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The First Chapter of The Interim (2007) by Chris Earl.
There is something to knowing when you have hit the ceiling of your career. When, no matter how much you work on your craft, you simply don't move up. For years, I used to feel sorry for those minor league baseball players that would sludge back to Fargo or Lincoln for another summer of riding buses to Winnipeg or Sioux Falls, chasing the dream.
At 32, I was doing the same thing. Only no one felt sorry for me.
For two years, I had been working on my exit strategy. Most people thinking being a sportscaster in Green Bay, Wisconsin is a male occupational fantasy. Covering the Packers every week, flying to Chicago and Minneapolis as part of the NFL media pack.
Only I was still a second-stringer. After six years of hacking it out as the weekend guy, complete with sub-par paychecks and being assigned to work each Christmas Day, it was time to look around.
Tom Bartone could see the whole of my career as he looked over my resume. I had made it this far, to the interview of an intriguing job.
"So you've been on the other side for, let's see, ten years now?" Tom said, scratching his mustache. "You know, I can't stand the media in this town." Tom chuckled.
""That's why I'm here, to get out of media but stay in sports." I wanted to call the mustached man "Coach Bartone" but I hadn't called a coach "Coach" in years.
"I see, I see" Tom replied, fidgeting with a pair of brown reading glasses that looked out of place on him.
It was clear Tom Bartone ran the trains of the Wisconsin State men's basketball program. Bobby Luzioni was the head coach of the Boars, but Tom Bartone made sure Luzioni looked like the millionaire he was.
"Well, your background is pretty impressive. I'll admit that," Tom said. Just hearing those words sent chills back to me. News directors always got out of hiring me for sports jobs, but they would do it gently.
"Hang on," Tom said, scratching his white-and-blue striped dress shirt. "I'm going to bring in Coach Luzioni for a second."
A good sign.
Tom punched a few buttons on his black phone console. He murmured something into the phone, loud enough to hear but not loud enough where he wanted me to hear it clearly.
"Coach Luzioni will be right in."
This was the moment six years of dealing with overpaid coaches helped me. After interviewing the likes of NFL coaches, chatting up a major college men's basketball head coach wouldn't turn me into a stuttering idiot.
Tom and I sat in the uncomfortable silence of a job interview, when the poor guy getting the third degree doesn't say anything, strictly for self-incrimination purposes.
Behind Tom, a white door with blue letters swung open. The bold, silver-painted letters on the door, "BoarsBall", disappeared and the image of Bobby Luzioni came towards me. I had covered his teams a handful of times from Green Bay, but I doubted he had any clue as to my own background.
"Hi, Bobby Luzioni." He said it with just conviction, the same gleam in his right eye that turned on-the-fence blue-chippers away from Wisconsin or Illinois or Michigan and onto the campus of Wisconsin State. Luzioni was in his seventh year at WSU and the Boars were ranked in the pre-season for the first time since 1977. Ranked 23rd with lofty expectations. Wisconsin State had finally turned the corner.
I stood up to shake his hand. "Robb Markstran. Good to meet you." I tried to meet the coach's confidence but I was country miles behind the slick basketball boss.
"So, you're getting out of the media? Or at least looking to?" Luzioni asked, his gelled hair revealing a touch more gray hair than I had seen in the past, even in the previous March when Wisconsin State was knocked out of the NIT in the second round.
"Trying to. It's been a great ride, but I think it's time."
Luzioni nodded. Tom sat there at the desk, motionless but probably thinking of his next bag of Beijing House. The pecking order of college basketball ruled here. Tanned, toned head coaches, overweight, unkempt assistants. All of those miles of driving throughout the Upper Midwest turned Tom into a heart attack waiting to happen between now and March.
"Well, Robb," the head coach continued. "We're looking to fill this by the start of practice next week. We'll have the Midnight by the Moonlight practice at 12:01, just like every other program does these days. When can you start?"
Another good sign. "I could be here in two weeks, October the 21st, if that's not too late,". I wanted to stick it to WGBY-TV, especially after they hired some clown from Rhinelander as the new sports director instead of just moving me up to the main chair.
"Not too late at all," Luzioni said, the shine of the lights glowing off his olive forehead. "I'll be straight up with you now: You are the best candidate, from a professional and sports background. Normally when we look to hire a Director of Basketball Operations, I like to throw a former player or a promising future coach in there. You present the professional side of it. You have clearly sold your organizational skills and ability to work within all sorts of media."
I nodded. Keep the praise coming and don't splash this pond of promise.
"Is the job description clear to you?" Luzioni asked. Tom was nearly asleep as the head coach had gobbled up complete control of the conversation.
"I think so. I get the sense you don't need a basketball mind for this. Just a person who can make your life easier." I smiled back, trying to match this guy's permanent grin.
Luzioni laughed. "Tommy," he looked away from me as the assistant came back to life, "he wants to make my life easier. That's the funniest damn thing I've heard since the last guy we hired for this job."
Tom laughed on cue.
"Look, Robb, there are three things that I really, I mean, really, want from the person we hire: One, make sure the practice times are drawn up each morning. If we've got practice at 3:15, the building needs to be ready for use by three. Two, the same for the buses and the planes. I don't have time, the coaches don't have time for that bullshit. I got enough to worry about without having to wonder whether we have boarding passes for everyone. Three, I need some damn loyalty. It gets hot around here with the media always sniffin' around, trying to find some impropriety. We run this joint cleaner than those dopes over at Wisconsin, but the media is always bustin' my balls."
Ah, yes, the dig at Wisconsin, not only WSU's in-state rival but also in-city rival. Both Wisconsin and Wisconsin State shared Madison, UW on Lake Mendota and WSU on Lake Monona. Three miles separated the centers of campus.
Wisconsin State was in an awkward position. For a Big Ten school, they were still seen, by many in the state, as a glorified teacher's college. Wisconsin State was also the 11th team to enter the Big Ten, but that didn't translate into basketball success. The school administrators tried to build a first-rate football program, modeling it after Wisconsin. Yet once a gambling scandal sunk it, the professors and provosts decided to move over to basketball.
They brought in Bobby Luzioni, fresh from an NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance at Bradley. If some kid from Keokuk, Iowa, had missed that three-point shot in the Missouri Valley Conference championship game against Illinois State years before, then Bradley would have lost and Luzioni would probably still be coaching in Peoria. But Luzioni's Bradley Braves caught fire in the NCAA tournament, knocking off Wake Forest and then UCLA. His feet were already pointing to Madison when Bradley finally lost to Syracuse. Luzioni was named the head coach at Wisconsin State the following Monday.
"Loyalty won't be a problem, I'm sure," Luzioni said. "Let's see. You didn't go to Wisconsin. UMKC, huh?"
I couldn't help but smile. "The Fightin' Kangaroos of the University of Missouri-Kansas City."
"Ya know, Robb, I lost out on a recruit from Chicago to UMKC. I'm still pissed about that one."
A test? He had to be testing me. "Maybe," I said, pulling something out of my backside, "maybe he just wanted more playing time. UMKC isn't exactly chock full of All-Americans."
Bobby Luzioni nodded again, a smile morphing from the frown. "You want this job?"
Test passed.
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