World and British Open titles crown career of the greatest British female player of he modern era
By ALAN THATCHER and SEAN REUTHE

England’s former world champion Laura Massaro has announced that she will retire from professional squash at the end of the 2018-19 season.

Preston-based Massaro, 35, is the most successful female English player of the modern era and, in 2014, became the first Englishwoman in 15 years to lift the PSA World Championship title.

She also won the historic British Open twice, ending a 22-year wait for a female English player in 2013, while she captured her second British Open crown in 2017, becoming the first Englishwoman since 1951 to win squash’s longest-running tournament on two occasions.

The only Englishwoman to win both the World Championship and British Open titles – trophies which she held at the same time – Massaro also topped the PSA Women’s World Rankings for four months in 2016, making her one of just three female English players to hold the No.1 ranking.

A tough, uncompromising player, Massaro has always made life difficult for her opponents. Playing a brand of hard, high-paced, pressure squash, she has thrived on the adrenalin of big-match occasions where her discipline and dedication have shone through. 

Massaro has been ever-present in the world’s top 10 since May 2008 and, since turning professional in 2000, has won 23 PSA Tour titles from 43 finals, with her most recent trophy win coming at the Monte Carlo Classic last December, where she beat World No.9 Tesni Evans in the final.

Massaro has played 543 matches on the PSA Tour, winning 371 of them, and her final two PSA tournaments will be the Manchester Open – which begins tomorrow – and the Allam British Open as she brings the curtain down on a glittering career.

Away from the PSA Tour, Massaro also has three Commonwealth Games silver medals and four British Nationals titles to her name, while she led England to the Women’s World Team Championships crown in 2014 after four runner-up finishes at the tournament.

“I’ve been really lucky to have a healthy body, a really long career, and it’s probably been more that I’ve ever expected in terms of titles and my achievements in the game,” Massaro said.

“There’s no point in trying to chase the world’s best when my best level of squash is probably behind me, and it’s going to be very hard to get that back. I’ve always gone after being the best in the world and winning titles. But I think it’s time to hang up the racket, give a little bit back now and watch these amazing youngsters do their thing on court.

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“I’m hugely proud of what I achieved, I always wanted to be successful, I wanted to hang up my racket feeling that I couldn’t have achieved any more in the game than I have, whether it was titles or the level of play.

“That’s down to everyone that’s helped me in my career. There are too many people to mention, but DP [David Pearson] and Danny [husband Massaro] go without saying. I owe my level of squash to them, along with all the other coaches who have helped me on my way.

“They, along with the physios, fasciotherapists, Caroline, Jade, Vicky and Sylvan, have helped my movement be so efficient and given me my longevity, along with Mark Campbell, who has given me the strength and fitness to maintain my level. Without all of them, my career wouldn’t have been what it has been.

“I also want to say thank you to my family and friends who have been there supporting me in the ups and downs of my career since I was a young junior player.”

PSA Chief Executive Alex Gough said: “Laura has always been a consummate professional. Her success on the tour has been testament to her hard-work and unwavering mental strength.

“Laura has been an incredible role model for aspiring squash players, and everyone at the PSA wishes her well for the future.”

Massaro will appear as the No.5 and No.8 seed at this month’s Manchester Open and British Open, respectively.

The Manchester Open takes place between May 9-13 at the National Squash Centre, while the British Open will be held between May 20-26 at the University of Hull’s new sports complex.

Laura Massaro Biography:

Date of birth: 2nd November 1983 (age 35)
Birthplace: Great Yarmouth, UK
Resides: Preston, Lancashire, UK
Plays: Right-handed
Coaches: David Pearson (DP) and Danny Massaro (husband)

Laura Massaro Achievements:

World Champion – 2014 Penang, Malaysia (first Englishwoman to win the title for 15 years)
World No.1 – January 2016
World Series Finals Champion – 2016 & 2017 Dubai
British Open Champion – 2013 & 2017 Hull (2013 became the first English woman to win the title in 22 years, in 2017 became the first Englishwoman since 1951 to win the title twice)
US Open Champion – 2011, 2015
Commonwealth Games Silver Medallist – 2010 Doubles, 2014 Singles & Doubles
British National Champion – 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017
23 Professional Tour Titles

FOOTNOTE: What’s your favourite Laura Massaro match? Readers are invited to comment below. 
 

