ESPN.com: ESPNMagazine

[Print without images]

This is going to sound cruel, but for as nice a fella as Dusty Rychart is, and for as hard as he brings it on the court, and for as many obstacles as hes overcome in his rags-to-Rudy climb to become the face of Minnesota basketball, heres the most important thing you need to know about him: Dusty Rychart is not a good basketball player. Not good at all. Like, seriously bad. He shoots knuckleball Js. He plods up and down the court. He can barely dunk-or even palm-a basketball, which is ludicrous considering hes 6'7".

Think thats a little too cruel? Please. You dont know how cruel we could be. Ever since I got here, Ive told Dusty, Weve got to get better players than you, players that are quicker, or bigger, or that shoot better. Know who said that? Dan Monson, Dustys coach. Nice, huh? Wait. Another quote: Does nothing great. Not physically gifted. No flash. Doesnt even look like a player. Any guesses? Okay, thatd be Dusty himself. Now thats cruel.

So there. Dusty is not a good basketball player. Everyone says so. And now that everyone has said so, understand what a fantastic thing this is. Because talent would be wasted on Dusty. It would change who he is. What he is. What hes done and what he can do.

With talent, it would mean nothing that hes led UM in scoring and rebounding the last two seasons. With talent, his rise from unrecruited walk-on to All-Big Ten candidate wouldnt register. With talent, hed be just another player with 100 scholarship offers, agents up the butt and the world at his finger roll.

And who would care?

Without talent, though, hes a guy whos overcome. Without talent, he inspires. And without talent, he represents. The underdogs. The overachievers. The put-upon. The picked-on. And most important of all, his twin brother Jessy, who in nearly losing everything eight years ago from a mysterious illness everybody now calls Jessys Disease, gave Dusty his strength and drive and will to succeed. All of which to this day carries Dusty, who -- remember -- is not a good basketball player. Not good at all.

Like, seriously bad.

***

Mom is telling a funny story, just to get things going, about Dusty Rycharts obsession with basketball. Its a peculiar obsession, because he grew up in Grand Rapids, Minn. -- three hours south of Canada, four hours north of Minneapolis -- where kids obsess about hockey, not basketball. Not Dusty. When he was done with school, and done with practice, hed come home and shoot in the driveway. When it got dark, hed turn on the car lights and shoot. When it got cold, hed turn on a Sheetrock propulsion heater and shoot. And when it got late, hed go to bed and shoot. Thats right -- in his dreams.

The cat would be lying on him in bed, says Becky Rychart. Dusty would flinch, and the cat would fly and hit the wall. Then wed hear him yell, Shoot the ball! Take it to the hole! 

Dusty shrugs when he hears this story the next day, as if to say, So what? Lots of kids obsess over basketball, right? He no more than anyone else.

So what? So everything.

Dan Monson knows. When they first met, he thought Dusty was a scrub. Now? Well, now he knows where Dusty has come from and what hes done. And now he knows you just cant shake this guy. You just cant. Hes not quick enough to defend anybody, Monson says, but he kind of gets in their way. Hes not a great shooter, but they have to guard him. He doesnt have the quickness to bounce around guys, but he finds a way to finish plays. And at the end of the night, hes your leading scorer and rebounder.

Amazing the battles obsession can win for you.

Rychart led Grand Rapids High in scoring and rebounding three straight years, made first-team All-State in 1997 -- and received just one scholarship offer, from D2 St. Cloud State. I was so lost, he says. Then an offer came from UM to walk-on, and he thought he was found. But when Rychart arrived on campus, the other guys dogged his Christian Laettner do, his beat-up sneakers, his lack of flash, his scrawny build. At practice, before hitting the showers, theyd wrestle him, throw him to the floor.

As for playing time? Well, then-coach Clem Haskins told Dusty he wished the rest of the team worked as hard. Assistants told him he could hang. And during his freshman year, when he redshirted, he even earned the respect of his teammates -- on the day junior Miles Tarver started jabbing his finger in Dustys chest and unleashing a fury of taunts. Dusty grabbed Tarver, dropped him and pinned him for a three-count. From then on, Dusty says, no one messed with me. But even after adding a few pounds and growing a few inches and working his butt off in practice for a year, he averaged only nine minutes his whole redshirt freshman season.

Then, on March 11, 1999, Dusty got his shot. Before the Gophers first-round Tourney game with Gonzaga, Haskins announced that four players had been suspended for their roles in a nasty academic cheating scandal that had just surfaced. Then he announced that Dusty was starting.

What? Against a Zags team that hadnt bothered to file a scouting report on him, Rychart went for 23 points and 17 boards, leading the seven-deep Gophers to a near-upset. On the outside, Im mad as hell we lost, Dusty says. Inside, Im happy as hell. That was my breakthrough.

