GLENDALE, Ariz. — On his basketball sneakers, Josh Perkins would carefully write PTW, the letters etched dark and thick with a Sharpie. Growing up in Denver, Perkins believed it was the indelible ink that turned big dreams into goals so real they could not possibly be denied.
PTW was his mantra: Prove Them Wrong.
And there Perkins was Monday night: A Colorado kid that grew up in Park Hill, won a state championship with Regis Jesuit High School, went off to Gonzaga and played for the national championship against North Carolina, scoring 13 points on the sportap biggest stage. Proving them wrong.
It was all perfect except the ending: North Carolina won 71-65, sweet redemption after losing to Villanova on the final shot of the final game a year ago.
Perkins had warned me it would be nearly impossible to deny a Tar Heels team on a mission. “They didn’t come all this way to lose again,” he said.
How many Final Four dreams come true? When Perkins ran on the court for the biggest basketball game of his life, the arena echoed with noise from more than 75,000 spectators, but the one fan that counted most stood quietly in the front row behind the Zags bench.
“No matter what happens, this is as good as it gets,” Randy Perkins said. He wore No. 13, the same number his son wore on the back of his Gonzaga uniform.
Basketball is the tie that binds this father and son. Itap a love so strong, nothing can beat it, even when the dream of cutting down the nets at the Final Four falls one victory short.
Randy Perkins scrimped and saved to purchase the little house in the 2800 block of Niagara Street for one reason. The year was 1995. He was going to be a father for the first time, and doesn’t a father put a proper roof over his family? “Josh made me buy the house. Can you believe it?” explained Perkins, minutes before tipoff of the national championship game between Gonzaga and North Carolina. “And all these years later, I’m still living in that same little house.”
The son grew with a basketball dream. Inspired by Chauncey Billups, the greatest player in the history of Denver basketball, Perkins intended to do proud the neighborhood that they both called home. Billups, who won the NBA title with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, was the King of Park Hill. Perkins, the point guard for the first Gonzaga team to play for the national championship, declared himself the Prince of Park Hill, then had the moniker written on his chest with a tattoo. Indelible ink.
“I don’t know about all this tattoo stuff,” Randy Perkins said. “The first tattoo Josh got, I was the last to know.”
The truth was revealed at basketball practice in Josh Perkins’ 16th year. His father was the team’s coach. It was time to scrimmage. Shirts and skins. Josh defied a simple order, refusing to remove his T-shirt.
BOX SCORE:
Busted. On the chest. Whatap that? A tat?
“Yes, sir,” the son confessed. “But look: I’ve got Mom’s initials. Right next to my heart.”
With his family sitting within shouting distance of the court, Perkins made big noise against North Carolina. The Zags’ 35-32 halftime lead was due largely to the 6-foot-3 sophomore from Denver. Perkins scored all 13 of his points before intermission.
The Tar Heels, however, would not be denied. With Gonzaga big men Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins shackled by foul trouble, North Carolina slowly exerted its will down the stretch.
The tension was high, but the art was lacking. The Zags shot 33.9 percent from the field. Carolina’s aim was not much better, at 35.6 percent. Clink, clank, clunk.
So maybe it was appropriate that with North Carolina clinging to a three-point lead in the game’s final 30 seconds, a block put an end to the agonizing drama. Gonzaga star Nigel Williams-Goss, hobbling on a twisted ankle, drove the lane and launched a fallback jumper, only to see his prayer swatted away by Tar Heels forward Kennedy Meeks. The result was a Carolina fastbreak punctuated with a dunk so violent by Justin Jackson-Goss it shattered the Zags’ dreams.
Gonzaga finished with a 37-2 record, the best season in school history.
“Everything can be put into perspective. And eventually I’ll get it. But, right now, I’m worried about that game we just lost, because we were so close, and came up a little short,” said Perkins, scanning the distraught faces of teammates. “It is what it is. I think everybody in this locker room is hurting because this was the last game we all get to play together.”