Pictures courtesy of PSA, England Squash and Patrick Lauson

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Australian driver James McFadden will fill in for Kasey Kahne in the Wicked Energy Gum No. 9 car for the next several races.

McFadden will debut in the No. 9 machine at the World of Outlaws Patriot Nationals in Charlotte on May 24-25.

Kahne, who is recovering from an injury sustained in a crash at Williams Grove Speedway earlier this season, will continue to be hands-on with the car and travel with the team.

An exact return date for Kahne to climb back behind the wheel will be announced at a later date.

Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino said he could leave the club and "go home" if they manage to win the Champions League this season.

Spurs could reach their first ever Champions League final if they overturn a 1-0 deficit against Ajax in the semifinal second-leg on Wednesday.

Pochettino, who has guided Spurs to three consecutive top three Premier League finishes, hinted that he is prepared to walk away from the club if he manages to secure European success.

"Winning the Champions League? It would be fantastic, no? Close the five-year chapter and go home," he told a news conference.

"To win the Champions League with Tottenham, in this circumstance, in this season, maybe I need to think a little bit to do something different in the future, for sure. Because to repeat this miracle, you know."

Pochettino had been heavily linked with the Manchester United job before Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was appointed manager on a permanent basis in March.

Philippe Coutinho is "not a Barcelona player" and will be the first casualty of their shambolic Champions League exit to Liverpool, while the board are set to meet to decide coach Ernesto Valverde's fate, sources have told ESPN FC.

- Ogden: Liverpool comeback tops any night Anfield's ever seen
- Hunter: Barca were the 'dopes' in shock loss at Liverpool
- Liverpool ratings: Origi, Fabinho top list of heroes vs. Barca
- Barcelona ratings: Alba 3/10 as his mistakes start collapse

Sources also confirmed that a number of the coaching staff are disappointed with Coutinho's performances this season. The Brazilian is the club's record signing at €160 million but his displays against his former side across both legs of the semifinal strengthened the idea that his time at Camp Nou is up.

"Coutinho is not a Barcelona player, that's been made clear," a club source told ESPN FC.

The ex-Liverpool playmaker started the season well but his form and confidence have fallen off a cliff since an injury in October. He's been unable to re-find his best form since and the source bemoaned that "he has added nothing. He will leave in the summer."

ESPN FC first revealed in March that Barcelona were ready to listen to offers north of €105m for Coutinho and his performances against Liverpool have done nothing to change their plans. He was taken off before the hour mark in both matches, jeered by Barca fans last week and Liverpool supporters on Tuesday. The Catalan club made a huge effort to sign him but there's now an acknowledgment that things have not worked out.

While the reaction in the heat of the moment has seen Coutinho singled out inside the club, the board, headed by president Josep Maria Bartomeu, will try to deal with the fallout from the Liverpool loss in the coming days in a more cool-headed manner.

Diario Sport called the 4-0 defeat the "biggest embarrassment" in the club's history and Bartomeu says there will be time to reflect on how they recover from a second successive European humiliation. They also surrendered a three-goal lead against Roma last year.

"There will be time for a deep reflection and to give explanations," he said after the game. "There's a Copa del Rey final to play in three weeks [against Valencia on May 25].

"Last year, in Rome, the same thing happened and it's not easy to explain. We will try to do so internally. We have to pick ourselves up and apologise to all the Barcelona supporters."

The board will talk in the coming days and Valverde's future will be up for debate. The former Athletic Bilbao boss has won back-to-back league titles but those who are most critical of him at the club point to the fact this is the second time in a year that Barcelona have chucked away a huge advantage.

