Hoosier Hoops and Hijinks Read online

  Arlie had invited David and Jillian to join her and her mom for Italian following the game. “Mitchlin thought he might know who did those sketches,” David said after placing his order.

  “What sketches?” Mrs. Messing asked.

  Arlie threw David a scowl.

  “What?” he asked. “Didn’t you tell her?”

  “Tell me now,” Mrs. Messing said.

  “It’s no big deal, Mom. Just someone sending me drawings. It was going to be a surprise.”

  “Oops,” David said. “I gave it away, didn’t I?”

  “She has a big fan,” Jillian said. “One who likes to draw her at the game.”

  “Oh? I’d like to see them.”

  “I’m having the first one framed for your birthday. I got rid of the second. It, well, it wasn’t as good.”

  Jillian held out her phone. “You can see them on here.”

  Arlie tried to grab the phone, missed and knocked over a glass of water. David laughed. “Not so graceful off the court, I see.”

  “Arliss Ann Messing,” her mom said softly. “When did this happen?”

  Arlie turned to her friends. “Thanks a lot, guys.” To her mom she said, “It didn’t happen like that. It was just a bump. No cut. You were there, remember?”

  “But this shows you wearing number fifteen.”

  Arlie grabbed Jillian’s iPhone and looked at the photo. “No, it’s just hard to make out in this picture. See,” she pointed to her jersey in the picture and showed her mom, “the artist drew a streak on my uniform next to my number five. But, I guess from here, it does look like a fifteen. Sort of.”

  “I’m staying tonight,” Mrs. Messing said. “Don’t even try to talk me out of it. Where are the sketches now?”

  David had them both at his apartment. He’d finished framing the first, and had the second still rolled up in the mailing tube. He agreed to bring them over to Arlie’s home for her mom to see as soon as they finished their meal.

  “Want me to gift wrap number one?”

  Arlie frowned and shook her head. “Just bring it over.”

  When David arrived with the sketches, Mrs. Messing was pacing the living room. David propped the framed sketch on a chair and started to open the mailing tube.

  Arlie walked into the living room and gasped. “David, it’s beautiful.” The first sketch of Arlie sitting on the sidelines was bordered with a bold-red quilted silk, and framed with brushed silver that was embedded with long thin swirls of mirror in an intricate pattern. The final effect showed the viewer tiny fragments of themselves reflected at different angles.

  “This needs candlelight,” Jillian said. “Imagine thousands of tiny flickering lights coming from that frame.”

  “It’s a gift for you, Mom. For your birthday.”

  “It is lovely, David,” Mrs. Messing said, viewing the gift. “Thank you, Arlie.” Then David emptied the second sketch out onto the table.

  “Um, David?” Arlie drew out his name slowly. “How did this happen?” The red silk border of the framed sketch was the exact shade of the blood dripping from the wound drawn over Arlie’s right eye in sketch number two.

  He shrugged. “No idea. Just one of those weird coincidences, I guess.” He compared the two colors more closely. “Red is, well,” he paused, then shook his head and added, “This is odd, I gotta admit.”

  Late night notwithstanding, Arlie’s next day began early as usual with her workout routine followed by team practice. When she returned home, exhausted and sweaty, she was surprised to see a Campus Police car in front of the house and David’s bike on the lawn. She burst through the front door.

  “Mom? Jillian? What’s going on?”

  “Another picture arrived while you were gone,” Jillian said, meeting her at the front door. “Your mom called the cops.”

  Arlie covered her mouth with her hand and her eyes widened. “Why?” she asked.

  “I also sent David to ask around – see if any of your neighbors saw who left it here,” Arlie’s mom said, joining Arlie and Jillian at the front door.

  “Because of a picture? Come on, Mom, really? Where is it?”

  “You don’t want to see, Arlie. You and Jillian just get some stuff together. I’m putting you up in a motel for a few days.”

  Arlie was speechless for a moment and then turned to Jillian.

  “Did you see it?”

  Jillian nodded. “She’s right. You don’t want to. I wish I hadn’t.”

