The Loser at heart

If I’m honest about how God used life and basketball to train my perspective in this world I’d have to admit that he made me a loser. Basketball is and was one of those proverbial microcosms that offered me a glimpse of life’s harsh reality…that losing is common.

During the 8-year period from High School freshman to College senior I only managed significant playing time two of the 8 seasons. Of the three years I spent trying to play professionally overseas, not one was spent earning a living through basketball.

If I widen the lens and focus on more general loser-like episodes in life I can recall my first year of school as a “Pupil With Transportation (PWT)” in 1984. When I began being bussed from the inner-city to a school in a suburb more than 1.5 hours from my apartment, I realized I was smart for an inner city kid but I wasn’t suburban smart. Take that same PWT situation multiply it by a move to a brand new school district at the start of high school five years later and you have another loser-like scenario. A new high school as an incoming freshman from another city meant I was not only a 5’7″, 105 lb. scrub; I was all of that and a foreigner.

By now, there’s sympathy brewing but the truth is that God was at the heart of my lessons learned as a student, citizen and athlete. In 1998 I got involved in the church I had been attending for about three years up to that point and because I lacked social capital, I was the loser trying to blend in, with limited success, at an established institution. I recall how the process of meeting people and gaining trust was painstaking. I also remember learning the language of that environment and at times being hesitant to share my true personality with people because of fear that I wouldn’t be understood.

School, basketball, social/religious institutions all showed me that by the world’s standards I am a loser. I’d be pretentious to suggest I’ve never been hated, rebuked, dubbed a self-righteous pretender, etc.  But I credit the Lord Jesus Christ with playing my 6ixthman by helping me to learn in each life complication. I’m only half-joking when I say I was a Loser. I really was…to certain people at various points in time but consider this analogy. Everyday I blog to an undisclosed audience. I don’t know who’s reading. But I’m not so naive as to think my experiences aren’t shared with others. I write because I’m just like everyone else, in need of a 6ixthman to teach me how to live beyond “Loser” experiences and impact my world.