“Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
—Jim Valvano, who coached North Carolina State University to perhaps the greatest upset in college basketball history, defeating heavily favored Houston at the buzzer in the 1983 NCAA Championship Game. He spoke these words less than two months before he died of cancer at the age of forty-seven.
8:01 P.M. [CT]
Crispin walks towards Roko, shaking his head.
“I blew it. I had it right on my fingers,” says Crispin, gazing at his outstretched hand. “I anchored my feet to the floor and I couldn’t move. So I had to reach for the ball.”
“That was all on me, C-Rice. I screwed that up,” replies Roko, standing directly in front of him and putting both hands on his shoulders. “I saw you there alone and I nearly jumped out of my skin trying to make that pass. I should have taken an extra breath, but I knew that time was running out.”
“It was so close,” says Crispin, hanging his head.
“Hey, we didn’t lose anything yet,” answers Roko with a burst of new energy. “We’ve got five more minutes to make this right, to show these Spartans who we really are. Now get your head up and let’s go do this thing.”
Troy’s cheerleaders are performing out on the court now.
Crispin and Roko are forced to zigzag their way through them back to the Trojans’ bench. Crispin’s eyes are glued to the floor, trying to avoid eye contact with Hope. But the red-trimmed sneakers and bare ankles of the cheerleaders look nearly identical to him. And in his mind, Crispin has to make his way around a dozen Hopes, instead of facing her green eyes one-on-one.
MARCH, TWO AND A HALF WEEKS AGO
Crispin had arrived at practice nearly ninety minutes early. He was shooting alone at a side basket, trying to work the kinks out of his shot, when Coach Kennedy walked onto the court.
“Concentrate on keeping your right elbow tucked in. Every now and then, I see it flying out. I think it’s really started to affect your consistency,” said Kennedy as he moved towards him. “Your wrist and elbow always form a straight line. It doesn’t matter what direction the rest of your body is falling. You can be leaning like the Tower of Pisa and still make shots. Everything hinges on the base beneath the ball being upright. It’s the foundation that has to be strong.”
“I’ll watch out for it, Coach,” said Crispin, with both hands resting on his knees, leaving him exactly at eye level with Kennedy.
“The other thing is that you look exhausted. You’re sweating up a storm out here. This is supposed to be about touch, about feeling,” said Kennedy, picking the rock up from the floor and letting it roll off his fingertips as a model. “I think you’ve become too tight, too mechanical. You’re working against yourself. There’s an old Chinese proverb: ‘Don’t try hard, try easy.’ Maybe you’ve come across it making those food deliveries, inside of a fortune cookie or something.”
“No, I don’t read them,” said Crispin through half a smile. “I just hand them out to customers who order from the Chinese side of the menu.”
“Well, it’s really true. You don’t want to try too hard. Shooting a basketball is all about relaxation, focus, finding a rhythm.”
“You think I’ve lost some of that?” asked Crispin.
“Absolutely. I could show you game film of when you were going good, before you got engaged. You were releasing the ball like there wasn’t another thought on your mind,” said Kennedy.
“I’ve probably been distracted lately,” said Crispin, dobbing the sweat from his face with the bottom of his red and white reversible practice jersey.
“That’s why I’ve been waiting to get you alone on the court, to talk about this,” said Kennedy, walking closer to the rim. “Follow me. Get yourself five or six feet from the basket. I want you to get used to making shots again, not missing them. Work with just one ball, shot after shot. The rock shouldn’t be in your hands for more than a second—keep it up in the air. Pick a song with some bounce to it. Play to the rhythm inside your head, like you were dancing out here.”
So Crispin settled nearer to the hoop, and began humming to himself.
Then, with his hands and feet in constant motion, he started sinking short, easy shots, one after another.
“That’s it. Let that good groove sink into your muscle memory, into your bones,” said Kennedy, looking up at Crispin from beneath the basket. “I suppose it’s pretty easy to get caught up in the whole media thing about America sharing in your marriage proposal, and the team’s winning streak riding on this Hope of Troy nonsense. There’s got to be a lot of pressure, trying to live up to that fairy-tale image.”
“I’ve felt it,” said Crispin in a more relaxed voice, as he continued shooting.
“We’re all programmed not to fail, to be fearful of it. You and Hope put yourselves on a big stage, one that’s very personal. Plenty of strangers’ eyes watching, asking questions, giving advice. But you should trust your own eyes. Judge by what you see.”
“You may not believe this, Coach,” said Crispin, “but all of a sudden, I’ve got a lot to look at in that relationship.”
Crispin thought back to the night before, when he and Hope finally spoke after their argument on the quad. They hadn’t talked or texted each other in almost two days, the longest gap of time they’d gone without communicating since they started dating.
Crispin took the first step, showing up outside Hope’s dorm just as she was getting back from a class.
“You want to figure this thing out with me, what’s going on between us?” he asked in a calm voice.
“I do. I really do,” she answered, coming up to within a foot or so of him.
“Well, what have you been thinking?”
“Honestly, I felt like you were accusing me of cheating to find a way out,” Hope said. “That maybe you were too embarrassed to break up after proposing on TV.”
“Really?” said Crispin, almost in disbelief.
“Tell me you haven’t thought at least once about backing out.”
After a moment of silence, Crispin conceded, “It’s just because this is new territory to me. It has nothing to do with not being in love with you.”
“Well, I’ve got some of those same feelings,” said Hope, behind a deep breath.
Crispin nodded his head, and took a deep breath, too.
“Come on, let’s go get some coffee or something,” Hope said. “Let’s try to get a better grip on all of this.”
A few steps into the walk, Crispin reached for her hand.
The sound of the rock falling to the floor brought Crispin’s mind back to the gym.
“The truth is, there’s probably nothing to see in ourselves and our relationships that hasn’t always been there,” said Kennedy. “Sometimes we just get blinded by other things.”
“I’ll get back on point,” said Crispin, picking the ball up. “I feel like I’m headed there already.”
“One thing you haven’t lost in this shooting slump, though, is the respect of your teammates, especially Roko,” emphasized Kennedy. “Every time you’re open, he gets the ball into your hands.”
“I won’t let any of you down during the rest of the tournament,” said Crispin.
Then, as Kennedy began walking away, he said, “The only way you could ever let us down is by quitting on yourself, thinking that you don’t deserve better in life.”