  “But, it was addressed to me, right? Who opened it?”

  “I did,” Jillian said. “Sorry, I couldn’t wait. It’s not like it was US mail or anything.”

  Arlie grabbed her roommate’s arm. “Hand it over.”

  Jillian met her gaze, but caved a second later and handed over her phone. Arlie opened up the last photo taken and stared, not believing what she saw. This charcoal sketch bled more of the same shade of red that dotted number two and bordered number one. Again, the subject was seated at the player’s bench. This time, however, her head was thrown back, mouth open in a scream, eyes staring overhead. A pearl handled knife, covered in blood lay on her lap. Her chest was bleeding from two open stab wounds positioned right above the number on her uniform. The AF signature hid beneath a pool of blood in the lower right corner of the sketch.

  Arlie’s hands began to shake and her voice quavered. “Who is sending me these? What kind of sicko is this guy?”

  Two police officers entered the front foyer area from the dining room and were introduced to Arlie as Officers Purcell and Adams of the Purdue University Campus police. Officer Purcell, who appeared to be close to Arlie’s and Jillian’s age, carried two mailing tubes under his arm and looked at her face closely. “Seems like you’re the one in the pictures, all right. Can you tell me what happened to your eye, Arlie?”

  Arlie described how she was fouled at the game. “It wasn’t like in the picture at all. I went up as another player was coming down. No cut. No blood. Happens all the time.”

  “Has anyone threatened you, Ms. Messing?” Officer Adams asked. He was old enough to be Purcell’s father.

  “No, never. It’s just these pictures are getting…crazy. Kind of freaking me out.”

  “I think this latest picture is definitely a threat,” Mrs. Messing said. “It’s showing Arlie stabbed.” Her voice rose in a reedy crescendo of emotion.

  Officer Adams spoke to Mrs. Messing. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. Sending someone a drawing’s not a crime. There’s nothing we can do at the moment.”

  “But,” Mrs. Messing said, “surely you can try to find out who’s doing this. It’s intimidation. This person is stalking my daughter.”

  Officer Adams nodded. “I can understand your concern, Ma’am. I have a daughter in college myself. But, nothing illegal has happened yet. These artistic types — sometimes they push the limits.”

  Young Officer Purcell pointed toward the front door. “That boyfriend of yours? David, right? He’s an artist, isn’t he?”

  Arlie nodded. “He’s a friend and an artist. So?”

  “Thought so. Think he might know who’s sending these?” Officer Purcell asked.

  Arlie stared at the frosted window next to the front door. “He doesn’t know.”

  “Maybe he did them himself? Did you think of that?” Officer Purcell persisted.

  “That’s crazy,” Arlie said, returning her attention to the officer. “It’s not David.” But she thought about the perfect match of the red matting and the red blood. She thought about the second image showing her injury as a mirror of reality and all the tiny mirror slivers in the frame. Could she be wrong about him?

  Just then David burst through the front door with a ten year old kid in tow. Arlie recognized the kid from around the neighborhood but didn’t know his name.

  “This is Doug,” David said. “He saw the guy with the mailing tube, so I’m going to try the sketch artist thing.”

  “You saw the person who left this?” Arlie asked Doug.
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  The kid shook his head and looked at the floor. “I…I left it. But, I saw the guy who paid me.”

  Arlie cocked an eyebrow at Officer Purcell. It obviously wasn’t David.

  “Got any paper, Jillian?” David asked.

  “You bet.” She ran to her bedroom and returned with a notepad and pencil. David took the boy into the dining room and began asking descriptive questions. Arlie and Jillian stood in the doorway and watched them.

  Officer Adams wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “This reminds me of a case we had here, oh, ten or twelve years ago. Before your time, Purcell.”

  Officer Purcell raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

  “Kid from somewhere in Southern Indiana came here to play basketball, like Arlie. She got a couple of drawings sent to her, too. Scared her so bad she packed up and quit school. Not my idea of a joke, I can tell you.”

  “Did you find out who sent them?” Mrs. Messing asked.

  Officer Adams shook his head. “Never did, Ma’am. But now that I think back, she looked a lot like your daughter.”

