A Season Inside (38 page)

Fraim is the referee tonight. His pregame talk is very detailed. He even has notes that he refers to. Fraim is into details: “On a foul-out, make sure the guy coming in is coming in for the guy who fouled out … If there’s a time-out called after a foul-out, make sure they sub before the time-out … Be careful administering free throws. Make sure you get the right shooter. Watch for guys going into the lane. We’ve been getting beat on that … Let’s have good visible counts … Try not to get straight-lined … Remember to suck on the whistle sometimes. Let’s not pop it too much in this game … Make sure you give the player’s number on a time-out call.”

This last detail is one of those little-known things about officiating. Why does it matter which player on the floor called a time-out? Answer: If there is confusion later in the game about whether a time-out was called by a team or by television, there is a specific reference in the scorer’s book as to which player called the time-out.

Fraim also makes reference to the emotions involved in calling a technical foul. “If we tee someone up, let’s help each other. There’s always that extra shot of adrenaline when you do it, so let’s not look dumb by going to the wrong foul line or something. Let’s call it, administer it, and get it over with.”

Technicals are taken very seriously in the ACC. Any time an official calls a technical in an ACC game he is required to call ACC Supervisor of Officials Fred Barakat that night to tell him what happened and why he called the tee.

Fraim adds one more thing: “If a coach comes out of the box because he’s coaching, give him some leeway. If he’s bitching, it’s automatic, tee him up.”

Forte, drinking his nightly ration of pregame honey, has one more thought when Fraim is finished: “Let’s not call anything cheap early. Let’s talk to the kids, rather than whistle them. This is an important game so the coaches might be hyper, especially early.”

Reynolds Coliseum is slightly less than sold out. Although Virginia is 4–2 in league play, they are still thought of as a doormat. For State,
this is a big game. The Wolfpack is 3–2 in the ACC and has a four-game losing streak against Virginia. The Cavaliers always give them a hard time.

Tonight is no different. No one leads by more than four points during the first half. Seven minutes in, when Herring calls a foul on Charles Shackleford, Valvano is up screaming. Forte stands directly in front of him, facing the floor, saying out of the side of his mouth, “Easy Jim, easy.” He was right. Valvano is hyper.

When Herring calls an illegal screen on the last play of the half that allows Virginia to tie the game at 39–39, Valvano screeches all the way across the court, heading for the locker room.

In the locker room, Fraim asks Herring about the last call. “The screen gave them an open jump shot, Tom,” Herring says. “I didn’t have any choice.”

“Absolutely right,” Fraim says.

In preseason clinics, officials were instructed endlessly about advantage/disadvantage. The point being that not all contact is a foul, that if something mildly illegal happens that doesn’t affect the play, it should be no-called. The good officials are living by the rule. A lot of bad ones still call every touch foul they see.

“I almost popped the whistle on your toss, Tom,” Forte tells Fraim. “It was a little short.”

“Good thing you didn’t,” Fraim says laughing. “At my age I can only get it up good once a night.”

“It’s a pretty slow tempo,” Forte notes. “That means every call is an important one.”

The game is close until State goes on a 10–2 run for a 62–52 lead. Virginia comes right back with an 8–0 run. The game goes to the wire. A Mel Kennedy three-pointer cuts State’s lead to 71–69 with 1:14 left. But Vinny Del Negro hits a crucial drive with thirty-five seconds to go that ices it and State wins 75–69.

“Great game,” Forte says when it is over. “Both teams really played well. Del Negro is a hell of a player.”

Nolan Fine, who insists that Forte is by far the best official in the country, believes that Forte’s appreciation for the game is one of the things that sets him apart from other officials. “He played the game and loves it so much that he’s studied it to the point where he just
feels
the game better than the rest of us,” Fine says. “Joe never looks like he’s working out there. It all looks easy because he loves it.”

This
game Forte loved. “A game like that, I stand on the floor before it starts, looking around, hearing the band, and I get needles in my legs,” he says. “I feel so lucky to do something I love and get paid for it.”

On Thursday, Forte will be in Washington for a game in an almost empty arena between two struggling teams, St. Joseph’s and George Washington. “But to them, Forte says, “it’s a big game. So to me, it’s a big game.”

