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Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) was an English-American actress, singer, director, and producer. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. With her independent production company, she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir with The Hitch-Hiker in 1953. Among her other directed films the best known are Not Wanted about unwed pregnancy (she took over for a sick director and refused directorial credit), Never Fear (1949) loosely based upon her own experiences battling paralyzing polio, Outrage (1950) one of the first films about rape, The Bigamist (1953) (which was named in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die) and The Trouble with Angels (1966).

Throughout her 48-year career, she made acting appearances in 59 films and directed eight others, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. As an actress her best known films are The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) with Basil Rathbone, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra (1941) with Bogart, The Sea Wolf (1941) with Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield, Ladies in Retirement (1941) with Louis Hayward, Moontide (1942) with Jean Gabin, The Hard Way (1943), Deep Valley (1947) with Dane Clark, Road House (1948) with Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark, While the City Sleeps (1956) with Dana Andrews and Vincent Price. and Junior Bonner (1972) with Steve McQueen.

She also directed more than 100 episodes of television productions in a variety of genres including westerns, supernatural tales, situation comedies, murder mysteries, and gangster stories. She was the only woman to direct an episode of the original The Twilight Zone series ("The Masks"), as well as the only director to have starred in an episode of the show ("The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine").

Lupino was born in Herne Hill, London, to actress Connie O'Shea (also known as Connie Emerald) and music hall comedian Stanley Lupino, a member of the theatrical Lupino family, which included Lupino Lane, a song-and-dance man. Her father, a top name in musical comedy in the UK and a member of a centuries-old theatrical dynasty dating back to Renaissance Italy, encouraged her to perform at an early age. He built a backyard theatre for Lupino and her sister Rita (1920–2016), who also became an actress and dancer. Lupino wrote her first play at age seven and toured with a travelling theatre company as a child. By the age of ten, Lupino had memorised the leading female roles in each of Shakespeare's plays. After her intense childhood training for stage plays, Ida's uncle Lupino Lane assisted her in moving towards film acting by getting her work as a background actress at British International Studios.

She wanted to be a writer, but in order to please her father, Lupino enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She excelled in a number of "bad girl" film roles, often playing prostitutes. Lupino did not enjoy being an actress and felt uncomfortable with many of the early roles she was given. She felt that she was pushed into the profession due to her family history.

Lupino worked as both a stage and screen actress. She first took to the stage in 1934 as the lead in The Pursuit of Happiness at the Paramount Studio Theatre.[10] Lupino made her first film appearance in The Love Race (1931) and the following year, aged 14, she worked under director Allan Dwan in Her First Affaire, in a role for which her mother had previously tested.[11] She played leading roles in five British films in 1933 at Warner Bros.' Teddington studios and for Julius Hagen at Twickenham, including The Ghost Camera with John Mills and I Lived with You with Ivor Novello.

Dubbed "the English Jean Harlow", she was discovered by Paramount in the 1933 film Money for Speed, playing a good girl/bad girl dual role. Lupino claimed the talent scouts saw her play only the sweet girl in the film and not the part of the prostitute, so she was asked to try out for the lead role in Alice in Wonderland (1933). When she arrived in Hollywood, the Paramount producers did not know what to make of their sultry potential leading lady, but she did get a five-year contract.

Lupino starred in over a dozen films in the mid-1930s, working with Columbia in a two-film deal, one of which, The Light That Failed (1939), was a role she acquired after running into the director's office unannounced, demanding an audition. After this breakthrough performance as a spiteful cockney model who torments Ronald Colman, she began to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s, and she jokingly referred to herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis", taking the roles that Davis refused.

Mark Hellinger, associate producer at Warner Bros., was impressed by Lupino's performance in The Light That Failed, and hired her for the femme-fatale role in the Raoul Walsh-directed They Drive by Night (1940), opposite stars George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart. The film did well and the critical consensus was that Lupino stole the movie, particularly in her unhinged courtroom scene. Warner Bros. offered her a contract which she negotiated to include some freelance rights. She worked with Walsh and Bogart again in High Sierra (1941), where she impressed critic Bosley Crowther in her role as an "adoring moll".

Her performance in The Hard Way (1943) won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She starred in Pillow to Post (1945), which was her only comedic leading role. After the drama Deep Valley (1947) finished shooting, neither Warner Bros. nor Lupino moved to renew her contract and she left the studio in 1947. Although in demand throughout the 1940s, she arguably never became a major star although she often had top billing in her pictures, above actors such as Humphrey Bogart, and was repeatedly critically lauded for her realistic, direct acting style.

She often incurred the ire of studio boss Jack Warner by objecting to her casting, refusing poorly written roles that she felt were beneath her dignity as an actress, and making script revisions deemed unacceptable by the studio. As a result, she spent a great deal of her time at Warner Bros. suspended. In 1942, she rejected an offer to star with Ronald Reagan in Kings Row, and was immediately put on suspension at the studio. Eventually, a tentative rapprochement was brokered, but her relationship with the studio remained strained. In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers and appeared for 20th Century Fox as a nightclub singer in the film noir Road House, performing her musical numbers in the film. She starred in On Dangerous Ground in 1951, and may have taken on some of the directing tasks of the film while director Nicholas Ray was ill.

While on suspension, Lupino had ample time to observe filming and editing processes, and she became interested in directing. She described how bored she was on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work".

She and her husband Collier Young formed an independent company, The Filmakers, to produce, direct, and write low-budget, issue-oriented films. Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when director Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and was unable to finish Not Wanted, a film Lupino co-produced and co-wrote. Lupino stepped in to finish the film without taking directorial credit out of respect for Clifton. Although the film's subject of out-of-wedlock pregnancy was controversial, it received a vast amount of publicity, and she was invited to discuss the film with Eleanor Roosevelt on a national radio program.

Never Fear (1949), a film about polio (which she had personally experienced replete with paralysis at age 16), was her first director's credit. After producing four more films about social issues, including Outrage (1950), a film about rape (while this word is never used in the movie), Lupino directed her first hard-paced, all-male-cast film, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), making her the first woman to direct a film noir. The Filmakers went on to produce 12 feature films, six of which Lupino directed or co-directed, five of which she wrote or co-wrote, three of which she acted in, and one of which she co-produced.

Lupino once called herself a "bulldozer" to secure financing for her production company, but she referred to herself as "mother" while on set. On set, the back of her director's chair was labeled "Mother of Us All".[3] Her studio emphasized her femininity, often at the urging of Lupino herself. She credited her refusal to renew her contract with Warner Bros. under the pretenses of domesticity, claiming "I had decided that nothing lay ahead of me but the life of the neurotic star with no family and no home." She made a point to seem nonthreatening in a male-dominated environment, stating, "That's where being a man makes a great deal of difference. I don't suppose the men particularly care about leaving their wives and children. During the vacation period, the wife can always fly over and be with him. It's difficult for a wife to say to her husband, come sit on the set and watch."

Although directing became Lupino's passion, the drive for money kept her on camera, so she could acquire the funds to make her own productions. She became a wily low-budget filmmaker, reusing sets from other studio productions and talking her physician into appearing as a doctor in the delivery scene of Not Wanted. She used what is now called product placement, placing Coke, Cadillac, and other brands in her films, such as The Bigamist. She shot in public places to avoid set-rental costs and planned scenes in pre-production to avoid technical mistakes and retakes. She joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress, she had now become the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director.

The Filmakers production company closed shop in 1955, and Lupino turned almost immediately to television, directing episodes of more than thirty US TV series from 1956 through 1968. She also helmed a feature film in 1965 for the Catholic schoolgirl comedy The Trouble With Angels, starring Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell; this was Lupino's last theatrical film as a director. She continued acting as well, going on to a successful television career throughout the 1960s and '70s.

Lupino's career as a director continued through 1968. Her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively for television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun – Will Travel, Honey West, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Rifleman, The Virginian, Sam Benedict, The Untouchables, Hong Kong, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.

