No sooner had Taylor High graduate Shalon Pillow arrived on campus at the University of Tennessee than people she had never seen before in her life began coming up to her.
“You're one of the freshman players aren't you?” they would ask.
When Pillow broke out in a smile of wonder and nodded her assent, the next question was always the same.
“Which one are you — Pillow or Snow?”
The reception never failed to startle Shalon. But that was nothing compared to what happened to her several weeks later in Ruston, La.
BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
“Pillow! Get in the game!”
There were three minutes left in the first half of Tennessee's fifth game of the season on national television in front of a packed arena in Ruston, La., on the campus of Louisiana Tech, one of UT's archrivals in arguably the most hostile road setting the Lady Vols face every other year.
Shalon Pillow, 18, one of two prize freshman recruits landed by legendary UT coach Pat Summitt who has her pick of the national litter every season, had been looking forward to this game since she decided to go to Tennessee.
She knew all about the rivalry, had even seen the HBO documentary about Tennessee's Cinderella season of 1996-97 when the Lady Vols had lost 10 games — including a 66-64 loss to La. Tech in Ruston — and yet won the national championship via the Final Four in Cincinnati.
Pillow liked big crowds, had played in major AAU tournaments on All-Star teams throughout her high school summers and toured Europe with the U.S. Junior National Team. Six-foot-three and 200 pounds, she was an immovable pillar in the post and yet had a silky touch on her jumpers from as far away as 15 feet. Summitt had visited her school and her home and watched her play a dozens of times.
“Gotta get their early if we want to see Shalon play,” Summitt had told her assistants. “She likes to body-up people underneath the basket and hates to let anybody score on her, so she picks up a lot of personal fouls quickly.”
Force behind UT's power
Summitt always saw Pillow as being the coach's kind of a player; Tennessee under Summitt had always prided itself as always having a strong inside game, not overly dependent on outside shooting and perimeter play.
Going into this season, the Lady Vols had won six national championships in Summitt's 24 years in Knoxville, including the last three in a row, the most dominating of which was the last. The team had gone 36-0 and was widely regarded as being the best women's team ever, and Summitt was lauded for having created the greatest college basketball dynasty since John Wooden's men's teams at UCLA a quarter century ago.
And now, here was Pillow being thrust into this river like a baby being tossed in a pool of cold water and being told to “Swim!”
Summitt didn't really have a choice in bringing Shalon along slowly; LaShonda Stephens, UT's starting center on the national championship team, had given up basketball only a month ago because of continually degenerative arthritic knees; starting center Teresa Geter, a 6-foot-3 sophomore who had set a Lady Vols' record for blocked shots (93) as a freshman, was banged up and had to play wearing a knee brace.
But given the presence of three-time All-America shooting guard Chamique Holdsclaw who had dazzled the people of Cincinnati two years ago by averaging 27.5 points, three steals and three assists in the Final Four, and a fabulous sophomore class that was already regarded as the best in collegiate women's history — Tamika Catchings, Semeka Randall and Ace Clements — UT was the preseason favorite to win a fourth straight national title.
And, here they were with three minutes left in the half, leading Louisiana Tech 46-28. From her position on the bench two seats down from Summitt, Shalon had been enjoying the game and was mesmerized by the baseline-to-baseline speed of the Lady Vols. The last thing she was expecting was to be summoned into the fray.
“Pillow! Get in the game!” Summitt repeated.
Shalon jumped to her feet, removed her orange warmup top with the white piping and headed for the scorer's table.
Too nice for Lady Vols?
She is a light-skinned African-American with striking green eyes and a wonderful smile that reveals a slight gap between her front two top teeth — just like her mom, Ann. Outgoing, unfailingly polite and fun-loving, Shalon has a “nice” streak that is of some concern to Summitt. Pillow was already infamous among her older teammates for picking them up off the floor in practice after she had had set a pick that had leveled them.
In one late summer scrimmage, fellow freshman Michele Snow, a 6-foot-5 stringbean had run into a pick set by Pillow and caromed almost to half court. Pillow stopped the flow of play to go over to help her up.
“Are you OK?” Pillow asked.
“You're supposed to go score,” answered Snow, smiling. “Go back to the game — that's chump!”
When Summitt called for Pillow in the La. Tech game, the freshman felt all of the blood in her body drain into her feet. It was as though her heart had stopped pumping.
“You're OK! You're OK!” teammate Kyra Elzy told her. Elzy noticed that the color had drained from Shalon's face. She was literally white.
No sooner did Shalon enter the game than she failed to box out her opponent the offensive glass and gave up two points; then, she committed a foul and the result was two more points; then, two more.
