Toby or not Toby?

Sporting News, The, Dec 25, 1995 by Michael P. Geffner

Toby Bailey just can't stop himself. He won't even try at this point. He already can feel that weird tingle building inside him. Bubbling, itching under his skin. And by now, from experience, he knows exactly what that is: his crazy adrenalin running wild again, rushing past the point of no return. Yet he tries somehow, over and over again, to sleep. But sleep now? How? It's tough enough for him to even lay down and close his eyes.

It's the middle of the night, the night before the NCAA Final in Seattle, and the kid everyone says can jump clear out of the gym is on the verge of wanting to jump straight out of his own body.

"I couldn't be more ready," he was telling his father several hours earlier. 'I'm going off in this game, Dad. I know it. I can feel it.'

"Great, Tobe, that's just great," John Bailey said softly, soothingly, rubbing his son's head, "but now try to see it. Tty to dream about it." Which was something of a private code between them. Something about John Bailey's belief in positive imagery. Of dreaming the whole thing right.

And so, during this full night of twisting half-sleep, the freshman from UCLA kept turning on the camera in his head, as his father had taught him long ago, and each time he flipped the switch he produced, in slow motion, a snippet of something fabulous, scene after scene featuring himself as the biggest, baddest star of them afl, each time with him finishing high above the rim: spinning miraculously away from a circle of five Arkansas defenders -- and 10 lunging hands -- to drive home a flying one-handed dunk; grabbing an offensive rebound from Corliss Williamson, bumping himself free, then zooming up and in for the in-your-face jam; sprinting the length of the floor afl by himself after swiping a Scotty Thurman dribble, then gliding up, up, up and away from the foul line, like a feather caught in a wild-bursting wind, for a thunderously loud, 360-degree reverse slam.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Some people dream in colors, others in black and white; Toby Bailey dreams in unbroken streams of dunks.

And the images were so real to him, so sharp, that by the next day, after a virtually sleepless night in Seattle, Toby Bailey had been transformed into something resembling a pinched tuning fork. Totally hyped. He had seen it, as his father had wanted him to, and it had thrilled him to the breaking point. And suddenly, finally, there he was, smack on the floor of The Kingdome playing the biggest game of his life and indeed going off. Dunking Eke mad. Hanging on the rim. And his mouth spread into this big, gritted-teeth grin. All in front of a humongous d, amid deafening cheers, and splashed across national TV. What more could a self-admitted ham and unabashed party animal ask for?

That whole game I felt like I was lost in this zone," Toby Bailey was saying very calmly now, six months later, on the UCLA campus, his eyes drifting off. "It seemed like I was everywhere on the court at the same time and that I could score anytime I wanted to. All I needed was the ball. But it was like a blur, really. I was so focused, so caught into the flow of the game, that I hardly remember anything I did."

He remembers mostly this: Ed O'Bannon giving him the go-ahead at halftime to keep shooting (even though the coaches kept saying in the huddle, "Just remember who got you here. Ed's the man.") and, yes, The Follow Dunk.

With 4:31 left and the Bruins up, 69-65, Bailey followed a missed jumper off the front rim by O'Bannon by floating up and over the entire pack with a fully extended left arm and, like a volleyball player, gently flipping the ball back through the net. It was a play that seemed to seal the game so completely shut you could almost hear the snap of a door.

The lead never would get any smaller after that, and the Bruins would go on to defeat the Razorbacks, 89-78, for their first national championship since 1975 and their first without John Wooden as coach. And Bailey's performance would end up as one of the most stunning by a freshman in a title game: 26 points and nine rebounds. A performance described poetically by teammate Charles O'Bannon as "above the rim, around the rim and through the rim."

One game and Toby Bailey was irretrievably thrust out from the shadow of freshman obscurity, out from under the O'Bannons and Tyus Edney and George Zidek, and forever placed on the map of college basketball. "Believe it or not, it took me a whole month to realize how special it all was," says he of the nasty dunks and 41-inch vertical leap. The obvious question now, of course, is whether Bailey's title-game tour de force was a sign of great things to come or simply a matter of exquisite timing. Is he a budding superstar or a one-trick pony.

"I know I've seen a lot of guys who were actually better as freshmen than at any other time in their whole college careers," warns Ed Gregory, the Warriors' director of player personnel and superscout. "So I don't get too excited about freshmen until I see growth. Last year, Bailey was very impressive at times and not impressive during others. Early in the season, he was definitely out of control. But he's certainly a very high-energy and athletic player, and you definitely saw potential NBA talent there, but whether he becomes an NBA player depends on how he shows improvement in using his talents and controlling himself emotionally. The big thing for him, I think, is to keep from being overwhelmed by everybody telling him how great he is now."