MARTIN MANLEY: At the age of 11, our family moved from Topeka to Western Kansas. That was in 1965. The truck carrying our stuff kept having flat tires. That should’ve been an omen.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So, we’ve got corn fields.

 

RICH LEVINE: We’ve got corn fields to the left of us and a straight road for about as far as you can see.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In June of 2023, Rich flew east out of Los Angeles. I headed west from Boston. And we met in the middle of the country, Kansas, Western Kansas, the place that shaped Martin Manley, and where the inexperience of two coastal elites could be on full display.

 

RICH LEVINE: Some baby cattle, just waggin’ their tails on the side of the road.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I believe those are called calved, Rich. (LAUGHTER) When we looked around, all we saw was endless flat land, stretching out to a ruler-straight horizon.

 

RICH LEVINE: Yep. 100 square miles in view. Not a person in sight. Plenty of calves though. Martin grew up in a place called Pawnee Rock. In the 1800s, the actual Pawnee Rock was a landmark on the Santa Fe Trail. As one journalist at the time wrote, “The rock springs like a huge wart from the carpeted green of the prairie.”

 

RICH LEVINE: Legend has it travelers fearing killers or thieves would bury their valuables by the rock in hopes of returning to them later. Some never did, leaving their treasure still buried in the surrounding fields. Today, Pawnee Rock is a blink-and-you-miss-it speck. What Martin referred to as an oil spot off a two lane road officially known as Highway 56, population around 190.

 

In the 1960s, Martin lived there with his family, his few friends. These were the people we thought might know a different Martin, maybe not the version of Martin that he wanted to present when he was courting someone, or trying to impress the world with his genius, but an unedited version that very few people got to know.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: Before we moved, I could’ve barely told you the difference between a horse and a cow. Now, instead of kids my age as far as the eye could see, I had my brother, my sister, and the sound of moos. (MOOS)

 

RICH LEVINE: But we also came out here because we had to explore a mystery that Martin left when he died, one we’d encountered when we first started digging into his story, and that we had to at least try to get to the bottom of. And it was something we thought we could only answer here. From 30 for 30 Podcasts, I’m Rich Lavine.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I’m Nick Altschuller. This is Chasing Basketball Heaven, episode five, The Last Manley.

 

RICH LEVINE: In 1891, a 30 year old named James Naismith was inventing the game of basketball at a YMCA building in Springfield, Massachusetts. As the game took shape, Naismith moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where in 1898 he became the first basketball coach for the University of Kansas Jayhawks. It was right around this time that someone decided to cut holes in the bottom of the peach baskets, marking perhaps the sports biggest leap in efficiency to that point. No more ladders, which was a bummer to that one guy.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: You– you know you are that one guy.

 

RICH LEVINE: (LAUGH) It was a bummer.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Big bummer.

 

RICH LEVINE: But you wonder could Naismith have ever fathomed how fast, athletic, and efficient his game would become. Not to mention how important KU basketball would become to people across the state, people like Martin Manley.

 

ARCHIVAL: Kansas, 53. North Carolina, 52.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s as a KU Jayhawk fan. I used to drag around a transistor radio with me whenever they played.

 

ARCHIVAL: It’s (UNINTEL) down by Chamberlain. And that’s it. Double overtime.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: I kept the team stats, yelled when they won, and cried when they lost. In those days, KU still had won more college games than Kentucky or for that matter anyone else. That’s the atmosphere I and my friends grew up in. At the time, Kansas was inferior to no other state or area in sports, and certainly not in basketball.

 

RICH LEVINE: Oddly, Martin never played much basketball, perhaps sensing his superiority lay elsewhere. But that elsewhere was not under the Manly family roof. To learn more about the childhood that shaped Martin, we reached out to his siblings. So we’re passing, like, a large, red barn, a lot of farm equipment. Barbie Flick, Martin’s older sister, lives in Maple Hill.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Hey. There’s a cow taking a bath in one of the man-made lakes. That’s why you come out here.

 

RICH LEVINE: Martin also has a younger brother, Michael, who we think lives in El Paso. But he hasn’t responded to any calls or emails. That makes Barbie, for now at least, our only eyewitness to the childhood which helped create Martin Manly. After a bumpy few minutes along a gravel road.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Looks like we’re pulling up. It’s a small, one-story white house. There’s some big I assume maples in the front yard.

 

RICH LEVINE: And a little kitty cat greeting us at the front door.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Hey, buddy.

 

RICH LEVINE: Okay.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Let’s– let’s go to work.

 

RICH LEVINE: Barbie Flick is Martin’s older sister by two years, a tiny woman, not much more than five feet tall. Thin glasses. Short, dark brown hair.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The word spunky comes to mind.