On the way to the lockerroom, Summitt stopped Pillow as the rest of the UT players headed through the open door and closed it behind them.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Summitt told her. “You just gave up six points in three minutes! Did you come play?”
“Rebound!” Pillow replied, giving the response Lady Vols are taught to give when Summitt is chewing away.
Rebound? Shalon hadn't had any of those in the first half, either.
Rocky road to Rocky Top
Good Ol' Rocky Top, Rocky Top Tennessee.
The theme song of the Tennessee Lady Vols, and every other UT team, not to mention the entire state of Tennessee, is blasting from the pep band sitting just beyond the south goal inside Thompson-Boling Assembly Center, capacity 25,286.
Outside, it is a glorious Saturday afternoon in early February, but nothing deters the Lady Vols faithful. The big-time atmosphere and closeness of the players had immediately hit home with Pillow the first time she visited Knoxville two years earlier.
There are 21,356 fans in the arena; the women's team routinely outdraws the men's team in Knoxville, and is doing so again this year, 18,293 to 15,785. At the souvenir stands in the main concourse, 50 rows up from the court, a brisk business is being done in Lady Vols' pendants, bobbing-head dolls, rings, pennants and programs. Summitt's two books — Raise the Roof and Reach For The Summitt — are moving, too, at $27 a piece.
Before coming to Tennessee, Pillow had read Summitt's books and heard from teammates about how Summitt could get more out of players than even they knew they had inside. Pillow saw it first-hand at one of the early practices at UT. There were three players practicing — Pillow, Snow and Geter — and Summitt stopped by to observe. She didn't like what she saw of Pillow's and Snow's effort on a fastbreak drill.
“Freshmen! Come here!” Summitt yelled. “Do you guys wanna be on the baseline (i.e. running sprints)? Or do you want to run this drill hard, and run it right?”
Pillow and Snow looked at each other. I thought we were running it hard.
“Pick it up, or we're going to be on the baseline the rest of practice,” Summitt snarled.
Pillow and Snow ran faster.
Afterward, in their tiny freshman dorm-room at Humes Hall on a hill above Thompson-Boling Assembly Center, Snow and Pillow talked about the experience.
“We picked it up a whole 'nother notch,” Snow marveled.
“Remember what the players told us?” Pillow answered. “They said, "Pat's going to get it out of you. When you don't think you have anything left, she's going to get it out of you.'”
On the run
At 12:55 p.m., just after the playing of the National Anthem, the lights dim and artificial fog begins to rise from the floor-level corner of the arena just beyond the north goal. A whirling noise like the sound of a helicopter approaching begins to fill the arena.
Everybody's eyes, including Pillow's and Summitt's, are focused on the mist that shrouds the corner of arena that is now bathed in soft light.
Pillow will never forget the day she and Snow were late for practice — they thought Summitt had called for the players to be in the lockerroom at quarter-to-one, not quarter-to-12 — and the two walked into the room to stone silence and bowed heads.
“It was like somebody had died,” Pillow remembers. “But we we were hoping Pat wouldn't be too hard on us, because Chamique was late, too.”
Summitt, who was already not happy because of a sloppy scrimmage the previous day, held a grueling practice and followed it with wind sprints.
“OK, you guys know who was late,” she said. “I need to see you over here.”
While their teammates shot free throws, Snow and Pillow and Holdsclaw had to run “big threes.” Big threes are three round trips up-and-down the court. They have to be accomplished in 37 seconds each. Pillow made the first one in time, but was past time in the second one.
“OK, you guys, you're done,” Summitt said. “Shalon, you've got another one.”
Pillow made her time, and thought practice was over.
“Transition shooting,” Summitt said.
“Oh my God,” Pillow said.
In transition shooting, everybody grabs a ball, dribbles hard down the right side of the court, lays it up, returns and does the same. Then, a short jumper, a full-range jumper, a three-pointer. Then, switch to the left side of the court. Do it all again.
Pillow survived, but cringed when Summitt called everybody to the line for four free-throws. Make less than three, you run.
“So, who didn't make 'em?” Summitt asked.
Snow and Pillow raised their hands.
“There had to be others who didn't make them,” Pillow thought to herself. “That's what I get for being honest.”
Summitt made them run another sprint.
“I thought I was in shape until I got to Knoxville,” Pillow says.
Biggest show on campus
Words begin to bubble from the P.A. system through the arena.
And now, the starting lineup for for three-time national champion Tennessee Lady VolllllLLLLS!” ...
A 5-10 guard from Sparta, Tenn., number 14, Kellie Jollleeeeee!”