After the demise of The Filmakers, Lupino continued working as an actress until the end of the 1970s, mainly in television. Lupino appeared in 19 episodes of Four Star Playhouse from 1952 to 1956, an endeavor involving partners Charles Boyer, Dick Powell and David Niven. From January 1957 to September 1958, Lupino starred with her then-husband Howard Duff in the sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, in which the duo played husband-and-wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake, living in Beverly Hills, California.[22] Duff and Lupino also co-starred as themselves in 1959 in one of the 13 one-hour installments of The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour and an episode of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show in 1960. Lupino guest-starred in numerous television shows, including The Ford Television Theatre (1954), Bonanza (1959), Burke's Law (1963–64), The Virginian (1963–65), Batman (1968), The Mod Squad (1969), Family Affair (1969–70), The Wild, Wild West (1969), Nanny and the Professor (1971), Columbo: Short Fuse (1972), Columbo: Swan Song (1974) in which she plays Johnny Cash's character's zealous wife, Barnaby Jones (1974), The Streets of San Francisco, Ellery Queen (1975), Police Woman (1975), and Charlie's Angels (1977). Her final acting appearance was in the 1979 film My Boys Are Good Boys.

Lupino has two distinctions with The Twilight Zone series, as the only woman to have directed an episode ("The Masks") and the only person to have worked as both actor for one episode ("The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"), and director for another.

Lupino's Filmakers movies deal with unconventional and controversial subject matter that studio producers would not touch, including out-of-wedlock pregnancy, bigamy, and rape. She described her independent work as "films that had social significance and yet were entertainment ... base on true stories, things the public could understand because they had happened or been of news value." She focused on women's issues for many of her films and she liked strong characters, "[Not] women who have masculine qualities about them, but [a role] that has intestinal fortitude, some guts to it."

In the film The Bigamist, the two women characters represent the career woman and the homemaker. The title character is married to a woman (Joan Fontaine) who, unable to have children, has devoted her energy to her career. While on one of many business trips, he meets a waitress (Lupino) with whom he has a child, and then marries her.[25] Marsha Orgeron, in her book Hollywood Ambitions, describes these characters as "struggling to figure out their place in environments that mirror the social constraints that Lupino faced".[13] However, Donati, in his biography of Lupino, said "The solutions to the character's problems within the films were often conventional, even conservative, more reinforcing the 1950s' ideology than undercutting it."

Ahead of her time within the studio system, Lupino was intent on creating films that were rooted in reality. On Never Fear, Lupino said, "People are tired of having the wool pulled over their eyes. They pay out good money for their theatre tickets and they want something in return. They want realism. And you can't be realistic with the same glamorous mugs on the screen all the time."

Lupino's films are critical of many traditional social institutions, which reflect her contempt for the patriarchal structure that existed in Hollywood. Lupino rejected the commodification of female stars and as an actress, she resisted becoming an object of desire. She said in 1949, "Hollywood careers are perishable commodities", and sought to avoid such a fate for herself.

Ida Lupino was diagnosed with polio in 1934. The New York Times reported that the outbreak of polio within the Hollywood community was due to contaminated swimming pools. The disease severely affected her ability to work, and her contract with Paramount fell apart shortly after her diagnosis. Lupino recovered and eventually directed, produced, and wrote many films, including a film loosely based upon her travails with polio titled Never Fear in 1949, the first film that she was credited for directing (she had earlier stepped in for an ill director on Not Wanted and refused directorial credit out of respect for her colleague). Her experience with the disease gave Lupino the courage to focus on her intellectual abilities over simply her physical appearance. In an interview with Hollywood, Lupino said, "I realized that my life and my courage and my hopes did not lie in my body. If that body was paralyzed, my brain could still work industriously...If I weren't able to act, I would be able to write. Even if I weren't able to use a pencil or typewriter, I could dictate."[31] Film magazines from the 1930s and 1940s, such as The Hollywood Reporter and Motion Picture Daily, frequently published updates on her condition. Lupino worked for various non-profit organizations to help raise funds for polio research.

Lupino's interests outside the entertainment industry included writing short stories and children's books, and composing music. Her composition "Aladdin's Suite" was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1937. She composed this piece while on bedrest due to polio in 1935.

She became an American citizen in June 1948 and a staunch Democrat who supported the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Lupino was Catholic.

Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles on 3 August 1995, at the age of 77. Her memoirs, Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera, were edited after her death and published by Mary Ann Anderson.

Lupino learned filmmaking from everyone she observed on set, including William Ziegler, the cameraman for Not Wanted. When in preproduction on Never Fear, she conferred with Michael Gordon on directorial technique, organization, and plotting. Cinematographer Archie Stout said of Ms. Lupino, "Ida has more knowledge of camera angles and lenses than any director I've ever worked with, with the exception of Victor Fleming. She knows how a woman looks on the screen and what light that woman should have, probably better than I do." Lupino also worked with editor Stanford Tischler, who said of her, "She wasn't the kind of director who would shoot something, then hope any flaws could be fixed in the cutting room. The acting was always there, to her credit."

Author Ally Acker compares Lupino to pioneering silent-film director Lois Weber for their focus on controversial, socially relevant topics. With their ambiguous endings, Lupino's films never offered simple solutions for her troubled characters, and Acker finds parallels to her storytelling style in the work of the modern European "New Wave" directors, such as Margarethe von Trotta.

Ronnie Scheib, who issued a Kino release of three of Lupino's films, likens Lupino's themes and directorial style to directors Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller, and Robert Aldrich, saying, "Lupino very much belongs to that generation of modernist filmmakers." On whether Lupino should be considered a feminist filmmaker, Scheib states, "I don't think Lupino was concerned with showing strong people, men or women. She often said that she was interested in lost, bewildered people, and I think she was talking about the postwar trauma of people who couldn't go home again."

Author Richard Koszarski noted Lupino's choice to play with gender roles regarding women's film stereotypes during the studio era: "Her films display the obsessions and consistencies of a true auteur... In her films The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker, Lupino was able to reduce the male to the same sort of dangerous, irrational force that women represented in most male-directed examples of Hollywood film noir."

Lupino did not openly consider herself a feminist, saying, "I had to do something to fill up my time between contracts. Keeping a feminine approach is vital — men hate bossy females ... Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation." Village Voice writer Carrie Rickey, though, holds Lupino up as a model of modern feminist filmmaking: "Not only did Lupino take control of production, direction, and screenplay, but [also] each of her movies addresses the brutal repercussions of sexuality, independence and dependence."

By 1972, Lupino said she wished more women were hired as directors and producers in Hollywood, noting that only very powerful actresses or writers had the chance to work in the field. She directed or costarred a number of times with young, fellow British actresses on a similar journey of developing their American film careers like Hayley Mills and Pamela Franklin.

Actress Bea Arthur, best remembered for her work in Maude and The Golden Girls, was motivated to escape her stifling hometown by following in Lupino's footsteps and becoming an actress, saying, "My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression."

Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions to the fields of television and film — located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.

New York Film Critics Circle Award - Best Actress, The Hard Way, 1943

Inaugural Saturn Award - Best Supporting Actress, The Devil's Rain, 1975

A Commemorative Blue Plaque is dedicated to Lupino and her father Stanley Lupino by The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America and the Theatre and Film Guild of Great Britain and America at the house where she was born in Herne Hill, London, 16 February 2016

Composer Carla Bley paid tribute to Lupino with her jazz composition "Ida Lupino" in 1964.

The Hitch-Hiker was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998 while Outrage was inducted in 2020.

#ida lupino #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #old hollywood #1930s hollywood #1940s hollywood #1950s hollywood #1960s hollywood #1970s hollywood #hollywood legend

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pope-francis-quotes · 5 years

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1st May >> (@ZenitEnglish By Virginia Forrester) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis Holy Father Addresses ‘Our Father’ at General Audience (Full Text) ‘The Confrontation Between our Freedom and the Snares of the Evil One’.

This morning’s General Audience was held at 9:10 in St. Peter’s Square, where the Holy Father Francis met with groups of pilgrims and faithful from Italy and from all over the world.

