Last Shot (13 page)

“So he comes over with bagels. I make coffee, we sit down. He says to me that there’s a problem that, unfortunately, has to be dealt with and it is out of his hands and he’s really, really sorry to be the one to have to tell me about this. I’m scared. I thought my dad was sick or something. But then I’m thinking if my dad was sick, why would Whiting be the one telling me? He’s around the team a lot but he’s not close to my dad or anything. I mean, he doesn’t know anything about basketball. He’s my ethics professor.”

“Funny thing,” Stevie said.

Graber looked at him quizzically for a second, then nodded his head. “Yeah, how about that,” he said.

“So I ask him what the heck he’s talking about and he finally says to me, ‘Chip, there’s a problem with your transcript.’
I’m baffled. Look, I’ve never been much of a student. I’ve known all along that I want to play pro ball, and, unlike a lot of other guys, people tell me I’m not fooling myself.”

“I remember reading that you would have been a lottery pick if you’d put your name in the draft last year,” Susan Carol said.

He nodded. “Exactly. Probably one of the top ten picks. But I wanted to play one more year for my dad, and I knew we had a chance to be real good. Not many teams in the country have four senior starters. So I came back. I
did
have some academic problems last spring, but they all got resolved.”

“What kind of problems?” Susan Carol asked.

He shook his head. “I flunked a class,” he said.

“One class is a big deal?” Stevie was surprised.

“No, not by itself,” he said. “But I’ve been on academic probation a couple of times. Silly stuff. Always happens in season because I get behind, especially in March when we’re away from campus so much. At the end of my sophomore year, I was a couple classes shy of the NCAA minimums. I had to go to summer school so I could play my junior year—which I did. But that meant I was on probation. When I flunked that class in the spring, it put me back on probation.”

“Which meant what?”

“It meant I couldn’t flunk a class fall semester or I couldn’t play.”

“And did you?”

“No. But this is where it gets complicated. Whiting said that ‘someone’ had a transcript of mine that showed I
flunked
two
classes last spring. I said that was impossible. That’s when he
showed me
the transcript. Someone must have gone into the computer system at school and changed my grade in Econ 300 from a C+ to an F.”

“Which would mean what?” Susan Carol asked.

“It would mean I wasn’t eligible to play fall semester—our first twelve games of the season.”

“Can’t you just go to the Econ professor and get him to say something got messed up in the computer?”

“Professor Scott,” Graber said. “Great guy.”

“And?” they both said at once.

“And he died last summer. Heart attack.”

“Oh boy,” Stevie said.

“Wait a minute,” Susan Carol said. “Someone else must have seen your grade. A dean or something.”

“Actually, four people saw it,” Graber said. “My mom and dad, and you’re right, the dean who was my academic advisor.”

“That’s three.”

Graber nodded. “Right. The fourth was Whiting, our team’s faculty advisor.”

“Okay,” Susan Carol said. “Your parents still have the report card, right?”

“There are no report cards anymore. We get our grades sent by computer. None of us kept my grades from last spring on file. It isn’t as if I made the dean’s list.”

“But that still leaves the dean.”

Graber nodded. “Dean Benjamin Wojenski. I’ve been looking for him all week.”

“Looking for him?”

“He retired last summer. I called his old secretary; I called the alumni office; I called the dean of students’ office; I even called the president’s office.”

“And?”

“They all said the same thing. Can’t give out personal information on a member of the faculty or even an ex-member of the faculty. Of course I couldn’t tell them why I need to find him, and that probably didn’t help. I finally got them all to agree to contact him and give him my numbers.”

“And you haven’t heard from him?” Susan Carol asked.

“Not a word. Which, if they did contact him, is strange because my dad has known him for about twenty years.”

“But your dad has only been at Minnesota State for six years,” Stevie said.

“Yeah, I know. But a long time ago he was an assistant coach and then the head coach at Davidson. Wojenski was an English professor there and a big basketball fan. We lost track of him when my dad left Davidson to take the job at DePaul. But when he got hired at MSU, there was Wojenski, only now he was a dean.”

“You think that’s all coincidence?” Susan Carol asked.

“All I know is, I haven’t been able to find him. I even put in a call to the alumni office at Davidson. Someone there actually called me back and left a message saying she might be able to help, but I haven’t heard from her since, and when I try to call, I get voice mail.”

“What’s her name?” Susan Carol asked, producing a notebook suddenly.

Graber shrugged. “I don’t know what good it will do, but her name’s Christine Braman. Her office number’s 704-555-4190. I know it by heart at this point.”

“Did you try to get a home number?” Susan Carol asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Graber said. “There was no one named Braman in the phone book anywhere near Davidson. But if she had any information for me, she would have it at the office.”

“Makes sense. So, what happened Monday morning with Whiting?” Stevie asked, bringing him back to his story.

“Oh yeah, I got kind of sidetracked, didn’t I?” He looked at his watch. Stevie looked at his. It was 11:20.

“Okay, so Whiting tells me there’s this problem with my transcript from the spring. To tell the truth, I’m not that upset at first, I figure it’s just a mistake and he, as the team’s faculty advisor, is here to help straighten it out. But then Whiting says there’s no mistake.

“I ask him what the hell he’s talking about. And he says to me, ‘And you also flunked a course in the fall. Which means you were ineligible to play both semesters. Add that up and you’re looking at causing the school to forfeit every game it won this year, the conference title, making the Final Four, not to mention facing a serious NCAA investigation because your dad knowingly used an ineligible player.’

“I say, ‘Slow down. I didn’t flunk a course this fall.’ That’s when he produced another transcript. And this transcript shows I did flunk a course.”

“Which one?” Stevie asked.