Applause, whistles, catcalls seem to be at full-decibel level, as Jollie bursts from behind a white door that bears the words “Lady Vols — National Champions” in glittering orange paint. By the time Jolley reaches center court, where a sphere of white light illuminates her, the second introduction begins.
A 5-10 guard from Cleveland, Ohio, No. 25, Semeka RandalllLLLL ... A 6-3 center from Columbia, S.C., No.40, Teresa Geeeeeter!... A 6-1 forward from Duncanville, Tex., No.24, Tamika Catchhhhings! ... And a ... 6-2 ... forward ... from ... Astoria ... New York ... No. 23 ...CHAA ... MEE ... QUAA ... HOLDDSSCLAW ...
Pillow knows what's coming next; a wide smile lights up her face. As Holdsclaw bursts from the door and onto the hardwood, she dramatically stops before reaching her teammates at center court and flexes her knees and cocks her head toward the crowd and holds her left hand to her ear like a megaphone to see how loud she can make the noise in the arena.
ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
As the Let's Get Ready to Rumble theme song begins, the roof of the building seems to quiver. The pulsating din of the music and hands clapping and red-white-and-blue strobe lights flashing goes on for a full five minutes.
Pillow is laughing now, and claps her hands to beat of the music. When the mist and the roars and spotlights subside, she takes her seat next to assistant coach Mickie DeMoss, two seats away from Summitt.
DeMoss and Pillow are close; it is often that way between players and the assistants. DeMoss is a sounding board for Pillow when she wonders what it is exactly that Summitt wants.
“Pat just wants Shalon to keep harder in practice, to be more aggressive when she's playing against her teammates,” DeMoss says. “We've rarely had any complaints with the way she competes in the games.
“Being willing to bust up your teammates,” is the way Shalon's father, the basketball coach at Taylor High, refers to it.
In less than a minute's time, Tennessee breaks out to an 8-0 lead; six minutes later, Mississippi State is still in the game, 29-17, as the bumping of bodies under the basket builds. A minute later comes the words Pillow is waiting to hear.
“Pillow, get in the game!”
She jumps to her feet and whips off her warmup.
Thirty-three seconds later she winds up in a pile of bodies beneath the Mississippi State basket. Foul, Pillow.
Twenty-eight seconds after that, she flicks away an entry pass to her opponent, grabs the ball and hits Holdsclaw flashing down-court for two points. A minute later, she feeds Ace Clements on a missed fastbreak layup. Then, a left-handed layup by Shalon ... an offensive board ... bodies up with No.35 from Mississippi State in a fierce struggle inside that Pillow wins.
With 1:30 to go in the half, after Geter hurts a knee, Summitt sends Pillow back into the game and does the same with only seven minutes elapsed in the second half. She pulls down a rebound hard but is tied up ... receives an inside pass and makes a strong two-dribble move to the hoop and forces a shot pass a defender. Two points and a foul!
“I like Shalon a lot,” Geter says. “She doesn't know yet how good she can be. She has the big body of post players like Tennessee has had in the past. Once she gets accustomed to knocking somebody on their butt all the time, she's going to be unstoppable down low.
“She's just so happy all the time, Pat can't get her down. We (the rest of the Lady Vols) get a charge out of Shalon. Pat will stop practice and say something to you like, "OK, so what did you do wrong' on that play? Normally, you just give a real short answer. Shalon went on and on and on about the things she did wrong. She's honest, I'll say that! I think she's learning, though.”
Now, Pillow again ... a stickback of a Holdsclaw miss; you go, girl! The two bump upper bodies; Pillow pumps her fists in the air; the crowd responds with a roar. Pillow ... steal off the high-post to trigger a fastbreak ... slams up against No.35 for a loose ball, and No.35 goes flying; Shalon's direction is unaffected.
“When Shalon makes contact with somebody, it hurts,” says Holdsclaw, who has accidentally run into Pillow in practice. “It's just that Shalon doesn't know that it hurts.”
A third personal foul ... followed by a flash to the high post for a pass and a 14-foot jumper. Swish!
In 15 minutes, Pillow has 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting, eight rebounds, two blocked shots and two steals and she leaves the floor to the high-fives of her teammates.
She is named star of the game, does a post-game interview on radio that is piped through the arena, greets a busload of friends and former high school teammates who have driven down from Cincinnati, and jumps on the team bus, bound for Nashville and a Sunday game vs. Vanderbilt.
On the way there, the Lady Vols' bus stops at Taco Burro, where the team has has ordered their post-game meals. Shalon's baked potato comes with a patty of butter; she lets it soak in just for a split-second and whisks it into the garbage can.
She is a Lady Vol now. There is no room for butterfat.
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![[pillow]](/editions/1999/03/07/pillow_472x500.jpg)