Don't Put Me In, Coach (19 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

W
e opened up the season with a blowout win against Delaware State, which was a game that would’ve been pretty boring if not for the fact that it opened my eyes to just how popular my blog was starting to become. When I checked into the game for the final minute, the OSU student section not only started chanting “trill-ion” over and over as a way of encouraging me to do nothing on the court, but they actually rained boos throughout the arena when I pulled down a rebound just a few seconds later and ruined my trillion. (It was the most heavily booed “rebound” since the 2005 Martin Lawrence movie.)

As cool as it was to see our student section getting behind the Club Trillion movement, it was that much weirder to get heckled for something that I had always been applauded for. It was a lot like that fateful day in junior high when you realized that, after being the envy of all your classmates for years, you were suddenly the biggest loser in school for bragging about having a Charizard card. Everything I had learned about the game of basketball was no longer useful, because the trillion had become more than just a
cute observation about my irrelevance—it was now my expected way of life.

After squeaking out a four-point win over Bowling Green in our second game of the year, we annihilated what appeared to be Samford’s women’s team in one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen. The reason I say it was a strange game (and the reason I say we played their women’s team) is because we held Samford to just 22 points, including just six points in the first half, as we cruised to a 59–22 win. To put Samford’s dismal offensive display into perspective, consider this: even though I was in street clothes for the game because the day before I hurt my back lifting weights (or more accurately, trying and failing to lift weights), I still scored the same amount of points as three of Samford’s starters combined. Furthermore, when you combine my points with The Villain’s 16 points, the two of us alone damn near outscored their entire team. And when you combine all of my points, The Villain’s 16 points, and the points scored by my other teammates, we outscored their entire team by 37. So yeah, they kinda sucked.

The Samford win set up our first big game of the year at 22nd-ranked Miami, which was a road trip I was really looking forward to thanks to my perception of Miami as a city full of topless babes, Cuban cigars, and pet detectives who talk out of their butthole. Unfortunately, we stayed in Miami for less than 24 hours (and focused most of those hours toward the game) and had no time whatsoever to hit up South Beach, party with hookers on the Miami football yacht, or even find Nevin Shapiro and convince him to pay for abortions for all of our girlfriends. Not all was lost, though. We left Miami with a five-point win, so at least we had something to show for turning down the chance to get wet and wild with all that Miami poon.

We followed that up with two more huge wins, first against seventh-ranked Notre Dame in Indianapolis and then against Butler at home. This string of impressive wins was enough to catapult us to a number-16 ranking, but that wouldn’t last long because we destroyed Jacksonville and Iona the following week to jump up to
number 13 in the polls. A win against UNC-Asheville in our next game improved our record to 9–0, which was the best start of any of my four seasons at Ohio State, and set up our last big nonconference game of the season, against West Virginia at home.

West Virginia came into the game unranked, but through intensive scouting we knew that they were among the best in the country at playing team defense, playing unselfishly, drinking moonshine, and kissing their sisters. Compounding the fact that they were a formidable and underrated opponent was the fact that Dave Lighty, our captain and the heart and soul of our team, broke his foot against UNC-Asheville and was out for not only the West Virginia game but also for the rest of the season.

Undaunted, we made the college basketball experts eat their words after they didn’t give us much of a chance. We battled all night like our backs were against a wall and gritted out what was probably the toughest win of the season for us. And by that I mean that West Virginia fisted our anus so badly that even the goatse guy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. When it was all said and done, West Virginia beat us by 28, which was the worst loss I would ever suffer in my collegiate career and was the worst home loss for Ohio State basketball in over 10 years.

The very next day following the West Virginia loss, Noopy requested his scholarship release so he could transfer to another school. Some have suggested that this was because he played only 12 minutes against West Virginia after not getting much playing time in our nine other games (mostly because when he did play he completely and utterly sucked ass). But I know the real reason. Noopy quit because he and I had come to blows just two days earlier, over the same thing that has sparked just about every fight throughout the history of mankind—a rack of baby back ribs from Applebee’s.

