I climbed more than 500 steps to get to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London last summer (2008). I served as an assistant coach for an NBC Camps Tour team of Canadian boys who were in England and South Wales to play against British competition. I was asked to help lead the tour team about 1 – 1 1/2 months before the squad met in Calgary for conditioning and after talking with my wife I accepted the offer. So I was off to collect some new flags for my collection, an exclusive genre comprised of banners that meet one requirement. The flags I collect have to come from the soil they represent. So my passport, my $19 Big 5 over-sized duffle bag and my reluctance boarded a plane and left the country to meet a bunch of strange teenage boys, a coach I’d only talked with via email and countless “blokes” who would become my mates (homies) by the end of the excursion.

All tolled, we won about 10 of 16 games if my math is right, ate real Fish and chips, nearly had a player’s retina detached, likely saw one of our better player’s nose broken, lost a player on a train and, among other feats, saw and played a game of cricket. (I’m not sure if cricket is played in games or matches.)

I bought a sword, saw the abuse of the U.S. dollar first hand and got used to riding on the front left side of vehicles instead of the right. The only basketball I actually played while in England was in a 3-on-3 memorial benefit for a dynamic young man who had touched the lives of dozens of young people through basketball but perished far too young.

Flashback to May 25, 1997 – I’m walking across the stage of Chapman University after completing four years of undergraduate study. I’m ready to tryout for any overseas professional team who will give me a workout and some close friends of the family have just given me luggage as a graduation gift. These people were like family and with a grin of pride they simply said, “You’ll be going places.” It wasn’t a riddle and it wasn’t figurative to me. My thoughts were that I’d need the luggage because I was about to get a passport, make a team and grab the tax-free foreign currency of choice. I prayed for this juncture all through college with the same fervor I had prayed to marry the first girl I was excited about meeting in college.

But in both the case of the girl and the case of my professional career overseas, neither materialized. Consider the prayer and the gift from my family friends. They said I’d be going places but didn’t say why. Since 1997, I’ve traveled to roughly four countries outside of the United States, one of them twice and all for the purpose of helping others. I needed the luggage just as people said I would and in the 12 years since I left Chapman, I’ve developed a deep appreciation for the way prayers get answered. It doesn’t mean I always agree with the way they’re answered but the enlightenment and richness gained is indisputable. See, I never thought I’d travel let alone make friends and correspond with them across thousands of miles and time zones. Somehow I grew up thinking I was lucky to have any friends at all. (Side note: If you’re like me, there are times when you think you’re a failure at everything including being of any importance to the people around you.) That said, the Canadian boys, Canadian coach and a group of people in Great Britain are now in my network. They’re my allies and more importantly friends who share passion for sport and life. I’m connected to people in a way I don’t quite understand but what I do know is that basketball took me exactly where I thought it would and yielded far more than I expected. Occasionally I get text messages from across the Atlantic or facebook wall postings from Canadian little brothers. Life is inexplicably fuller and I never earned a dime playing basketball.

Here’s where I’m supposed to say i don’t regret having not played professionally overseas or in the NBA. NOT QUITE! At this point, I don’t know if I’ll ever not feel pain at the mentioning of pro basketball. My mom asked me the other day about those feelings of wishing I’d seen my dream to fruition – something no one has asked for quite some time. I told her that the deep wounds may always be there. We all have our abrasions and gashes but as trite as it sounds, if I’m able to  embrace what I was told on graduation day 1997, the rest of life will be spent “going places” that bless the soul of the world outside my window. Good News! I get the feeling I’m not the only one with luggage and a passport.

Another lesson I learned from not playing basketball is that people are watching you all the time whether you consider yourself important or not. In previous blogs I’ve addressed how anger and disappointment affect confidence and one’s ability to prepare adequately. In other words, when we get angry or disappointed we tend to declare ourselves as worthless while attempting to hide that feeling by attacking others. But throughout my life I’ve found that people watch you constantly.

