ANAHEIM, Calif. — MacDaniel Graff lay in a hospital bed in Spokane, Wash., his back broken, his body paralyzed from the waist down. He didn’t know when he might go home, or how he would reconfigure his life, or where he would go to school. He did know he’d never walk again.
This was 2014, and while Mac welcomed a steady stream of visitors during his month-long stay at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute, he didn’t expect half the Gonzaga basketball team to walk through his door. But there they were. Coach Mark Few. Kevin Pangos. Domantas Sabonis. And a freshman named Josh Perkins, who had broken his jaw and was out for the year.