 

RICH LEVINE: If Barbie told you she was in her 70s, you’d say, “No way,” and you’d actually mean it. (FLIES) We’re standing in a field of wildflowers, mere steps away from four handcrafted, one-of-a-kind horizontal beehives.

 

BARBIE FLICK: To me, this is what I’m proud of is the beehives.

 

RICH LEVINE: Yeah–

 

BARBIE FLICK: Because I built them. Nobody had horizontal hives but me, in this part of the country.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It’s giving off a big Igloo cooler vibe, except it’s full of bees.

 

BARBIE FLICK: Yeah.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Rich and I see hives and think honey and bee stings. But a Manly, of course, sees the beauty in numbers, which we learned watching Barbie pull out a mesh screen from under one of her hives.

 

BARBIE FLICK: That’s the thing I’m obsessed with statistics on. Oh, yeah. I gotta tell ya this. I know this is about Martin, but anyway. First of all, I get a baseline of how many mites are falling down. And nobody does this, because very few people have trays. They couldn’t do it. That’s–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: You’re counting mites. How small is a mite–

 

BARBIE FLICK: I’ll find one–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: These little– little black specs?

 

BARBIE FLICK: Well, those are poop.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Okay.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I developed my own– my own numbers, my own system. And someday– you know, somebody’ll be interested in my work. Martin probably would’ve liked that, although he might not have liked bees.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Check. Check. Check– talking on the microphone, looking at a black fedora.

 

RICH LEVINE: And I’m looking at Basketball Heaven, the original edition.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: When we sat down at Barbie’s kitchen table, she started sharing some of her earliest memories of Martin.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I was wanted, Martin wasn’t. Daddy did not speak to her for the first six months of her pregnancy. And he was mad at her for getting pregnant. You can’t tell me that didn’t affect the child.

 

RICH LEVINE: And if that somehow wasn’t potentially traumatic enough.

 

Barbie Flick: It’s the weirdest story, but I remember it. He was– might have been closer to four. And he was freaking out, because a ladybug was on him. And Mama just got so upset with him. And she was spanking him. And he’s just crying ’cause the ladybug’s on him. And now he– there– I’m sure there was more going on, ’cause she wasn’t like that, to just punish somebody, you know? But it just seemed like he was always in trouble. And then when we were in high school, I never had to wash the dishes, because he was in trouble so many times–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That was his punishment?

 

BARBIE FLICK: That was his punishment.

 

RICH LEVINE: Martin’s dad was a World War II vet. His mom worked multiple jobs her entire life. After some time in Topeka, Mr. Manly took a new job, and moved the family some 200 miles out into the wheat fields of Pawnee Rock. It was a setting that didn’t ask if but how you were going to entertain yourself.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I was just a teenage girl who knew how to daydream, so I survived that way. But he was restless. He would do things to torment me. I learned how to turn any object into a weapon. And I’m still good at it. I threw hot grease off the stove on him– on his back, you know? (LAUGH)

 

RICH LEVINE: Wow.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Woah. Someone’s gotta really piss you off to–

 

BARBIE FLICK: And he was– I– I know. And I don’t know what it was.

 

RICH LEVINE: Man. I feel like I am still processing that story.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: I think we all are.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I thought, “Oh. Crap. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna get killed.” Not by– well, I thought maybe he’d kill me, but if not, my parents might. And he loved to tell on me. He loved to get me in trouble. He would– listen for anything. And I was a goody two shoes. So it drove him nuts, ’cause I didn’t do anything wrong. And he never told. They never knew he had those burns on his back, and I don’t know why.

 

RICH LEVINE: He must’ve done something really bad to deserve it–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: You probably scared the shit out of him, to be honest. (LAUGH)

 

BARBIE FLICK: Maybe. But I– I would take a coat hanger, you know, and take the hook part, and I’d just.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Ouch. Does it scratch him?

 

BARBIE FLICK: Oh, yeah.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Wow. Martin’s relationship with his siblings was idiosyncratic. At school, relationships with his peers weren’t much better.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: Even as I got older, I always took the bus home. And so I really never spent a lot of time with the kids in town. I can’t say I cared. They were a bunch of hicks, as far as I was concerned. But then I’m not sure I even know what a hick was, just that whatever Martin Manley was, he wasn’t one of them. Of course, I’m sure from their perspective, they were just as happy not to be one of me.

 

RICH LEVINE: But even as he and his sister could be at each other’s throats, Barbie was still there to protect him when he needed it.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I remember seeing some boys corner him, and threatening him, and picking on him. And I remember running over there, and I was gonna beat those boys up. They were scared of me. That was one– one of those times you remember I did love him. ‘Cause nobody was gonna mess with my brother.