TWENTY-SIX

A
s much as I liked to make fun of The Villain for being a head case during his first couple of years at Ohio State, he was nowhere near as crazy as Noopy was. From my perspective, The Villain was more of a case of “it’s cute how upset he gets at trivial things,” whereas Noopy was “I genuinely fear for my life because he has blown everything out of proportion and is fuming over something that should’ve never been an issue in the first place.” The Villain only got the attention as the mentally unstable guy on the team because he was older and already established as a bit of a nut, but Noopy was borderline psychotic and would ream into teammates on a daily basis for not being able to catch his no-look passes that he rocketed off their ankles or faces. Even with these daily outbursts, I don’t think anyone could’ve anticipated him completely blowing a gasket like he did when he tried to fight me before the West Virginia game.

About a week before the West Virginia game, and the night before the Iona game, we gathered at our arena to take a team bus to a hotel on campus. In case you don’t remember from the story
earlier in the book about Ivan getting a beej while I was 10 feet from him, let me remind you that it was standard procedure for us to stay in a hotel on campus the night before weekend games as a way to prevent guys from going to parties or bars all night. And to deter guys from sneaking out of the hotel in the middle of the night, it was also standard procedure for us to meet at the arena and take a bus to the hotel to ensure that we wouldn’t have our cars waiting for us in the hotel parking lot. Because this meant that we were held captive in the hotel all night, the manager driving the bus would always take us somewhere to get food before he dropped us off. More often than not, we would go to a plaza just north of campus that had both a McDonald’s and a Raising Cane’s (a chicken finger restaurant that is popular in the South as well as a handful of other places across the country, including Columbus). Also included in this plaza was—you guessed it—an Applebee’s.

It was understood that we were to make the process as fast as possible because we all just wanted to get back to the hotel, hang out for a little bit, and then eventually fall asleep (or get a beej with our roommate in the room). Not only that, but our director of basketball operations, Dave Egelhoff, always waited for us at the hotel because he had to be there to check all of us in, so getting our food quickly was kind of the courteous thing to do. The manager driving the bus would just park in between McDonald’s and Cane’s, and the guys would pick one to get their food from (or just sit in the bus because they planned on getting a pizza delivered once we got to the hotel).

Every now and then, guys would walk to the other end of the plaza to get Subway or even go into the Kroger to get some groceries (I once bought a tub of ice cream to take to the hotel), but they moved quickly and didn’t take any more time than the guys who went to McDonald’s and Cane’s. Simply put, it was understood that we unofficially had about 10 minutes to get our food and get back to the bus. In other words, we clearly didn’t have time to go to Applebee’s. But on this particular night Will and Noopy had a hankering
for some baby back ribs and, rules be damned, nothing was going to stand in their way.

When we parked between McDonald’s and Cane’s, everyone except Will and Noopy got off the bus, went to one of the two fast-food places, got their food, and promptly returned to the bus. After about 10 minutes of waiting on the bus, we finally realized we had no idea where Will and Noopy were, so one of my teammates texted Will and discovered that they were both waiting for food at Applebee’s. I decided to go investigate. When I peeked through a window and saw both of them sitting at the bar with drinks in front of them, I decided that I had seen enough. I returned to the bus and explained the situation to everyone and tried to persuade the manager to drop us all off at the hotel and come back to get Will and Noopy. The manager said he was under strict orders from Egelhoff to not leave until everyone was on the bus, so I had to sit down and wait it out.

After 10 more minutes of waiting, we got impatient and started egging on our manager to leave Will and Noopy and just come back and get them later. He again stressed that he didn’t want to get in trouble and suggested that I call Egelhoff to ask him if it would be okay to leave, so I stepped to the plate and took on a leadership role since nobody else on the team would. But right as I got done explaining the situation to Egelhoff over the phone, Will and Noopy came out of Applebee’s holding a couple of to-go bags, so I told Egelhoff not to worry about it anymore because we had resolved the situation. When Will and Noopy returned to the bus, I hung up the phone and stopped caring about the whole ordeal because I was just happy that we were finally going to the hotel. This is where I thought the story would end. But sadly, for Noopy the story was just beginning.

