STEVIE THOMAS read the letter once, then twice, then a third time to be sure it was real. Then he started screaming.
“Mom! Mom! Mom!”
Stevie suffered a few bad moments when his mom said she wasn’t sure she or his father could get away from work to go with him and then started fussing about the time off from school. But somehow Stevie knew his dad wasn’t going to turn this down.
After all, Bill Thomas had been the one who had first introduced his son to sports—specifically basketball. He had started taking Stevie to see Philadelphia’s Big Five—Temple, Villanova, St. Joseph’s, Pennsylvania, and La Salle—when he was four. Going to basketball games had become Bill and Stevie’s thing. Occasionally they went to see the 76ers play but neither of them thought the NBA was really worth their time. Stevie had written a story for his school’s monthly newspaper, the Main Line Chronicle, about watching players on the 76ers bench sit and laugh and tell jokes during the last few minutes of a 20-point loss to the woeful Washington Wizards. But the college players really cared.
It was through the Chronicle that he had heard about the USBWA writing contest. The paper had received a press release inviting anyone age fourteen and under to enter the contest. What got Stevie’s attention was the line at the bottom of the release: “Two winners will be chosen to fly to New Orleans to be members of the working press during the Final Four.” Right there in one sentence were both his dreams come true: a chance to go to the Final Four and to go there with a press pass.
Stevie had taught himself to read at age five using the sports section, so the reporters were as big heroes to him as the players and coaches. His favorite Philly reporter was Dick Jerardi. But it wasn’t long before he learned he could call up stories from other papers online and read Mike Lupica and Dick Weiss from the New York Daily News and his two heroes, Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon, who he knew worked for the Washington Post, since he watched them every day on Pardon the Interruption.
Stevie wanted to really impress the judges with his reporting skills, so he called the main number at the Daily News and asked to speak to Dick Jerardi. To his delight, Jerardi called him back the next day, and when he explained that he wanted to write a story about the Palestra, Jerardi gave him the names and phone numbers for all the local SIDs—short for Sports Information Directors—who could help him with his story.
Shaun May, the SID (Stevie liked using the term; it made him feel like a pro) at Penn, gave him a press credential to cover the Penn-Columbia game. Stevie and his dad had gone to the Palestra a million times before, but this time his dad was in the bleachers—and Stevie was on press row. He decided that night, even before sitting down to write the story, that this was definitely what he wanted to do when he grew up. Get paid to have the best seats at a basketball game? Get to talk to the players and interview Coach Fran Dunphy? Have someone bring statistics to your seat at every time-out? Eat for free in the pressroom before the game?
“Dad, why would anyone want to do anything else?”
His father, who worked in a large law firm downtown, nodded. “I’ve thought about that more than once myself,” he said. “Of course, you know, sportswriters don’t make very much money.”
“Kornheiser and Wilbon do,” Stevie answered. “Lupica does.”
“That’s three out of thousands,” his dad answered. “And they only make big money because they’re on TV.”
He had a point. But still, if you could get paid at all to go to games and have the best seats, you were pretty lucky.
Stevie spent hours putting together his story, making the Palestra the feature, rather than the game. He poured ten years’ worth of avid fandom into his writing, and when he was finished he had almost three thousand words. The contest rules said no more than one thousand. Cutting two-thirds of what he had written was painful, but he thought the end result was pretty strong. He sent the story in just before the January 15 deadline and waited, hoping against hope he might win.
Now he had to wait until his father came home to make it official. Naturally, he was late. It was almost seven by the time he heard the car pull into the garage. Stevie was waiting for him, letter in hand, when his dad walked inside.
“Nice to see you, too,” he said as Stevie thrust the letter at him without saying hello. But then he started to read.
“Wow!” he said. “Stevie, that’s really great! I’m so proud of you!”
“So I can go?” Stevie said.
“What did your mother say?”
“She said I can go if you can go with me.”
Dad smiled. “I think that could be arranged. I’m sure I could scalp a ticket down there if I had to.”
“Scalp what?” Mom said, walking into the room.
“A ticket to get into the Final Four,” Dad said, waving the letter.
“What about work for you and school for Stevie?”
“Hon, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Plus, he earned it by winning the contest. I really think he’ll learn a lot from the trip.”
She smiled. “Uh-huh. And clearly you won’t mind going either.”
“Not even a little bit.”
And so it was settled. But Stevie knew his dad was wrong about one thing. This would not be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For him, it would be a first-in-a-lifetime experience.
He would see to that.
If Stevie had been in charge, he and his dad would have flown to New Orleans on the first flight available on Thursday morning. That would have given them all afternoon to hang out at the coaches’ hotel.
“The coaches’ hotel? What in the world is that?” his father asked when Stevie broached the idea.
“All the basketball coaches in the world go to the Final Four,” Stevie said. “It’s like a convention or something. And there’s this one hotel where they all stay and hang out. I mean, except for the four whose teams are playing.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I read it in that book you gave me for Christmas last year.”
“I should have known.”
But it turned out six-thirty was the earliest his dad could get away. They connected in Atlanta and arrived at the hotel a few minutes after eleven, which with the time change meant it was after midnight on Stevie’s body clock. Still, when he and his dad walked into the sparkling lobby of the New Orleans Hyatt Regency, he forgot how tired he was. A large sign just inside the door said WELCOME FINAL FOUR MEDIA. Proud and still a little amazed, Stevie thought to himself: That’s me.
They made their way to the front desk to check in. There was only one person working and the man ahead of them was engaged in a loud argument with that person.
“Look, I’ve been in the car for fourteen hours today,” Stevie heard the man say. “I really don’t need this. I know my reservation was for a suite. I don’t want one of those tiny little rooms you give to people. I didn’t come here to spend five days sleeping in a closet.”
“Sir, this is a king-size room. And, as I said, if we can upgrade you tomorrow, we will. You can speak to the manager about the confusion in your reservation in the morning.”
“Confusion?” the man shouted. “There’s no confusion. You screwed up. This is outrageous. I mean, don’t you have any idea who I am?”
Suddenly, Stevie knew exactly who the man was.
“Dad,” he hissed, “that’s Tony Kornheiser!”
His dad smiled. “Sounds like he’s having a bad night.”
At that moment, Kornheiser turned around and looked at them. “I’m really sorry about this. They screwed up my reservation.”
Disgusted, he took the key that the clerk was now handing him. “This isn’t the end of this,” he said to the clerk. “Have a good night,” he said to Stevie and his dad as he walked toward the elevators.
“You too, Mr. Kornheiser,” Stevie said. “I hope the rest of the weekend gets better for you.”
Kornheiser stopped and smiled at Stevie. He pointed at the clerk, then at Stevie. “You see,” he said, “he knows who I am.”
He turned and walked away.
“Dad,” Stevie said with a grin, “I have a feeling this is going to be the most unbelievable weekend of my life.”