 

RICH LEVINE: And she recognized that as much as Martin was a loner, the Manly kids were a lot alike, going through the same things, just in their own worlds.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I think maybe he always did feel like a misfit.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: I spent thousands of hours as a teenager making up pretend baseball, football, and basketball leagues, drawing plays from cutout pieces of paper in a shoe box, keeping stats for make-believe players and teams. There was only one thing to do every day, satisfy whatever curiosity I had. In some respects, that became an obsession.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: How are you and Martin alike?

 

BARBIE FLICK: Well, he was a prepper. I’m still a prepper. You know, prepared for the worst case scenario of everything. We are both actually pretty analytical. I love statistics. But he was so obsessed. If he couldn’t find anything else to keep statistics on, he admitted it to me, he kept statistics on what he ate for lunch. Martin believed that he had an addictive tendency. So he said he never drank or did drugs, because he didn’t believe he could stop. And, you know, Mike, my other brother, he definitely is addicted. He’s– he’s on life support right now.

 

RICH LEVINE: Michael, the third Manly. We’d learned that he basically drank himself to death. It finally made sense why he didn’t return our calls or emails. He couldn’t.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I mean, Mike. I had to make the decision the other day: Are we gonna pull the tubes? I still haven’t cried, you know? He may die– I may get the phone call today. (CLEARS THROAT) I don’t– (CLEARS THROAT) I didn’t cry when my mom died. I didn’t cry when my dad died. And it’s not that I didn’t feel anything, it just didn’t come, you know? I don’t know. I mean, maybe I’m a lot like Martin.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Then as if on cue–

 

RICH LEVINE: The phone rang. It was the hospital, calling about Mike.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: We wanted to give Barbie some privacy, so we stepped outside for some fresh air, and turned off the recorder. Barbie had shared so much with us. But there was one thing we hadn’t asked her yet.

 

RICH LEVINE: It had to do with one of the other reasons we came to Kansas, an item on Martin’s website that had made international headlines. But now Barbie was on a phone call about her younger brother’s life support. And we weren’t sure when we might broach this other subject.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: But it turns out, we didn’t have to.

 

RICH LEVINE: As I stood out on the patio, Barbie’s husband, Phil, mosied over, and broached the subject himself. I scrambled to grab my phone and hit the record button just in time to hear him mention the mysterious GPS coordinates.

 

PHIL: With his– GPS–

 

RICH LEVINE: Yeah. The coordinates–

 

PHIL: –coordinates. And he put them in there. And it was– it was– and I think ’cause Martin didn’t really make mistakes, and he was real detailed, but it was– it ended up being at this little park. But it was in there somewhere in these coordinates. And the police called us. And I don’t know what he did with the gold and silver.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That’s interesting. We– we– we heard about that too. Did he– did he ever talk to you about– about his gold?

 

PHIL: No. No. We never did know what he actually did with it.

 

RICH LEVINE: The hunt for Martin Manley’s gold, after the break.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: On the night of August 15th, 2013, a full 12 hours after Martin was found dead, a local Kansas City TV news producer returned home from his shift. He told his daughter about a crazy email he received that day at work, with a link to a new website.

 

RICH LEVINE: She read it and was absolutely fascinated. So she hopped onto Reddit and sent it out to the world.

 

FEMALE VOICE: A 60 year old committed suicide today, but before doing so, he put this website up.

 

RICH LEVINE: In real time, click by click, the online community absorbed the thud of Martin’s legacy. Conversations unfolded.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Conversations like these.

 

MALE VOICE: This might be the cheeriest man to ever commit suicide.

 

FEMALE VOICE: Depression never affects my sense of humor.

 

FEMALE VOICE: I hope he ate two trays of brownies before he died.

 

MALE VOICE: When we found out my dad had terminal cancer, we went straight to McDonald’s and shared a Big Mac, because why the fuck not?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: But as Redditers dug deeper into Martin’s website, they stumbled on a section that turned his story from that of a lonely, quirky old man, into an international news item. Here’s why.

 

RICH LEVINE: As part of the extensive suicide planning, he wanted the world to know about a little investment he had made 15 years earlier.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: I bought $30,000 in 1/10th ounce gold coins, and pre-1965 silver coins. Gold went up to $1,700, and silver to $44, making my stash worth over $200,000.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Under that, Martin pasted a set of numbers. Coordinates. The ones his brother-in-law, Phil Flick mentioned.

 

MALE VOICE: 38.800542-94.687884.

 

FEMALE VOICE: The coordinates lead to a forest south of Kansas City in the Overland Arboretum. Now go get that treasure, Redditers.

