Better than Hoosiers

From a Q&A about the book that I did for Sidebar, the in-house newsletter down here at the St. Pete Times, with deputy managing editor Rob Hooker, Davidson ’69:

I continue to think about those 16.8 seconds, and that message board post, and what they might mean. Bob McKillop, the Davidson coach, has been at Davidson for 20 years, and Jason was a senior who hadn’t played much his first two years in college, and Stephen was a sophomore who hadn’t been recruited by any big schools, and so there was something very, very anti-get-rich-quick about the team’s tournament run last March. That last moment, watched by so many, was created by so many people at Davidson doing so many things well for so many years, while being watched by so few -- and here was the reward.

In the end, though, the reward wasn’t Hoosiers.

It was more interesting than that.

If that shot had gone in, I probably wouldn’t have written a book -- you’ve read that book before, you’ve watched that movie -- and I definitely wouldn’t have written this book.