Longshot (13 page)

When the day came, I skipped the last two periods of school and came home and took Szen and Pongo across the street to the park. I lay with Szen in the grass for two hours, lazily petting his beautiful coat for the last time. He was too tired to sniff around like he used to and—alpha dog that he was—mark his territory. He was happy just to lie with me.

He was my best friend. He was my buddy. It hurt so much to see him going from my life. He understood that we were saying good-bye as he pushed at my face with his paw. He saw that I was already mourning him.

Mom and Dad came home and joined us in the park. Mom brought over pot roast and let Szen and Pongo jump around for it. The vet, who had been kind enough to agree to come to our house, finally pulled up. Szen was such a smart dog. He knew his time had come. He knew we
were saying good-bye. His wise, kind eyes stared at me with fear but also resolve as he bade me farewell. If he could have had his way, he would have stayed with me forever. And I felt the same. And then, just as an eye blinks, my friend was gone.

The vet left in silence, allowing me time with my dog. Dad got up and let me have a few moments with him as well. And I just cried.

I immediately regretted what I had done, wishing I could have my dog back, that I could have let him live and die naturally. But really I knew that would've been selfish, as his quality of life had diminished so terribly those last few months.

After about fifteen minutes, Dad told me it was time to go, patting me on the shoulder. We carried Szen to the grave we had dug for him in the back. We placed Szen, wrapped in his blanket, in his resting place. Dad gave me the shovel and let me cover Szen with the first layer of dirt. He then took back the shovel, hugged me, and just let me cry. I never cried harder in my life. It was my first taste of death.

As he left, Szen taught me one more lesson about life. And it was his greatest lesson: always leave things on good terms; always treat your loved ones as though this day will be the last. I was angry at myself for the times throughout Szen's life, especially those last years, when I could've been nicer or more patient with him. As I became a teenager and started playing basketball, Szen had become less of a priority—not consciously by any means; it was just that life was changing for me.

I can recall just a few memories of life before I had my dog. Szen was in nearly all my memories, and now I was having to face the fact that he would no longer be in my life and I'd be making new memories without him.

It was that moment of good-bye, that memory of good-bye, that haunts me. The pain of knowing that change was coming. Yet Szen understood and was gracious.

Saying good-bye to Szen was the most painful experience I ever had. The fact that I ended my dog's life, and that he loved me and trusted me, is something that haunts me to this day. He was more than my dog. He had been more than my friend: he had been my protector. The mean dogs, the late-night indistinguishable sounds that he growled away, my depressions and feelings of isolation as a child—Szen had protected me from all of them.

 

When our senior season started and opening week came for practice, I pulled my hip flexor again. It was the very same injury that had finished my junior season prematurely, and it was now coming back to delay my senior year. It had remained dormant the entire off-season throughout the camps and recruiting tournaments, where I must have logged in well over a thousand miles running.

The preseason rankings had come, and we were ranked number two behind the defending champs, Provo. I was eager to get out there and confirm the expectations that were placed on our team.

After missing two weeks of practice and the first couple of games, I finally was able to come back. The team had split their first two games without me, and when I came back…we lost three straight. Sure, I scored thirty points apiece in two of those three games, and that was nice, and cute for the papers, but we were still losing.

As a senior and co-captain of that team, I took full responsibility for our losses.

When we kept losing, rumors and biting comments began to crop up that I didn't care about the team and was happy just to get my stats, that I was already up at Utah emotionally. It hurt. I didn't go out and party, and I wasn't dating girls. No, I went home every night and I watched film.

They were counting on me, and sadly, I wasn't able to deliver.

I grew so stressed and anxious that I stopped sleeping again. And I got sick. By the end of the senior season, I had contracted pneumonia, mononucleosis, and strep throat all at the same time. I was dog sick. And yet I still played. I didn't play well, only adding to the criticism and disappointment, but I did play.

I could've sat out and thought, “I'm going to protect my stats” or “I'm going to show that the team cannot win without me.” But I wasn't spiteful. I honored my commitment to my team, and I played. One night, after we lost to Highland, I passed out in the hallway on the way to the locker room. I was taken to the hospital by ambulance. I was so tired, so exhausted. Flashlights were buzzing around me as my eyes, which I couldn't hold straight, were opened and evaluated. I couldn't focus and was very dizzy. I stayed in the ER for a few hours, where they gave me a few IVs to counteract the severe dehydration I'd experienced.