 

RICH LEVINE: 10 years later, we drove to the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, just south of Kansas City, where we met with Mark Van Sickle, AKA Mark the overseer. Back in 2013, he worked as a radio producer for the morning show on KRBZ FM The Buzz.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So Mark, like, where does this start? You’re at work that day, right?

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: Yeah. I was at work that day. My buddy, Danny, who was co-host of the morning show, he’s like always looking out for local news stories and stuff like that. He’s like, “Some guy just, like, offed himself in the police parking lot. One of my police friends just, like, texted me. This is not even, like, on the local news yet.” And then after we finally get some confirmation that it actually happened, we’re like, “Well, we should probably talk about this.” They found the website and everything. And from there it’s just like, “Oh, man.” Like, start deep diving into it.

 

RICH LEVINE: Death and buried treasure in Kansas City, a drive-time radio show couldn’t ask for a better storyline to carry a morning.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The next step was obvious. Find these coordinates the internet has been talking about. Throw the station’s van keys to the Overseer, and have him haul ass to the arboretum.

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: It was an exhilarating experience. I mean, those vans can’t really go very fast, but I was trying to push it as fast as I could.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: There’s money on the line.

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: Yeah. The steering wheel was shaking a little bit, as I’m driving down the highway.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: We met Mark by the front gate. But on the day of the hunt back in 2013, just trying to find the quickest route to a dot on a map, Mark pulled over by a bridge, crossed a creek, and bushwhacked his way through the forest, like Indiana Jones in Chiefs gear.

 

RICH LEVINE: Deer scattered ahead of him. Listeners with shovels in hand appeared beside him. (HELICOPTER) News helicopters began circling overhead. And all the while, Mark was giving live, on-air updates until they reached a path in the arboretum’s sculpture garden and found crime scene tape.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The police had gotten there first.

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: So, they were out here up on the trail by the statues– by the time I had wandered my way up the hill from the creek and got there.

 

RICH LEVINE: They were guarding the coordinates.

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: I think they were.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: You may be hearing in my voice a developing treasure fever. Searching for gold is addictive. And my fever only rose from there. The coordinates to where we’re heading are literally right after a sentence about his gold and silver.

 

RICH LEVINE: Oh, yeah. Of cour– yeah.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It’s like not– it’s not down the page. I forgot. It’s like next to the reference.

 

RICH LEVINE: No. It says, “My gold is worth more than $200,000. Here is”–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Here’s coordinates.

 

RICH LEVINE: “Here are the coordinates.” (LAUGHTER) Check this out. On the day Martin’s coordinates went viral, just the faint rumor of buried coins got the police, an army of Redditers, Mark, and loyal Buzz listeners to race across town at rush hour. And now, a decade later, still no one has ever come forward to say they found anything. And here we are.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: We’ve got a shoddy metal detector and modern GPS technology directing us to a spot about 30 yards off the trail. And there, at around 38.8 degrees north and negative 94.6 degrees west, I got my first big treasure high.

 

RICH LEVINE: In the actual–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: 1,000% there was treasure in this tree.

 

RICH LEVINE: So, what are you looking at?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: So, I’m looking at the rotted stump of a tree that the– the majority of which is on the ground next to us, but it’s about a stump six feet high, but it’s hollow. And the hollow is about 4 feet deep. And there’s a small hole, maybe for a squirrel or groundhogs on the bottom. But you can 100% see a bag– you know, a duffle bag full of– full of gold being stuffed into this tree, and then slid out right under the bottom. It’s a great hiding spot.

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: Oh. No doubt.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Oh. Wow. Hopped up on solid-gold adrenaline, I began scanning the surrounding area for objects I could interpret as evidence that this was a great spot to bury treasure. And there was something, a statue. Oh. I didn’t even notice. (UNINTEL) it’s directly across from a statue on the other side of the trail. I don’t know what that statue is, but–

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: It would be a landmark, you know? It look–

 

RICH LEVINE: Imagine if its a James Taylor statue–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It looks like Christ, honestly. I think it’s a man on a crucifix. Turns out, similar pose, very different man.

 

RICH LEVINE: Statue directly across from the coordinates.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Jesus–

 

RICH LEVINE: It’s not– it’s not Jesus Christ.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Who is it? Is it Martin Manley?

 

RICH LEVINE: Michael Jackson. (LAUGHTER) Oh, no. Yes. Not the king of the Jews, the king of pop.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In my defense, this was a depiction of wind machine Michael, you know, MJ at his most, “Ohh.” Which is a pose that’s really just some planks and nails away from the crucifixion, at least when seen through a filter of fall leaves.