“Why don’t you take a wild guess,” Chip said.

Stevie and Susan Carol looked at one another. They got the answer at the exact same moment: “Ethics and Morals …”

“In American Society Today,” Chip said, finishing the sentence for them. “Taught by Thomas R. Whiting. I got a B in that damn class, a legitimate B, not one of those Bs I get sometimes because the prof loves hoops. He hands me this transcript and it’s got a big fat F for a grade in Ethics and Morals.”

“Which is when you knew he was blackmailing you,” Stevie said.

“It’s when I knew something was rotten in Denmark.”

“Denmark?” Stevie said.

“
Hamlet
,” Susan Carol said. “You haven’t read
Hamlet
?”

Stevie felt himself redden a little bit.

“Even I’ve read
Hamlet
,” Chip said. “The Cliffs Notes anyway. Point is, I knew he was up to no good. I handed him back the transcript and I said, ‘What’s this all about?’ That’s when he told me we have to get to the championship game, and then we have to lose. Otherwise these false transcripts will be made public and there’s no way for me to prove they’re false. He’s got documentation. I’ve got nothing.”

“And you’re pretty convinced he isn’t in this alone?” It was Susan Carol who asked. Stevie had been wondering about that, too.

“He’s fronting for others, I’m sure. When I said something about it being his word against mine and my dad’s if he went public, he just smiled and said, ‘Trust me, Chip, that won’t be the case.’ I suppose he could be bluffing, but I
don’t think so. For one thing, he’d probably need help from someone to break into the computer system and make the changes in my grades.”

“A computer whiz?”

“Or someone pretty high up. For all his fancy titles, he’s still just a faculty member.”

“What does your dad think about all this?” Stevie asked.

Chip shook his head. “Nothing. I haven’t told him. It would ruin the biggest week of his life. And he can’t do any more than I can. If he comes out and says I didn’t flunk those courses, he just looks like a coach covering up
and
a father covering up. Double whammy.”

“Which means the best hope is finding Dean Wojenski,” Susan Carol said.

“Even that’s no sure thing. I’m sure he sees a lot of transcripts. If he’s retired, who’s to say he’s got his records with him or even has access to them back at school.”

“Still, he may be our only hope,” Stevie said.

“Our
hope?” Chip said, laughing. “You an MSU fan, Steve?”

Stevie reddened even more than he had after his
Hamlet
blunder. “No, but I don’t want to see them get away with this,” he said.

“Well, my friend,” Chip Graber said, “on that we can agree.”

IT WAS GETTING CLOSE TO NOON
, and Chip had to get to his walk-through with the team, so they decided to do some quick planning.

“What I really want to do is win tonight and
then
worry about Monday,” Chip said. “I have to believe there’s a way for us to win the national championship without Whiting ruining everything.”

“If they did go public, it wouldn’t just affect MSU, would it?” Susan Carol said. “It would probably hurt your pro career, too.”

Chip smiled. “That’s the one thing it probably wouldn’t affect. The NBA couldn’t care less if you were ineligible, if you flunked out of school, if you broke the law, or if you’re mean to little old ladies and children. Those guys only care
if you can win games. But it would affect my marketing. I’ve already got people lining up to pay me to sell their products. If it came out that my dad and I somehow conspired to keep me on the court when I was ineligible, that would come to a screeching halt.

“But that isn’t what this is about. This is about right and wrong. I’m not a cheat and neither is my father, and these sleazebags are trying to make some kind of killing betting on a game or else
we’ll
be the ones people think are bad guys.”

The plan they concocted before Chip had to go downstairs was fairly simple: Susan Carol and Stevie would track down the woman at Davidson who had at least said she would try to help Chip find Wojenski. Susan Carol, naturally, knew all about Davidson. “It’s a very good school with a great basketball history,” she said. “They play Duke every year.”

Stevie resisted the urge to make a smart remark about the importance of playing Duke. Especially since Susan Carol had a good plan: If there was no answer in Christine Braman’s office (likely), call the campus police and say there was an emergency and could they help them get in touch with her right away.

“Should have thought of that myself,” Chip said.

“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” Susan Carol said.

If Christine Braman couldn’t help, they would go back to the Minnesota State angle. Chip gave them several names of faculty members he thought might have been friendly enough with Wojenski to have some idea where he now lived. The key, they decided, was finding a number for
Wojenski by tomorrow, when the plot would be in play if MSU won tonight.

Stevie came up with the idea of trying to track down Chip’s Econ professor’s family. He might have died, but his school records could still be around.

“We’ll do what we can this afternoon,” Susan Carol said. “If you guys win tonight, we should probably make plans to talk tomorrow.”

“Let me give you my cell phone number,” he said. “It will be crazy in the locker room after the game, and we may not get a chance to talk. If we don’t, call me on the cell.”

He walked them to the door. There was no sign of Mike the Giant in the hallway. They wished him luck in the game and he nodded gravely. They were halfway down the hall when Stevie heard a door open behind them.

“Hey, guys,” Graber called softly. They turned and he said, “I forgot to say thanks. Whatever happens, thanks.”

“Thank us when this is all over,” Stevie said.

“I will,” he said. “But thanks now.” He waved and shut the door.

Stevie looked at Susan Carol. “We’ve got to get him out of this.”

They were going to take a cab back to the Hyatt to save time, but there was a line of people waiting for cabs, so they started walking toward the Hilton, hoping to catch another shuttle bus. Stevie wished he had won the argument with his dad about a cell phone. “We’re not that late,” Stevie said.

“No, but my dad doesn’t like me to be late at all,” Susan Carol said. “He worries.”

It was twelve-forty-five when they walked into the Hyatt lobby. Not surprisingly, both fathers were standing there waiting for them.