Chapter Twelve

Ihad a brief preregistration meeting with my adviser, a smiling, fleshy, middle-aged woman who had her reading glasses at the end of a brightly beaded necklace. Ms. Simone Cooper was her name, and she gently chastised me for not consulting her up until now.

The class schedule Lee had arranged for this semester would be a reprise of my first-semester schedule: English Comp, American History, English Lit, Health & Rec, Phys Ed. But even though I had not yet called him, my elevator ride with Collison had drastically altered my game plan. Since I would presumably be playing in the NBA next season, this would be my last semester at USA.

Ms. Cooper compared last semester’s transcript with my new schedule and was perplexed. “Health and Recreation? And Physical Education? Where did these courses come from?”

“Umm. The coaching staff thought I should take those courses because playing basketball takes up so much time and energy that it’s hard to concentrate on more academic classes.”

“Is that what you really want to do?”

“Yeah. I mean, if I can, I’d rather take American Literature than American History. But the truth is that I’m mostly here to play basketball, so . . .”

So with obvious reluctance Ms. Cooper allowed the substitution. And as she clicked away at her computer keyboard, she said that she hoped I knew what I was doing.

And I did.

My plan was to speak to Marty Taylor again and attend only my two literature classes.

Ms. Cooper turned out to be not so agreeable after all. Who knows what other substitutions and transcript alterations she was asked to make. Maybe she was just fed up with the whole shady business, because a few months later she told a reporter for a local newspaper about all the hanky-panky that the athletic department was engaged in to keep their so-called student-athletes eligible for varsity competition.

Her charges were vehemently denied both by the athletic director and the president of the school.

A week after the inflammatory article appeared, Ms. Cooper was fired, for reasons that were never made public.

I got up early on the first day of classes, ate a hearty breakfast, and went to both lit classes. English was taught again by Dr. Selma and I was looking forward to devouring his syllabus, which covered both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Sir Thomas Browne. John Milton! John Dryden. John Donne. Francis Bacon. Steele and Addison. Swift. Pope. Dr. Johnson. Blake!

What a feast!

American Lit was taught by Dr. Thomas Bolden, a young, bespectacled man trembling with enthusiasm. We would be studying the likes of Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, James Fenimore Cooper (ugh, ugh, and ugh). But Poe, Melville, Whitman, Hawthorne, and Emerson were much more appealing.

Anyway, I still had an hour before practice, so I went over to the dining hall for some coffee to help get me jacked. Imagine my surprise when I saw LeVonn digging into a huge bowl of some kind of meat stew, gnawing on a large piece of bread, and guzzling an oversized glass of soda.

Ever since he had become a star, and even with my own emergence, our friendship had deteriorated and our conversation had become limited to on-court communications.

“Screen on your left!”

“By yourself!”

“Here, LeVonn! Here!”

“No, no! Go there!”

We exchanged nods as I sat down opposite him.

“Hey, man.”

“Whazzup?”

“LeVonn. How can you eat so much right before practice?”

“Ain’t no thing, E,” he said without looking up. “I just got outa bed and I’m hungry is all. Lee also told me that ’cause we got Oklahoma State over there the day after tomorrow, it’s gonna be a easy one.”

He chomped and I sipped for a while, then I said, “Any chance you know a guy name of Collison? Gordon Collison?”

There was gravy dripping down his chin that he wiped with his hand, then licked his fingers before he answered. “Nah. Don’t know him. Who’s he?”

“An agent I met the other day.”

With that, he put down his fork and looked at me. “A agent?”

“Yeah. He had a lot to say.”

“Like what?”

So I told him about the possibility of getting drafted but said nothing about the money.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “One a them spoke to me also.” He broke into a glorious grin. “He swore up and down that I was probably gonna be a lottery pick. Man! Can you believe that? Shit! He said I would be in line for like three years guaranteed for like about twelve million! Twelve million dollars, E! That’s enough fucking money to take care of my family and live like a king for the rest of my whole life!”

“Wow! That’s great.”

“No fucking lie. It also means I can drop outa school after the season. Get me outa this fucking outdoor furnace and go back home and do some running with my boys to stay in shape. Know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. Yeah. But let me ask you this, LeVonn. Did that agent promise you or give you any money?”

Now his look sharpened with suspicion.

“What you mean?”

“C’mon, man. Fess up. I mean, Collison? That agent? He told me he’d give me fifteen grand if I signed a contract that he’d date after the season. So what about you?”

Now he flashed a sly grin. “Fifty K, man. What I already got!”

“No shit! So all this is the real deal?”

“I got fifty Grover Clevelands hidden somewhere where I ain’t gonna say.”

We laughed and bumped fists.

“You can’t tell nobody, E. Right?”

“Well, I’m going to tell Collison to bring it on, so we both got to stay zipped.”

“Amen to that, bro.”

“All right, big man! Now we just got to stay cool. That Collison? He said to be careful about getting too flashy about spending too much money out in the open until we’re drafted. You know?”

“Fuck that, E. Soon’s the season’s over, I’m gonna buy me a big-ass ride.”

We both laughed and high-fived each other.

“Gordon Collison?”

“Who’s this, please?”

“Elliot Hersch.”

“Just a moment. I’ll see if he’s available.”

Just a moment later he was on the phone to say, “Elliot! How are you?”

“Good. Let’s do it. What you said the other day.”

“Great. It’s the right decision. I mean, why get chumped by the system? You’re in Stillwater to play Oklahoma State on Saturday night. I know where the team always stays there. I also know that Coach Lee does the bed check at around ten thirty, either by phone or in person. Just be in your room at nine and I’ll get in touch.”

“Sounds terrific. Thank you so much, Mr. Collison.”

“Don’t thank me, Elliot. It’s your terrific talent that’s the reason why all this is happening and why even better things are in store. Okay, got another call. See you then.”

The phone clicked and buzzed before I could say, “Goodbye.”

Okay. Assuming we’d be invited to the Big Dance, we had anywhere from sixteen to maybe twenty games left during which I had to accomplish two things:

Play my ass off.

And, above all, not get hurt.