 

RICH LEVINE: My Google search revealed the statue was a replica of one by Chinese sculptor Lu Zhenkang and was placed by the side of the trail back in 2011, two years before Martin’s death. You can imagine a bizarre scavenger hunt with Manley-like clues. When you find someone who’s a real thriller, go north 30 paces. But in 2013, the police turned Mark and his fellow treasure hunters away.

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: The cops were basically saying, “Hey. You can’t dig on this property because it’s”–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It’s owned by the state. Yeah–

 

Mark Van Sickle: –“privately own”– yeah. “You guys have to leave.” That was– that was kinda their saying to us. So that’s all I heard.

 

RICH LEVINE: Later that day, those same police held a press conference.

 

POLCE OFFICER: Family members have told city officials that he did buy gold, but that he either gave it away or sold it, but he did not bury it, okay? I mean, you probably have a better chance of winning a prize from the lotto than you do of finding anything out here.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: But Mark never shook the feeling that there had been something in the park that day, a feeling that only grew after stumbling through the woods with us. So your final thought on the– is– was there treasure at some point?

 

MARK VAN SICKLE: I feel like there was. I feel like that’s a great spot. And with a landmark like Michael Jackson, I mean, come on. That’s– you– you gotta have a landmark, too, I feel like.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Yes. That’s– and that’s– one people remember.

 

RICH LEVINE: Mark is one in a long line of people with a theory about the treasure. And after thinking about this treasure for years, and actually going to search for it, we definitely have some theories too.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Treasure or no treasure, Martin had thought a lot about what he wanted to happen after his death, and how his death was one thing, perhaps the biggest thing that could cement his legacy. He wanted to be remembered. Basketball Heaven hadn’t done it. None of his statistical analysis had done it. An early, cutting-edge satellite TV business, no. But maybe just maybe a hyper-efficient death was the thing.

 

RICH LEVINE: I remember reading through Martin’s list of reasons for taking his own life, some personal, some common, even relatable. But throughout, there is the unexpected emotional throughline of pride.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: This may be the most detailed example of a suicide letter in history, something to be entered into the Guinness Book of Records. My hope is that it is.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: But for that to happen, the world had to notice, which they did, when the sad truth of one person’s death was heightened by a hint of something extraordinary.

 

RICH LEVINE: So, yes. We believe Martin published those coordinates as a fail-safe. He figured, “If my death doesn’t grab the world’s attention, maybe this mystery will.”

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And it worked. The New York Daily News picked up that treasure hunt. The Daily Mail did a story. A week after Martin’s death, Don Lemon was talking about it on CNN.

 

DON LEMON: On the website, he apologizes to his friends, family, and the police, who were going to find him. He also said he was, quote, “Thrilled to death to leave behind a digital legacy for himself.”

 

RICH LEVINE: But was anything ever hidden in the park?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: We think yes. That spot is too good not to leave a coin, a memento, a Pepsi.

 

RICH LEVINE: But was there actually a life-changing sum of buried treasure? The strongest clue to that answer might actually lie somewhere else entirely.

 

MARISSA: Gonna try not to cry through this whole thing.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: We want to introduce you to Martin’s step-daughter, Marissa.

 

RICH LEVINE: Martin met his second wife, Teri, on a dating website. And they quickly proceeded down the aisle. After they married, Martin became the step-father to Teri’s two daughters. He wasn’t especially close to the oldest, but Marissa, who was about six when she met Martin, says the two just clicked.

 

MARISSA: We were really, really close. He just got me in a way that no one else did. And I think I did the same for him. So we were just very special to each other.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Marissa met us at her mom’s house in Overland Park. As we sat around the kitchen table, her mom’s cat would occasionally hop up, perhaps feeling Marissa’s need for comfort. Teri brought us all Sonic cheeseburgers, a Kansas staple, we’re told, knowing we all needed something.

 

MARISSA: I don’t remember the first time I met him. I remember when he bought me a Barbie at Walmart. And I figured he was just trying to buy my affection, ’cause he was dating my mom, but I was cool with it. I was excited to get that Barbie. And I was like, “All right. I like this guy. Like, I’m good with him.”

 

RICH LEVINE: Leave it to Martin to find the most efficient way to a young girl’s heart.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And a most bizarre way to bond with his new step-daughters.

 

MARISSA: He taught us lessons. We had a whole– how long was it, Mom? It was like weeks. We had to do these lessons in the office, in the basement.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: With, like, Professor Martin, basically?

 

MARISSA: With Professor Martin teaching us about stocks, teaching us about interest, CDs. I don’t even remember 99% of it. But I had to learn at the time so much. And then we had to take little tests over it, to see how we were doing. And– he just really wanted to instill in us this knowledge that he had that he wanted to share about, you know, (LAUGH) how to make money with stocks.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: How old were you?