Continuing with the series of catecheses on the “Our Father,” in his address in Italian the Pope focused his meditation on the theme: “Lead us not into temptation” (Biblical passage: From the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 10:13).

After summarizing his catechesis in several languages, the Holy Father expressed special greetings to groups of faithful present.

The General Audience ended with the singing of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic Blessing.

* * *

The Holy Father’s Catechesis

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

We continue the catechesis on the “Our Father,” arriving now at the penultimate invocation: “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13). Another version says: ”Let us not fall into temptation.” The “Our Father” begins serenely: it makes us desire that God’s great plan be fulfilled in our midst. Then it casts a glance on life, and it makes us ask for what we have need every day: “daily bread.” Then the prayer addresses our inter-personal relationships, often tainted by egoism: we ask for forgiveness and we commit ourselves to give it. However, it’s with this penultimate invocation that our dialogue with the Heavenly Father enters, so to speak, the heart of the drama, namely, the area of the confrontation between our freedom and the snares of the Evil One.

As is known, the original Greek expression contained in the Gospels is difficult to render in an exact manner, and all the modern translations are somewhat shaky. However, we can converge unanimously on one element: no matter how the text is understood, we must exclude that God is the protagonist of the temptations that loom on man’s path as if God Himself was lurking to put snares and pitfalls for his children. An interpretation of this nature contradicts first of all the text itself and is far from the image of God that Jesus has revealed to us. Let us not forget: the “Our Father” begins with “Father.” And a father doesn’t put pitfalls to his children. Christians have nothing to do with an envious God, in competition with man, or who is amused to put man to the test. These are images of so many pagan divinities. In the Letter of the Apostle James, we read: “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God,” because God can’t be tempted to evil and He doesn’t tempt anyone” (1:13). If anything, it’s the contrary: the Father isn’t the author of evil, and no child who asks for a fish is given a serpent (Cf. Luke 11:11) — as Jesus teaches — , and when evil appears in man’s life, He fights at his side, so that he can be freed — a God who always fights for us, not against us. He is the Father! It’s in this sense that we pray the “Our Father.” These two moments — the test and the temptation — were mysteriously present in the life of Jesus Himself. In this experience, the Son of God made Himself completely our brother, in a way that touches almost on scandal. And it’s precisely these evangelical passages that show us that the most difficult invocations of the “Our Father,” those that close the text, were already heard: God hasn’t left us alone but, in Jesus, He manifests Himself as the “God-with-us” up to the extreme consequences. He is with us when He gives us life, He is with us during life, He is with us in joy, He is with us in trials, He is with us in sadness, He is with us in defeats, when we sin, but He is always with us, because He is Father and cannot abandon us.

If we are tempted to do evil, denying fraternity with others or desiring an absolute power over everything and everyone, Jesus has already combatted this temptation for us: the first pages of the Gospels attest it. Immediately after having received Baptism from John in the midst of the crowd of sinners, Jesus withdraws to the desert and is tempted by Satan. Satan was present. So many people say: “But why speak of the devil which is something ancient? The devil doesn’t exist.” But see what the Gospel teaches you: Jesus confronted the devil; Satan tempted Him. However, Jesus rejects every temptation and comes out victorious. Matthew’s Gospel has an interesting note, which closes the duel between Jesus and the Enemy: “Then the devil left Him, and behold, Angels came and ministered to Him” (4:11).

But even in the time of supreme test, God doesn’t leave us alone. When Jesus withdrew to pray in Gethsemane, His heart was invaded by unspeakable anguish — He said so to the disciples — and He experienced solitude and abandonment — alone, with the responsibility of all the sins of the world on His shoulders; alone, with unspeakable anguish. The test is so lacerating that something unexpected happens. Jesus doesn’t beg love for Himself, yet in that night He was sorrowful even unto death, and then He asks for the closeness of His friends: “Remain here, and watch with Me!” (Matthew 26:38). As we know, the disciples, heavy with a torpor caused by fear, fell asleep. In the time of agony, God asks man not to abandon Him and man, instead, sleeps. Instead, God watches in the time when man experiences his trial. In the most awful moments of our life, in the moments of greatest suffering, in the most anguishing moments, God watches with us, God fights with us, He is always close to us. Why? He does so because He is Father. This is how we began the prayer: “Our Father.” And a father doesn’t abandon his children. That night of Jesus’ sorrow and struggle was the last seal of the Incarnation: God comes down to find us in our abysses and in the travails that dot history.

It’s our comfort in the hour of trial to know that that valley since Jesus crossed it, is no longer desolate but blessed by the presence of the Son of God. He never abandons us!

Therefore, remove from us, O God, the time of trial and of temptation. But when this time arrives for us, our Father, show us that we’re not alone. You are the Father. Show us that the Christ has already taken on Himself the weight of that cross. Show us that Jesus calls us to carry it with Him, abandoning ourselves trustfully to your love of Father. Thank you.

[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]

In Italian

Today is the fifth Centenary of the Canonization of Saint Francis de Paul, Founder of the Order of Minims, Patron of Calabria and of the Italian People of the Sea. I would like to exhort his spiritual children and all those that have him as heavenly Patron to put into practice his message of “continual conversion,” which speaks to us again today of unconditional love for God, for brothers and for Creation.

I also remind that held next Sunday in Italy will be the Day for the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. May this Athenaeum be able to go on ever better in its service of the formation of young people, in a constant dialogue between faith and the questions of the contemporary world.

A warm welcome goes to the Italian-speaking pilgrims.

I’m happy to receive the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Capuchin Friars.

I greet the Parish Groups, in particular, those of Acilia, Caserta, Andria, and Altino; the Scout Group of Pontinia and the Ticino Christian-Social Organization.

A particular thought goes to young people, the elderly, the sick and newlyweds. Today we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. May the figure of the humble worker of Nazareth always guide us to Christ; support the sacrifice of those that do good and intercede for those that have lost work or are unable to find it. Let us pray especially for those that don’t have work, which is a global tragedy of these times.

[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]

1st MAY 2019 15:21GENERAL AUDIENCE

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chatcolat · 7 years

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Ossuary chatcolat

One shot about Nico and Will going on a not-date trip to an ossuary and coming back boyfriends or something. Solangelo

Nico wasn’t sure why he was spending so much more time around Camp Half Blood. Though he had been in charge of performing proper funeral rights for all those who died fighting the Earth Mother, Greek or Roman, he ended up back with the Greeks.

At first he spent most of his time with Jason, and then Piper by extension. With a lot of support and encouragement from Jason, he finally told Piper that he was gay. It was not easy, but it no longer made him shake and feel like vomiting. Being a daughter of Aphrodite, the news made Piper ridiculously excited.

“We should find you a boyfriend,” she insisted.

“No, really, let’s not,” he insisted, trying not to glance at the Apollo cabin. Piper was mourning Leo still - they all were - and focusing on Nico seemed to make her a lot happier.

“Play along and I promise to keep her from causing any actual harm,” Jason pleaded under his breath. Nico nodded. He would never say it out loud, but he liked the attention.

“You can’t tell anyone else, though, okay?” He explained.

“Duh,” Piper replied. “Also, I am SO glad you got over Percy. You can do better.”

She scouted around the camp grounds, watching kids play volleyball, canoe across the lake, or pick strawberries in the fields. Her eyes landed on Drew Tanaka, whispering with a few of her friends. She frowned thoughtfully. “Also, if anyone gives you trouble, or tries to push you into anything, you let me know and I’ll bring the full wrath of Aphrodite down on them.”

Nico turned beet red while Jason laughed and said something along the lines of I told you telling Piper would be a good idea.

There were a lot of things Nico liked about camp. He liked his cabin, even if he was the only one in it. He had been decorating, making it more like a home - it wasn’t perfect, but it was better. He liked the lake and the strawberry fields. Sitting out in the late summer sun stirred far off memories of his childhood in Italy. Those memories used to be painful, a too-bright spot in a world of dark, but with things looking a lot less gloomy lately, lying in the grass on a summer day no longer made his heart ache. He was starting to prefer spending time in the sun to time in the dark of the Hades cabin. Sure, he still liked the shadows – they would always be a part of him, his birthright – but he realized that didn’t mean he couldn’t live in the light too.