The crew working St. Joseph’s–George Washington is a remarkable one, considering that this is a game between two not very good teams in the Atlantic 10. Forte is the referee. Luis Grillo is the U-1. Tim Higgins is the U-2. In April, all three of them will work the Final Four.

Higgins is one of the more popular officials around. His colleagues call him Barney Rubble because he looks and sounds exactly like the Flintstones’ cartoon neighbor. Before the game, Barney is talking about arenas he would like to work. “I’ve never had a game in Rupp Arena,” he says. “I’d like to work there.”

“I’ve never been in Pauley Pavilion,” Forte says. He turns to Grillo. “Of course, I love working at Mount St. Mary’s.”

Grillo is assistant athletic director at Mount St. Mary’s, a Division 2 school.

Forte’s pregame is simple. “Let’s remember that both these teams need a win,” he says. “They’re probably both going to be tight and maybe a little frustrated.”

It is GW that is frustrated. The Colonials have been playing horribly since New Year’s and are buried near the bottom of the Atlantic 10. Tonight will be another miserable game for them. They stay close for a half, leaving with the score tied at 27–27. But from a 36-all tie, St. Joseph’s goes on a 20–4 romp that puts the game away. The Hawks go on to win, 67–55.

It is not an easy night for Forte. He gets poked in the eye on a first-half play and needs Grillo and Higgins to up-periscope and freight-train in to make a call he can’t see. Late in the first half, one of the St. Joseph’s players sidles over to him and says, “You know that guy ain’t got no game.”

“Who?” Forte asks, thinking the player is talking about one of the GW players.

“Him,” the kid says, pointing at Grillo. “That ref ain’t got no game.” Forte resists the urge to tee the kid up and instead tells Grillo the story at halftime.

Late in the game, with St. Joseph’s on the foul line, Forte makes the GW cheerleaders stop pounding their megaphones against the wall, which in the quiet, empty gym reverberates all over. “Why did you do that?” Higgins says afterward.

“They shouldn’t be doing that,” Forte says.

“But they were doing it all game,” Higgins answers.

“They were?” Forte says. “I didn’t notice until then.”

He is tired. Friday, he will fly home to Atlanta for a day off. On Saturday, he will be in Columbia, South Carolina, with his partner Donaghy to work Clemson-South Carolina.

“Intrastate rivalry,” he says. “Big game.”

Every time Joe Forte walks on the floor, he tells himself he is working a big game. That is one of the reasons why he is so good at what he does. He’s a ref. And proud of it.

The days are passing too fast for Billy King.

“I was sitting with some friends the other day and one of them said, ‘Do you realize it’s just eighty-eight days to graduation?’ I hadn’t even thought about anything like that. The time is just slipping away so quickly. College is almost all over for me.”

Many college basketball players see their last game as the end of their college experience. Billy King isn’t one of them. His last game will, in all likelihood, be an ending for him because he is not likely to play pro basketball. But it will also be the start of many beginnings for him. At twenty-one King knows what many basketball players never know: There is life after hoops.

“I’ve taken the approach this season that this is it, my finale, and I want to make it memorable,” he said, eating Chinese food one afternoon. “If I get a shot to play pro ball, that’s great, wonderful. But the odds are I’m going to be working nine-to-five next year. This is my last time around. The last time I’ll hear the cheers and be the center of this kind of attention. I want to savor it all.”

King is in a perfect place to have that kind of season. He and his roommate, Kevin Strickland, are the only seniors on a young but talented Duke team. Two years ago, when King and Strickland were
sophomores, Duke won thirty-seven games, the ACC Tournament, and the East Regional, and came within two baskets of beating Louisville for the national championship.

Five seniors, four of them starters, two of them All-Americans (Johnny Dawkins and Mark Alarie) graduated off that team. In 1987, picked for sixth in the ACC, the Blue Devils won twenty-four games and reached the NCAA round of sixteen. Now, four starters are back from that team. Still, in most preseason polls, Duke went almost unnoticed. They were in almost no top tens; some national polls didn’t even rank them in the top twenty-five.