However, as suggested by Bartomeu, the board do not want to rush into making a decision. But there will be talks to see if they can respond to a question which they still don't have an obvious answer: who could replace Valverde?

There are not many options available who would be capable of leading the required regeneration. Barcelona's starting XI at Anfield included seven players aged 30 or over.

"We have to see how Valverde deals with this tricky situation," a club source said on Wednesday. "The fans are really upset and disappointed with what happened and on Sunday there's a league game against Getafe. It will be interesting to see how the supporters react."

To begin properly, we have to start at the end.

In getting to the heart of Barcelona's inability -- again -- to protect a three-goal lead, we have to start with Liverpool's fourth. Bear with me.

Long ago, Liverpool had a boot room at their training ground. It was the place, literally, where the squad's football boots were stored. But because it was informal, warm, more communal than the manager's office, the Reds' coaching staff used to meet there.

Legend has it that it was the kingdom of wisdom. Men like Bill Shankly, Joe Fagan, Ronnie Moran, Roy Evans and Bob Paisley used to share a cuppa, perhaps a crafty smoke, but above all they shared knowledge. They built a footballing empire on common sense and wit. They worked out how to keep their robust, daring, all-conquering team sharp, motivated and one step ahead of the competition.

- Ogden: Liverpool comeback tops any night Anfield's ever seen
- Liverpool ratings: Origi, Fabinho top list of heroes vs. Barca
- Barcelona ratings: Alba 3/10 as his mistakes start collapse
- Social reaction: LeBron, Mourinho stunned by comeback

A phrase grew out of that boot-room culture, one that Paisley used to repeat to his footballers, who won him six league titles, five UEFA trophies among which were the jewels: three European Cups. "Find the dope," he told his men. "Find the dope!"

What that meant was that his Liverpool needed to be the team that never switched off. Like sharks, they hunted down the moment when a rival, even just one of them, switched off. Paisley told them that opponents, facing Liverpool's withering pace and passing, relentless, hungry and ambitious football, would tire -- mentally before physically. He told them that they would have a "dopey" moment -- be it just before half-time, when the referee stopped play or when the ball went out of play -- and that his Liverpool were required to pounce on that with ruthless, unerring predatorial lust.

Those words were originally uttered by Paisley decades before Trent Alexander-Arnold was born, but now you see where I'm going. Now you see why, in analysing Barcelona's remarkable collapse, their seemingly lemming-like procession over another cliff a year after Rome, it's important to start with the end.

The goal that put Liverpool in the Champions League final in Madrid, the goal that smashed Blaugrana dreams, was the goal that showed that Barca were the dopes.

Ernesto Valverde's side, like in the first leg, were getting the runaround. Liverpool's high press, wave after wave of red, was not only working, it was beginning to gnaw away at Barcelona's psyche. You could see the thought bubbles over Barca heads: "Oh, no! Not again!" Really, you could. Written in capital letters and with exclamation marks.

Valverde didn't pick the right XI. His contention that it would be "absurd" not to try to dominate possession was betrayed by his own unwillingness to risk Arthur.

The Brazilian has the one-touch/two-touch Xavi-esque skills to keep the ball moving, to turn the tide of pressure, to offer passing solutions. He did it at Camp Nou when Manchester United, briefly, threatened to do exactly this to Barcelona. He's small, inexperienced, not flawless -- but football brave. He represents the ethos this squad had, not too long ago, but is now patching up like a bicycle tire where the leaks have band-aids over them.

But, back to the dopes.

The Georginio Wijnaldum goals were coming; Liverpool were sending smoke signals, homing pigeons with written messages tied to their legs, spirit mediums were trying to get through to the Barcelona bench. But none of it was to any avail. They wouldn't listen. The Dutchman's up-and-at-'em style ruffled the Spanish champions so badly that he scored twice more quickly than it takes to brew a cup of tea.

And then the stage of the game arrived when either side could still qualify; the stage of the match when, even at 3-0 down, Barcelona still, if they were street smart, carried a huge advantage. One of their goals, thanks to playing away from home, would buy two of Liverpool's. If Valverde's mob had made it 3-1, then Liverpool needed two more -- more than they eventually scored even when they were flying.