When he went to visit Hazel for a weekend in New Rome, she commented, “Nico, you look so healthy! I swear you used to look covered in talcum.” He hadn’t noticed, but his skin had darkened to the deep olive shade it had been in his childhood. He felt better, stronger. His head no longer ached with poisonous thoughts. His chest no longer hurt all the time as it tried to carry the weight of his hopelessness.

“Piper and Jason are going to go look for Leo again, but they’re settling here for school,” Nico told her. It made him a little sad. He would miss having them around all the time. The thought of being known used to terrify him, but now? Now it was comforting. He would miss that comfort.

“Percy and Annabeth’ll be back in New York though!” You won’t be alone. Hazel knew him too, just a different side of him. The dark, lonely thoughts of children of Hades, lost in time, swirled through her head too.

“Plus you can always come visit us!” Frank insisted. Nico smiled. Frank meant it, and that meant the world to him.

“Of course. Jason wanted help with the postmortem aspects of his Pontifex Maximus job,” said Nico. “But I’ve been making friends at Camp Half Blood, too. The kids of Apollo won’t leave me alone.” He said it like he was annoyed, but he didn’t mind. Especially when it was really just one particular son of Apollo that seemed to take pleasure in constantly inserting himself into Nico’s life. He should tell them, but he wasn’t sure he was ready. Hazel was, after all, still adapting to a lot of modern conventions. Having a homosexual brother was perhaps a little too much just yet.

Will Solace had proved the words he spoke during the battle with Gaea true. Nico was wanted at Camp. People invited him to play volleyball, pick strawberries, and even play capture the flag (as long as he kept his “Underworld magic” out of it). He had been dragged into learning how to row a canoe. More than a few campers got a kick out of seeing the son of Hades struggle at something.

“It’s comforting for them to see you aren’t perfect,” Will explained after fishing Nico out of the lake.

“Of course I’m not perfect,” his face was bright red. He hoped Will thought it was from nearly drowning and not because their hands were touching.

Will laughed. “Yeah, you’re just the strongest demigod of the century or something. No big deal.”

Nico scowled and a few kids around the docks backed up. Will shoved him back in the lake.

“I thought you were my doctor!” He spluttered as he came back up, desperately trying to grab the edge of the dock. He could swim, but just barely. It was more of a dog paddle.

“Yes. Exactly. You need to stop glaring at everyone and lighten up or your face will get stuck like that.” He made a very exaggerated imitation of Nico frowning. “Doctor’s orders.”

Nico grabbed Will’s unguarded ankle and pulled him in as well. When Will resurfaced, the two of them put on quite a show of trying to beat each other to the ladder. A small crowd gathered around and to watch, laughing at their theatrics. Nico could very safely say he had never enjoyed an afternoon more.

He told Reyna first during one of their Iris messages. After she moved back to New Rome, they had made a regular talking schedule. Nico felt like he now had two sisters in the Roman camp.

“I hope he’s better than a legacy of Apollo,” she muttered. But when Nico reminded her of the boy that had bickered with him through the entire battle with Gaea, she smiled. It wasn’t like Reyna was giving him her blessing, but just being able to talk about it made him feel more confident, less anxious. His heart palpitations no longer scared him after that.

The night before Piper and Jason left for their cross-country search for Leo, he told them about how his heart sped up and little butterflies fluttered to life in his stomach every time Will smiled.

Piper, who had been anxious the past few days as they prepared for their trip, lit up like it was Christmas. “Perfect choice. Excellent choice.”

“Don’t push him,” Jason chided. Piper shook her head.

“I’m not, am I Nico?” Nico didn’t want to turn this into a thing, he just wanted some advice. He didn’t want this to end the way his slow, painful burn for Percy had been.

“Just tell him,” Piper told him. “Be straightforward and upfront. I wasted so much time trying to get Jason to pay attention – or, well, that’s what Hera made me think – but really, it is a waste of time and energy.”

“And if he’s not into guys and I make a fool of myself?”

The two exchanged a look.

“Nico,” Jason began. “The whole camp knows Will is gay. He even got some people together last year to go to Pride in the City.”

This was news to Nico. Most things about Camp life were, but this was especially new. It made his old anxiety bubble up again. What did people think, then, about how close the two of them had grown? They were just friends after all. But did people think it was more than that?

“Just go for it!” Piper encouraged. “And then Iris message us EVERYTHING. If you need any curses from Aphrodite, I’ll rush back here in a heartbeat. I also think Clarisse will smite anyone who gives you trouble. She can be a brute, but her hearts in the right place.”

“Do what makes you happiest,” Jason smiled at him. Nico smiled back. It didn’t hurt anymore.

A few days after Jason and Piper left, Nico was laying on one of the hills that overlooked a strawberry patch. It was a pleasantly warm day and he had drifted off. It wasn’t a true sleep – he could still hear camp life going around him– but peaceful enough anyways. There was a cool breeze coming off the water, rustling the soft grass. The smell of ripe strawberries hung in the air. A shadow passed over his face and the grass beside him rustled. He cracked an eye open and caught a glimpse of Will settling into the grass next to him with the small backpack he carted around sometimes. It was mostly medical textbooks with disturbing images and gruesome descriptions of various ailments.

He was flipping through a notebook, no doubt filled with notes in his meticulous handwriting. How a dyslexic wannabe doctor had that nice of handwriting, Nico would never know.

Jason’s words floated back over him. Everyone knows Will is gay. Did that mean Will already liked him? Is that why he went out of his way to hang out with him? Were they still friends or had they become something more? Friends. How did you tell when that line was crossed? Could it be crossed without them even speaking a word of it? Nico snuck another peak at Will, opening his eyes just enough to see the boy, but not enough that would give him away.

“I know you’re awake,” Will said after awhile. Nico quickly closed his eyes.

“I was sleeping,” Nico corrected. “You woke me up.”

Will shrugged but smiled when Nico finally opened his eyes and turned to face him. “You’ve been ‘sleeping’ up here all morning. You missed lunch, which is bad for your health. Time to wake up. I’m still your doctor.”

Nico laughed, and regretted it. Even when he didn’t mean to, his laughs still came out bitter. But Will either didn’t notice or was used to it by now.

“What’re you doing?” Nico asked casually, trying to get a better look at the notebook. It was filled with drawn images of different types of bone breaks, each bone carefully labeled, with detailed instructions on how to set them. Will was good at drawing. He took his studies a lot more seriously than Percy.

School and studying were curious to Nico. He had barely attended a class since the 1930s, so things like college were not open to him. Percy and Annabeth would start school in New Rome next year and here Will was studying for a specialized medical program in New Rome designed for demigods who had a little more medical training than the average mortal college student. Will’s books fascinated him. He had even convinced Percy and Annabeth to let him look over some of the summer homework they brought when they visited on weekends. Annabeth explained a lot of it to him, but be struggled over the words – more from lack of formal education than the typical demigod dyslexia. Part of him wished he could go off to college with everyone else.

“Going over some notes from a few textbooks a son of Apollo in New Rome sent up. Just wanna get ahead, you know?” Will shrugged. Nico didn’t know, but he kept it off his face.

“Is that a thing people do, or just you?”

Will looked at him and grinned. When he smiled there was no denying that he was a son of the sun god. When he smiled, Nico wasn’t sure how long he could go on trying to sort through the endless stream of questions in his head. Friends or friends?

“It’s recommended, but I’ve already skimmed all the books for first year bio students, so…“

“Both?” Nico finished from him with a laugh. He sat up and looked over the book. Cliché as it was, Nico was already something of an expert of skeletons, even if some of the more scientific names escaped him. For example, he knew about the three small bones in the ear, but he didn’t know they were called the ossicles collectively (Will had a small note next to them: how they hell do you break these?). Will’s handwriting was really nice. He smelled nice too. No, stop that.

