Mark Snyder

Detroit Free Press

When his phone rang at midnight, Max Hooper was a little foggy.

Oakland University’s senior sharpshooter and his father talk constantly, with basketball always at the top of the list. For years, they’ve gone back and forth, walking Max’s basketball journey together.

But those calls are usually during waking hours.

This one was different, one he would remember forever, even if he wasn’t quite sure about it in the moment as Thursday turned into Friday.

“Why are you calling?” Max asked.

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know I will be there tomorrow,” Chip Hooper told his son.

Max didn’t know how to react.

Chip Hooper lives in Carmel, Calif., and has battled cancer for four years. In October, he suffered a debilitating stroke. He is far from his usual self, physically and mentally.

Before the stroke hit Oct. 22, he was living independently and had promised Max he would make it to every game he could this season.

Four months later, though, the potential last one would be his first one, Senior Night in Rochester.

Max was so energized after the call, he wasn’t sure he would fall back asleep.

But he did, quicker than expected.

As he sat alongside the O’rena court 24 hours after the phone call, an hour after he thanked the Oakland fans, posing for every last picture, and a half-hour after he watched his father head back to the airport and the return trip to the West Coast, Hooper tried to settle the emotions still rippling through him.

He went out on Senior Night with a 108-97 win Friday night, setting up Oakland for the No. 2 seed in next week’s Horizon League tournament.

But when the buzzer sounded, he shook hands with the Detroit Mercy players and bounded up the stairs to hug Chip, lying in a hospital bed on the concourse.

The moment, captured by ESPNU for the nation, raced across the Internet.

Click here to see video of Hooper embracing his dad.

For Max, though, it was private, even in a very public setting.

“It’s something we both embody, that will, that we won’t be denied,” Max said. “Him being here tonight is such a moment. You can’t replicate this moment. It comes around once in a lifetime. He didn’t promise me but said, 'I’m going to be at a game.' I believed he would.”

The father

Chip Hooper is described by his friends as a force.

As recently as 2014, the worldwide head of music for Paradigm Talent & Literary Agency was named No. 42 on Billboard’s Power 100.

His client list included Dave Matthews Band and Phish. He was a power broker in the music industry, a name known everywhere in the business.

He looked out for son's talent, too.

“This guy remembers everything that’s happened in (Max’s) entire life,” said Dan Weiner, a good friend and colleague. “He’s something.”

Max said he grew up looking at his dad as "invincible."

“We were on the basketball journey ever since I started playing at 4," Max said. "He was the dad who bought the Gatorade for all the AAU teams. He came on all the AAU trips. My senior year, we moved our entire family from Carmel, Calif., to Irvine, Calif., for me to go to a different high school for me (to play basketball).”

They didn’t know anything about prep schools, but they researched to find the best and found Max a spot at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire.

Every college visit Max took, Chip was along for the ride.

On and on, every opportunity possible, Chip was there to make it happen.

“My journey with basketball has been synonymous with my dad,” Max said.

Chip has the Midas touch and considers himself an expert in every area necessary.

“If he doesn’t know what to do, he’ll find the guy who knows what to do,” Max said. “His profession is in the music business, but when I transferred for my senior year of high school, he sought out the best high school, Mater Dei High School (in Santa Ana, Calif.), a powerhouse.”

When Tommy Amaker didn’t use Max enough at Harvard and Steve Lavin didn’t use him right at St. John’s, he came to Oakland.

“I have a special relationship with Mr. Hooper,” Oakland coach Greg Kampe said. “We recruited his kid three times. The last time, I called him on the phone and said, ‘I ain’t recruiting him this time. He belongs here. He should have always been here, and it’s up to you guys if he wants to come again.’ He chose for him to come. We keep in touch, and Chip Hooper’s a talker.

“Everything we’ve always talked about has been Max and winning.”

After a year of adjustment, Hooper has launched this season, hitting more three-pointers than he ever imagined, 102 now.