That June, Haskins gave Dusty his scholarship. Two weeks later, Haskins was forced to resign. A month later, in July 1999, UM hired its new head man: Dan Monson, the former Gonzaga coach, the guy Dusty had torched back in March. Good news for Dusty, right? Not exactly. Monson told Rychart in their first meeting that everyone had a clean slate -- in other words, 23 and 17 didnt count. I was like, man, the nerve, Dusty says.

Rychart went on to lead the Gophers in scoring and rebounding his sophomore season, but the team won only four games in Big Ten play, and the players treated Monson like a stepfather, talking back to him and his assistants, affirming their loyalty to Haskins. Even Dusty, still bitter over how Monson had made him feel unwanted, bitched and moaned. Not surprisingly, he gained no ground with Monson. He told me I was uncoachable, Dusty says.

Monsons words struck Dustys most sensitive nerve: Hed carved his game out of hard work, and now he was being called uncoachable? Dusty realized something had to give. And so he did.

I didnt like how I was that year, he says. It wasnt me. So I changed. So did his teammates, who accepted Monsons ultimatum to get on board. Dusty led the team in scoring and rebounding again in 2000-01, only this time the Gophers earned an unexpected NIT berth. For a team that many predicted to finish last in the Big Ten, it was a remarkable feat. After the season, Dusty and Monson had another meeting. Says Dusty: Coach told me, Youre a big part of this team. He made me feel wanted.

This season, Dusty once again leads the team in scoring and rebounding, and the Gophers head into conference play looking to make a run at an NCAA bid. Its worked out so far because Monson knows the deal. Everyone does now. You just dont shake this guy. You just dont.

So what? So everything.

***

Moms telling another funny story. In it, shes sitting in the living room, watching TV, thinking about the twins that are on the way. One of them has been named already -- Jessy; shes always liked the way Jesse James sounded -- but she still doesnt have a name for the other. Then The Love Boat comes on. The captains inspecting the ship. He pulls out a white glove. He wipes the deck. Oh, the captain says. Dusty. Mom says,Oh, Dusty! And thats the name that goes on the birth certificate.

Another funny story, Dads turn. On Aug. 11, 1978, the day the fraternal twins are born, Jessy comes first. Hes small, weak, under five pounds. Dusty comes second. Hes big, strong, over eight pounds. Dusty hogged all the food, jokes their father, Mike. Hearing her husband say this, Becky winces. Its not really funny, not when she thinks about it.

One last funny story, Moms turn again. Growing up, the boys do everything together. They watch The Muppet Show sprawled out like Lincoln Logs on the living-room floor. They ride their hobby horse, two at a time. You know those plastic, indestructible three-wheelers they used to make? The boys go through four of them one year. Mostly, though, the Rychart twins play sports. Jessy likes hockey. Dusty prefers basketball. Jessy rebounds Dustys shots for an hour. Dusty shoots pucks at Jessy for an hour. They trade turns all day and dont quit until bedtime.

They were joined at the hip, Becky says.

And then? Well, there is another story, but not a funny one. Its one we have to hear to understand who Dusty Rychart is. Dusty, now 14, is sitting in front of the family TV watching the 1993 NCAA Final -- Fab Five vs. UNC. Jessy comes into the living room and asks where Mom and Dad are. You know where they are, Dusty says. Theyre at a party. Go away. Jessy goes away. Five minutes later, hes back: Where are Mom and Dad? Dustys annoyed: Jessy, you know where they are. Whats wrong with you? Jessy goes away. He comes back five minutes later, clearly upset: Where are Mom and Dad? Now Dustys angry: Quit messing around, Jessy. Dont ask me again. Jessy leaves -- and he punches his bedroom door, cracking it in half. Dusty calls his parents: I think theres something wrong with Jessy.

Eight months later, Christmas Day, Jessy is in a wheelchair, unable to walk, barely able to speak, a vacancy in his eyes when he looks at his mom, and his dad, even Dusty. There are no presents. No lights. No joy. Everything has been taken away from Jessy. And Jessy has taken everything away from them. We always had a Christmas tree, Dusty says. You know, a cheesy tree. You could see the metal frame. That winter, we didnt even have a tree at all. It just didnt feel like Christmas.

Nobody could tell Dusty what was wrong with his twin brother, because nobody knew. But Dusty saw enough in the weeks after that night he called his parents to know it was something bad. First, dizziness. Then, hallucinations. Then Jessy couldnt sleep. Then he couldnt talk. Then he couldnt walk.

One doctor thought he had been taking drugs. Another thought he had Parkinsons, or that hed had a stroke. Finally, the Rycharts took Jessy to the Mayo Clinic, where neurologists submitted him to six spinal taps and a four-hour MRI. They took muscle graphs and nerve graphs. After all that, the best they could tell the family was that something was eating at Jessys brain.

The family called it Jessys Disease. Nobody could come up with a better name for it.