“So, I was thinking,” Will smiled in a way more befitting a child of Hermes than Apollo. “There’s only a few days until camp closes for the summer, but a few weeks before school starts again – at least for me.”

Nico nodded. He had been trying to decide what to do with himself during the Camp offseason. He didn’t want to go back to traveling alone again, but he wasn’t sure what other options he had. Staying around Camp Half Blood while everyone else was gone seemed pointless.

“And I was thinking, you know, we could take a trip.”

“What?” Nico was caught off guard, the sentences churning like the Labyrinth down a path he hadn’t expected.

“Right,” Will looked a little embarrassed. “See, I was reading some stuff online, like weird places to go and what not, and I found this awesome church-“

“Full of bones?” Nico knew where this was going. “Because I’m the son of Hades?”

Will had moved from embarrassed to flustered. “Well, yes, but it’s actually really cool. There was this blind monk - no wait, back up – there’s this special kind of church with like some holy dirt, so a lot of people wanted to be buried there, but after awhile there was no space and they were trying to expand. So then they start exhuming bodies and this blind monk starts making cool-,” he cleared his throat, “making art with them, so more people could buy plots to bury their dead, but the bones never leave consecrated ground.” He paused to take a breath then muttered, “I thought it was really cool. And I feel like you are the only one who isn’t going to judge me for that.”

“Oh, I’m judging you, Son of Apollo.” Nico laughed. Will was good at making him laugh. Maybe if he did it enough it would stop sounding so disturbed.

“But, it’s cool right?”

Nico looked around. Generally, he tried to avoid talking about bones and things around other people. It added to the Son of the God of the Dead creep factor. But if a son of Apollo admits it first? And they were friends, right?

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Where is it?”

The anxiety in Will’s face melted into another one of those award-winning smiles. Nico felt a little dizzy.

“Just outside of Prague!” Will grinned. Nico opened his mouth to comment but Will beat him to it. “No, wait. See, I know it’s far. But we could fly there in less than a day! I don’t have a passport, and I bet yours expired like what, 70 years ago? But we can borrow the Apollo cabin chariot.”

“That sounds like an abuse of power,” Nico teased.

“Probably. But I haven’t left New York in years. Plus, there’s a bone chandelier.”

“A bone chandelier?” Nico really wanted to go, but there were so many things that could go wrong. Monsters could attack. Mortal police could discover their lack of papers. Nico might do something stupid and kiss him.

“Yes, wait a minute,” Will was on a roll and cut him off before he could voice the first two. “Let me finish dispelling all that negativity flowing out of you. You spent all summer in Europe, I know. But it was running from monsters and being captured and so on. Plus, with the giants and Gaia gone, most monsters tend to avoid you anyways right? So being a tourist is probably better. Plus, did I mention no soul-sucking shadow travel?”

Nico couldn’t argue. He wanted to go and the practical side of his brain seemed to be on holiday. Part of him even wished they could go back to Venice, but that was pushing it. “How are we funding this?”

“I found some very sweet deals for lodgings as long as we can forge some decent passports, and Connor owes me, so that is also easily taken care of. Do you have a bit of mortal money?”

“Funny enough, I have an account that’s been collecting interest since the 1940s.”

Nico was not really sure how Will had managed to book this trip so fast – the internet sure is amazing – or how they had managed to cross the north Atlantic with only two monster attacks, but three days after their conversation on the hill, Nico found himself wandering through the streets of Prague. Half the roads were cobbled and the buildings all looked like the world had when he was a kid. But it was still undeniably a 21st century city. As he sat at a Starbucks across from a tram stop he thought I should bring Hazel here. This place was timeless, which made it a perfect place for time displaced demigods.

“So,” Will started as he came back out to the table with their drink orders. Nico looked at his espresso suspiciously but said nothing as Will settled into his seat, looking content with whatever was mixed under all the whipped cream on top. “Prague is pretty cool.”

“We have Starbucks in America,” Nico pointed out. He tried not to make a face as he took a sip. It was not espresso. His displeasure did not escape Will’s notice.

“Okay, you are still obviously missing a few points of modernity. No one goes to Starbucks for their quality coffee.”

“They get those?” He pointed to the thing Will was happily drinking.

“Frappuccino,” Will provided.

Nico frowned. “Is that supposed to be Italian?”

Will shrugged and offered the drink to him. “It’s caramel.”

Nico looked at it with skepticism, but accepted it anyways. It was a lot better than his ‘espresso’. He handed it back longingly. “Yeah, okay, it’s good.”

“The trick is to not think of it as coffee,” Will said with a wink and took another big sip.

Nico realized awhile ago Will made it hard for him to think straight, so he was not too surprised when he saw his hand reach out to pull the drink back for another sip.

“I can get you one,” Will laughed.

Nico shook his head as he handed it back. “Aren’t you still playing doctor? This much sugar’ll probably kill me.”

Will shrugged and pulled the lid off to eat some of the whipped cream. “So tomorrow we take the train out to Sedlec,” he stumbled over the Czech name, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “Should take and hour or so.”

“All this regular travel takes forever,” Nico muttered. Sure, it was easier to cross continents in a plane or a chariot, but the idea of taking a train for an hour when he could have just shadow traveled in a few minutes a few months ago? It hurt. He how long until he could start using his Ghost King powers again?

“Ha. No. Don’t even start. If you disappear into the shadows, this trip will suck. I can’t make excuses for this trip without you.”

“Aha, the real reason you wanted me to come along. I’m being used so you look less creepy for suggesting going on vacation to an ossuary.” Nico was joking, or at least, he said it like he was joking. Part of him worried it was true. The part of him that had no friends until a month was still convinced this was all a dream or some crazy trick concocted by some other campers. But no. They were friends, right? Friends? Maybe?

“Yes, that exactly. I didn’t invite you for your company or anything,” Will said. Nico could appreciate the snarky tone. Will handed the drink back to Nico. “By the way, on a scale of one to umbra, how shadowy are you feeling today?”

“You aren’t actually my doctor,” Nico replied.

“No, but I am your friend. I’m allowed to worry.”

Nico wished making his heart stop fluttering was as easy as shadow travel. “I’m fine. Probably a two or three – a solid ray of sunshine.” They both glanced down at his black jeans and skull tee-shirt and laughed.

After a moment of silently passing the Frappuccino back and forth, Will said, “I would be sad if you disappeared, though. Not just because it’d be hard to explain back home, but because I would miss you.” Will’s nervous eyes wouldn’t meet his, which only made Nico’s heart beat faster. If he was nervous too, did that mean he was trying to figure it out too? Were they friends or friends?

There was a tension in the air that wasn’t there before, like they both realized that sneaking away for a trip to Prague together was maybe not something normal friends did. Was this, sitting and drinking coffee together, a date?

No, no, no. Nico scolded himself. Thinking like this made his heart beat faster and the tumbling of wings in his stomach almost unbearable.

He reached for the Frappuccino and stood up. “Wanna explore the city?”

Will grinned. “There’s this giant radio tower with giant babies climbing up it.”

Sedlec Ossuary was tucked out of the way in the little town. They ended up going to another church first before getting directions to the church of bones.

“This is it?” Will asked. They stood in front of a much smaller church than the last one.

“I feel death,” Nico said by way of affirmation.

Will scoffed. “You said that about the last one.” It wasn’t his fault. Churches were haunted places. Funerary rites and graveyards left lots of spirits and bones hanging around. This could be applied to small European towns in general. So many dead over the centuries from war, plague, and hatred. It got overwhelming.

“Yeah, but this one has a skull on the gate.”

Will looked up and nodded. “Right. Here we come, bone chandelier!” He said it with a little too much enthusiasm but the other people milling about were either also tourists who understood the macabre interest or locals who were probably used to it. No one even glanced twice at Nico.

