A Season Inside Read Online Free Page A

mannequin.”
    When the story broke, his players and friends understood why he had been so distracted all season. Just before publication, Massimino talked to McLain. “He told me, ‘Coach, I’m doing this to help kids. Nothing will happen to you or the program because you are too big.’ ”
    That was a little hard for Massimino to swallow since McLain had only told his story in return for a lot of money—about $20,000. But he had to live with it and deal with it.
    “The whole thing was scary,” Massimino said. “Honest to God, I swear on my five children, if I had known, I would have tried to help him. I always tell our guys that if they have a problem and they come to me, I’ll help them. But if I catch them, they’re history.
    “I always thought I knew my people and my kids. This time I didn’t. I take responsibility for that but it hurt me to think anyone could believe I would know what was going on and not do anything about it.”
    A press conference was called to respond to the McLain story. For an hour beforehand, Massimino sat in his office with university lawyers poring through a carefully worded statement, rehearsing what to say and what not to say. Finally, it all kicked in.
    “I got up, ran out of the office and said I couldn’t do this,” he remembered. “I went into [Assistant Coach] Steve Lappas’s office and I sat down and I cried. It all just got to me at once. Then I walked back in and I said, ‘Forget the speech, I’m just gonna go out there like I always have and say what I think. I’ve been Rollie for thirty-two years in this business and that’s who I still am.’ ”
    So he went out and talked about how much it hurt. And, when he was finished, he said he only wished Gary McLain well. Later, that summer, he helped get him a tryout with a team in Holland. A lot of Massimino’s friends were furious with him for helping McLain. “He’s still one of my kids,” Massimino said in reply.
    But now it was October. The 15–16 team was back, minus leading scorer Harold Jensen. Recruiting had been a disaster: One player reneged on a verbal commitment and had gone to Pittsburgh and one decided at the last minute to play baseball.
    A few people picked Villanova as high as fifth in the Big East. A few more picked the Wildcats as low as ninth. The consensus: sixth or seventh. “The thought of being mediocre scares me,” Massimino admitted. “But I’ve always said the real guy comes out under adversity. Maybe I needed a shock like last year. Maybe it had all gotten a little too easy.
    “I’ve told this team our job this season is simple: Find a way. I told them they
better
find a way. Because if we finish seventh in the league, they’ll find me in the Schuylkill River.”

    One person who would not have minded seeing Villanova finish seventh—or lower—in the Big East was Paul Evans. Across the state from Philadelphia, Evans was assembling a very talented team at Pittsburgh. In his first season at Pitt, 1987, after moving there from Navy, Evans had put together a 24–9 record, tying for first place in the Big East.
    This was no small accomplishment for what was largely the same team that had been 15–14 the previous year. Evans had come in vowing that the talented, undisciplined team would become a disciplined one or heads would roll. On the very first day he ran a practice at Pittsburgh, Evans threw Jerome Lane out of practice. The two fought most of that year, but when it was over Lane had become the first player under 6–7 to lead the nation in rebounding since Elgin Baylor, thirty years earlier.
    But as he was earning respect for his coaching abilities, Evans was doing very little to win friends or influence people around the Big East. Evans is, to put it mildly, outspoken. What he thinks he says and if people don’t like it, tough. When Bobby Martin, a talented 6–10 high school center, changed his mind about his verbal commitment to Villanova and signed with Pitt, Massimino