Entering Friday, he was most famous for not shooting a two-pointer this season. He hasn't taken one in 229 field-goal attempts. He has done national interviews in the past week, and "SportsCenter" featured him before Oakland’s game at Valparaiso last week.

Because of Friday and that final image, Hooper and his father serve as a reminder that these players are often dealing with far more than anyone realizes.

The season and the stroke

Max has resisted telling his father’s story because, while his father’s job is very public, Max is extremely private.

Even when his father was battling cancer for the past few years, going to Germany for treatments, Max preferred to keep the attention on basketball.

He wanted this season to be what he imagined and was preparing for it all summer, even working out in North Carolina with NBA player Anthony Morrow. Then the call came on Oct. 22, and his fast pace slammed on the brakes.

He flew out to California immediately, then went back and forth for three straight weekends.

“I was, like, shell-shocked,” Max said. " 'What is this? What is going on?' "

Sitting at Stanford hospital with his sister, Valerie, a junior at Duke, they looked at each other and wondered what to do.

Both were in college across the country and felt the pull to take care of their father. So Valerie took a semester off, moved home and became her father’s guide.

“I’m a college basketball player; I can’t do that,” Max said. “So I said, 'What do I do?' She said, ‘You’ve got to go kill it (on the court) for Dad.’ I feel like I’ve done that.”

He got a tattoo to match Valerie on the inside of his left wrist, scripted in Chip’s handwriting. It says, “Live.”

“I think about my dad every day,” Max said.

So when he got that call from Chip that he was coming, it energized him.

Which made Friday even more dramatic, as the day slowly built to a crescendo.

The texts came consistently from Valerie.

Leaving the house. Getting to the airport. Letting Max know everything was running smoothly.

“It’s a gigantically exciting moment,” said Weiner, who traveled with Chip, Valerie and a few others on a private plane from Monterrey, Calif., while other colleagues came from New York. “Chip wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

It pays to have friends in high places.

The chairman of Paradigm Talent Agency happens to be Sam Gores, whose brother happens to be Pistons owner Tom Gores, who happens to have a plane that he offered to transport Chip and friends across the country.

Chip and friends got on the plane in mid-afternoon and flew across the country. They got in an ambulance with paramedics and a car a little more than an hour before the 9 p.m. tip-off and were in the O’rena in enough time for Max to see them when he came out for his second warm-up.

“To see him come all the way from California here, just to see me?” Max said. “Not that I needed any added motivation, but that definitely was.”

Max walked onto the floor and was introduced with his mother, Laura, before the game. He got the Senior Day start, hit 3 of 4 three-pointers in the first half and was the major boost for Oakland he has been all season.

After the game, Kampe introduced Max and pointed out Chip to the crowd. Max had his opportunity to speak, and then the Oakland players followed their tradition of mingling with the fans for photos and autographs.

The line for the Hoopers was never-ending.

Max stayed by his father’s side for at least a half-hour. Oakland fans patted Chip on the arm and softly said, "We're praying for you." Max's roommate, Martez Walker, Oakland’s best player, Kay Felder, the assistant coaches, the players’ parents, they all came by to give Chip and Max a boost as Chip lay strapped in that bed, still sharing his thoughts with friends and family surrounding him.

It was the Oakland team rallying around one of its own.

By March 8, we’ll find out if the Golden Grizzlies have won the Horizon League tournament, clinching an invite to the NCAA tournament.

But Friday was a moment that will last much longer and Hooper will use to push himself through the tournament -- and beyond.

“My dad, the basketball journey has always been me and him, so he’s always propelled me,” Hooper said. “Not that I ever needed any added fuel for the fire, because I’m very intrinsically motivated. But how can that not drive you?”

Phish frontman Trey Anastasio salutes Chip Hooper from the stage in November in Oakland, Calif.:

Contact Mark Snyder atmsnyder@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @mark__snyder.