Banks and Dennard were late. Of course. Their teammates were neither fazed nor surprised.
“Maybe Kenny forgot how to find the place,” Bruce Bell suggested.
“One of Tink’s aunts probably got sick,” Jim Spanarkel said, remembering one of the more famous Banks excuses.
It was Saturday afternoon and they were all sitting down to a lunch that Tom Mickle had put together for them. Mickle had been the sports information director in 1978; now he was the director of the Duke Varsity Club, a fund-raising arm of the athletic department that focused on former Duke athletes. Technically, it was Mickle’s job to put together events like this. But in the case of this team, this was an act of love.
Mickle had planned this weekend even though Tom Butters, the athletic director, saw no reason to bring the ’78 team back together. Not enough time had passed, he said. Of course Butters had no way of understanding either the bond these players felt toward one another or how much had happened to them since graduation.
After all, on the surface, this was a team full of achievers. Dennard’s graduation meant that all twelve players had Duke degrees. Three of them—Bell, Rob Hardy, and Scott Goetsch—were lawyers. Two more were making a lot of money working in the computer business: John Harrell and Steve Gray. Spanarkel was a successful stockbroker; Morrison a top manager in a major insurance company. Mike Gminski was a millionaire basketball player and Bob Bender was about to become one of the youngest college head coaches in the country. Jim Suddath would be an ordained minister in another two months.
Only Banks and Dennard were in flux and that fit too. Always late, remember? Banks had made plenty of money playing basketball; even if he didn’t get to play again, he would do just fine. And Dennard? Well, Kenny was Kenny. He had survived cancer and bankruptcy and his teammates had little doubt he would find his way into something profitable shortly.
That didn’t mean they didn’t get mad at him sometimes. “Every once in a while I just say, ‘Dammit Dog, quit with all these schemes and find something you can do well,’ ” Bender said. “Heck, he can do just about anything he wants to. It’s just a matter of him deciding to do it.”
Now though, the tardiness of the Dynamic Duo caused great amusement in the room. If they had showed up on time, their teammates would have been disappointed. They were all taking bets on when—or if—Banks and Dennard would arrive, when the door opened and in walked Banks.
Before he had gotten two steps into the room or had a chance to open his mouth, every player in the room had grabbed a spoon and started clinking it against a glass. “Joke, joke, joke,” they shrieked joyfully. Banks broke up. He knew that if he walked into a meal with this group fifty years from now, they would all go for the spoons in a second. Banks went around the room formally saying hello to everyone, making sure to hug the wives and the two female managers, Mary Kay Bass Haynes and Debbie Ridley. He was just about to sit down when the door opened again and Dennard came in, along with his wife Nadine.
Banks and Dennard had run into each other a couple of weeks earlier at an NBA game in Charlotte. Banks had told Dennard to wait for him after the game so they could get a drink. Dennard hadn’t waited.
“Hey Kenny, why didn’t you wait for me that night in Charlotte?” Banks demanded to know almost immediately.
“Are you kidding?” Dennard said. “Wait for you? I don’t have that much time. I’m not that young anymore.”
Banks looked around him to see everyone nodding their head in agreement with Dennard. He laughed. In this room, there was no point trying to BS anybody. They all knew the act too well.
When lunch was over, Spanarkel felt as if he had to get up and say something. Foster had flown home that morning. As captain, he was the acting spokesman. He tried to keep it serious, thanking Mickle and his assistants, Johnny Moore and Jill Mixon, for organizing the weekend. He talked about how much fun they had had in the past. But finally, he couldn’t resist becoming himself.
He ripped Banks for overdressing and Dennard for arriving even later than Banks. He got on Bell and Hardy for drinking too much the previous evening, even though he had had at least as much to drink as they had. He congratulated Suddath on making it through the seminary. “Seems to me Sudds you had it easy,” he said. “After all, anyone who roomed with Dennard and Banks should be guaranteed a free pass into heaven.”
Kevin Hannon, the ex-head manager, had flown in from Denver for the weekend. He stood up and tried to be serious for a minute. “You should know,” he told the ’78 team, “that people really think of you guys as special.”
One of the things that made them special was that they never thought of themselves that way, and this reunion was evidence of that. No one felt the need to stand up and tick off the accomplishments of the team. No one stood up and compared what they had done to what Duke teams before or after had done. All they wanted to do was enjoy being together, just as they had eleven years earlier.
That night, Duke held its annual Hall of Fame banquet. For the players, the highlight was the formal announcement of the Max Crowder Endowment. Max hadn’t escaped Spanarkel’s routine either. “For four years everyone in the ACC thought I was knock-kneed and pigeon-toed,” he said. “What they didn’t know was that it was just Max’s lousy tape jobs.”
Bringing up tape jobs brought up the “Banks Rule.” As a sophomore, Banks had emphatically passed gas one evening while Max had been taping him. Max had simply walked away from the training table with the tape dangling from Banks’s ankle saying, “Finish it yourself,” while Banks convulsed with laughter.