One example is from my senior season of college. I would look over little index cards before each game to calm the nerves. In some cases I was anxious about facing the opponent. In others I was not sure how much coach was planning to play me that game. The index cards had scriptures on them and all 52 principles of Championship Living that appeared in A.C. Green’s book titled Victory. The scriptures and principles on these cards were purely personal, helping me deal with my anger and depression. It was so much of a routine that I no longer realized I was doing anything out of the ordinary. I just carried the cards in my pocket with a nasty, old rubber band double-wrapped around them.
How did I know I was being watched while I read these cards? One-by-one various teammates began to ask me what was on these cards. They wanted to take a look so I would hand a few over and at that point I realized what I did mattered. We did not discuss the material and I did not become a street preacher. But I could feel some respect generated as the guys playing more minutes than me understood a little bit better what I was going through. As a senior I still wanted to play just as bad as when I was an angry freshman beating up the bleachers with my fist. The experience with my teammates and the index cards helped me to see that others observe the example rather and not merely the words of leadership. What’s more is that we all need to be grounded in a way that shows coaches, employers, colleagues, teammates, etc. two things: #1 You possess the fortitude to be persistent and #2 You are committed to RESPONDING not simply REACTING to adversity. Response is a calculated action. Reaction is simply what we do automatically when a situation arises. The world is watching you. Could you be the leader for whom they’ve been searching?

What do you want to be when you grow up? Time’s up. Funny questions get funny answers like: Deep Sea Fisherman, Jason Bourne or fifth member of the Fantastic 4. We say we want to be when we really mean we want to DO.

We could assume that professional athletes all grew up right? How do we know? For starters, they are what millions wanted to be, a “paid-to-play” guy/girl. But the reality is that we’re much more than what we do because now Michael Vick has to prove that he is actually more than a football player. Vick, who served and recently completed a 2-year prison sentence for dog fighting charges, was cleared as eligible to play again in the NFL should he be offered a position by a team. He’s had plenty of time to consider and reconsider how incomplete his estimation of success might have been as a young man.

Rumor has it that he admitted to fighting dogs as far back as age 8. That means that he, just like many of us, could separate his taste for watching dog death matches from his natural talent. See, there’s a continuity to our being – a wholeness to our personhood and no matter your age, we do well to recognize that YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU DO. However, your actions speak honestly in telling who you have become. I’m not sure who I am but I know what I want to be now. Characteristics like:

• honest
• courageous
• humble yet stern
• Single-minded
• Inspiring

…are among the traits that come to mind now. I think there’s a part of Michael Vick, Marion Jones, Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, Plaxico Burress, Ben Rothlisberger, etc. that would say the same.  But the funny thing is that people don’t ask grown men or women what they want to be when they grow up. It would be oxymoronic to do so. On the contrary. It is now more than ever that we should ask our heroes and ourselves what they (we) want to be when they (we) grow up. What would the best “you” look like if you were at the pinnacle of maturity, the zenith of your personal development? There’s probably not a job title for it but my hunch is that you’ll save lives all around you simply by your example. Where was that answer when you were six?

I hope Christopher Bell doesn’t mind me referencing his documentary that deals with the issue of steroid use in America. I’m not into hobby horses per se but Bell brought an interesting subject to the fore – Self Acceptance.

When I was an undergrad at Chapman University I remember dropping something off at a newspaper when some guy said to me, “Hey man you ever think about boxing?” I said…well I can’t say what I said but “no” was the gist of it. I’ve been 6’5″ for the last 14 years or so and at that time I couldn’t have weighed more than 200 lbs. So let’s say I did want to box. At what level? A little heavier and I could fight heavyweight or light heavyweight maybe. I know nothing about boxing. What I do know is that if I wanted to gain 15 pounds of muscle it’d take drugs to make it happen. STOP. There’s lots of sports where I could use 15 lbs. In fact that extra beef might give me an advantage. But would getting the extra 15 via a chemical assist constitute cheating, even if there were no harmful side effects?

