(OOC: I'm going to switch it up for this update. Instead of going chronologically, I'm going to focus on the main characters and what happened to them from 2 p.m. on.
Wednesday - tomorrow in the timeline - is going to be a very important day.
And, the exact nature of the 'last game' is very much up in the air at this point).
Tuesday, February 14, 1984
...it's four o'clock, and time for WHAS News with Brian Rublein.
A crowd estimated by Louisville Police at nearly eight thousand people gathered earlier this afternoon downtown in a rally for peace. Dan Burgess reports live from City Hall.
Brian, the rally has just ended, the participants dispersing, walking back to their starting points. Mirroring similar rallies across the country, the event formally called Louisvillians for Peace began one hour ago. Two groups - one starting in the West End, the other led by students starting from the University of Louisville's Belknap Campus - converged in front of City Hall. With numerous downtown streets shut down for the rally, and heightened police presence in the area, the rally itself went off without incident...
The Athletic Director
Memorial Coliseum, Lexington, Kentucky
"I want to thank everyone for coming," said UK AD Cliff Hagan, as he started his informational meeting for the head coaches of the university's athletic programs, their assistant coaches, and athletic department and sports information department employees.
Hagan laid out the agenda for the board of trustees' meeting on Wednesday, the possibility of closing down the school mid-week, and all contingency plans covering every possibility: from a wind-down of hostilities, to all-out war. Would students be sent home, and when? What about scheduled games and meets?
Track and field coach Don Weber was in his first year as head coach, after several years as an assistant. He was a graduate of UK, and very grateful for the opportunity to build the track program into one of the Southeastern Conference's elite programs, and, beyond that, to national prominence.
He had no personal issue with Hagan, his boss, and rather preferred to direct his time and attention to his passion.
Weber's concern for his student-athletes overrode all that; his conscience would not permit him to do anything other than stand for their best interests, even if it cost him his job.
And he wasn't alone.
Other coaches were adamant about how the university was going to handle sending students, and especially their own student-athletes, home if worst came to worst.
"What if this thing between Reagan and Ogarkov doesn't blow over," Weber asked. "You're going to have me and my athletes run a track meet somewhere while they're fighting over Europe?"
Hagan repeatedly told those in attendance that no one - them, their athletes, students, fans - would be in danger if World War Three broke out.
No one left fully satisfied with Hagan's answers, nor fully convinced that the department's plans were in everyone's best interest.
At 8 o'clock, Hagan spoke for an hour and 15 minutes with his counterpart at Vanderbilt, in what amounted to a negotiation for conditions that would keep the scheduled VU-UK basketball game for that Sunday from being cancelled.
At 9:39 that night, Hagan was informed via a phone call that Weber had told his athletes and student volunteers to "go home".
At 9:54, he received the resignation of Weber, and his assistant coaches, via courier.
At 10:07, Hagan got another call from the Vandy AD, who informed him of the VU board's Wednesday meeting, and some special requests in advance of Sunday's game.
Among them: a $5,000,000 guarantee.
After a rather heated, if brief conversation, Hagan hung up the phone and decided to call the University of Kentucky president, Otis Singletary, to discuss the situation with Weber and Vanderbilt.
...Dan Burgess, reporting live from City Hall. Four of the rally leaders, the Reverend Louis Coleman, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary professors George Edwards and Johanna Bos, and UofL student activist Lorraine Hensley, will be on with Milton Metz tonight on Metz Here, beginning at 9 p.m. on 84 WHAS. Louisville Police reported one incident before the rally itself, at Sixth and Broadway, describing it as a 'minor skirmish'. One man was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace...
The Student
"So I have FOUR HUNDRED thousand dollars in my account?"
Heather learned how much money her father had been able to wire into her American bank account, and nearly fainted. After recovering, and drinking a glass of water, Heather went over with the manager her father's conditions for using the money: so much money per week, supplementing the $1,200 monthly stipend she already had in another account; so much to be invested in stocks, bonds, a retirement fund, etc.
And, all of this to be done no sooner than two weeks from today.
There was a catch: if hostilities broke out into full-scale war, the conditions were null and void and Heather could do with the money as she wished, provided it was to give her a solid-as-possible financial base in America, or to be used for "public assistance" if necessary.
Heather paused for a moment while asking a question of the manager, nearly overcome by the realization that
daddy's preparing me for the worst. Protect and Survive. Four hundred thousand dollars...I may never see him or Mum ever again--
Then she shook it off.
Keep Calm and Carry On, is what her grandmother did in the Second World War. Blubbering like an idiot, especially in front of this kind lady her father had sent to help her in the States, wouldn't help her at all.
Take care of the money. Take care of yourself.