But instead of this team boxing clever, instead of Barca understanding that however rattled and shaken they felt the advantage was not fully down the drain, they flunked the examination.

Just look at when Alexander-Arnold is about to relinquish the corner, he spots that Barcelona are the dopes and that Origi is wide awake. He takes such a brilliant centre that it's reminiscent of Lionel Messi. I hope they exchanged shirts at the end. It was witty, sharp -- streetwise. Paisley, in that blessed instant, would have been grinning down from the heavens.

But what of Barcelona? The reason I put so much emphasis on this moment isn't at all because it's the instant in which the lights went out, the dream faded and everyone was told to go home to misery and what Valverde called "penitence." No, the reason for the emphasis is that this is apparently the era of determination, of focus, of intensity at Camp Nou.

Nobody pretended that this is an era equal to the peak of Messi, Dani Alves, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, David Villa, Carles Puyol, Sergio Busquets and Eric Abidal. Nor did anyone, least of all Valverde, pretend that Barcelona had a coach for all the ages like Pep Guardiola is, was and will always be.

However, this is an epoch when Valverde has set up his team, all season, to work to cover Busquets' lack of running power. This is the Barca era when blue-collar concepts like a twin organising midfielder system -- doble pivote, in Spanish football language -- was not only an antidote to ageing and to lower grade possession play, it was specifically implemented to protect Barcelona against the maulings, like this one, that had been suffered in the past few seasons against Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Roma.

Above all -- and this casts in a terrible light on how Barcelona were thinking and behaving when that fourth goal went in -- Valverde's Barca were, they told us, united in a desire to follow flag-bearing Messi to glory, possibly to Treble glory. Lesser members of the squad were "getting gritty," working harder, inspired by the genius of the Argentine No. 10. All season long, Barcelona have been acting 180-degree opposite to the 79th minute when they went to sleep at Anfield.

All those themes of focus, determination, intensity and aggression have been true enough to arrange an eighth title in 10 years, to put Barcelona into what now looks like a slightly precarious Copa del Rey final. They also put Valverde's Blaugrana within one more goal of the Champions League final, whether in defeat at Anfield or the error of Ousmane Dembele, who must now be feeling a hot, red burn of humiliation at his feeble miss to extend the lead to 4-0 at Camp Nou last week.

The communal attitude, the "all for one" ethic, the grit, the "let's do it for Messi" level of physical commitment: those attributes that have made Barcelona dominant in Spain again this season, they'd never have allowed the Keystone Kops moment of which Alexander-Arnold and Origi took advantage. What happened? How did these hard-nosed, mission-inspired, elite professionals allow their pants to be pulled down?

When the corner was taken, Barcelona were statuesque. Nobody was alert, nobody was on the move; mild discussions about positional duties were taking place. It looked like any request for a teammate to move a few yards needed to filed in triplicate and signed off a day before. Liverpool were brutally brilliant, Barcelona were bogged down in penalty-box bureaucracy.

Through fatigue, through the haunting memories of a previous three-goal lead tossed away, they had become the dopes.

Arguably, there were notable differences here from those three humiliations in Paris, Turin and Rome. While Barcelona took a beating and deservedly exited, they competed well enough this time that Messi wasn't a shadow, that clear-cut scoring chances were created and scorned and that Alisson -- who's now a hex for the Blaugrana -- needed to produce four very good saves from Messi (twice), Philippe Coutinho and Jordi Alba.

Last week, before the first leg, I wrote in this column that: "One reason for writing so scathingly about Barcelona's weekend performance is the clash against Jurgen Klopp's red machine already felt like Superman meeting kryptonite for the first time. In case you're not familiar with the 81-year-old extraterrestrial, he went by the name Clark Kent and has made millions for DC Comics and Hollywood filmmakers. He left mortals standing, but kryptonite mysteriously weakened him -- just as Liverpool's pressing, athleticism, high-tempo passing, three-man front line and height at set pieces can potentially do to Barcelona."