They walked through a tiny and crowded but loved graveyard and into the church. There was a small admittance fee they paid to a very bored looking youth, and then steps down into the crypt. Will hesitated at the top, his eyes fixed on the bones fixed to the walls. Some dangled down over the stairs. Others imitated the architecture, following arches around the ceiling. On a low wall over the stairs was what looked like a crucifix made of bones with femurs making sun rays around the skeletal representation of Christ. Nico thought it was kind of awesome.

“You can’t chicken out now.”

“Why are we here again?” He asked. For a second, Nico genuinely believed him. The doubts that any of this was real or possible swam around in his brain. Then his eyes met Will’s blue ones and Nico realized he wasn’t asking why he was here with him, he was remembering his demigod mortality. Going into basements decorated with bones was definitely a no-no for children of the gods who didn’t want to die. “Nothing is like, gonna kill us down there right?”

Nico relaxed and tried to smile in a way that was comforting, but he wasn’t sure that was possible for a child of Hades in a church of bones. “No angry ghosts. The magic dirt must have been really good. Plus you’re with a son of Hades. This is my element – literally.”

Will nodded, then slipped his hand in Nico’s and started down the stairs. Nico, surprised, came stumbling after, his face growing warmer with each step. There were lots of tourists around them. Plenty of people to notice. What would they think? Would they turn away in disgust?

None of them paid the two teens any attention. Will’s hand was warm and a little sweaty from the summer heat. Nico never wanted to let it go.

“Oh my gods,” Will muttered as their eyes adjusted to the low light at the bottom of the stairs. There were giant mounds of bones all around them, piles taller than the two of them put together. An actual crucifix hung on a dark wall surrounded by skulls. Two smaller crucifixes like the bone one above stared at the body of Christ. Will was transfixed by the year and name on the wall next to them, made entirely out of curving human ivory.

“I like the style. Think I could get that in my cabin?” Nico joked. Will turned to him, a mischievous smile on his face, ready to make a comeback but he froze, his eyes fixed on something over Nico’s shoulder.

“I think you need that,” he gestured with a nod of his head, squeezing Nico’s hand a little tighter. Nico turned. How he had managed to miss it, he would never know, but there in the middle of the room was a giant chandelier made of bone.

“Yes,” he breathed. It was terrifying, but oddly beautiful. Nico didn’t know the names for all these bones, but he recognized jaws, and hips, and legs. Spines made up swooping candle holders topped with skulls. Four pillars of skulls surrounded it on for sides.

“I’m thinking this blind monk was a son of Hades,” Will muttered, leaning gently against him as they admired the sheer number of bones collected in one place.

“Yeah, I gotta say, even Hades palace isn’t quite this intense,” Nico joked. “Maybe Dad should find this guy and have him redecorate.”

Will grinned, squeezing Nico’s hand again as he pulled him along to look at more of the room. They spent a good hour down there, quizzing each other on the names and locations of the bones. They did end up drawing attention, but for their excellent knowledge of skeletal structure, not the fact that they were still holding hands. They got stopped by a few tourists who wanted to ask them questions and at one point even had a small crowd going.

“You two are so smart!” a middle-aged lady complimented them after Nico explained that the large flat bones around the skulls of the chandelier were from the pelvis. “Your parents must be so proud!”

They both glanced at each other, thoughtfully. Would Hades or Apollo care? What about their mothers?

The laughed about it later over ice cream from a shop next to the ossuary.

“I think Apollo’d be creeped out by this place,” Will laughed. “No way he’d go into the crypt.”

“Hades would probably be unimpressed. It’s so… peaceful. I’ve never been to a peaceful cemetery before.” Nico was staring at the impressions of skulls made with mosaic tiles on the wall. Then Will’s hand brushed his on the table and his eyes blinked in time with his suddenly racing heart. Will hesitated, less confident when they weren’t plunging gung-ho into a monk’s morbid art project.

Piper’s words echoed in Nico’s ears. Be straightforward. Without looking away from the mosaics, Nico reached for Will’s hand, lacing their fingers together. He waited until Will’s fingers settled gently over his knuckles before turning to face him.

Will’s eyes were brighter than the sky, silently asking all the same questions that were floating around in Nico’s head.

“I wasn’t sure,” Will said.

“Yeah,” Nico was too nervous to say anything witty.

“You can be really hard to read sometimes.”

“I get that a lot,” Nico tried.

Will smiled a little. It wasn’t his usual, son of the sun god smile, but a smaller, more self conscious one. It felt private and special.

“I like you,” he said. Nico’s heart collided with his ribcage.

“I like you, too.” Will’s smile widened. He looked like a dork. Nico realized he was smiling too and probably looked equally ridiculous. He didn’t care.

“You can’t actually put a bone chandelier in your cabin,” Will told him. “I think using the bones of dead campers would really put a damper on the space.”

Nico laughed and for once it didn’t sound like he was in pain.

They were sitting in a monastery park in a residential district that evening, eating takeaway from a Czech restaurant across the street. Will had held his hand the rest of the day. There were a couple old folks who looked at them a bit funny but no one said anything. They were leaving tomorrow, but Nico almost wished they weren’t. Something about this whole trip felt magical in a very normal and not god related way. He liked that.

“Just so you know, I’m pretty sure Apollo cabin placed bets,” Will said, taking a swig of his drink.

“What?” Coke came out of Nico’s nose.

“My siblings, they’re placing bets about whether or not we’re getting together.”

“Yeah,” Nico choked, trying to mop up the mess he made with napkins. “I got that, thanks, but why exactly? Isn’t this, I don’t know, private?”

Will shrugged. “What is privacy at Camp Half Blood? Didn’t Percy used to take Annabeth to the bottom of the lake to get private time when they first started dating?”

Nico didn’t know how he could be relaxed about the whole thing. “Last I checked, neither of us can breathe under water!”

“Uh, that’s what Hades’ cabin is for. No one would go near there without your permission. That’s why you can’t get the chandelier,” Will joked. Then, more seriously he asked, “Does it embarrass you that much?”

“Yes! Of course it’s embarrassing! I get embarrassed for Piper and Jason all the time!” There was a lot more to it than that, but Nico wanted to be brave for Will. For himself.

Will smiled a little. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“I was finally falling out of all the gossip,” Nico whined. Flopped dramatically into the grass next to Will. Will still looked a little hurt so he added, “I guess it can’t be helped.”

“It can’t?” Will looked hopeful.

Nico shook his head.

“I’m tired of the shadows.”

Notes: Sedlec Ossuary is cool. Less than a week after writing the note in Will’s book about breaking ossicles, I ran into a colleague in the city WHO BROKE ONE. It was a very funny situation.

#solangelo #nico di angelo #will solace #hoo #pjo #fic #fanfic #oneshot

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tortuga-aak · 6 years

Text

The coach who designed the offense that changed the NBA nearly failed before he started

Business Insider

Ralph Freso/AP

Mike D'Antoni is the architect behind the NBA's most popular style of offense.

D'Antoni's offensive philosophy was developed while playing in Italy, where he became a star after a forgettable NBA career.

D'Antoni has emphasized up-tempo offenses that rely on a heavy dose of three-pointers while playing smaller lineups.

D'Antoni's coaching career has taken many twists and turns, but he's left an undeniable footprint on the NBA.

The lightbulb went on for Mike D'Antoni in his third year coaching Olimpia Milano in the Italian basketball league LBA, though maybe it was always there and he had been ignoring it.

It was 1993 and D'Antoni was coaching "traditionally," as he calls it, but he wasn't getting much out of his team. D'Antoni decided to mix things up.

"I just one day just decided to do it the way I wanted to do it, and be damned the consequences," D'Antoni told Business Insider.

What followed were the seeds of a style of offense that would eventually sweep across the NBA. That year, Olimpia Milano won the FIBA Korac Cup, and D'Antoni's confidence in his preferred style of playing grew.

It was a style that D'Antoni did not invent, but helped popularize — up-tempo, spread-out offense with a reliance on pick-and-rolls and three-pointers that can be seen around the NBA today.

"There aren't many innovators in coaching," Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told Business Insider. "There's usually a few key figures who change the way everybody else thinks ... I think what makes Mike unique is he is one of those innovators."