See, Bell interviewed people from both sides of the steroid debate and interjected with insights of his own. His own family members were at the center of the documentary as he and his two brothers spoke candidly about their experiences with steroid use. Occasionally Bell even drifted into other professions like the military, music and even academia where the substances banned in athletics are legal to help with concentration. He pointed out a clear double-standard when it comes to taking performance enhancing drugs but here’s the reason for my free advertisement of his work. It all boils down to people avoiding natural processes meant to help you live a life of distinction. In other words, the course of events drives much of what happens in life and directs people toward places they should be and yet we’re constantly looking for loopholes. I had my shot with basketball as a player.

I never took steroids, HGH or the like but I did have to take 800 mg Motrin just to suit up during my last attempt at the NBA. I didn’t know it in 2005 but I had developed patellar tendonitis, a condition in which the tendon attaching the knee cap to the shin becomes scarred, inflamed and extremely painful. So my options were stronger legal/illegal meds, surgery or REALITY. I ended up choosing REALITY by no noble scruples of my own. I am foolish enough to pursue a pipe dream but by the time I was pushing 30 I was about to marry a wonderful lady and I had begun accepting myself for who I was, not who I thought I was. If not being first means you’re last than Ricky Bobby would’ve hated being 99% of the people on Earth.

The real “you” could be hiding behind the false “you”. Today, my wife told me, “Basketball used to be about you and now what you’re doing with 6ixthman is about serving others.” So wow. I could have done the medication, the surgery maybe even HGH but maybe having not done those things has allowed me to accept who I am – someone who loves serving people through the vehicle of athletics.  If you wish to enjoy your life, your job, your family you would do well to pay attention to the sign posts. No one needs to cheat to win. Cheating is just one more sign that many of us are playing the wrong game. Compete to be the best YOU or you’ll destroy YOU trying to become someone else.

fu-el [fyoo-uhl]

–noun

1. combustible matter used to maintain fire, as coacl, wood, oil, or gas, in order to create heat or power.

2. something that gives nourishment; food.

3. an energy sources for engines, power plants, or reactors; Kerosene is used a jet engine fuel.

4. something that sustains or encourages stimulant: Our discussion provided him with fuel for debate.

I don’t know about you but I’m fueled by my anger, among other things. ANGER is almost profanity in many circles but if used properly it can be a staunch ally that propels you to discover your  mission in this world. There is a desperate feeling I used to experience at the end of a game during what basketball players called garbage time. That’s when coach looks down the end of the bench with 30 seconds left in the game and says your last name. Here’s a list of emotions produced by my endocrine system: anxiety, disappointment, vehement anger, embarrassment, excitement. In the split second it took to get up, report to the scorers table and sub myself into the game, I was stripped of pride and arrogance but given fuel.

The definition above describes fuel as a combustible element, nourishment, an energy source and a stimulant. I think anger is a good fuel. Here’s what some would call a stretch. In the biography known as the gospel of John, there is a fairly detailed description of the infamous Judas Iscariot, traitor par excellence and it may very well prove that Jesus was fueled by anger and not just love. What do I mean?

Judas is one of those guys that gets a lot of attention for one bad thing he did when actually he should get more attention for the fact that he was a thief during his entire stint as a Jesus follower. At one point he was “heated” because some lady, in reverence,  poured some expensive imported perfume all over Jesus. The thief (Judas) is quoted as having said “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” Later on this same thief sold Jesus out for loot that could’ve been used to  help the poor – the same poor he claimed to wanna help with the perfume profit. Jesus outed Judas before the betrayal at dinner and told him to hurry up and do his dirt. So Judas did.

To the point. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that someone takes a beat down and an execution without being FUELED by something. How come people play down the anger? You have to be furious to compete. Why is everyone so afraid of that? All your life there’s thieves recruiting players from your district to play for your rival, cheaters taking steroids to get the edge on you and parents holding kids back a year so that “Johnny” is more physically developed by senior year than his peers. If you get it under control, anger is proof that something has sparked you to action. You need to be combustible. It’s how cars run. It’s how we run. It’s how Jesus ran.