Keep Calm and Carry On....Just over 1,100 people gathered in front of Mayor Scotty Baesler's office downtown in a rally for peace. In a surprise move, Mayor Baesler himself spoke to the crowd, expressing his sympathy with their intentions, and his hope for world peace:
I want to say your actions speak loudly. I stand with you, calling upon the United States and Soviet Union to resolve their differences, and use their power to work towards peace.
Mayor Baesler was not available for comment, though a press release from his office stated that the mayor "stands with the United States government and military" and that it is not contradictory with his statements at the rally.
Similar rallies were held across the Commonwealth today. A crowd estimated at 11,000 gathered in downtown Louisville, while other rallies were held on college campuses. Three thousand people, mostly students, held a rally on the Eastern Kentucky University campus. Other rallies were held at Morehead State University, Murray State University, Berea College and Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, where campus and city police broke up a near-brawl between protestors and fraternity students...
The Reporter
There were plenty of leads for The Reporter to chase: Vanderbilt, Don Weber, the Big Eight, the SEC, the NCAA.
And, of course, tying all of them to Kentucky.
And, finding out whether that rumor about the boosters wanting to keep basketball going come hell or high water, or mushroom clouds, was legit.
The Senator
The Senator began to make his own plans for escape, just in case things got bad.
His family would meet with the others at a predetermined place near the Cave, only if things regressed to a certain point: the use of nuclear weapons in combat.
He hopefully would be far away from Frankfort by then, and if not, headed there as quickly as possible. With a group of heavily armed men and women.
The Athlete
Sam wasn't at the top of his game on Tuesday.
Neither were his teammates.
Some wanted to go to the rally in Lexington; they weren't allowed, because it conflicted with practice. Coach Hall wanted it that way, thinking that keeping things as normal as possible would benefit his players the most.
Nevertheless, the coaches weren't quite as hard on the players as normal for their sloppy passes, bad dribbles, poorly-taken shots and sub-par play.
Five o'clock came around, and Coach Hall told his team they would have tomorrow off: go to class, relax afterwards, clear your heads, everyone call home and talk to friends and family...and come back Thursday ready for basketball.
Sam went back to the Lodge, and called home - Georgia - and talked with his parents and family for two hours.
The Coach
Coach Hall had been in Hagan's mid-afternoon meeting and kept quiet throughout.
He knew that some of the other coaches were privately accusing him of self-interest and basketball ahead of the welfare of his own players, and thereby setting the tone for the other coaches to do the same.
That wasn't true, at all. He respected Weber's convictions. He thought that, because there was no state of war with Russia, there was no reason to shut everything down and begin preparing for The Day After.
That wasn't to say one shouldn't have contingency plans, and he was satisfied with what Hagan had said about the university's plans for the various scenarios presented. If the worst actually happened, everyone would be taken care of, he was confident of that.
He knew that some disagreed with his thoughts, and themselves thought that nuclear war was inevitable, and that UK was not prepared to deal with it.
He figured it was best to keep his mouth shut, for now, and proceed as normal. Tonight, that meant leaving Memorial Coliseum to do his weekly radio show.
And hoping that every caller would proceed as normal, too.
The Terrorist
The young Russian man, known as Anthony to his American classmates and professors, wondered if he was in the right spot.
This was Midway, it was north of downtown Lexington, and that was a telephone booth he was parked in front of.
It was just past 10 o'clock, and he wondered if he got the location wrong...or if he had been set up.
Anthony - real name Anatoly - got out of his Impala, and walked into the booth.
The phone rang, as he had been told. Picking up the receiver, he heard the caller say
turn around, turn around...hello? sorry, I must have the wrong number.
Click.
Anatoly turned around, and saw a man in a raincoat walking towards him.
"May I use the phone, sir?"
"Er, yes, of course."
"Thank you, would you mind holding these for me while I place my call?"
Anatoly was given a pack of Marlboros, a matchbook and a manila folder with some papers in it.
The man finished his call, stepped out of the booth, and asked Anatoly if he smoked.
"Er, yes..."
"Good, lad. Have a pack, on me. And please, if you would, dispose of that folder. I'm in quite a hurry, and must be off to bed. Tomorrow is a long day...
Спокойной ночи"
With that, the man in the raincoat got in his Buick, and drove away.
Anatoly got in his Impala, lit up a Marlboro, and read through the contents of the folder.
He looked at the map, drove a few miles, pulled off to the side of the road, lit a match and touched it to the folder, contents and all.
When the folder had burned up completely, Anatoly drove back to campus.
Tomorrow would be a long, and eventful day, indeed.
...Milton, sorry for the interruption, but this has just come into the WHAS Newsroom. The Associated Press is reporting that Federal Marshals have arrested a man for what they are calling 'suspicious activities' near the Louisville Gas and Electric plant in Trimble County. The man was not identified, nor was the nature of his activities described...
OOC: We'll do the Big Blue Line in the next update, which will come Thursday.