 

MARISSA: Oh, God. I was really young. I was seven years old, sitting on the floor of his office.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In one of my many eerie parallels to Martin’s life, I also married a woman with two young daughters. They were a little younger than Marissa and her sister when Martin entered the picture. I will say, there is something incredibly unique and rewarding about the step relationship.

 

MARISSA: I can remember when I was really young, he called me weird. And I, like, thought it was– a mean thing to say. But it was a compliment coming from him, because he was weird too. And– he liked that I was different. And from a young age, I always thought and felt things differently than most people. He loved that about me.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Do you remember the– how old you were– or I don’t know if you did, but the first time you said, “I love you, too”? ‘Cause– ’cause for me, I tell my step-daughters all the time I love them. I still have yet to receive.

 

MARISSA: Oh, no. That’s tragic–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It– it’s not, because I know they do. I know that it’s just– but was it something that, like, came naturally to you?

 

MARISSA: I have always been an extremely loving person. And I think that’s what he loved the most about me. He would get together with his poker buddies once a month, and– I guess he would just tell them about how much he loved me, and how I was his little princess is what he would call me.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Their connection grew, even as their family made it through Martin and Teri’s relatively amicable divorce.

 

MARISSA: He would come over and help my mom with things. I would call him on the phone– wanting to talk to him. Like I said, we were very, very close. We just always got each other, and were– I still always call him my step-dad– even though they had been divorced for many years before he passed. He always was and always will be my step-dad.

 

RICH LEVINE: In the last year of Martin’s life, he made an extra effort to be present in Marissa’s.

 

MARISSA: He would show up at my work. I worked at a winery in Paxico, Kansas, which is about half an hour from Manhattan, where I was living. He didn’t drink– certainly not wine. So there was no reason for him to be there. He would just– all of a sudden, he would just show up, and– I treasure those times now, ’cause they were– after he had already been planning, and– he was trying to get as– as much time with me as he could.

 

RICH LEVINE: Time. It was maybe Martin’s most valuable currency. And he chose to spend it on his step-daughter. I could almost see Martin using an efficiency model to build a calendar in which he optimizes getting as much time with Marissa as possible.

 

MARTIN MANLEY: It’s also my hope that this website will be more than just a memorial to my life and those around me, that somehow, some way, it’ll be an inspiration, not to leave life prematurely, but to have a more fulfilling life, and one that centers more around others than oneself. If I could bottle the last 14 months and apply it to a much earlier age, I would’ve been a far superior contributor to society.

 

MARISSA: He always gave me different coins.

 

RICH LEVINE: We had to ask Marissa about the treasure.

 

MARISSA: He had coins from different countries, from different times. I still have it– I called it my treasure box. This makes me think maybe he would bury treasure. But he– he hid I think it was 50 for each of us, little slips of paper that said I love you.

 

And he hid them all over the house. And they were in very obscure places. And if we found them, he had a bracket system for, like, however many we found, they were redeemable for coupons, which were redeemable for different activities and things. And so my sister and I would go on little treasure hunts, looking for these little I-love-you slips of paper.

 

She didn’t really care much about it. She gave up quickly and didn’t really think anything of it. But I tried to find as many as I possibly could, not just because that means I would get the best prize, but every time I got a little slip of paper that had his handwriting saying I love you, it was a little reminder of how much he loved me, even though he wasn’t there anymore. So I still have all of ’em. I never redeemed them for anything. I just kept ’em.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And now I’m thinking because it’s– from reading its work, it’s so obvious how much he loved you, and it’s so obvious talking to you how much you loved him, that I feel like he would’ve given you the money.

 

MARISSA: I think so too. If– if there was any– yeah. I– I don’t see why he would bury treasure. (LAUGH)

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Manley’s may have a hard time expressing love. Marissa drew it out of Martin, made it real. After our talk, we couldn’t imagine he’d use a public park to leave life-changing money for a stranger. That’s how you bury a legacy. Taking care of the loved ones you leave behind, that’s how you build a legacy.

 

RICH LEVINE: It’s something we’ve come to learn ourselves over the past couple years. Deep down, we think Martin knew it too.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: On the other hand, we think Martin was still a man who needed to at least try to have the last word on his own life.

 

RICH LEVINE: But here’s something else we’ve come to learn. In life, you get to leave your own mark, but that mark is only a Rorschach test. Your legacy will be defined by the rest of us.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The ones left behind will tell your story, people like Marissa, and Barbie, who had stepped away to take that phone call during our visit to her home, before we found ourselves immersed in a good old-fashioned treasure hunt.

 

RICH LEVINE: But when Barbie did come back from her call, she had some news that brought us back to reality.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Hold on. Wait. One sec. Just from the–

 

BARBIE FLICK: Oh. The air conditioner? We can turn it– turn it off.

