IllustrateD volume 24, issue 5 69
f
es' vote went to Michigan State's Steve Smith.
And that was only the numerical reflection of the prog-
ress he had made in college.
Scheffler struggled to understand all the fuss and com-
motion over college basketball. A philosophy minor, he an-
alyzed it from a more worldly perspective. It's just a game
of trying to throw pieces of leather through metal rings,
he thought. And yet the coaches were always screaming
during practice and fans filled arenas to scream some
more at the games. It was difficult, demanding and out of
whack with realities of the world.
"What is all this effort and struggle for?" Scheffler won-
dered. "Why are we doing this?"
Scheffler laid bare his soul to Keady in a meeting with
the coaches following his sophomore season. Despite the
dramatic improvement he had shown the previous season,
and his promising future, he wasn't enjoying college bas-
ketball very much. He had been teased a lot, although that
was nothing new for him, and it was physically and emo-
tionally demanding.
So, when Keady asked him if anyone on the team had
an attitude problem, Scheffler said yes. The exchange
went something like this:
"Who?"
"I do."
"Stop joking around."
"Coach, I hate basketball."
"Do you want to quit?"
"No."
Keady paused, leaned back in his
chair, and said, "Scheffler, that doesn't
surprise me."
Scheffler never entertained quit-
ting. He was getting a free education,
he had an obligation to teammates and
coaches and, if nothing else, quitting
was simply the wrong thing to do. For
a player whose ethics required him
to say thank you to the referee every
time he was handed the ball to shoot
a free throw, and to thank teammates
for every compliment, even those paid
during games, quitting wasn't a realis-
tic option.
Besides, he had noticed something.
After all those years of feeling like a
nobody in school because of his dyslexia, he was becom-
ing well-known on campus and throughout Big Ten circles.
He liked the feeling of being a somebody for a change. And
while he was often the butt of jokes, he enjoyed the byplay
with his teammates. He loved debating them on all sorts
of topics, challenging their opinions, forcing them to think
outside the box, sometimes by taking a position he didn't
believe himself. It drove them crazy at times, but it kept
the locker room and weight room lively.
Gradually, he found ways to justify the demands of the
college basketball experience. And then another break-
through arrived the summer before his senior season.
Scheffler, along with Purdue teammate Tony Jones, was
a member of the gold medal-winning World University
Games team that Keady coached in 1989. In his mind, this
was yet another undeserved opportunity. Surely, if anyone
else had been coaching the team, he wouldn't have been
picked for it.
But, it allowed him the opportunity to meet and mix
with elite players from other college programs. Keady re-
members Scheffler asking Larry Johnson and Stacey Aug-
EyE i n g a n Ew h o m E?
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E v E r y A n g l E .
E v E r y P o s s i b i l i t y .
Go 'One on One'
with Mark Montieth
Steve Scheffler interview
Part 1
Part 2
