier time. The locker rooms were beneath the level of the court, so that during the pre-game speeches, the clapping and stomping of the masses surrounded you and the coach had to scream simply to be heard. Running up a flight of stairs from those locker rooms to the court, you felt like a gladiator coming to the floor of the Coliseum.

Two decades later, the very thought of it makes me smile.

In Hoosiers, it was in a similar gym where Ollie scored his only points of the season, making two free throws to win a regional game and continue the team’s remarkable run through the state tournament. He shot the free throws underhanded, heaving them from between his legs as a small child would with a bowling ball during his first trip to the alley. I’m not sure whether banking two free throws or making two underhanded is more improbable, but it wasn’t the only link between us. We were both substantially smaller and less talented than our teammates. We both had dirty blond hair. Perhaps just as significant, we both carried ourselves quietly and responded to most questions with an unassuming, “aw, shucks” shrug of the shoulders as our eyes darted away from the attention to the safety of the floor below.

When I was a small child – okay, when I was a smaller child – I dreamed of playing professional basketball. I dreamed about being Larry Bird, “Magic” Johnson, and Michael Jordan. When I was scoring 25 points in a fifth-grade game, I dreamed of playing college basketball and wearing the uniform of my beloved North Carolina Tar Heels. By the time I was cut from the junior high school team, the bar had been lowered from college to the high school varsity. As I looked at the five point guards in my high school ahead of me on the roster, I knew that I would never be a starter or even a contributor to a decent team. So the dream changed again.

As I listened to the coach describe the vision of the gym at Waukegan, I decided that my goal for my high school career was to run out of that Waukegan tunnel. I didn’t need to start; I didn’t even need to play. I just needed to be a part of the team. My dream was to stand in the bowels of that arena for the ages and listen to the echoes of stomping feet, clapping hands, and the whispered legends from generations before that had once played on that court. I wanted to feel my heart pounding in my chest as we huddled one last time before taking the floor. I wanted to lead my teammates out to the court as 4,000 roaring fans rose to their feet. I dreamed of being one small part of a team chasing immortality.

I dreamed of being Ollie.

****