Invitation?

You ever been good at something you didn’t wanna be good at? The easiest analogy is the NFL Tight End a la Tony Gonzales, dunking touchdown footballs over a goal post. You remember him playing hoop at Cal right? Then there’s Steve Nash with real soccer skills or even Mike J  1993-1995 with his deluded attempts at Major League Baseball. The last one was a stretch as I don’t think Mike for one second preferred baseball to destroying the New York Knicks and the NBA at large for nearly all of the 1990s.

Let me let you into my world though for a moment. Taking your own medicine is platitudinous but all too true. If you know my story you know I didn’t play nearly as much basketball as i wanted to during “my day.” (a pause…) I sat the bench pursuing a game I wanted to be renowned in playing. Then when I got the minutes I wanted, I was played out of position and pined after a guard slot. So I chased one then time ran out on me and I got married and shut basketball down. (Marriage is super dope btw!) But I started this 6ixth Man thing expecting to offer interior character preparation for athletes, any athletes. But I discovered a problem.

Most high school athletes aren’t committed to training and therefore too undisciplined to develop their inner core. So I shifted the focus to a focus group I’ve always wanted to impact, elite basketball players. But the struggle is real right so a bruh gotta eat and to make eating a reality I teach English at Martin Luther King High School. With whatever energy remains on weekends and evenings, I consider whether or not I’m good at the thing I’m NOT doing. What I’m currently NOT doing is effectively working with one elite basketball team. I was blessed to spend some time last summer with the coaching staff of the Oregon State Women’s basketball team who had one of their best seasons since the mid ’90s. But I was merely a fly on the wall as the Beavs killed this past season. They’re coached by some quality people and led by some phenomenal young players. So I’d hardly say I made an impact on their program. I haven’t yet truly offered the self-awareness that has taken me a lifetime to mine from a life dominated by a desperate allegiance to hoop.

Ph.D. studies begin at Gonzaga for me in June, my first son is set to arrive in about two months, and when the head coach at the high school where I teach resigned last week I felt somehow duped like I couldn’t take that job without some incredible loss to family and 6ixth Man research. So now what?

See I’m good at talking to kids, being real, slowing down the thought processes of adolescents but haven’t found a way to have the same success or even a sliver of similar access to elite athletes. In fact, truth be told, I can’t even get grown men to listen to me in recreational leagues when we’re smashin’ teams by 50. Could it be that the thing I wanna be good at isn’t my thing at all…at least not yet? For now I’m just trying to learn how to play my game even if it’s one less glamorous than the one I intended to play. Maybe I should quote dem kids and learn how to say, TFTI (Thanks for the invitation).