“You think I can’t make you go to MSU Billings?” she’d said. “Come home stinking of beer and I’ll show you what I can do. You won’t get any closer to Los Angeles than your TV.” He had to take notice of the threat, no matter how much he thought she might be bluffing, because LA was continually on his mind. He hadn’t heard from the Bruins coach lately, but they were in what the NCAA called a “dead period,” where contact with recruits was verboten. The coach had said he’d stick to the letter of the law, but he’d winked when he said that. Omar was getting a lot of e-mail from people outside the basketball program—alumni and other people who had some connection to UCLA—telling him what a great place it was. “I looked you up on the Internet,” they’d say. “Hope you come play for the Bruins.” They weren’t the only ones doing it. He heard from alums at Duke and Syracuse and a lot of other places, too. And he’d talked to his coach in Grandview, who told him to play it cool, like he was trying to get the cutest girl in school to go to prom with him.
