[Vision2020] It's a Wonderful Life Story

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (March 31, 2006) edition of Sports Illustrated -

Once in a while it is nice to be reminded that there are more important
things than the almighty dollar.

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It's a Wonderful Life Story
By Steve Rushin

Steve Randall is a small man making small money in small towns, a 5'6" high
school basketball coach who climbed a short professional ladder from Turtle
Lake to Montfort to Oshkosh, Wis. He drives a banana-yellow Caprice Classic
that cost $200 used, a car so mortifying that his three daughters put a for
sale sign in the window whenever it's parked in the driveway.

Lance Randall, Steve's only son, is a bigger man whose bigger plans draw him
to bigger cities. At 25 he becomes the head coach at Webster University,
whose streak of 13 losing seasons is broken his first season. Then he
coaches the Birmingham Bullets in England, grounding himself in the
professional game. Homesick after 9/11, Lance returns to the States as a D-I
assistant at Saint Louis University, an ambitious young coach on the rise.

In October 2004, 53-year-old Steve is poised for his 16th season at Oshkosh
West High. During a routine angioplasty, doctors nick one of his arteries. A
week later, while watching a Cardinals-Dodgers playoff game on TV, Steve
tells his wife, Cindy, that he doesn't feel well. He lies down on the couch
and dies.

Lance, by now 33, and the father of a one-year-old girl, drives to Oshkosh
for the wake and is struck dumb: A line extends for three blocks outside the
funeral home, which stays open three extra hours to accommodate the
mourners. "When 3,000 people show up at a high school phys-ed teacher's
wake," he says, "you suddenly see the effect a simple man has had on so many
people."

The Oshkosh Northwestern receives hundreds of tributes to Coach Randall,
from around the country and overseas. At the funeral players speak of his
indelible impact on their lives. "That's when I had the epiphany," says
Lance. "I had to do this."

What Lance had to do was leave Saint Louis, walk away from his $56,000
salary, move his family in with his mother and accept a $4,000 part-time
coaching stipend to take over his father's team at Oshkosh West, which
already had a locker labeled randall.

It means finding a full-time job that allows him to leave at 3 p.m. "I don't
want to make the team practice at seven because the coach is doing double
shifts at the Quik-Mart," says Lance, who signs on as a fund-raiser for the
Experimental Aircraft Association.

His first season is a fairy tale. Oshkosh West is ranked No. 1 in the state
for the first time and takes an unbeaten record into the playoffs. "There
was a fairy-tale ending to be written," says Lance. "But a lot of kids --
not just ours -- dream of winning state." West is upset in the sectional
semis and sees two of its best players graduate. There is no happily ever
after.

This season the Wildcats' starting point guard is lost to suspension in
December, but they are unbeaten. Over Christmas, West renames its home floor
the Steven L. Randall Court and is touched by a strange magic. In early
January senior Andy Polka -- the quintessential Wisconsin name -- makes a
75-foot heave at the buzzer to keep the Wildcats unbeaten. A teammate jumps
up and down so hard in celebration that his shorts fall down, a spectacle
spot-shadowed on SportsCenter.

West continues to win, skating through sectionals, making it to Madison for
the state tournament, where a metropolitan power from Milwaukee or Madison
always wins. But that hardly matters. The Wildcats get to stay in Steve
Randall's favorite Madison hotel, the InnTowner, where he and Lance holed up
every year as state tourney spectators. And Oshkosh brings the tournament's
biggest party of fans, bigger even than Madison's own Memorial High, West's
powerhouse opponent for the state championship.

With two minutes to go, Polka dunks to give West a 12-point lead. The crowd
chants "STE-ven RAN-dall," reducing his widow to tears.

The team buses back to Oshkosh that night, escorted by police and fire
trucks, past congratulatory bed sheets. They are met at West End Pizza by a
spontaneous pep rally for the new state champions.

"I've been blessed beyond imagination," says Lance. "If I took over at Duke
or won an NBA championship, it couldn't surpass what I've been a part of at
Oshkosh West."

Turns out, the small time is the big time. "They say 'Don't sweat the small
stuff,'" Lance says. "But my dad has shown me, even in death, that the small
stuff is what's important." Steve Randall so loved his players (and vice
versa) that he cried at every postseason banquet. I tell him his dad reminds
me of George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life.

"You're the first person outside the family to mention that movie," says
Lance. "It's my favorite. My parents gave it to me when I was little. I cry
just taking it out of the box." The son inhales deeply and says, "You're
exactly right: My dad was the richest man in town."

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho


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And why shouldn't the rich pay taxes?

"The people that write laws are greedy.  They need money to buy votes.  What
better way to get it than to extract it, by force of law, from the
relatively few who can afford the nicer things in life.  If you can buy
something nice then you can pay more taxes so that politicians can give
something to the 'poor' and take a cut for themselves."
 
- Varnel W. (March 20, 2006)

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