The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty by Adrian Wojnarowski

Author:Adrian Wojnarowski [Wojnarowski, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2006-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT THREE days of practice should’ve been used to stay sharp with two easy games at the end of the week: Morris Catholic on Thursday, and Monmouth Regional at St. John’s University on Saturday. After that, it was February and the schedule grew progressively tougher with the state tournament on the horizon. Quietly, there started to be talk about the possibility of an unbeaten season, but it sure didn’t come from Hurley. That kind of talk was about the last thing these kids could handle. In February, they would face bigger, stronger teams—Niagara Falls, Our Savior of New American and the game everyone had circled on the schedule, St. Raymond’s of New York City, the jewel of the New York City Catholic League.

That was a long way away. If nothing else, this was a good week to get Lamar sharper. Otis could start running late in the week and perhaps return to practice by the weekend. As much as anything, they needed to start taking complete shape as a team. They needed everybody for the stretch run. There were just under four weeks left in the regular season, and this team was finding its stride.

Yes, this should’ve been an easy week, and probably would’ve been if Marcus and Barney hadn’t blown off a midterm exam on Friday. Gamble had been made aware on Saturday that they had missed the tests, and told them they had better retake them on Monday. After the weekend, Marcus came to school to retake the test, but insisted that his mother didn’t have the $10 fine he needed to pay to sit for the makeup. “I just figured that I would take the exam on Tuesday,” he would say.

And Barney? He never showed. To compound matters, some of the seniors came late to school on Tuesday morning. Sister Felicia called Gamble, leaving him to tell Hurley.

Of course, Hurley exploded.

When everyone arrived at practice Tuesday afternoon, Hurley slammed the locker-room door shut and thundered into the team for twenty minutes—hitting all the familiar themes of irresponsibility, immaturity and imminent life failure. It wasn’t a coincidence that Marcus had scored six points against Linden, and two points against Lawrence. “He’s sloppy in his life now and it carries over,” Hurley said.

He suspended Marcus and Barney for the Morris Catholic game on Thursday night, and considered the possibility of sitting them on Saturday, too. More than ever, Hurley was convinced he had made a wise move sending Miles back down to junior varsity. That way, there was far less of a chance of these seniors contaminating him.

Among them, there was a sense that they were going to junior college anyway, and because those were open admissions, all they needed to do was graduate. Barney was a different story. At six-foot-five and a low Division I prospect, he was stuck somewhere between the complete academic disaster of the senior class and the honor roll juniors, Ahmad, Derrick and Sean.

Gamble called Barney Anderson Sr., a construction worker, to touch base with him.

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