The next game of the tournament was being held at Mahoney Gym over at City College. Everybody was nervous, even though they didn’t want to say anything. Lenny started this thing about who was going to be the coach and stuff, and I sounded on him. What Lenny could do was to play a pretty good game against white cats who didn’t play no ball. He couldn’t play against no black cats, and he couldn’t play against white cats who could play ball because he didn’t really have the heart.

When I sounded, Ox said he thought I should be coach, and so did Paul, which blew my mind and Lenny’s. I thought Paul would have backed Lenny again.

We didn’t have any trouble finding City College, but we had all kinds of trouble finding the gym. When we got there, the place was packed. This fat cat ran up to us as soon as we got there and asked who the coach was, and I said that he’d be a little late and I’d be taking care of things. He said he needed a lineup card right away. I told Lenny to make it out.

“That’s supposed to make me feel good?” he said.

I didn’t know if it was, but it sure did. My man was grinning and running around like he was a producer or something. There were television cameras there, too. I had seen games at Mahoney on television. Being on the tube was pretty hip. There were a few reporters in the locker room, asking what it meant to us to be exposed to scouts and things like that. I could see that it was getting everybody a little uptight, so I went over and asked the reporters if we could have a few minutes alone. I didn’t think they were all going to just leave, but they did, and everybody looked at me to say something. I knew a little about the team we were going to be playing, so I ran that down to them.

“What they got,” I said, “is three nice brothers who can bound and this one big white boy named Tomkins who’s supposed to be all-world. He’s supposed to be going to some big-name college next year. He got that Rick Barry style, passing through the lanes, and he can shoot good from anywhere. Now the thing is, you know if you get near him, the whistle is going to blow. So if you think you’re going to foul the sucker, knock the pee out of him so he knows he ain’t playing no Mickey Mouses.”

“You can hold him, Lonnie,” Walter said.

“Right,” I said. “But he’s going to want to be the star, so if we lock him up right away, he might give us the game. Ox, you fall off if he comes low and help out. Look for the charge.”

We went through our warm-ups, and then they told us to sit down. We did, and this cat who announces the Knicks comes out. He introduced a few people, including Sweet Man Johnson, who spoke: