MICHIGAN’S MR. BASKETBALL RANKINGS MY SENIOR YEAR

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“Tone, get up. Keep fighting.”

It was Kent State tradition for upperclassmen to pass on work ethic, grit, and effort that went above and beyond any team in the country. Antonio Gates had never seen how our Kent State culture meshed and how hard our team worked. We were a clusterfuck of unwanted, misfit high school and college basketball players. Antonio, somehow, was a lot like us. He left behind Michigan State as a freshman because they wanted him to be a pass rusher and stop playing hoops. He said “no thanks” and left for Eastern Michigan, which was odd because I remembered playing him there as sophomores. Now Antonio was a year younger than me—a junior, out of shape and softer than usual. Demetric Shaw, our hulking, 6-foot-3 three-man, tried to reach down and grab his hand.

“Get your ass up. You can do this. You ain’t having no heart attack again,” Shaw laughed. “You just ain’t in shape, and there’s only one way to get in shape. Be our brother. Get up.”

Antonio was bent to one knee when he spit on the floor. “Nawww, man. Naww, I’m dying. I’ll do it again.”

Coach Heath yelled, “Back on the line. Let’s go gentlemen. Ten seconds. Tone will have to try again next week.”

“Hold on coach. He’s finishing this last one with us. Tone, you can’t beat me in a sprint. You are too slow for me,” I said.

“Shut up, Huff. You ain’t faster than me.”

“Bet.”

No big man had ever beat me in a sprint—ever. In fact, I felt I was the fastest on the team. My first step could get me the lead most days, and it was our final day of conditioning. It was our last test. We had one more to go. Tone couldn’t quit. Not now. Not while he was so close.

I winced. The thought of doing this again made my bowels churn. “Tone, you aren’t faster than me.”

His face changed. He sat up, breathing deeply, like a man sobering up to drive home. He pushed himself off the ground rather gravely and walked to the line.

“Last one, fellas,” Coach Heath yelled. “No pressure but Mateen Cleaves used to run to the bleachers and back on the last set.” I had no fear about making it. Back with Gary Waters, we were tighter and better conditioned than a Navy Seal team.

“Trevor, I’m going to beat you.”

“To the backstop?”

“Don’t matta, man. Sure,” he said, with a perfect Detroit drawl.

The whistle blew, and I sprinted 94 feet towards the end of the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center (MACC), the place I called home. The place that gave me the chance to make my Division I basketball dreams come true. I thought about Tone and remembered my freshman year, how I wanted to pass out on the Big Blue track, coming into Gary Water’s culture with Ed, Pope, Lerk-dog, JC, Geoff, Al, and Kyreem Massey. Those guys had taught me the way. Do your best. Never stop fighting. Stay together. Be a family. We used to run through campus with our shirts off screaming at the top of our lungs, “Who’s time is it? OUR TIME! BLUE DOGS!”

“PFFFFF. PFFFF. PFFFF. PFFFF.”

I peeked over my shoulder—a rookie mistake. It was Antonio fucking Gates motivated to win. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t grinning. He wasn’t laughing. He was as focused and calm as I’d ever seen him. This dude was coming for me.

“PFFF. PFFF. PFFFF. PFFFF.”

Every arm swing cut across his body like an axe. At half court, he was catching me. At the other free throw line, he was tied with me. I pushed hard with my last few strides. There was no one near us—just me and him. Fuck. He’s going to beat me. I felt the fear and adrenaline twist into me like a Detroit, Apple Jack addict.

I felt the burn of my legs, the sensation of fire and hot blood and charcoal in my lungs. I sprinted, unbridled, as hard as I’ve ever sprinted in my life. He will not beat me. He will not beat me. He will not beat me. There was no faster gear for me than this, and Antonio Gates did what he said he was going to do. He passed me in a blaze of fury and wind, breathing like Usain Bolt with a megaphone attached to his face.

It was official. I had lost my first race ever to a big man named Antonio Gates.