A forgotten NBA player, an Italian legend, a twice-failed NBA coach, a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, and an offensive innovator — all of these things describe D'Antoni.

'One of the lowest points of my life'

D'Antoni grew up in West Virginia and learned basketball under his father, Lewis, a successful high school basketball coach who influenced Mike's basketball philosophies.

After D'Antoni graduated from Marshall University in 1973, he was taken in the second round of the 1973 NBA draft by the Kansas City-Omaha Kings.

His NBA career was brief and forgettable. The 6-foot-3 shooting guard played three seasons with the Kings, never averaging more than the 19 minutes per game he played his rookie year. After one season with the Spirit of St. Louis and one with the San Antonio Spurs, he was cut and suddenly facing a crossroads.

"Probably one of the lowest points of my life," D'Antoni said of being cut. "I was 26 and not knowing whether I should go back to school and do something in the real world or continue playing basketball. You're kinda lost a little bit."

He eventually decided to take an offer to go play for Olimpia Milano in Italy.

"I think he had to," cackled D'Antoni's brother Dan D'Antoni, head coach of Marshall men's basketball and a former NBA assistant coach, to Business Insider. "It was a necessity."

Olimpia Milano TV/YouTube"It was the best decision I ever made," Mike said.

D'Antoni became a star in Italy. Over the course of 13 years, he became the club's all-time leading scorer while leading Milan to five Italian league titles and two FIBA Euroleague titles. Olimpia Milano's website declared him "the greatest point-guard in the Italian basketball history."

After D'Antoni retired in 1990, he became head coach of Milan, leading the way to his offensive revelation.

An offense was born

Dan D'Antoni remembers when his brother began to change how he thought an offense should look. It was around 1979, when the NBA introduced the three-point line, and Mike called Dan on the phone to tell him how the number of threes attempted coincided with where teams finished in the Italian league. He noted that his own team, the league champions, shot and made the most threes.

Mike D'Antoni told his brother, "You might wanna start seeing how valuable that three-point line is."

Here's a simple version of how the D'Antoni offense works: Spread shooters around the floor and run a high pick-and-roll with the point guard and big man. With a 5-on-4 opportunity (with the opposing point guard blocked by the pick), the point guard can shoot, attack the basket, hit his big man rolling to the basket, or kick the ball out to any of his shooters. In almost any variation of the play, somebody is open and defenses are scrambling to recover. And it's even better to play this style at a fast pace.

Dan said this was a popular style in West Virginia growing up, and Don Nelson, the NBA's leader in career coaching wins, was known for running fast, "positionless" offenses.

D'Antoni didn't immediately impact the NBA with his vision. He was hired as head coach of the Denver Nuggets in 1998, but was fired after one season. He said he was still too scared to go against the grain and feared his resume was not strong enough to convince players to ditch normal post-ups and slow pace for three-pointers and fastbreaks.

D'Antoni worked as a scout for the Spurs afterward and later as an assistant for the Portland Trail Blazers. He returned to Europe to coach Benetton Trevisio in 2001-02 and once again found success coaching his style of offense. That success caught the eyes of Phoenix Suns CEO Jerry Colangelo. D'Antoni became head coach of the Suns in 2003-04, replacing fired head coach Frank Johnson and was kept on board for the 2004-05 season.

Seven seconds or less

In the Colangelos, D'Antoni found management that supported his vision. And the key to his vision was the acquisition of All-Star point guard Steve Nash, who gave D'Antoni the engine to his offense. D'Antoni moved Amar'e Stoudemire, an explosive power forward, to center. Around this dynamic pick-and-roll duo, D'Antoni unleashed three sharpshooting, athletic wings, a rare structure at the time.

The run-and-gun Suns went 62-20 during the 2004-05 season as D'Antoni won Coach of the Year and Nash won MVP. The "seven seconds or less" Suns — a term used to describe the pace of their offense — went 170-76 over the next three seasons, with Nash winning a second MVP in 2005-06.

Matt York/AP

"That was, to me, the beginning of the shift in the NBA in terms of how teams were gonna play," said Kerr, who was an advisor with the Suns and became GM in 2007.

"Mike was the first guy to really just downsize and just makes his threes into fours and fours into fives and just not play a traditional center. And as a result, to me, that was the beginning shift that you're seeing now, 13 years later."

Repeated playoff failures, however, wore on the team. Twice they made it to the Western Conference Finals and lost in excruciating fashion. Concerns arose about the Suns' commitment to defense, and the logic of playing smaller and shooting a high number of jump shots was questioned.

In 2008, Kerr, then the general manager, swung a trade for Shaquille O'Neal in an attempt to get bigger, compromising the team's identity.

"In hindsight it was a mistake," Kerr said.

D'Antoni left after the 07-08 season, in which the Suns went 55-27, but lost in the first round to the San Antonio Spurs.

Pit stops in New York and Los Angeles

Stubbornness, ill-equipped rosters, and bad timing plagued D'Antoni in stops with the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers. D'Antoni continued to push his offensive style on rosters that didn't have the make-up of his teams in Phoenix. In New York, he was reunited with Stoudemire, but had a hard time getting Carmelo Anthony to buy in to his vision. In Los Angeles, he was reunited with Nash, but couldn't sell Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol on their roles.

Meanwhile, concerns remained about his style and his commitment to defense.

"Innovators tend to be very headstrong, otherwise they wouldn’t be innovators," said Kerr. "They really believe in something that most other people don’t believe in. I think there’s a psychology to it where the only way to be successful is to be really prideful and persistent on what you’re doing."

Jae C. Hong/APMike called himself spiritually richer for the experiences in New York and LA, but one gets the sense he remains resolute in his ways.

"I mean, there's always things you'd do differently," he said, but added there's no proof that playing differently would have changed the outcomes in New York and Los Angeles — just two playoff berths over six years.

However, Mike also understood the hesitancy of some star players to buy into his scheme.

"Some years you're paying players $20, $30 million and then you [tell] them, 'Well what you were doing to earn all that money is completely gone.' That’s tough," D'Antoni said, laughing. "So, if they don’t have the inclination that makes it tough."

After D'Antoni resigned as Lakers head coach in 2014 following a franchise-worst 27-55 season, doubts about him as a coach were stronger than ever. Perhaps his success in Phoenix had been unique to that team.

The Warriors revolution

"Thank goodness for Golden State," D'Antoni says now.

In 2014, D'Antoni was away from the NBA for the first time in years. He had returned to West Virginia and spent his days golfing, reading, and hanging out with his dad and his family. At night, however, he couldn't help turning on the TV to watch a dynamo that looked awfully familiar, run by a former colleague.

The Kerr-led Warriors were like D'Antoni's Suns — on steroids. Stephen Curry was in the Steve Nash role, but was quicker and more deadly of a shooter. The Warriors pushed the pace and spread the floor with shooters, cutters, and defenders in Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, and Andre Iguodala. And more importantly, they had playmaking and defensive big men in Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut, something D'Antoni never had much of in Phoenix. The Warriors played like a souped-up Suns, and D'Antoni loved it. He found joy in the Warriors winning the 2014-15 championship.

"I think the biggest thing was when Steve and [the Warriors] won the championship," Dan D'Antoni said of his brother. "He relaxed. He goes, 'My point has been made. I didn’t make it, but somebody else made it.'"

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Kerr disputes how similar the two systems really are. D'Antoni offenses focus heavily on high pick-and-rolls, and the best player controls the ball, picking out teammates like a quarterback finding receivers. Kerr's Warriors actually run some of the fewest pick-and-rolls in the league, and Curry, despite being the engine of the offense, spends a great deal of time off the ball.

"I think our philosophy of pace and three-point shooting was something that I definitely agreed with and Mike had sort of set the tone in terms of the way he was playing with his teams," Kerr said, adding, "We took elements of Mike's offense and implemented those elements into a bigger system that was more our own."

