Sidelines
Sampson remembers
giant gameTHE car pulls up, and the man who gets out is 7-foot-4.
This has got to be the right place.
The 20-year reunion of the legendary 1982-83 Chaminade team that beat Virginia and shocked the world.
Follow Ralph Sampson in the trudge across the gravel parking lot and into the old Chaminade athletic building, still known affectionately as "The Shack."
And there is the man, coach Merv Lopes, the shades, the firm handshake, the dancing eyebrows. His old friend Pete Newell is here for this moment. And so is Sampson, shaking every hand, posing for every picture, hearing every story. It's almost as if he, too, were an honorary member of the little NAIA team that could.
"I appreciate Big Ralph being here," Lopes would say.
The win, a 77-72 stunner while the nation slept, was so magical because Sampson was so mythical. It made basketball teams everywhere believe in the impossible.
Inside, everyone smiles. It's a feel-good moment, these unlikely heroes together again, "these brothers of mine," said the old shooting guard, Tim Dunham, "who've I've learned to love over the years. And it's been 20 years since I've seen them all."
They smile, and hug, and take pictures and tell stories. Old friends who hadn't been together in so, so long.
"We were a family," Tony Randolph would say.
"There's a lot of love in here," he would say.
They were men now, older and wider -- "officially," said former forward Richard Haenisch, "I think I've gained the most weight" -- but in these moments they were teammates again. Teammates always.
It was incredible that they did this, that this group beat the nation's No. 1 team 20 years ago. Lopes recalled his last pregame words in that locker room: "Let's go out there and show Hawaii the game of basketball is awesome." He said it again now, to himself. "It's awesome."
It was Lopes who pushed them, loved them, inspired them, coached them.
"I discovered my game could go to another level," Dunham said. "Since Merv ran me so, that it had to go to another level or go home.
"When we pulled in just today," Dunham said, "just today, when we came up the road pulling in, I don't know about none of you all, but I seen the oval, that we was running around, and I started trembling all over again."
If Chaminade was ready for the game, Virginia wasn't. Sampson talked of lingering injuries and IV needles and heady outings and incredible travel. He'd outdueled Patrick Ewing in the "game of the decade," and he'd been in Sports Illustrated, and the Cavaliers had gone to Tokyo to beat a Houston team that featured Akeem Olajuwon.
By the time Virginia got to Hawaii, everyone was ready for the beach.
But Sampson was wary. He'd played against Randolph in high school, knew his old friend could "jump out of the gym." He knew about Hawaii teams that pounced on sunburned squads that looked at a few days in the islands as a playing vacation.
Earlier, Chaminade had already beaten a Division I team, the University of Hawaii. "That really gave us the belief that we could play anybody," Haenisch recalled. But then the team that would beat No. 1 lost to Wayland Baptist.
Twenty years later, the Silverswords still felt that loss.
"I went into the game just like this," Dunham recalled. "I went into the game mad. Me and Tony were up all night long, talking about, 'We goin' win this game.' 'We can win this game.' We knew that going in. I don't care nothing about Ralph -- excuse me, brother -- Othell (Wilson), they didn't mean nothing to me."
And at halftime, Chaminade was tied with the nation's No. 1 team.
But then came the magic. Then came the moment that told them all this was real. Mark Rodrigues threw Dunham a backdoor alley-oop pass. "Almost from half court," it came, in Dunham's memory.
"And he dunked the ball," Haenisch said. For perhaps the first time in his life, Sampson found himself looking up. "And at that point," Haenisch said, "I think we felt we could win this game. I mean, we really felt this was our game to win."
"And people ask the question," the 5-foot-10 Dunham said, " 'Was Ralph in there?' Ralph was everywhere, he's 7-4!"
And then it was Chaminade's game, and then Chaminade won. Rodrigues found himself running to one basket, climbing up to cut the net. Haenisch jumped up on the other, perched there, his arms raised to the sky.
And here they were again now, together, taking team pictures, getting emotional, letting their love flow. Being a team again. And Sampson was with them, again, after 20 years. Sampson, who took pictures with everyone, Sampson, who will be linked with this miraculous game, linked with this special group forever.
"We didn't really lose," Sampson said, "if it led to something like this."
He meant the birth of the prestigious Maui Invitational tournament, which gives Chaminade another chance for an upset each year. But he could just as well have been talking about this moment, this reunion, this team. This fairy tale that will live on as long as coaches coach and players play.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com