Four Bucs Convert Basketball Fantasy Into Big Bucks

Turns out basketball’s national champions attend Whitworth College after all.

The racket that rousted north Spokane from slumber about 4 o’clock Tuesday morning emanated from Room 210 of McMillan Hall where Greg Amend, Andy Mitchell, Todd Parsons and Alex Schuerman pulled an all-nighter of equal parts anxiety, anticipation and dubious scholarship.

Yes, there was a quiz to cram for, but that was just the evening’s silly subtext, as was a 3:30 a.m. trip to Safeway to play video games.

Mostly, the four Whitworth juniors counted the minutes until the appointed hour - 7 a.m. EDT when the final results of Inside Sports magazine’s NBA fantasy league would be posted on the long-distance hotline.

Since we’ve already given away the winner - Team Schuerman, et al - let’s check the final stats.

Their buy-in: $25.

Their payoff: 15 grand.

“It’s safe to say we woke up everybody in the dorm,” said Amend.

Hey, sleep is overrated. They know this by now at Whitworth, where considerable shut-eye was sacrificed last month to follow the basketball team’s own little fantasy - alas unrequited - in the NAIA tournament.

This other Whitworth team faced even longer odds: the I.S. pool attracted 4,500 entries.

“I had no expectation we’d win,” admitted Andy Mitchell. “We’re just four dumb college guys from Spokane. Why would we?”

Easy. They had a mastermind, a plan and Michael Jordan.

If you’ve somehow remained untouched by the fantasy phenomenon, you must have been subletting the Unabomber’s guest house. It’s proliferated because, well, it isn’t calculus: you draft players - 10 in the I.S. league, ranked by ability into “tiers” - and amass points based on their statistics.

If you knew that, you may also know that the fantasy drone can be a lacerating bore - a direct descendant of the golfer who talks you stroke-by-stroke through his last 18. He’ll have you up against the turnbuckle with insights into his “system” and put you down for the count with tales of his canny trading.

(By the way, these guys got started two years ago in a free Spokesman-Review league, so we’ll take the blame - and a cut of the action.)

Even Schuerman acknowledges the obsession.

“I’m in three baseball leagues right now,” he said.

Nonetheless, these guys wound up with their own campus cheering section.

“It seems like everybody eventually knew about it,” reported Parsons, who is sports editor of the school newspaper. “We’d be sitting in the stands at a baseball game and Alex would come up to bat and we’d hear someone we didn’t even know say, ‘That’s the guy who’s going to win $15,000.”’

A foregone conclusion, apparently. They led the IS pool almost wire-to-wire, making the most of their six allotted trades. One secret: “the best player in a tier wasn’t always the best player to have,” said Amend. Number of games played in a trading period could wind up being the most important stat of all; for instance, having Rod Strickland for eight games was better than having Penny Hardaway for five.

“Alex mapped out all the games and did the most work,” said Mitchell. “But he still only gets one-fourth of the money.”

OK, the $15,000 question: What are they going to do with the money. You first, Greg.

“It’s kind of funny - I just got a call from a stockbroker friend of my dad’s who told me to put some away in a mutual fund,” Amend said. “I don’t know. I might take my girlfriend to a nice place for dinner. Get a new TV.”

Schuerman: “I’ve grown pretty fond of pool. A pool table sounds good.”

Mitchell: “I already bought new wheels for my car, sort of anticipating this.”

Parsons: “I know I’m going to get some golf clubs. I’ll probably add to my movie collection. Pay off my credit cards. I got the big three - VISA, Discover, MasterCard - just to have them and one of them was maxed out about as soon as I verified I had it.”

Yep, that’s the sportswriter.

As big as the news was around Whitworth, the president didn’t cancel classes as he did when the basketball team reached the championship game. Indeed, on no sleep, the fab four trudged off to a test in Core 350, a science requisite.

So how did it go?

“All right,” said Schuerman. “I think we did better in the pool, though.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review