One more game for St. Shane

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By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 2, 2001

MINNEAPOLIS -- It is our last chance. The truth must be told.

It is time to rip the lid off Shane Battier, bad to the bone.

I know, I know. This will come as blasphemy to some of you, as heresy to the rest. After all, this is a time when America needs to believe in its heroes. Nevertheless, you should brace yourself.

Ready? Here goes.

Shane Battier is not perfect.

I know, I know. It came as quite a shock to me, too. Over his career of -- what, 14 seasons? -- at Duke, we have come to believe in the legend of St. Shane, the basketball player, cancer researcher and Nobel Prize recipient of the Blue Devils. Alas, it turns out that much of the Battier story is myth. He has flaws, after all.

For instance, he has tasted alcohol. "A glass of wine," he said.

Not only that, but Battier also has belched in public. And kissed a girl. And has a pair of fake nasty teeth that, from time to time, he takes out to shock onlookers. And he has danced at a party, even though he admits he wasn't very good. And he admits to being a serial nitpicker.

"Mike Dunleavy (his roommate) will leave his cereal in a bowl in the sink," Battier said. "I'll say 'Come on, Mike. I'm not the maid!' I'm kind of a neatnik."

Tell me. Is that a dark side or what?

It is time that we knew the truth about Battier, the early favorite for the 2020 presidential election. It is time we learned about the demons residing in the soul of the angel.

For so long now, we have shared the impression that this was Sir Lancelot, chaste and loved from afar. Battier was the perfect player from the perfect program with the perfect coach (okay, so some people seem to sneer as they say "perfect," while others seem to smile).

"I would love to get to the know him as a person," said Arizona forward Richard Jefferson. "The media portrays him as a perfect person, like there is Jesus Christ and then there is Shane Battier. But I know he does some things wrong, whether he doesn't put the toilet seat down or whatever."

Wait. Battier doesn't put the toilet seat down?

Quick, someone call the tabloids.

It is difficult, isn't it, to see the devil in Battier? Heretofore, the suspicion was that the wildest thing Battier ever did was pop Pez until he felt a sugar rush. No one is sure what he has on his CD player, but the guess is that it's something by Brahms Doggy Dogg.

Still, you have to be strong. Battier isn't perfect.

But he's pretty darned close.

He is the ultimate overachiever, a person who admits his athletic shortcomings, but has forged himself into the national player of the year. He is the religion major, the jazz player, the aspiring politician. He is the man who pledged not to speak in a cliche for an entire year. He is tattoo-free.

And, as much as anyone ever has been, as much as Grant Hill or Christian Laettner or Bobby Hurley, he is Duke basketball.

It doesn't really matter what you think of Duke, or what you think of Battier. If you think of them as everything good in the game, or everything smug, you can find the same qualities in player and program.

"I think the image people have of Duke basketball," Battier says, "is that after we go to church, we take off our altar boy outfits and we march to practice, two by two, as we hand out bags of candy to needy children. There is an image of almost goody-goody. No one epitomizes that more than I do."

Battier flashes the politician's smile then, just to let you know that he doesn't mind that some think of Duke as the privileged program of the NCAA. There are those who would suggest the Blue Devils get every call, every break, that they are the darlings of ESPN and the NCAA. Arizona's Eugene Edgerson suggested, in fact, the Wildcats don't have to study film, because the Blue Devils are on national television so much.

"I see people I don't even know holding up signs that say 'I hate Shane Battier!' " Battier said. "Nothing's better than going into an arena with 20,000 people all hoping you break your leg. Then, after the game, you don't point or gesture rudely at them. You just walk off the floor, and you smile at them, and you wink."

For so long, it has been that way with Battier. He has been at Duke so long, his first Final Four was against the Mayans. You joke with coach Mike Krzyzewski about how he recruited Battier in 1934, and Krzyzewski says, "Yeah. And he was older than I was then."

Perhaps it seems so long because Duke has been so successful. Since Battier joined the program, the team is 129-15. Every game, it seems, Battier has gotten better. Tonight, however, is his last act. Expect something special.

"It would be fitting (to win a national title)," Battier said. "It would be like the movie Shane. You beat the bad guys, and you ride off into the sunset."

Oh, he was going to win title after title. Remember? When Battier first came to Duke, he thought he'd win multiple titles and go to at least three Final Fours. It didn't work out that way. "I was naive," he says now.

The Blue Devils came close two years ago in St. Petersburg, but they lost to Connecticut in the national title game. The young stars of that team -- Elton Brand, William Avery and Corey Maggette -- all promptly turned pro. That left the well empty, and it left it up to Battier to hold things together.

"I would love for that to be my legacy," Battier said. "It would be truly amazing to have people write us off for four or five years, until coach had another great recruiting class, to come through. I knew in my heart as long as coach was here, we were going to be successful."

There are lessons to be learned from Battier, who has been as good for college basketball as the other way around. He is bright, resilient, confident. It wasn't always that way. As a child, he felt gangly, lonely, different. He was the son of a black father and a white mother, and at times, he felt unaccepted by both races. He became a self-described recluse.

Today, he is the most recognizable player in the game. As Jefferson puts it, "he is player of the year, defender of the year, ACCer of the year, man of the year, academic of the year, He's all-everything. He's all-world. And he deserves every accolade he's won."

There you have it. The absolute worst thing you can suggest about Battier is that he's too darned good.

So go ahead. Joke about how squeaky clean his image is. Laugh as he compares the last five seconds of a game to a president handling "an invasion of Kavlakistan." Chuckle when he talks about the Afro of Arizona's Edgerson and says stiffly "I can dig it."

No, Battier isn't perfect. But know this. If Battier is going to run for president someday, and he suggested it to his mother at the age of 4, then he can count on the vote of Edgerson, whose own goal is to be an educator.

"That's great," Battier said. "And if he turns out to be a teacher, I'll send my kids to him."

Tonight, it all ends. For the final time, Battier will put on the Duke uniform, and run onto the court, and listen to what the crowd has to say.

What it should say is this:

Thanks.

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