  It wasn’t long before David let out a low whistle. “Hey, I know this guy,” he said.

  “Who is it?” Arlie asked, darting into the dining room.

  David turned his sketch around to show everyone. “Meet my art advisor. Professor Mitchlin.”

  Mrs. Messing looked triumphant. “He’s going down. You don’t mess with a Messing.”

  He balanced the pearl handled knife on his knees. A thousand times washed, a thousand times polished. He hadn’t wanted her to leave. He hadn’t expected her to control his thoughts for so long. Now, after all these years, she’d come back to the game. He realized she’d been playing him. His anger exploded and he hurled the knife toward the sketch he loved so completely. The knife buried to the hilt directly above the fifteen on her jersey. The thump of the impact echoed in his mind.

  He stared at the sketch for several minutes, then rose slowly, deliberately from his seat and walked over to his work bench. He carefully chose the brush and the bold-red oil and turned toward the wall.

  It was time to complete the picture.

  It was time to end the game.

  Bob Knight

  Brenda Robertson Stewart

  Robert Montgomery “Bob” Knight was originally from Ohio. He played basketball at Orrville High School and under Hall of Fame coach, Fred Taylor, at Ohio State University. Knight was a reserve on the team that included future Hall of Famers John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas. He graduated with a degree in history and government in 1962. He coached junior varsity basketball before accepting a position at Army in 1963.

  Two years later, he was named head coach. One of his players was Hall of Fame coach Mike Krsyzewski. When Indiana University was searching for a new coach in 1971, they turned to rising star Bob Knight.

  Knight endeared himself to Indiana fans with his disciplined approach to basketball and the high graduation rate of his players. Dick Vitale dubbed Knight “The General.” In 1976, the Hoosiers were undefeated at 32-0 and crushed Michigan in the final NCAA championship game. Knight’s Hoosiers would win two more national championships — in 1981 and in 1987. Knight led the USA team to gold in the 1984 Olympics with Michael Jordon on the team. He won eleven Big Ten conference titles and is only one of four coaches to win NCAA, NIT, and Olympic championships.

  Bob Knight was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 1991, his second year of eligibility. He told the committee to take his name off the list since he wasn’t elected the first year he was eligible, but his request was denied.

  Always a coach known for his quick temper, Knight was placed on a zero tolerance policy at Indiana University in May of 2000 following complaints against him. In September 2000, an incident allegedly occurred involving a student, and Bob Knight was fired by then president of Indiana University, Myles Brand. The next day, Knight said goodbye to 6,000 supporters in Dunn Meadow in Bloomington. He later took a position as coach of the Texas Tech University Red Raiders and in 2007 achieved his 880th career win passing retired North Carolina coach Dean Smith for the most career NCAA Division I men’s college basketball wins.

  SNOWPLOWED

  Tony Perona

  Indiana State Senator Garrett Snow wadded the No. 55 Baronville High School basketball jersey into a ball and tossed it in a high arc across the room. It landed in the middle of the wastebasket. “Nothing but net,” he said quietly, though the door to his Statehouse office was closed. Looking up, he realized the mini-blinds to the windows in the hall were open. He rose from the chair and checked the view. No one there. Not unexpected, since the legislature was out of session. Relieved, he snatched the now-empty padded shipping envelope and stuffed it in the wastebasket on top of the gold and brown jersey.

  He wasn’t going to get worried about the numbers—his 55th class reunion was coming up and it had been 55 years since the kid from the rival high school who’d worn the No. 55 jersey hanged himself. Still, he wondered who was behind the mailing. He hadn’t heard a thing about the suicide since he’d left Hampton High School.

  If he had any regrets about his glory days in basketball, it was that he hadn’t gotten a college scholarship or made the team at Indiana University as a walk-on. Not that it had hampered him. Life after high school had been a relentless, upward progression in business and politics. For years now he’d been the state senator for a district that included Fishers, one of the most affluent cities in Indiana.