Frankly, though I was accurate, it feels like I underplayed it now. Barcelona's 43-year inability to knock Liverpool out of Europe continues. Guardiola's words this week that Klopp's Liverpool are the best rivals he has faced now look nothing like Manchester City self-congratulation on being English champions-elect, but more like a loud warning -- unheeded -- for Valverde & Co.

Velocity were 111 for 2 in the 17th over. They needed only two runs to win. They were ahead of the game practically its entire duration, but just as everything seemed rosy, five wickets fell... for absolutely no runs.

Here's the story of a collapse most dramatic, as captured by our ball-by-ball commentators.

16.5 Gayakwad to Wyatt, OUT, full on middle and finally, Trailblazers hold onto a chance. Wyatt played an excellent knock here but hit that one straight to mid-off

DN Wyatt c Sharma b Gayakwad 46 (35b 5x4 2x6) SR: 131.42

16.6 Gayakwad to Krishnamurthy, OUT, length outside off, she comes down the wicket and slices it to point where it falls short of the fielder, Mithali called for the run, Veda also took off but was ball watching and in the end, both of them were stranded mid-pitch as the throw came in to the keeper, who removed the bails. After a few replays, it's Veda who has to walk back as they hadn't quite crossed

V Krishnamurthy run out 0 (1b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.00

17.1 Sharma to Raj, OUT, another one! Mithali yorked herself there, came down the wicket and played all around it as it crashed into middle stump

M Raj b Sharma 17 (22b 1x4 0x6) SR: 77.27

17.2 Sharma to Pandey, no run, full outside off, pushed to cover

17.3 Sharma to Pandey, OUT, swings across the line and she's cleaned up! An innocuous length ball on off, spun back in slightly as she tried to drag it to the leg side on the slog sweep and missed

S Pandey b Sharma 0 (2b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.00

17.4 Sharma to Kerr, no run, full on middle, gets an inside edge onto the pad, there's a massive appeal turned down

17.5 Sharma to Kerr, OUT, that's five without a run added to the score! Another swing across the line to a straight ball and another one crashes into the stumps

AC Kerr b Sharma 0 (2b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.00

Batsmen kept coming and they kept going, and for a moment, Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Deepti Sharma were pulling off a scarcely-believable miracle for Trailblazers but then...

17.6 Sharma to Pradhan, 2 runs, full on off, squeezed down to short third-man and after making this incredibly hard for themselves, Velocity get over the line

A plan to involve Younis Khan, Pakistan's highest run-scorer in Test cricket, in the country's Under-19 coaching set-up has fallen through after the former captain and the PCB failed to reach an agreement. One of the sticking points, ESPNcricinfo understands, had to do with finances, while the other was with the job profile, as the PCB had proposed Younis only be a mentor and a coach, but he wanted a say in selection as well.

The proposal to bring Younis into the system following his retirement two years go was initiated by Ehsan Mani, the PCB chairman, who wished to have a modern cricketer to work with the youngsters, somewhat along the lines of the role played by Rahul Dravid in India, though he is also the coach of the India A side. The idea was to try and develop the new lot of junior cricketers early on in their journey towards the top tier, unlike in the past, when coaches from the domestic level have been given charge, that too usually months before an Under-19 World Cup.

The choice of Younis wasn't a straightforward one, as he has had a frayed relationship with the PCB over the years. And it's believed that various senior PCB officials had expressed their reservations, some even refusing to deal with Younis directly.

PCB managing director Wasim Khan eventually had a number of meetings with Younis, but it came down to a question of money - Younis' demand was too hefty for the PCB. There was also the other factor: Younis wanted to be involved in selection affairs, which the PCB didn't want. The last meeting was over three weeks ago, and the two parties parted ways after that.

Neither Younis, nor the PCB agreed to comment on the matter, but the board did confirm that they had been in talks.