By the end of December, the Blue Devils were 6–1, their only loss at top-ranked Arizona, and they were in everyone’s top ten. But it was a month of turmoil and, although none of it directly involved him, King felt partly responsible.

Duke began the season with four very easy victories over Appalachian State, East Carolina, Northwestern, and Davidson. But on December 13th, sophomore center Ala Abdelnaby ran his car off the road into a tree. He was charged with reckless driving (although he later pleaded guilty to “unsafe movement”) and was fined twenty-five dollars and court costs.

King was hardly surprised by Abdelnaby’s mishap. The first time he had ever driven with him, Abdelnaby had wheeled out of a parking lot so fast that King almost got out of the car. Abdelnaby was bright, funny, and popular with his teammates. But he was also immature. It showed up in his play—and his driving.

By this time, exams had started and two members of the team were struggling. One was Joe Cook, a freshman. The other was Phil Henderson. That was the more serious problem. Henderson had flunked out the previous year as a freshman, so if he flunked out again he was gone. Four days after Abdelnaby’s accident, Coach Mike Krzyzewski called a team meeting.

“He was as angry as I’ve seen him in four years,” King said. “He couldn’t believe how undisciplined we had all been. Three guys out of twelve in trouble is a lot. Here we were with a chance to have a great team and we might screw the whole thing up before we’d played one big game. He told Kevin and me that part of being a friend is to crack down on guys when they need to be cracked down on. He was really, really pissed.”

Things calmed down. Henderson and Cook got their minds on their
books and came through finals okay. The players went home for four days at Christmas to regroup for the tournament in Arizona, which would be their first real challenge of the season.

The tournament in Tucson was good … and bad. On the first night, Duke blitzed Florida, a team that had won the preseason NIT a month earlier. King, in his role of defensive stopper, guarded All-American Vernon Maxwell and shut him down. For King, this was something of a revenge game. In high school, during an AAU summer tournament, Maxwell had made two free throws to win a game after King had thrown a bad pass. After the game, Maxwell was gracious. “Makes us even,” he said to King, who had been thinking the same thing but wouldn’t say it.

The next night, though, Sean Elliott got even for Maxwell—and more. He torched King for 31 points and Arizona beat the Blue Devils 91–85 in one of the better games of the year. “The best I’ve ever guarded,” King said. “He’s 6–8 and has those long arms. Most guys I can get up and give them trouble when they take their shot. But he just shot over me all night. He was great.”

King has had a reputation as a defensive specialist since high school. Krzyzewski can still remember a summer camp game in which King was assigned to Michael Brown, a hotshot shooter from Dunbar High School in Baltimore. “He just shut him down totally,” Krzyzewski said. “I turned to my assistants and said, ‘I have to have him.’ ”

King, whose father died when he was four, was raised by his mother, grandmother, and sister. They did good work. King is articulate, funny, and bright. He is the kind of person everyone likes—except for the people he is guarding.

“I’ve always loved defense,” he said. “Even when I was little, I was never a great shooter. I can remember when I was ten years old, I couldn’t make free throws. I still can’t. But I could always play defense and it was always fun for me. I liked to think I could do things on defense other guys couldn’t.”

Krzyzewski saw this in King. He had thought when King first came to Duke that he would improve his offense as the years went by. But by his senior year he knew that wasn’t going to happen. “Billy is unique,” he said, “in that he focuses so much of his concentration on defense. Even when we’re on offense, I think his mind is on defense. Most kids are the other way around.”

Krzyzewski would have liked for King to produce more on offense.
He had pushed him for three years to work on his shooting. At times he had threatened to bench him if he didn’t improve on offense. But he never did, because even when he wasn’t scoring, King’s defense and his leadership on the floor were imperative for Duke to be successful.

After the Arizona loss, Krzyzewski lectured his team about being soft in tough games. This was something he worried about with this team. There was no one on this Duke team, he felt, like Danny Meagher or David Henderson, two of his past players who would break an arm to win a game. He told his players they had lost to Arizona because they had thought winning would be
nice
—instead of thinking winning was an
absolute necessity
.