Free Life Is Not an Accident by Jay Williams

still on the fence, he took one little jab at my vanity, and that closed the deal. I walked out of his office thinking there was no way in hellI was going to lose my spot here to Todd Billet. And it wasn’t something I was losing at all—I was Coach K’s first choice—but somehow it felt like a competition. He read me like an open book and pushed the right button.
    I walked out of the office into the gymnasium and saw my dad sitting on a bench next to the scorer’s table, deep in thought as he stared at the retired jerseys hanging down from the rafters.
    It was at that moment that I began to hear the crowd roaring, visualizing Coach K on the sideline yelling out instructions to me as I brought the ball up the court.
    I walked over to where my father was sitting.
    â€œDad, I think we should commit.”
    â€œJason, I’m going to go ahead and say this. I love Coach Bannon, and Rutgers is a great school. But the question I have for you is a question I have been trying to answer for about the past ten minutes. Would you rather be a king among men or a king among kings?”
    â€œI would rather be a king among kings, Dad.”
    â€œThen, son, I don’t know a better place for you than right here. This is where you will get the best education, and you will have no better mentor than that man right there.”
    He then told me to look up at the rafters and continued. “I know your number is 32, but you can’t wear 32 here, because it’s retired.” It had been Laettner’s number. “But if you notice, it feels like there’s a missing link. You see, 11 is retired, 33 is retired, 44 is retired, but 22 is not up there. That’s the missing link. You should come here to play, get the number 22 retired, and take your place as a king among kings.”
    And that’s how I ended up at Duke.

5
Freshman
    W omen, parties, booze, and freedom from my parents were all waiting for me down in Durham.
    When I landed at Greensboro airport to start the next chapter of my life, an enormous 6’9”, 265 pound man-child was waiting in a beat-up red Ford Taurus to pick me up for our one-hour drive to campus. The driver’s seat was pushed all the way back and the seat was reclined so Carlos Boozer’s head wouldn’t be scrunched against the roof. You just don’t see people that big every day, much less someone of that size who can do everything I could on the court. He was just as good as I was at passing, shooting threes, and doing all the ball-handling drills. We had met months earlier at the McDonald’s All American Game. I liked him from the start.
    â€œBooz” and I talked all the way to Durham, wondering what basketball was going to be like with Coach K. Four key playersfrom the team that had just lost to UConn in the finals would not be returning. Three of them were declaring for the draft early. The Bulls took Elton Brand with the first pick in the draft and Trajan Langdon went to the Cavs at pick 11, while Corey Maggette and William Avery went 13th and 14th, to Seattle and Minnesota, respectively. (Maggette was then traded to Orlando.)
    Back then, it was strange to see Coach K lose underclassmen to the NBA. I mean, it never happened. Personally, I was shocked when Avery declared, leaving his starting spot vacant. I’d been sure I was going to end up fighting to earn my minutes, and now the show was mine.
    As a result, we wondered how this mass exodus was going to blow back on us. If and when the time came, would Coach K not let us leave? That wasn’t a big concern for me coming in, since I had a lot of work ahead, given that I was going to be learning a position I never played in high school. Carlos, on the other hand, expected to be at Duke for two, maybe three years tops.
    â€œIs he going to change your game?” Boozer asked me. “Because you’re a point guard, but you’re not really a point guard.”
    That was