We made the playoffs that year, but we lost in the first round and exited with a whimper. I sobbed in that locker room, realizing that my
time with Coach Rupp was over. Our paths were separating, at least for now.

In a sad way, I was actually relieved when the season was over, as I now could finally sleep. I'd no longer stay up late blaming myself. I had become so reclusive, lost in critical thought, that many, including my teammates, thought I was being snooty, aloof, and condescending. I didn't talk to my teammates because I had become completely engulfed in the guilt that I wasn't able to help bring us to victory; they, on the other hand, took my silence to mean that I thought they were not worth my time.

When it was all over and I was getting some rest, Coach Rupp called me in to visit with him. He told me with concern that I had not been voted MVP by my teammates and that Noah had. It crushed me. While Coach Rupp would award me at the end of the year with the Hunsaker Award for most outstanding player, and I'd be named the Utah Gatorade Player of the Year as well, I felt that my teammates, whom I had fought for, through pain and fatigue, didn't appreciate what I had at least tried to do for them. Maybe Noah did deserve it more than I did. He was lighthearted and had such a good perspective on things outside of basketball, which I didn't, that he was able to be a positive outlet for many of the younger guys. Noah came to me and told me he felt bad that I didn't get it, which is exactly why he was the one they voted for. He was like that. He really was an incredible person.

I didn't care about the trophy in a physical sense. What hurt was the disregard or even spite that some of my teammates had for me, blaming me for the disappointing season. But no one blamed me more than myself for the senior year that had turned into a train wreck. There wasn't a thing my teammates could say about me, to my face or behind my back, that I had not already tossed my way internally.

To this day, I look back on my senior year with regret, feeling that I could've done better. I wanted to do better, and there are many things I know now that I could've done to really change things around. But because of those disappointments I've learned how to deal with such adversity. I only wish I could've gotten Coach Rupp his state championship trophy.

My time at the University of Utah
was one of the most profound seasons of my life and played a large role in shaping who I am today. As I talk of, and as you come to know, Coach Majerus, I will discuss his strengths and his flaws. Coach Rick Majerus is the most complex figure I have ever encountered. He is a conundrum. He was brilliant and eccentric, yet cold and aloof. He was charitable and caring, yet brutal and hurtful. He was charismatic and endearing, yet terrifying and intimidating. Simply put, he was two people. Almost borderline schizophrenic really, if you saw how he changed, from the way he was at, say, a fun low-key dinner gathering, once he stepped onto a basketball court or behind closed doors. The man could humiliate you to the point of tears in practice and then be stuffing your face with food two hours later, patting you on the back. He could turn a switch in his head that allowed him to compartmentalize things, even his own actions, store them away for another time, and enjoy a present moment with no concern. While his love was conditional—as Majerus had a high rotation rate of players leaving his program, with an average of only one out of every three players from a freshman class graduating as a senior in his program—Majerus did love to dote on the players that were in his good graces at the time.

I mean this when I say it: Majerus loved his players. Did he have favorites? Yes. Was I one of them? Yes,
for a time.
He loved his players, and he loved to develop them, but he was also abusive to them, verbally and emotionally. And when you admired someone like him as much as I did, wanting to do anything to please him, yearning to receive even just a little praise, he had that much more control over you, and his criticisms were that much more crushing to your emotional state. I idolized the man. He was my God—not in the sense that I worshipped him, but he was my first thought and my last thought every day for three years. I wanted so badly to please him. And he broke my heart. But part of
that blame lies with me, as I never should have let him have that much control over my life.

It was a custom in the LDS religion that, at the age of eighteen, a young man began to prepare to serve his two-year mission, dedicated to the converting of souls looking for answers in this world in regard to spirituality and life after death. I was not excited about going on a mission, but I felt that I had to. Having battled many demons inside my head while escaping the Allred Group and no longer letting dogmatic religion be a guiding factor or source of guilt in my life, I found the idea of going on an LDS mission, with religion ruling my every thought, day and night, 24/7, not an appealing one. But I played along for a while, convincing myself that I would eventually be excited to go. I even told Coach Majerus that I would be going on a mission.