A week later, we gathered around Coach Matta after practice to hear his final thoughts on the day’s practice and the upcoming game against West Virginia. Following Coach Matta’s speech, Egelhoff walked to the middle of the huddle and explained the
plans for the evening and told us to meet back at the arena at 8:00 p.m. to go to the hotel, before going on to remind us that when we went to get food before heading to the hotel, we were supposed to get fast food or at the very least get something relatively quick. He then went on to look directly at Noopy and Will and say, “That means no Applebee’s.”

Everyone in the huddle gave a light chuckle, and we went our
separate ways
. Most of the guys stayed up in the practice gym to get extra shots up, but since I never played and had no desire to get better, I headed straight for the locker room so I could take a shower, change, and go home as soon as possible. And since Noopy preferred bitching about his lack of playing time instead of taking the initiative to put in the extra work and improve his game, he followed right behind.

When I finished showering and made my way back to my locker to get dressed, Noopy was sitting at his locker waiting for me. “That’s messed up that you gotta go snitching to Egelhoff,” he said and let out what I thought was a playful laugh, but later learned was one of those evil “getting murdered is in your immediate future” laughs.

I turned back to Noopy. “Yeah, I wasn’t really snitching, though,” I said. “I honestly couldn’t have cared less what you guys were doing, so it’s not like I was trying to tattle to Egelhoff that you were breaking some rules. I just wanted to go to the hotel because I was tired, and the only way that could happen was to explain the situation to Egelhoff. But then you guys came back to the bus, so I told Egelhoff not to worry about it anymore and I hung up on him. It was all just a big misunderstanding. Besides, everyone else was just as impatient as I was. I was just the one who actually made the call.”

Noopy had no interest in listening to my reasoning, and he walked toward me with an intense scowl on his face. “Nah, you snitched,” he said. “And that’s fucked up.”

Sensing legitimate anger, I decided the best way to handle the
situation was to just laugh it off and pretend he wasn’t even there. This might not have been a great idea, because my laughter pissed Noopy off even more and led to him getting in my face.

Now, if you’ve been paying close attention to this story up to this point, you might be confused about a small detail that I mentioned earlier but haven’t addressed since. Well, the answer is yes—I had yet to get dressed after getting out of the shower, meaning I was still butt-ass naked as all of this was happening.

Noopy approached me with clenched fists and tears welling in his eyes, and he said, “Don’t laugh, bitch. This shit’s not funny. You were trying to get me in trouble ’cause you’re a snitch.”

Since fighting him was completely out of the question for a variety of reasons (I was naked, he was clearly more worked up than me so his adrenaline would’ve been a huge advantage for him, and it’s a personal policy of mine to not throw down in fisticuffs over baby back ribs), I decided to try to use my nakedness to my advantage and diffuse the situation the only logical way I saw fit.

Most of the guys on the team were some of the biggest homophobes on the planet, so I thought that my pork sword just flopping around out in the open would be my best defense and would successfully deter Noopy from starting a physical altercation. I made good use of my exposed wiener by saying to Noopy, “Just calm down. You know I don’t like it when you get angry. Look, every time you get all worked up like this, it makes me flaccid.”

This didn’t exactly work as planned. Noopy shoved me into the wall with both hands and yelled, “This isn’t a fucking joke!” Whoops.

A couple of teammates walked into the locker room and surely misinterpreted the sight of Noopy trying to pin my naked body up against a wall while he and I were the only two in the room. Upon realizing that Noopy wasn’t aggressively in the process of performing fellatio on me but was instead moments away from trying to beat me senseless, they rushed over to break everything up. Noopy shoved me again, whiffed on what would’ve been a powerful
punch to my face, dropped a bunch of F-bombs, and repeatedly alternated between calling me a “bitch” and a “snitch.”