 

RICH LEVINE: Yeah. That would be great if we could turn it off. I’ll break file– the three of us settled back down at Barbie’s dining room table.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The air is heavy. Barbie has just signed off on pulling her youngest brother’s life support. Sorry to hear that about Mike.

 

BARBIE FLICK: Yeah. It’s– it’s been an ugly– he started losing weight. They couldn’t figure out what. They put him in the hospital, but– things went downhill from there. And now we’re– we’re pulling the tubes, and see if he can make it or he doesn’t make it. That’s what we’re doing right now.

 

RICH LEVINE: When I listen back to how Barbie delivered this news, it feels so matter of fact. A day later, she’d get official confirmation that her youngest brother, Michael Manley, was dead. In the moment, not knowing what to say, I just carried on as if nothing had happened. And Barbie followed suit. What was I saying? Oh. Do you think maybe in the way that you were the favorite child, Martin was more of a black sheep?

 

BARBIE FLICK: He says we were a really dysfunctional family. And I’m like, “You don’t know how lucky you were. We”– I’ve seen dysfunctional families, you know? Nobody abused us, except Martin, (LAUGH) you know?

 

RICH LEVINE: As we learned from his analysis of Star Trek and the good Doctor Timicin, Martin would sometimes omit a variable, or a counter argument, if it didn’t align with what he was trying to prove. Now, sitting with Barbie, it’s hard not to see certain Manley qualities we’ve gotten to know in Martin.

 

She’s asked us to forget that she just told us that Martin’s father didn’t speak to his mother for six months of her pregnancy, that his mother spanked him over a ladybug, that Barbie purposefully scalded him with hot grease. And I bet if you were to ask Martin about those same things, he’d say he didn’t remember any of them.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: As Rich said, there have been many times in the course of our reporting where we saw some aspects of ourselves in Martin. Sometimes it was inspiring. Many times, it made us uncomfortable. I remember sitting with Martin’s second wife, Teri, her telling us how Martin’s lack of passion contributed to the dissolution of their marriage, and reminding myself to call my wife right after.

 

I remember trying to come up with a kind of variation on those what-would-Jesus-do bracelets. WWMD DDT. What would Martin do? Don’t do that. Still, for all the ways that spending time with Barbie was as close as we’ll ever get to spending time with Martin, there’s one obvious difference between them.

 

Barbie is alive and well, sharp as a bee’s butt. I kept wondering, “What if Martin had had so many of the Manley qualities but had been just a little less stubborn? What if he was a little less self-destructive, a little less alone?” What if is a dangerous game, but hanging out with Barbie, you could imagine a version of Martin whose plan for the inevitable end wasn’t to preempt it.

 

RICH LEVINE: Martin and Barbie shared a fear for what their future held. And actually, both planned to meet it head on. They just did so in different ways. Barbie, for example, had hinted that she was going to ride out the end of times in her basement.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Can I ask what’s in your basement, as a prepper, like your brother?

 

BARBIE FLICK: Yeah.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Just cans of soup? Or?

 

BARBIE FLICK: Well, we– you wanna go down there?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Do I? Yes. Jumping at the chance for emotional fresh air, we went down to a cellar, with a woman who never cries, and can turn anything into a weapon.

 

BARBIE FLICK: “Hi. It’s Barbie. Hey. Would I be able to come just a little bit late?”

 

RICH LEVINE: The last Manley, who postponed a hair appointment to give us the tour.

 

BARBIE FLICK: So there’s nothing fancy about our basement here. So.

 

RICH LEVINE: Walking down the worn wooden stairs, you enter a basement that stretches the length of the house. Half is divided into sections by old office cubicles. One is Phil’s office. One is for Barbie’s sewing. One holds a bed. And one holds an intricate system of 50 gallon trash cans and hoses.

 

BARBIE FLICK: This is where we store our water.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Oh. Wow.

 

BARBIE FLICK: I think I’ve counted over 300 gallons once.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: In the other half of the basement, there’s boxes of old files, luggage, one of those little aerobics trampolines, basement stuff, but also a canned feast fit for at least a year into the end of days.

 

Barbie Flick: These are the dried things you buy in the buckets. These are canned things that are good for a long life. This– this stuff is like 25 year, but these, they won’t put expiration dates–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: What is it–

 

BARBIE FLICK: –on it. You know, the– the Mennonites, you know, they– their specialty is canning meats and foods. And they–

 

RICH LEVINE: Oh. And that’ll last how long?

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Chili–

 

BARBIE FLICK: Well–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: –chuck beef, diced beef, dried beef rib-eye.

 

BARBIE FLICK: But they actually make good canned butter. They make good canned cheese, believe it or not.