A FEW HOURS before Duke's NCAA tournament run begins in Columbia, South Carolina, Bill Pell sits in his living room and reminisces about his final year teaching at Spartanburg Day School, a tiny private school located about 100 miles from the arena where the Duke Blue Devils will play later tonight. Before retiring last spring, the 79-year-old taught a daily creative writing class, a yearlong elective for kids interested in developing their craft. Fewer than 10 students signed up for the course. One of them was 17-year-old Zion Williamson.

"I hope he won't mind me saying this, but he's a hell of a poet," says Pell, smiling coyly as he adjusts his glasses. "The kid can write."

Pell lives on a quiet country road in Spartanburg, in an airy, sun-filled house built in the 1800s. Before moving here several decades ago, he worked as an editor for the Modern Language Association in New York City. At Spartanburg Day, he wanted to create a space for his students to express their feelings through writing. "All teenagers are very emotional," he says with a chuckle. "Early on, I said, 'Do you know what you want to do, Zion?' He said, 'I'm not sure.' He wasn't 100 percent comfortable -- he was feeling his way into the class." While Pell usually let his students spend the period writing, he sometimes shared readings with them at the beginning of the hour so they could learn by example -- works by Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas and Billy Collins.

At first, Williamson tried his hand at short stories, but he wasn't entirely satisfied with the results. Then he started writing poems. "He'd give them to me -- he was very cautious," Pell says. "I began making suggestions. Then all he did was write poems ... and the deeper we got into the year, the more complicated and sophisticated they became. They were remarkable."

Pell laughs. "I said, 'Zion ... you're going to be as good a writer as you are a basketball player if you follow through on this.'"

While the students occasionally shared their writing for critiques, Williamson didn't love reading his work out loud in front of the class. "He was shy about that," Pell says, quickly adding: "He wasn't the only one." The retired teacher declines to elaborate on the content of Williamson's poetry, aside from praising its structure and skill. But he saved one piece of writing that he feels comfortable sharing because it was read aloud at a school event. He opens a folder sitting on his lap and pulls out a sheet of paper.

"I was wondering how best I could communicate to you the kind of person he is," Pell says. At the end of the school year, some of the senior athletes wrote letters to their teachers. A bit shyly, Pell hands over Williamson's note, which was addressed to him. The writing, clear and artful, conveys a level of earnestness that echoes Pell's description of his former student's poetry. At the beginning, Williamson thanks his teacher for pushing him to grow outside of basketball. "As my high school journey ends, I wish you could go with me," he wrote. "Instead, I will take the lessons you have taught me and apply them to my next chapter."

Pell slips the letter back into his folder gingerly, as if it were made of glass. "See what I mean about the sensitivity?" he says.

NOW THAT HE'S officially headed to the NBA, Zion Williamson will enter the draft as the most talked about prospect in recent history, but we really don't know very much about him. Think about it: During his college career, when Williamson accrued single-moniker celebrity status -- his first name was as likely to be trending on Twitter on a random weeknight as any political issue or pet-friendly hashtag -- what did we really learn? We know he likes anime, because his mother revealed as much in a sideline interview (bloggers were thrilled). We know he listens to Jay-Z, a preference that his young teammates have described, disturbingly to anyone born before 1990, as "old school." But beyond those breadcrumbs of trivia, Williamson is still something of a cipher -- a hook upon which sports fans can hang their hopes, their reaction gifs, and their predetermined opinions on everything ranging from dunking to amateurism.

While Williamson and his family emphatically avoided the spotlight during his time at Duke, turning down most interview requests -- including one for this story -- there are lessons to be gleaned from examining his years at Spartanburg Day, a K-12 school with just 450 students (Williamson's graduating class had 45 kids). The mere fact that Williamson, one of the most hyped basketball recruits in a generation, attended Spartanburg Day, a school best known for its academics -- and stayed there, shunning the advances of so-called basketball factories -- makes him an anomaly.

