Wright Was All Wrong, Right?

They said, "No, man, you're in trouble. You better go over to Allie and apologize."

Then Sherman came over and said, "I want to talk to you about last night."

I said, "Are you kidding me? You're telling me I'm in trouble because I invited a girl to come sit down with me? Nothing happened. All we did was sit there and talk. There were 58 guys there. And I'm in trouble?"

Allie said, "Well, she's an outsider and we have to lock in when we come out here to Fairfield. This is a team function and we don't want outsiders." One of Allie's favorite expressions was, "We're gonna lock in." Another was, "We're not gonna cop out." All you'd have to say to anybody who ever played under Allie is lock in and cop out, and he'd automatically know who you were talking about.

I said, "You're serious about this, aren't you? I'm in trouble because I talked to a girl?"

"I think you owe an apology to the team and to Mr. Mara," he said.

"O.K., who do you want me to apologize to first?"

So the next day I got everybody's attention in the locker room and I made my apology speech. "I was thoroughly ignorant," I told them, "that I made a boo-boo. I want it known right now that I hereby apologize to all of you for bringing an outsider into your midst."

I kept a straight face. I can do that once in a while. But they laughed. And that was a no-no, too. You're not supposed to laugh. So I guess I got the blame for that, too.

Later I went over to Mara's room and apologized again. I explained to him that I didn't realize we were all locked in and couldn't see anybody from the outside world. I told him there were no ulterior motives, that the girl was somebody from Milwaukee, where I lived at the time, that she was at Fairfield taking some classes and didn't know anybody, and that I was trying to do something nice for someone, a stranger in a new place, and because of that I was suddenly in a whole world of trouble.