 

RICH LEVINE: Wow.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Freeze-dried ice cream, MREs, 720 serving buckets of coffee.

 

PHIL: Something we just found.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Modern pantry whole milk.

 

PHIL: It’s whole milk.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: That’ll last?

 

PHIL: It lasts and tastes–

 

BARBIE FLICK: It’s shelf–

 

PHIL: –good. And–

 

BARBIE FLICK: And you get it at the dollar store.

 

PHIL: Yeah.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: And jars of Barbie’s honey, some of which she sent us home with.

 

RICH LEVINE: If you had to choose between the siblings, it’s clear whose basement you’d rather hunker down in to survive a tornado, and whose you’d rather use to write three volumes on basketball statistics. There’s bits of Martin down there in Barbie’s basement too.

 

BARBIE FLICK: We still have his safe, but we don’t keep it locker or anything. But it’s a safe he– that was in his closet. There’s a picture of Martin. We– we had it at his funeral.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: As our tour ends, we spot a table by the stairs. There’s a heap of old clothes that Barbie will give away, and a stack of books and CDs that are a little curious.

 

BARBIE FLICK: That’s my donate-to-the-Goodwill pile. That’s what all these are–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Oh. But just like– it’s not like doomsday audio CDs, right? Like–

 

BARBIE FLICK: Well, that could be. That one would be–

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The coming battle of the (UNINTEL)–

 

BARBIE FLICK: This is just all– about Bible prophecy.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Later, I skim through some of the authors’ works. And, of course, a lot has to do with planning for a tumultuous future. One passage resonated with our quest to better understand Martin, his work, his life, his death. It reads, “Do we know who we are? Do we know who we will become? Are we certain that we want to be who we are presently becoming?”

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: “A vision for the future will not come from the top down, but from the bottom up. In a (UNINTEL) all of us hope for the future, as well as our identity in that future.” And then the author quotes the Bible, Isaiah 56:5, “It is the hope that the Lord would give us a name which shall not be cut off.”

 

RICH LEVINE: “A name that will last through time.”

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: We kept thinking about Martin’s legacy, legacies, really. And the more we thought about Martin, the more some things nagged at us. Was Martin really the, quote, “Bill James of basketball?” Was Basketball Heaven even that good? We needed to take one last shot at finding answers, for us and for Martin. Oh. Here he comes. So we asked the only person who would really know.

 

RICH LEVINE: Next time, on the final episode of Chasing Basketball Heaven, we fly back to Kansas one more time, to climb the mountain and meet the guru himself. Mr. James.

 

BILL JAMES: Yes.

 

RICH LEVINE: How are ya?

 

BILL JAMES: I’m good. Come on in.

 

RICH LEVINE: Oh. Thank you, sir.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Thank you.

 

RICH LEVINE: Chasing Basketball Heaven is a 30 for 30 podcast produced by ESPN, Hyperobject Industries, and Meadowlark Media.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: It was reported and hosted by Nick Altschuller and Rich Levine, with Craig Kilborn as the voice of Martin Manley.

 

RICH LEVINE: Executive producers from Hyperobject Industries and Meadowlark Media are Adam McKay, Clare Slaughter, and Bradley Campbell.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Senior editorial producer for 30 for 30 Podcasts is Preeti Varathan.

 

RICH LEVINE: This series’ senior producer is Ragu Manavalan.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: The series producer is Gus Navarro.

 

RICH LEVINE: Consulting producer was Gary Hoenig.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Story editors were Jamie York and Mac Montandon.

 

RICH LEVINE: Sound design and mixing by John DeLore.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Theme song composed by Allison Leyton-Brown and John DeLore.

 

RICH LEVINE: Show art by Brian Lutz.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Fact checking by Matt Giles and David Sabino.

 

RICH LEVINE: Our sensitivity reader was John Moe.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: For 30 for 30 and ESPN, line producer is Catherine Sankey.

 

RICH LEVINE: Associate producer is Isabella Seman.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Production assistants are Diamante McKelvie and Anthony Salas.

 

RICH LEVINE: Producer is Carolyn Hepburn.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Senior producers are Marquis Daisy and Gentry Kirby.

 

RICH LEVINE: Heather Anderson, Marsha Cook, Brian Lockhart, and Burke Magnus are executive producers for 30 for 30.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: Rights and clearance by Jennifer Thorpe and Kaal Griffith.

 

RICH LEVINE: This podcast was developed by Tara Nadolny and Cynthia Paribello.

 

NICK ALTSCHULLER: To listen to more sports series like this one, search 30 for 30 podcasts wherever you listen to podcasts or find us at 30for30podcasts.com. Thanks for listening.

 

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