The family was introduced to the school when Williamson's stepfather, who played hoops at Clemson, met Spartanburg Day's coach, Lee Sartor, through the AAU circuit. Sartor, now the coach at Erskine College, says Williamson wasn't unusually big when he first saw him play in sixth grade. "He was definitely better than a lot of the kids from a basketball IQ perspective," he says. "But physically, he was just like them." Then, the summer before Williamson entered high school, he grew about 5 inches, sprouting so quickly that his mother, Sharonda, had to ice his knees to soothe his growing pains.

As a freshman, Williamson played point guard, honing the playmaking skills that surprised national audiences this season. He also started to dunk. Sartor remembers sending a video of one of Williamson's early in-game yams to ESPN, then marveling at the ripple effect.

Before long, the segments of the internet that seek out the aforementioned yams began to buzz about the kid from South Carolina who played like a sentient sledgehammer. Donnie Bui, a 27-year-old videographer who cut highlight reels for the website BallIsLife.com, moved to Charlotte to cover Williamson. "The first dozen games I went to, there were, like, 50 people in the crowd," he says. "He would be doing all this amazing stuff, and I'd be like" -- he lowers his voice to a whisper -- "'What is going on? Why do people not show up to see this kid?'"

By the middle of Williamson's junior year, after he scored 53 in the Chick-fil-A Classic in Columbia against top prospect Jalek Felton, the 6-foot-7, 230-pound teenager was a media sensation. That January, Drake posted a photograph of himself wearing a Spartanburg Day jersey; Williamson's Instagram following exploded. Yet even as the high school student's profile took off, his life in Spartanburg remained grounded. Sartor credits this dichotomy to the influence of Williamson's family -- Sharonda, who coached him in middle school, was a calming force -- and the intimacy of his school environment. "I think it was an atmosphere where Zion could grow and be himself and just be a high school student," he says.

On the court, Williamson was eager to entertain with 360-degree dunks and tomahawk jams. Off the court, Sartor remembers a teenager who mostly wanted to blend in with his friends. "He was playing in front of thousands, but if he had to walk out in front of 30 people ... he didn't like that," he says. He recalls an instance when a college coach visited before a game; Williamson was sitting with his teammates in the stands. When Sartor motioned him over to speak with the coach, Williamson exited the arena, walked outside and came in through a side door so he wouldn't attract extra attention.

When Williamson chose Duke, shocking locals who thought he'd end up at nearby Clemson, he joined one of the most star-studded recruiting classes in history. Some questioned whether Duke's freshmen could suppress their egos. Williamson, for his part, quickly developed a reputation as an unselfish player -- a characteristic, says Bui, that dates back to his high school days. Even when Williamson played alongside kids who weren't destined for Division I schools, "it was always him wanting to get his teammates involved," Bui says. Sartor agrees. "Sometimes you'd have to tell him: 'You just need to take over the game.'"

While Williamson's unusual high school résumé molded him in unexpected ways, it also made him a mystery in scouting circles. Because he played for a tiny school against other tiny schools (and missed some of the national showcases at which top prospects compete), his early tape occasionally evokes Gulliver stomping among the Lilliputians. As a result, critics questioned whether the SportsCenter favorite, a raw shooter, could dominate tougher competition. Coming out of high school, the forward wasn't universally regarded as a future NBA star, in part because some saw him as little more than a dunker, the sort of human highlight reel condescendingly referred to as a mixtape player. This dynamic produced a paradox: The buzziest prospect in years was, in hindsight, underrated.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski, quick to praise Williamson's passing and ballhandling, says the public was so focused on the young player's high notes that everyone underestimated his range. "[People say], 'Well, I didn't know he could do that,'" he says. "You were only looking at one thing!"

WILLIAMSON SPENT HIS childhood in Florence, South Carolina, but his years in Spartanburg left an indelible image on the former textile town. Years from now, if the likely No. 1 pick achieves the level of NBA superstardom augured by his current trajectory, it's easy to imagine tourists stopping to take pictures of the landmarks that defined Williamson's high school years. There's Wofford College, the first school to offer him a scholarship. It's also where the Carolina Panthers train; a couple of summers ago, several NFL players paused their workouts to gawk at Williamson as he practiced in the gym. There's the Beacon Drive-In, the diner where he celebrated with his teammates after winning the state championship. And there's Spartanburg Day School, a redbrick building with an immaculate lawn that sits on a few acres just outside of town.