  He took some solace in the fact that his signature move at Hampton High had received its own name. It occurred during the sectional championship game. Garrett was assigned to guard the skinny, hot-handed forward, No. 55, who had single-handedly evened the game. With only minutes to go, Garrett and his teammates let the smaller man get into the lane and dribble for a layup. Garrett, his big body only a step behind the shooter, went up with the guy and leveled him from behind. Sent him sprawling into the stands. Shook him up so much he could hardly shoot the final minute of the game. Garrett fouled out, but he became a local hero for executing the “Snowplow.” Hampton High won the game.

  Weeks later No. 55 was found hanging from the rafters of his family barn. Garrett knew the kid’s name well, though he wished he could forget it. Al LeBlanc. Everyone clucked about how sad it was, and a few even questioned whether the suicide had been a result of what happened in the game. That line of thinking fortunately had never been pursued. Garrett refused to feel any remorse about the death. The game might have turned on that one act, but it didn’t make him a killer. Why the kid decided to commit suicide wasn’t his problem.

  Not really. And certainly not without any proof. In 55 years, none had surfaced.

  And now today he received this jersey in the mail.

  Garrett glanced at his calendar. He had a two o’clock meeting with Charlotte Reinhardt, another Hampton High connection, and it was almost two. He barely remembered her. She hadn’t run in his crowd. She’d been one of the artsy-fartsy types. Charlotte Reinhardt? Please… He rifled through more of his inbox, made sure there were no more padded envelopes. The phone rang and he picked it up. “Garrett.”

  “Senator, your two o’clock is here.” Garrett recognized the voice of the head receptionist on the lower floor. He sighed. “Have my intern escort her to my office,” he said. “She can wait if I’m not here.” He hung up and went to the men’s restroom down the short hall from his office. A janitor turned the corner ahead of him and preceded him through the door. It was a little brazen of the janitor to use the restroom in the office area, which was unofficially “staff-only.” But how do you say that without coming off as an elitist?

  The first thing Francine McNamara noticed when she and her best friend Charlotte Reinhardt entered State Senator Garrett Snow’s office was how cramped it was. The door opened into the middle of a small room, a rectangular table and four chairs to the right, the Senator’s desk and a chair to the left. All were solid maple. The sense of cla
ustrophobia extended to the walls, which were covered in framed, signed photographs. Snow certainly chummed it up with the famous—major political figures, professional athletes, and celebrities posing with him adorned the walls.

  With only a little room for the women to move, Francine was tempted to sit but she wasn’t sure of the protocol.

  The short, thin intern provided no clues. “The Senator will be here in a moment,” he said, smiling at Charlotte before he left. Francine thought he seemed nervous. She also noticed that he had virtually ignored her, making polite conversation with Charlotte as he led them up the stairs. She thought he didn’t have much of a future at the Statehouse if he didn’t overcome those shortcomings.

  She watched Charlotte take in the room. “You’d think being a state senator for so long would get you something bigger than this,” Francine whispered.

  “Most of the other senators only have cubicles, so don’t feel sorry for him,” Charlotte said. “Anyway, I’m certain the walk-in closet at his palatial Fishers estate is at least twice as big as this. That probably compensates. I’ve known him since grade school, and he’s always been the type to need compensating. I bet he has a small …”

  “… Remind me again why I’m here,” Francine said, redirecting Charlotte’s train of thought.

  “You’re here because old Gary needs to be put in his place over this single-class basketball nonsense, and I want a witness in case he’s still the same bully my brother Mel and his friends came to know and hate.”

  Francine studied Charlotte’s defiant posture. Though Charlotte was a good 6 inches shorter than her own 5’ 10″ height, she was stout and radiated a bulldog tenacity that made her formidable. The two inches of silver curls piled on her head by the beauty parlor helped, too.

  Francine’s large, dark-framed glasses slipped a bit on her nose. She adjusted them. “Mel seems to have done pretty well for himself, and that was a long time ago.” Charlotte’s younger brother, who was only a few inches taller than her and had been a string bean in high school, was now a successful character actor. He’d appeared in films with the likes of Sean Connery, Jane Fonda, and Dustin Hoffman.