RISE ABOVE
I.
My brother Kral could get his hand twenty-one inches above the rim. He had a long body, and lithe, lean face and dark eyes, large hands, quick feet, fast, fearless, unemotional even under great pressure. For two years during high school he worked his legs twice a day, once in the dark a.m., and again at night, a regimen of squats and the Leaper Machine (a contraption used at breakneck speed to load weight on the quick-twitch muscles in the glutes, hams, and calves in order to develop them). The thing was later deemed a risk for back and knee problems and was recalled, but Kral came away from it clean and at the end of the two years he knew what it took to get to the next level. He was from small town Montana, white as milk, and he could jump out of the gym. And he was coveted, a wiry left-handed swing man with a 45” vertical who could both defend and score—a dominant, lethal force.
He had come from the Northern Cheyenne reservation, from St. Labre where he was the only white kid in the high school and they called him Special K, and Vanilla Thunder. He came to Park High and McLoud Island in Livingston, a subtle offshoot of the Yellowstone River, an all-white school. Though he was already a legend on the rez, Kral was nothing in Livingston. Then in his junior season he led the team to the state tournament. Livingston hadn’t gone to state for eleven years. And in his senior season he led the team to the title game. By then I had joined him, a thin sophomore point guard. Kral took us there, and I loved him for it. At the close of the first quarter in front of eight thousand at the Metra, He drove the middle on a one-foot launch, put his hip on the defender’s head and whipped a left-handed windmill that nearly took the rim down.
The fans rose in a grand conflagration, a roar that deafened the ears and made the heart pound half out of the casing. He was voted the most valuable player. We won by 40.
II.
A YEAR LATER he was gone on a full-ride at Montana State, playing for the Bobcats in Max Worthington Arena, and I missed him. Small crowds, horrid team; a fifteen-year cold spell. Midway through the season the coach gave Kral no minutes until they were down one with ten seconds left. The coach put him in, Kral took the last shot and missed. Baseline jumper, short corner. The coach didn’t play him again for five games.
But Kral was tougher than I imagined. Two years later, I had joined him at Montana State, I played shooting guard now, Kral on the wing. Kral had the team on his back again, lifting us to where we wanted to be. He wore Converse Star Techs, mid-cut sleek, a few years forward from the Superstars donned by Julius “The Doctor” Erving. Worthington Arena was sold out, packing in close to ten thousand every game, overselling it so people were forced to stand on the rails up near the rafters. We were the last place team in the Big Sky Conference when Kral and the point guard, Tony Hampton, gave us a seven-game win streak and put us in the championship game of the Big Sky Tournament. The winner would advance to the NCAA’s, the field of 64, the Big Dance. March Madness. Pure glory. Fat dollars for the school and huge elation for any player who ever loved the sound of the ball in the net. We were playing cross-state rival, the Grizzlies, from the University of Montana, late night on ESPN. Because of Montana State’s losing tradition, everyone was waiting for us to die. Kral saw it differently. He was a rebounder, a defender, and a superb mid-range scorer. He rarely shot it deep. The school hadn’t made the NCAA tournament in twenty years.
Kral hit five long, beautiful threes.
We won.
III.
NOW THE NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT, and on to Long Beach for the Southwest Regional where we’d face St. John’s, a school of sixty-four thousand students in New York City. The Redmen were ranked #3 in the country behind player of the year, Walter Berry, stellar point guard Marc Jackson, 6’9” swing man Shelton Jones, and small forward Willie Glass. All four would end up in the NBA. But crowds love the underdog and early on Kral sprinted the wing like a gazelle, cutting a wide angle to the hoop. He rounded the corner, got the smooth dish from our point guard, Tony Hampton and took off. Shelton Jones met him at the summit. Jones later won the NBA dunk contest and likely he thought he’d throw this farm boy stuff out of the gym. Again, Kral saw it differently; he rose up and from three feet over Jones, Kral cupped the ball high in the Tomahawk. When he turned it on Jones, it was over –A thunderous throw down that brought the house down, Kral smashing it through with majestic force. Foul on Jones. Three-point play, Jones’ face a look of dismay. There was a wide open roar and a high ring in my ears that was almost painful. I couldn’t hear Hampton screaming defenses.
For a moment, for that moment I saw it, I saw art and beauty, because of Kral. Coming home from the tournament the Montana fans packed the airport at Gallatin Field outside Bozeman. Kral was making his way through the mass of people, giving them high fives, and he had that look in his eye of joy and ease, like it was a normal day. We didn’t even win the game, but he’d done what we hoped for, made us all fall in love with the dream.
Shann Ferch is a former camper and coach played at Montana State and Pepperdine as well as the top professional league in Germany. Ferch went on to become the 2nd leading three point shooter in the league. Shann is a professor of Doctoral studies in leadership at Gonzaga and recently won the Bakeless award for short story fiction. Visit his website at www.shannray.com