A Rockets renaissance

D'Antoni made his return to the NBA in 2016 as head coach of the Houston Rockets. In Houston GM Daryl Morey, D'Antoni found a kindred spirit. Morey's basketball philosophy is analytically driven — three-pointers, layups, and free throws are basketball's most efficient shots. Throw out midrange jumpers, deep twos, and post-ups; there are better shots to be taken. The two systems align.

In Rockets guard James Harden, D'Antoni had a new Nash in-waiting. D'Antoni thought he could tweak Harden's playing style, and he was right. He unleashed Harden at point guard in 2016-17, and the results were immediate: the Rockets won 55 games and made the semifinals. Harden, meanwhile, had a career year and finished second in MVP voting.

In the offseason, the Rockets took it a step further, adding Chris Paul to the back-court after a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers. This season, D'Antoni is facing a somewhat familiar challenge — blending in two ball-dominant stars whose games may not necessarily complement each other.

D'Antoni's approach for blending Paul and Harden could be seen as a sign of growth. Paul has historically been a slow-it-down guard who prods the defense and dictates the offense. His game is more midrange heavy than typical D'Antoni player.

"You gotta be Chris Paul," D'Antoni said of his approach to coaching Paul. "I can't just say I wanna take a Hall of Fame point guard and make him into something else."

Chuck Burton/AP

D'Antoni's offense still has some doubters, but turn on an NBA game on any given night and his influence can be seen. Teams across the league have downsized and turned away from traditional big men, preferring the spacing and quickness smaller players provide. Call it "The Warriors effect," but it wouldn't have been possible without D'Antoni.

D'Antoni still thinks there's room for his offensive approach to grow. Players can now play even faster, he said, because the science around health has improved. His Rockets team frequently takes three-pointers well beyond the three-point line because it spreads the floor even more — he thinks there's room to keep pushing that, too.

He doesn't know who or what will be the next innovation in the NBA. But eventually, someone will come along and change the league, just as he did in 2004.

A telling sign about the D'Antoni impact on the game — the 2004-05 Suns led the league in pace. Today, at that same pace, they would rank 22nd in the NBA.

"In another ten years, we won't even be on the same page," D'Antoni said.

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Man City's Sinan Bytyqi forced to retire with heart issue

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Man City's Sinan Bytyqi forced to retire with heart issue

For Sinan Bytyqi, things were going well.

The Manchester City starlet, who fled war torn Kosovo with his parents as a baby, was winning rave reviews during a loan spell in Holland.

During his last visit to Manchester, Pep Guardiola had pulled the then 21-year-old aside for a discreet word, wishing him luck and telling him his progress with Go Ahead Eagles was being monitored closely.

Manchester City’s Sinan Bytyqi had to retire after being diagnosed with a heart condition

Bytyqi walks to a training session with the first-team alongside ex-City man Kelechi Iheanacho

On the streets of his home village, many proudly strolled around in City gear, and followed his progress religiously.

But then it all changed.

After being named in the Eredivisie team of the week, and with thoughts already on returning to City to try and make the breakthrough into the first team, Bytqi was called into the office of the Dutch club before training.

‘I went in and there was the manager, the coaches, the physios,’ he recalls. ‘I thought “what’s going on here?”. It was weird. The manager pulled out a piece of paper and told me that they had found something on my annual heart monitoring test in Manchester and I had to go back to England.

He also said it is the kind of condition that stops you from playing professional sport.’

While impressing during a loan spell, Bytyqi was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

That devastating sentence was delivered late last year. A second, hastily arranged opinion, in London, confirmed the diagnosis.

Bytyqi had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease in which a portion of the heart muscle is enlarged, creating functional impairment of the heart. It is also the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes.

‘They said if I continued playing I would have a four per cent chance of my heart stopping and that if I stopped, that would be one per cent,’ he remembers, matter-of-factly.

It seemed like a cruel end to a journey that was not without sacrifices. As a six-month old Bytyqi, a Kosovan Albanian, escaped his homeland in his mother’s arms with his father and his brother only to be sent back as they did not have the correct papers.

The 22-year-old has had a tough life – he had to flee Kosovo with his family while he was a baby

‘I guess we were kind of illegals,’ he says. ‘The police sent us back. It was a bad time. I speak to my grandmothers and they say they hid in the forest and when they came back everything was destroyed. We eventually got the right papers and we ended up in Austria.’

Bytyqi showed talent with the ball and took the brave step of moving from picturesque Klagenfurt to big city Vienna at the age of 14, leaving behind a family that had now expanded to two brothers and three sisters, to pursue his dream.

‘All I ever wanted to do was play football,’ he recalls. ‘It was tough, being three hours from home, but if you want something you have to sacrifice things.’

Bytyqi was playing for Austria’s Under 19s when he was scouted by City, who made their move, and he was on his travels again. After a shaky start, and following the arrival of Patrick Vieira as coach of City’s Elite Development Squad, he blossomed.

He joined City after impressing for Poland’s Under-19s and played well for their youth teams

‘Patrick was unbelievable,’ he says. ‘It was tough when I first got here but he made a massive difference. Little things. He saw some players waiting or a taxi once after training and took them home himself. When my family came over he took us all out for dinner to an Italian in town.’

That progress saw the attacking midfielder named as an unused substitute in City’s 7-0 League Cup thrashing of Sheffield Wednesday in 2014. A first loan spell in Holland, at Cambuur, followed but was cut short by a knee injury which resulted in an eight-month lay-off.

After his recovery, he went Dutch again, to Go Ahead. ‘It was a fantastic experience,’ he says. ‘We would get 10,000 sell-outs for home matches and you would play Ajax and there would be 50,000 there. I was back in Manchester and Pep came over to ask me how I was getting on. He told me they were watching me.’

Then came the bombshell. ‘I’ve known since I was a child that there was something a little different,’ he explains. ‘But something like this only shows itself when you are fully grown.’

Bytyqi also spent time out on loan, twice moving to clubs in Holland to develop as a player

City, in particular director of football Txiki Begiristain, offered their full support as he went home to ponder his next step.

‘Txiki said that they would not cut my contract and that they would stand by me whatever I decided,’ he says. ‘I felt so much responsibility. That I was letting people on Kosovo down. You do not get many football players there. If you went to my village you would see all my cousins in my old Manchester City clothes.’

But health came first. ‘There are leagues which do not let you play with this condition,’ Bytyqi explains. ‘Italy, for example. In England it’s down to the player, but what would I do if my club went away pre-season?

‘And could I really play knowing that the guy on the sideline with the defibrillator is waiting for something to happen to me? That would not be nice.’

He had to make a decision over his future and chose to retire due to the condition

He made Begiristain aware of his decision: ‘He said I made the right move. Then he asked me what I wanted to do and said they wanted to keep me at the club. He said if I wanted to open a shop at the stadium he would help me!’

Bytyqi contacted Fergal Harkin, City’s scouting manager. ‘He looked after me while I was on loan,’ he says. ‘He said he was going to build a team and I was welcome to work with him. I wanted to do that because I know how difficult a loan can be.

‘At City you get everything, food, pool, sauna. You go out and you don’t get that. You have to cook your own food. Even the language you don’t understand.’

City, who have kept news of Bytyqi’s playing retirement quiet until this interview, were as good as their word. On November 2, around a year after diagnosis, he started his new role as loan scout. ‘I watch players, provide reports and try to support them,’ he says.

Bytyqi speaks to Sportsmail reporter Mike Keegan about his new role as a loan scout at City

He made his debut at Bolton Wanderers v Norwich City, where he ran the rule over goalkeeper Angus Gunn. The following week he headed to Spain, to watch the City contingent at sister club Girona.

For a man who has been through as much as he has, Bytyqi is remarkably upbeat. I ask him how he manages to be that way.

‘I can’t change yesterday but I can change tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I go home and cry or I move on.’

He is grateful to City for their backing. ‘Maybe two out of 10 clubs would keep you,’ he says. ‘I have to thank them for giving me a chance. For me the best job in the world is getting paid to play football and the second best is getting paid to watch it.’

He pauses, and then adds: ‘I am very lucky.’

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