As my senior year came to a close, Majerus called me up to a meeting with his entire coaching staff. “Lance,” he announced, “as I respect you going on a mission, I have laid out a plan for you. I have Chris Burgess from Duke who wants to transfer here, and the only scholarship that I can give him is yours. And since you're planning on leaving on your mission, and rather than using your freshman year this upcoming season, then losing the practice as you leave for two years, I have decided that it would be better for all parties involved if you took a ‘gray shirt' year, meaning you'll forfeit your scholarship and go to school part-time for the fall semester, paying your own way, and then you'll leave on your mission in the winter, when you turn nineteen. And that way, Chris gets a scholarship and can come play here and have a good experience. And then I get four straight years with you, without any interruption once you come back.”

While I knew this was a reasonable compromise, I really wanted to play for the U. It was my dream, and now I was being told I wouldn't play basketball again for three seasons. That's a long time. Basketball is all about timing and momentum.

That summer, I had very little motivation to do anything. What was the point in my spending the summer at the university weight room knowing that all the work I put in to get stronger and in good condition would be in vain, as I was leaving for a mission that coming winter? I became depressed and lazy. I attended weight-training sessions half the time I was expected to be there, and when I was there I put in half effort.

Mom and Dad never placed expectations on me, nor did they ever really talk to me about serving a mission. The expectations were from
myself and the society I lived in. Having served on the seminary council my senior year at East, I was just that much more visible; and having been asked to be in such a visible position in the church, I felt it was my duty to continue to set a good example for my peers.

I was enrolled in fall classes part-time, as per NCAA rules. According to the rules, because I had signed a letter of intent the year before and then chosen not to accept the immediate scholarship for the year signed in intent, I couldn't just walk on and practice with the team, nor could I attend school full-time (twelve hours or more a semester). I also had to pay my own way.

The first day of school, Coach Majerus called for a team meeting. We were all seated in the film room, and I showed up just in time. I immediately felt out of place. I was just that freshman kid who didn't have a scholarship and thus wasn't really on the team. I took a seat in the back. Coach Majerus came in and shook all of our hands. When he got to me, he said, “You need to get your ass in the weight room.”

Majerus walked up to the front and then began to address us, telling us about his expectations, then asking who had had a good summer, and then who had had a bad one. When it came to the bad one, he began with me, understandably. After he chastised me, going on to say he had given me a scholarship only because I was a hard worker with not a lot of real talent, he asked what good I was to him if I wasn't even willing to use what he considered my only redeemable attribute. I knew that what he was saying was true.

Then he asked me a direct question that wasn't rhetorical. The following ten seconds would in essence capture the problem with the next three years and why I failed at the University of Utah: “Lance, do you not feel that you have not been given the same opportunity as everyone else here to be successful in the weight room? Has Coach Kenn [the weight-training coach] not given you a fair chance?”

I sat there. For ten seconds I sat there replaying the question in my head, Do I not feel that I have not been given the same…? There I was, sitting in silence, thinking, OK, this is a double negative, so I cancel out the two “not”s and ask the question “Do I feel that I have been given the same chance…?” But does Coach know that? Is he expecting a “no”? But I have been given the same chance. Should I just not say either “yes” or “no” and just say, “I have been given the same chance”?

I sat there for ten seconds in frozen terror, analyzing a pithy question, a question that foreshadowed my experience at Utah. I failed at Utah
because I thought and analyzed too much. Basketball is a thinking man's game, but it is also not. When you think as much as I did, it becomes crippling. And when you admired a man like Coach Majerus as much as I did, wanting to please him and be in his good graces, you would be even more self-conscious and worried about making a mistake.

Coach Majerus barked, “Lance, I'm talking to you. Don't sit back there and pretend that you cannot hear me!”

I heard him all right, but Majerus assumed that I was playing the deaf card, trying to sneak by a confrontation by pretending not to hear, which is something I have
never
done. I made a commitment to myself when I was a kid: if I wanted to be successful and normal and functioning in the real world, I could never fall back on my disability to bail myself out. I tried to clarify to Coach: “No, I can—”

“Speak up!”

I raised my voice. “I heard you, Coach.”

“Then why didn't you answer me?”

Was I to be honest and say, Coach, I was analyzing the double negatives in your question and determining whether or not…? How was I supposed to explain that, when I was already red with embarrassment?

“Yes or no, Lance!” Coach barked.

“No!” I blurted out.

“No?!” Coach exclaimed. It was obviously the wrong answer. “You don't think that all the coaches here have not been at your disposal?”

There was the double negative again. “No,” I said.

Coach was getting mad and impatient now. “No?!”

“I have been getting all the same treatment, Coach,” I clarified.

“Then why did you say no?”

