The Long and Winding Road

This past weekend I took an extended road trip with one of my players, Duke Phillips. Duke is a senior at Westbury Christian and is two weeks from graduation. Duke really wants to play college basketball and is talented enough to do so, and up to this point we have not found the right fit. So him and I decided we would become proactive and make a road trip to work-out for two college coaches, Jim Sanderson at Faulkner University and Tom Kelsey at Belhaven College. We left on Friday night and returned Monday night. It was experience to say the least. Faulkner is in Montgomery, Alabama-10 hours from Houston, and Belhaven is in Jackson, Mississippi-7 hours from Houston. You can learn a lot about someone during a 10 hour road trip. I want to share some stories and what I learned from this trip.
The first thing I learned is it sometimes takes a long trip to really get to know someone. I coached Duke for only one year, and we have had a good relationship, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I found who he really was. I thought I knew, but I only knew surface things, not the things we keep close to our heart. I was somewhat disappointed at myself that I didn’t know more about him and his family. That is the tragedy of today’s society. Technology is great, but it only allows us to give partial information about who we are. We do not take time to sit and ask questions, deep questions to gain understanding. We use excuses like not enough time, or I am too busy. Then once we generate excuses, we allow our conversations to be in the form of a text or an email, were we give short one or two line answers to everything. We then form assumptions and generalizations about only partial information. We need to take time to talk; it is the only way to learn about the people we care about.
The second thing I learned is the importance of doing for others what was done for you. In 1993, my high school coach Jim Sanderson, took me on the same type of trip. I wanted to play college basketball, so he loaded me up and drove to 3 different schools in the state of Alabama. It worked out that I received a scholarship to play at Alabama Southern Community College. I do not know if I would have gotten that opportunity had he not done this for me. This weekend would have been my first weekend off in a couple of months and it was Mother’s Day, but I knew I needed to do this for Duke. Someone did it for me, so it was my turn to return the favor.
I am so proud of Duke. He really did a great job and hopefully he will get to play college basketball. He is a great kid, and he is my friend. I know Duke now and I think Duke knows me. One day, I hope Duke will have the opportunity to pass on what was done for him, as I did. It was a great trip. Faulkner and Belhaven are great schools, with great Christian coaches. Duke will be blessed if gets to play at either school, but those coaches will also be blessed by Duke as well.