Dusty remembers this one July night when Jessy was sitting in the living room, watching TV. Suddenly he starts crying for Mom. Becky says, Im right here, whats wrong? He says, Someone just came out of the TV and touched my leg. Mom feels a chill. She packs Jessy and Dusty in the car. She drives around until 2 a.m., until she feels shes going to drive into a ditch. As she drives back home, Jessy cries for Mom. Whats wrong, Mom asks him, whats wrong? Jessy says, Paul Bunyan just put his foot through the windshield.

Dusty remembers that Jessy was in the hospital for 120 days from midsummer through midfall of 1993. He remembers his mom put 25,000 miles on the car. He remembers Mike worked nights at the paper plant and spent days by Jessys side. That they came home only to do laundry, to sleep for a couple of hours. Sometimes they didnt come home at all, because they were so worried about what would happen to Jessy if they werent with him.

And Dusty remembers he was nowhere. Hed shoot hoops at the Y, then come home to an empty house. Sometimes his grandparents were there, or his aunt, or his uncle. But mostly it was an empty house.

Thats where it would set in, he says. I didnt think anyone cared about me. That was selfish, when Jessy is maybe dying, but when youre growing up and you think no one cares about you? Thats hard.

Dusty didnt go to the hospital much. One time he went, but Jessy didnt recognize him. He pretended he did, but he didnt. Mike broke down. It was the first time Dusty ever saw his dad cry: That night, I wondered if this was going to tear us all apart.

That October, the hospital sent Jessy home in a wheelchair with a bottle of steroids. The steroids seemed to strengthen him, but they did things to his voice, his eyes, his mood. He would babble incessantly: Is Dad home from work yet? Whats for dinner? Wheres Dusty? Mom would stick a Tootsie Pop in his mouth just to muffle the noise, and sometimes he would babble with that Tootsie Pop in his mouth until he went hoarse. And he got mean, aggressive. One time Jessy took a swing at Dusty. Dusty ducked and punched Jessy in the ribs. Jessy crumpled to the floor. Dusty cant forget that. Hes tried. I know that it sounds mean, he says. But I had to.

After that dreadful Christmas, Jessy finally started to turn the corner. The family constructed a makeshift rehab center in the basement so Jessy could begin to repair his body, and Jessy attacked the machines. He learned to walk again, and talk again. He returned to school the next spring, and ditched the wheelchair the next fall. He worked like mad to get his life back to normal.

Only normal was different now. The doctors couldnt assure the family that Jessys disease had gone away permanently. The burden ground the family down. At one point Becky found herself unable to swallow. Mike was admitted to the hospital five times with chest pains. And Dusty slipped even deeper into a world of basketball. Thank God he had the Y, Becky says.

And Jessy wasnt the same. Dusty could take one look at him and know that. By his senior year in 1997, Dusty had grown seven inches since Jessy went down; Jessy had grown one. Dusty was the star of the basketball team. Jessy wanted to try out for football, but the doctors told him no, it was too risky. He became the basketball teams manager.

Jessy never complained Dusty says. But my brother would tell my dad he was jealous. I knew. It had to kill him that he couldnt play sports.

Sometimes, Dusty felt guilty. Sometimes, he felt lucky. Mostly, though, he tried not to think about it at all. The spring of the boys senior year, Grand Rapids hosted the state sectional finals. If they won, theyd go to the state tournament for the first time in 72 years. Dusty had 26 points and 14 rebounds, and Grand Rapids won by 3. At the awards ceremony after the game, the first medal went around Dustys neck, the last one around Jessys. Mom and Dad were both in the stands, weeping. Dusty took a look at them, and then at Jessy, and ran off the court. He didnt return for 10 minutes.

It hit me what Jessy had been through, just to be there, he says. It hit me hard. Very hard.

***

Now Dusty is telling a funny story, just to get things going. Its about the Rychart familys current obsession with ... Dusty. Every home game, they make the four-hour trip to Minneapolis. They order bulk copies of the game program to hand out back home. They cant make it on every road trip, because moneys tight, but they have a video library of all his games. When Dusty comes home -- usually just for Christmas, maybe once or twice over the summer -- all they talk about is basketball.

Jessys the same way. When the twins talk, its rarely about how community college is going for Jessy, or about girlfriends, or about how Jessy wants to be a teacher, to help out kids in need. Its almost always about basketball. Not once have they talked about the bad time. Its too painful.

But Dusty thinks about it. He thought about it his freshman year, when things were so bad he actually called home and said he was transferring. His parents said no way. They said, you cant quit now, not after what weve been through. Dusty knew what they really meant.

He thought about it during that Gonzaga game. He was nervous out there, and a little scared. But he knew his brother was watching, relishing the moment. Dusty knew what that really meant.

He thinks about it now, as his basketball career winds down. Yes, his parents pay him too much attention. But he knows its special for them to watch him live out his dream. And he knows what that really means. Sure, they take it a little too far sometimes, he says. But I cant do anything about it. The thing is ...

Dusty shrugs, as if to say, So what? Lots of families obsess over basketball, right? His no more than anyone elses.

So what? So everything.

This article appears in the January 21 issue of ESPN The Magazine.