The Fence - Dick Lehr [10]
Mike continued to smolder, a potent mix of anger and grief. In a show of protest, he did not play wide receiver on the football team, and instead played goalie for the soccer team. With winter approaching, he told people he was not going to play basketball—his favorite sport—and was going out for wrestling instead. But then Mike felt something give way. “Somewhere around then I got over—whatever, some of those issues.” The sky cleared. “I realized I have a lot of friends, and I’m actually kind of happy, because I really didn’t have a beef with anyone and the people were very nice.”
The notion of not playing basketball suddenly seemed crazy. “I loved basketball.” Mike and a teammate named Vincent Johnson became the dominant players for the talented Wooster basketball squad. They had become close friends through the sport, often staying after practice to play one-on-one against each other. Vince was a scholarship student from Washington, D.C. In many ways, they were polar opposites—in terms of both their game and their personalities. Vince had never played much basketball before, and he relied on pure athleticism. “All I knew was to put the ball in the hoop,” he said, “and I was just going to keep at it until I got it in.”
Mike’s game was polished from years of playing organized basketball in Boston. “Mike was real finesse,” said Vince. “He could float through the air.” Their senior class yearbook featured a photograph of Mike in mid-air, gliding smoothly toward the basket past two opponents en route to making a left-handed layup.
Vince’s personality overflowed with self-confidence and he displayed a fierce competitive streak. “Even if I’d never played something before, I was going to learn and win.” Mike, in contrast, was selfless and diplomatic. “Mike would never run up the score on you,” Vince said.
Mike would also serve as Vince’s peacemaker. During a pickup game sophomore year, the player Vince was guarding faked him by pretending to take a shot—a pump fake—and Vince jumped. He was airborne, waving his arms wildly, watching helplessly as the player dribbled around him and easily scored. Vince looked so foolish; a heckler from the sidelines yelled, You see that big bird fly! Vince raced over and was right in the boy’s face. The boy happened to be a senior, a star of the football team. He pushed Vince away. Vince came back and hit him in the face. Fighting broke out, but Mike stepped in. He got them to stop by raising the race factor, pointing out the idiocy of two black students pounding on one another. “He was like, ‘Don’t screw up. That’s what they want. There aren’t many of us,’” Vince recalled.
Senior year, Mike and Vince were the team’s cocaptains. Tim Fornero was the manager. They had a blast. The team went undefeated, piling up a 15–0 record and capturing the Hudson Valley League Championship. Mike was scoring twenty or more points a game. But their run ended abruptly in the state tournament, when they lost a playoff game that saw Mike hobbled for the craziest of reasons. He’d forgotten his sneakers, and had to borrow a pair. “His toes were like bleeding through the game,” Vince said. “I think that’s why we lost; he wasn’t playing regular.”
Mike was named one of the team’s most valuable players. He was finally enjoying himself—popular, doing well in his classes and on the playing fields. “Besides being good-looking he had one of those one-in-a-hundred smiles,” Tim Fornero said.
Mike and Tim roomed together again senior year. Mike was an RA, or resident adviser, in a dormitory called New Building. “The thing about Mike, he was just a no-bullshit guy; he had an honesty about him that was true, and that’s unusual in life.” Tim struggled with his