The morning before Duke takes on North Dakota State in the opening round of the tournament, Spartanburg Day holds a pep rally to celebrate its famous alumnus. Students of all ages pour into the gym, where Williamson's most dazzling dunks play on a projector. The elementary schoolers won't stop squealing. As a miniature marching band plays, a kid wearing a mascot costume that looks like a fuzzy eagle with wings and a tail -- a mythical creature known as a griffin -- shimmies across the auditorium.

Sitting inside the gym, with its 1,000-person capacity, it's hard to imagine the larger-than-life Williamson rumbling down the court. Some of his old teammates are scattered in the bleachers. A slender senior named Jeet Patel, who hopes to study medicine at Yale, was on the varsity squad with Williamson last year. "He's really nice," Patel says. Sometimes, he adds, people ask him for his former classmate's number. "I don't have it!"

Patel misses playing with Williamson. "He would usually get double- or triple-teamed and still score. It made things a lot easier for other people," he says with a laugh.

Once the drumming subsides, a kid wearing a Christian Laettner jersey passes the microphone to the head of the school, Rachel Deems. "When one Griffin is doing something special -- out of the ordinary -- we celebrate him," she says as a couple of cheerleaders raise posters with "Go Zion" scribbled on the front in a bubbly font. "We're here to celebrate the success of a Griffin who is fairly well-known around the country."

After the pep rally, Deems sits in her office and reflects on the deluge of attention that flooded the school when Williamson was a student. "This fall, during one of our opening basketball games, I sat down, and I had this moment of realization," she says. "It was the first time I sat at a basketball game in four years."

A faraway look crosses her face. "I think by his sophomore year, we knew that it was getting bigger than any of us could imagine. ... There's a goodness about him that I think people want to celebrate."

It's not unusual, of course, for an athlete's old teachers and coaches to shower him or her with praise; they know they're being treated as character witnesses in the court of public opinion. But when the adults who crossed paths with Williamson share their memories of him, it's striking how rarely they lean on the usual athlete-as-a-young-prodigy tropes ("When I showed up at the gym, he was already there!"), instead telling stories that paint a picture of an active, growing mind. Deems remembers him as a student who was passionate about history and wanted to join the school's delegation to the capitol for a government immersion program -- a logistical challenge, she recalls, because he couldn't go anywhere at the time without being interrupted. Recently, she says, Williamson was excited to tell her about a photo essay he worked on in college documenting his own grueling schedule.

"There are some things you can shape and do for a child," she says. "But there are also some things that are just innate."

The next day, after Duke advances to the second round, Williamson sits in the locker room for his obligatory media availability, his boulder-sized chest caving in a little as a battalion of reporters descends. As cameras and tape recorders are thrust in front of his face, he patiently answers a question about dunking on Tacko Fall, the 7'6 star of Duke's next opponent, UCF. A few minutes later, he answers it again. When he is asked how it feels to play so close to his old high school and how his years there shaped him, he pauses to gather his thoughts. "I think it helped with my personality," he says. "It helped me bond with kids I probably wouldn't have bonded with if I didn't go to that school. It helped me become a more social person."

Krzyzewski, who first visited Spartanburg Day when Williamson was a sophomore, says the teen star faced pressure to leave and play for more competitive prep schools. "But I think it was unbelievably important for him, as a person, to stay in that environment," he says, among students who treated him "like a regular human being." Today, he continues, Williamson is not only the most unique athlete he's ever coached, but also possesses a rare emotional intellect.

"There are sunshine people and cloudy people," Krzyzewski says. He smiles slightly, perhaps amused by his own poetic assessment, a deviation from his typically matter-of-fact tone. "He's brilliant sunshine."