Overtime, and the inmates are cheering.
”Whose house?”
”Our house.”
”Whose house?”
”Our house.”
Prison spirit.
Even on hard time, hoop time is a good time. This is the seventh and final game of the day-long Danville Correctional Center tournament, and overtime seems like a bonus. New clock, five more minutes, ticking down. Maybe it`s the clock itself they are cheering.
Home team and No. 1 seed Danville had blown a 12-point halftime lead. Jacksonville`s 5-foot-7-inch Michael Blair, smallest man on the court, filled it up with 14 points in five minutes, no misses. He was stealing the game.
Prison walls can`t keep March Madness out. The only guys wearing stripes this day are referees, the bad guys no matter where they whistle.
”They cost me $45 a session here. At my church, they only cost me $25,” warden Mike Neal said.
The players aren`t handcuffed and they don`t drag balls and chains on their fast breaks. Can`t tell the players without a scorecard, which reads Blair, N-92459. But if that were his jersey number, the refs would have a heck of a time signaling fouls.
There are regular uniforms and shoes bought with commissary money. There is a modern gym with bleachers bought with taxpayer money. There are away games.
”It`s a good league,” said Kenneth Shannon of Galesburg Hill Correctional Center, who like many inmates used to play in the Public League. Shannon is coaching his team because the regular coach is on vacation. Shannon is in for armed robbery and has decided when he gets out this summer, he wants to coach and play ball, help kids if he can.
”It`s where my real heart is. This is what I`m about. Basketball. This is me,” he said.
There`s no recruiting here. Inmates try out for the team and earn the right to participate after school or work. There are more inmates baking chocolate chip cookies in Sue Miller`s culinary arts class meeting at the same time as the tournament.
Danville edged Galesburg 77-76 in the semifinal. Danville had lost its 6-7 inside force, Antoine ”the Dunkmaster” Davison, a 19-year-old from Collins High School who got out two weeks earlier and has a collegiate future. ”UNLV called to ask about him,” said assistant warden Augustus Scott.
After Galesburg, Jacksonville was supposed to be easy. But Danville lived up to its nickname, ”Kardiac Attack,” and Blair`s play had the underdogs up by 10 with less than five minutes left in regulation.
”It`s over,” muttered distraught Danville guard Matthew Norman.
Johnny Knighten, a fan and inmate (”I got season tickets.”) stalked out, waving in disgust at his team and its staff coach, Greg Watson.
The tendency to give up is something that has bothered Watson and other observers, including inmate John New, sports columnist of the prison newspaper, the Danville Vanguard. New had urged the Kardiac Attack to resolve personal conflicts and belligerent attitudes for the good of the team.
Varsity basketball is only part of the prison`s Leisure Time Services, supervised by Keith Nelson. There is everything from drama workshop to table tennis.
”I push sports as hard as I can,” warden Neal said. ”It takes a tremendous strain off our officers. It gives the inmates an outlet. I want them to come in tired. Plus, they feel better about themselves. There`s a degree of pride they didn`t have before.”
Boxer Hymme Hogue and trainer Daniel Jamison are advertising the March 27 Central Regional tournament. Weightlifter John Clay gets out in July and wants to open a gym. He has issued a challenge to any heavyweight lifter who is drug free.
”I don`t even take vitamins,” Clay said.
The lessons sports offer, however, are secondary in this environment to the time they take.
”I think sports are the key to the institutions,” inmate Shannon said.
”I think there would be a lot of murders, mischief, sexual offenses in here if you didn`t have sports.”
Fewer than half the inmates graduated from high school. A third are functionally illiterate. Neal said the ”greatest thing” that ever happened in the prison system was mandatory education for inmates who can`t test above 6th-grade reading.
Basketball adds structure to many lives born and reared in chaos.
”They can`t be tardy, can`t play hooky,” Neal said. ”The unfortunate thing is when they come off the streets, this is better than what some have had.”
For a while, young Davison was a problem because he had grown accustomed to an outside system that caters to athletes.
”He decided he had talent and should be taken care of in here,” Neal said. ”He regressed from a minimum to a maximum prison before he got to us
(medium). He hadn`t fit in anywhere.”
Davison was lucky. After serving 15 months of his robbery sentence, he was out. Charles Mitchell is doing 40 years for murder. He has been in for 10, since he was 16, and isn`t eligible for parole until 2000.
”I didn`t know what basketball was on the West Side. I love playing now. Can`t keep me away. I don`t even let the time bother me. It keeps my time occupied,” Mitchell said.
Galesburg`s Danell ”Doc” Nicholson nearly knocked Danville out by himself in the semifinal. Not surprisingly, the 6-3 Nicholson also is the state heavyweight boxing champion. When he gets out next summer, he will be 23 and still hopes for some kind of sports career.
”I`m an athlete,” he said. ”I know the NBA or CBA is probably not possible. But hopefully, something will come through. I`m leaning toward boxing.”
For Nicholson, prison basketball ”means a whole lot. It keeps your mind on something positive. Helps keep your mind off other things, like family or family problems or dealing with police.”
There was even one game in East Moline, Nicholson remembers, when he got so involved he thought he was free. ”I thought I was at the Park District,” he said.
Nicholson, in the semifinal, was scoring at will underneath against Danville until coach Watson got some unexpected help from PA announcer Eddie Fisher and timekeeper William Griggs, both inmates.
”If you don`t want to play, sit down and let somebody else play,”
Griggs screamed.
”Whose house?” Fisher yelled into the microphone.
As PA announcer, Fisher also was providing nonstop play-by-play. ”He shakes and bakes, it`s off the back of the rim.” He talked for 12 straight hours and then stood on his chair and led cheers. No way this smiling 35-year- old could be doing 30 years for murder.
So now, in the final, Danville is behind Jacksonville and Matthew Norman has given up. A day of hope and expectation is going to end in another night of despair. Basketball was looking too much like real life. It was 100-91 with less than two minutes left in regulation when Norman dribbled up court and popped a three-pointer. Quickly, he hit another one, making it 100-97 with 1:38 to go.
With :55 left, it was 104-99. Mitchell scored from underneath to draw within three. With :30 left, Chris Lipscomb hit a three to tie.
”Whose house?” Fisher yelled.
Now, there`s a timeout and Knighten, the fan who had left, is back. But he`s not in the stands; he`s at the bench, helping Watson coach. Players are getting rubdowns from inmates.
”Whose house?”
Danville hits 11 of 13 free throws in the overtime to win 121-114 and advance to the state tournament March 20.
”The best team won,” said Blair, who had 38 points in defeat.
”You use sports as a way to cope,” Norman said. ”I`ve never been incarcerated before. I was just out one night with friends and did something silly. Made a mistake. Robbery. It`s embarrassing. These are the consequences when you don`t think.”
But this doesn`t seem so bad, does it? It`s basketball. It`s fun. There`s cheering. High fives.
It`s prison. Just as the final game was at its intense best, a prison guard with a clipboard walked down the bench and around the bleachers taking names, blocking the beautiful view of Blair scoring his 38 points.
Fisher interrupted his play-by-play for the following announcement:
”Stay right where you`re at, so the man can get his count.”
”You never forget where you are,” Norman said.
