COME AGAIN

At NBC Camp Maui last week I was ending a session when a kid named Kyson said, “Thank you…” after shaking my hand. Camp wasn’t over. It was just the end of nice hard day of gettin’ after it. Kyson lives on the island and I guess I had heard thank you so often while in Hawaii that I finally stopped him and said, “Why are you thanking me man?” He responded, “For teaching us…for coming all the way from the mainland just to run this camp.” Why are the epiphanies so basic?

I was told that the island of Maui really only has 2 or 3 indoor gymnasiums. Here in Southern California, they are seemingly infinite. In Maui the kids told me that basketball is better on the island of Oahu. In Maui, most are Laker fans because it’s the closest NBA team to their island. The kids in Maui created a culture of gratefulness which defined my camp experience as a coach. Kids are lambasted for being lazy and unappreciative. These kids were quite the contrary. Many of them had received scholarships to cover the cost of attending camp but none of us knew who those people were. All we knew is that each day kids were, for the most part, early to the nicest gym on the island (Seabury/Kamehameha) and excited about the game plan. There wasn’t one complaint, one groan, one smart aleck quip. Basketball Maui has done well in launching a potential movement that stands to harness the earnest gratitude of the Maui County community. Gratitude is a reflection of need. It is the signal that reminds us our efforts are not without necessity. Just when you think basketball is just a game, along comes a kid who says thank you and somehow you know he’s talking about more than his improved crossover dribble.