Was I supposed to delve into the analysis of the negatives in his question? All I could say was, “I was just wanting to be sure that I answered your question right, Coach.”

“What is there to question, Lance? It's a simple question: yes or no?”

And it was there, on that spot, that I learned how to answer Coach's double-negative questions, which were standard and frequent: by saying yes and then repeating the question. “Yes, I have been given the same opportunity as everyone else.”

“Good.”

For the rest of my three years at Utah, Majerus would never let that incident die. He often recalled what I'm sure he thought of as the time Lance pretended like he couldn't hear me. Majerus had a memory
comparable to mine, but we obviously remembered the incident differently. No one could beat a dead horse like Coach Majerus. He would bring up a bad play on your part from last season to add fuel to his berating of you in the current moment. And the time Lance pretended like he couldn't hear me was no exception.

I still get a lazy eye just thinking about it.

A few weeks later, I opted not to go on a mission. But it was too late, as Majerus had already given out my scholarship and I couldn't simply walk on, having signed the letter of intent.

Yet as the season began in November, it was Coach's expectation that I be present at every practice, sitting in the stands, taking notes. Aside from a sick day or a test, I was present at every practice, dutifully watching and taking notes, which Coach would inspect every week to make sure I wasn't doodling. He was very complimentary and generous with his praise, and loved to take my notebook and show it off to recruits or boosters who were sitting in on practice. Watching longingly as the guys practiced, I gained a very eye-opening view of just how long and demanding Coach Majerus's practices were. But I wasn't deterred by this. I had set a goal, and I wanted to achieve it.

 

Toward the end of my gray-shirt year, it was announced that my mother would be the commencement speaker for the University of Utah's graduating class of the year 2000. It was quite a feeling to be attending school at the same time my mother was to be the graduation speaker. She gave a wonderful speech, and I was immensely proud of her. I wasn't so proud of Vanessa, though, for waving at the JumboTron when the camera panned to Mom's family during the speech.

Mom then enrolled in the University of Utah's special-education graduate program, to achieve her master's degree and finally receive certification as a teacher. Mom had been teaching at a unique school for nine years up to this point, without a college degree. She was incredible at her job, working with kids that others were ready to forsake. She dealt with teens who were on probation, addicted to drugs, schizophrenics, autistics, and sociopathic sex addicts. Yet my mother, through all of this, was able to keep her positive views on life. She never came home and played the weary victim of a long day of chaos, but instead always managed our lives flawlessly. She also tutored during this time to supplement her meager income. Mom soon had to turn down requests to tutor, as
she just didn't have the time. And now, this forty-five-year-old mother of five was enrolling at the University of Utah to earn her master's. And she still made it to my basketball games.

And ironically, she would be enrolled in the special education program, learning the rules and standards that protect those with special needs, while her son, attending the same institution, would be enduring abuse and humiliation for his handicap at the hands of a school and state employee.

I'm proud of my mother. She is remarkable and has emerged as one of the finest and most astute minds in the state of Utah in the fields of autism and Asperger's syndrome.

Court came home from his mission shortly after Mom's commencement speech. He wasn't well. I hardly recognized him. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This news affirmed my decision not to go on a mission. Although I would never say that Court's mission caused his disorder, I know that being away from everything he knew didn't help him. He was no longer the Court I knew, the Court I had grown up with. My big brother was gone, and in his place was a tortured soul whose mind was battling the conflicts of organized religion—a mind that had by now deteriorated to a state of chaos that not even I dared to explore.

 

The day finally came that following fall, in October 2000, when I was able to walk into the University of Utah locker room and find waiting for me my own jersey. I was the first one in the locker room, and I picked up my jersey and cried. I had waited for two years to wear this jersey and had worked and worked without much reward up to this point. I finally had a taste of it. I knew my place was low on the pole for playing time, but I was ready to play.

At that time, I thought I was much better than I actually was, but here is a news flash: every star in every profession gets to where they are by believing they're better than they actually are. You don't just wake up one day with a world of talent, skill, and experience and realize, Hey, I'm pretty
good.
Especially in the cutthroat, dog-eat-dog profession of basketball, where everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie, you have to be a little cocky. Because the minute you doubt yourself is the minute you lose. Many people will never know the pressures of a live game, with thousands watching and critiquing your every move. With that pressure,
you have to guard yourself, and you do it by convincing yourself you're better than you are, because if you don't, you'll never have the courage to even step onto the floor.