That incident had brought about the creation of the “Banks Rule.” The first time you did that to Max, you taped yourself that day. The second time you taped yourself for a month. It had been passed down through generations of Duke players. The members of the ’89 team knew the rule just as the members of the ’78 team had.
There was no question how the players felt about Max. All of them remembered his exact words to them the first time they met him as freshmen: “Just remember one thing, kid,” Max always said, “I was here before you came and I’ll be here after you’re gone.” The implication was that the players better not mess with Max.
Of course, they all messed with him—constantly. Spanarkel and Morrison had been particularly adept at giving him bad directions on the road when he was driving them somewhere. Once, after they had guided him into a tour of the entire parking lot of the New Orleans Superdome, Max had told Foster he would never, repeat never, drive those two SOBs anywhere again.
There were lots of Max driving stories. The most famous one had occurred in Knoxville the night before a game against Tennessee. Max had gone to get the car in the hotel parking lot and, thanks to one wrong turn, gotten completely lost. He was already steaming when he finally got out of the lot. Naturally, the players gave him bad directions to the hamburger joint they were going to.
By the time they arrived, Max was so angry he refused to go inside. He sat in the car with his arms folded on his chest. He quickly disappeared from view as the windows and windshield on the car steamed up. The players didn’t know if the steam came from the car’s heater or from Max’s head. As soon as they returned to the hotel, Max went directly to Foster’s room, hurled the car keys on the floor and said, “Get yourself another driver. I’m through!”
Foster tried to get angry, but couldn’t pull it off. Max tried to stay angry but he couldn’t do it either.
At the dinner that night, they made Mickle seat them all at the same table. As Bell explained, they hadn’t come back to sit with a bunch of strangers, they had come back to spend time with each other.
Max was clearly touched when he was introduced to a standing ovation, led by the ’78 players. He went out of his way to thank Mickle, the key person in raising the money to endow the scholarship, all of it from ex-Duke athletes. “Anyone who can convince a group of players who I worked with for four years to give money to a scholarship named after me must be a damn genius,” Max said. “This is about the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
If he hadn’t been such a mean old man, Max might have cried.
The only sour note of the entire weekend came when Butters only made passing reference to the ’78 team’s presence at the dinner. In talking about Max and all the different Duke athletes he had worked with over the years, Butters mentioned almost offhandedly that eight members of the ’78 Final Four team and all the team’s managers were in attendance.
But nothing more. He didn’t ask them to stand and be recognized. He didn’t even pause for applause. The players were hurt. “Did we do something wrong somewhere along the line?” they all wondered.
Perhaps Butters didn’t want to detract from the honorees of the evening. He did, however, introduce Krzyzewski. Maybe the players were being overly sensitive. Maybe Butters hadn’t been sensitive enough.
The slight was quickly forgotten at the postdinner party in Max’s honor. It was held in the training room—where else?—with drinks and snacks set out on the various taping tables around the room. Everyone got a button walking in that said either “Max” or “Howie.” Spanarkel had stuck Howie on Max years ago for the very logical reason that Max’s real name was Howard.
Max set up his own personal bar in one corner of the room, mixing killer drinks for anyone who dared. The ’78 players stayed long enough to give Max a hard time—Banks demanded a tape job, claiming that Max still owed him one—and to make sure everyone who wanted to talk to them got the chance.
They were in no rush. But as midnight came and went, Spanarkel began organizing. He wanted the group to get away together for a little while before the night was over. They would all be heading home the next morning and they all wanted some time alone—as a team—before they split up.
“After all,” Spanarkel said, “They probably won’t bring us back again until the year 2000. Every eleven years, right?”
The players began to make their excuses, talking about early plane flights or long drives home. They gave Max hugs and thanked everyone for inviting them back. Then they all went to a local sports bar a few miles away. Nothing formal. They drank some beer, played some pool, and told stories until closing time.
It was after 2 A.M. when they left the bar. It was time to say good-bye. They were all going in different directions, back to their own lives. They stood there for a moment exchanging good wishes and promises to see one another again soon.
They were about to turn and head for their cars when Banks said, “Hey!” He was standing there with his arms spread wide, the way he used to hold them when the team huddled up on the court after being introduced. Without pausing for a second, they all put their arms around each other and went into their huddle.
They stood there holding on to one another in the empty parking lot just as they had stood in that packed arena in St. Louis eleven years earlier with millions of people watching them. They were a team then. They were a team now. Always, they will be a team.
Forever’s team.
From left to right, seated: Kenny Dennard, Deborah Ridley, Kevin Hannon, Mary Kay Bass Haynes, Rob Hardy, Jim Spanarkel; standing: Gene Banks, Bob Bender, Jim Suddath, Max Crowder, Scott Goetsch, Bruce Bell.
1977–78 DUKE UNIVERSITY VARSITY BASKETBALL TEAM
1977–78 DUKE FINAL BASKETBALL STATISTICS
