THE UNSUNG ESSENTIAL

So I'm talking to this guy today who will probably play in the NBA in the next 1-3 seasons when I realize, "Yo, this dude is surprisingly humble." And I can't help but think that it is this one quality that will make him a great pro.


Humility is that virtue that everybody respects but really thinks is a sign of weakness. Let's be honest. But there's something about knowing there's other great players in the world besides you, knowing that complacency can undo you at any moment, that stimulates a competitive drive. And as I talked with this guy, I could sense his appreciation for generosity and a place to workout. There's a nice gym where I work so one day at the "baba" shop we had both just gotten fresh cuts when I ran into him and we traded information. He was lookin' for a place to get some private workouts in which can be challenging when you're an international professional player in town for the summer. So I obliged and watched his relentless work ethic. I opened the gym for him one night at 11 p.m. and he text me at 2:44 a.m. like..."thanks Norm, I really appreciate it."

So as I'm talking to him today he's telling me how he knows what intensity he needs to train at for it to be valuable. He said a lot of guys don't have an imagination when they do individual training. "I've pretty much seen every defense that can be thrown at me so when I'm working out I can visualize what the help defense is going to do and work on moves that counter,..." he continued. What?

In sports we talk about mental toughness which usually translates to playing through pain or fighting fatigue. But what about seeing what isn't there. Who teaches that? Who practices like that? Jonathan Gibson a.k.a. "J Gibb"does. And that takes humility. As good as he is, it would be both easy and acceptable for him to be content with a career in Europe where he's had tremendous success already. But he respects his friends, his barber, people he's just met, a church facility that happens to have a gym and his unseen opponents. He's a temperate dude, the kind of guy who always looks like he's about to smile but will destroy you based on countless hours of preparation. Ask anybody from West Covina, CA who knows hoop and they'll concur.

Humility is as much trade craft in basketball as a crossover counter move or running floater. It is the ultimate intangible, the very skeleton supporting other virtues like tenacity, motivation and resolve under pressure. To be humble is to be acquainted with your mortality. One of the most human things one can be is humble. And while plenty of prideful ingrates have enjoyed success, the true professional is defined by humility. #JGibb2NBA

THE REALITY OF RECRUITMENT

I performed this wedding ceremony yesterday in San Clemente, California for a buddy of mine, one of my college roommates. He was the baseball player and I the basketball player. He and his fiancee (now wife) asking me to officiate was like gettin' picked up for a 10-day contract in the league (NBA). Because when give you charge of their DAY, it's a huge investment of trust. In some cases, you might be the only person they know who legally can perform a wedding LOL. I was a bit surprised 'cause he and I haven't been that close over the years since undergrad.  I don't know if there was a more beautiful place to get married as you can see... 

No matter...I wrestled with some things personally yesterday given my role. When you're up there in front of this couple on the perfect day and you realize you're wearing a moth-eaten suit that's dated along with the tie, it messes with you. My shoes weren't shined either. Thankfully I was clean. But I didn't have my glasses and my shirt felt over sized. You see where I'm headed? I was distracted.

There was something far more significant going on and I was being haunted by the demons of comparison, arguably an athlete's greatest nemesis. In the end, I remembered just about everything necessary for a legal wedding to be conducted, particularly when I headed for home, stopped for gas and raced back to the venue to have the bride, groom and witnesses sign their marriage license. That would've been a fail far worse than my moth-eaten Hugo Boss. What I learned though was that I need a new suit or two because that's a shame I ain't bought one since 2008. And secondly, I'm qualified! My homie and his wife asked me because they believed I could improve their chances of having the greatest day possible. They needed help as well that they felt I could provide. No dime-a-dozen here, even though that's what tugs at us all. At day's end, There's a reason why dudes get 10-day contracts in the NBA. They deserve a shot. Recognize who and where you are. You made the team for a reason and it's not because of how you look in your uniform (most of the time LOL).

UNFOLLOW @whennecessary

I had to unfollow somone yesterday. Well...I didn't have to but I chose to and let me be specific about the social media application to which I'm referring. Twitter as opposed to Instagram or the others. And I'm sure the person in question isn't waking up this morning wondering what happened to his follower @6ixthman. True. I'm not trippin' either but to the point, I unfollowed because of hearsay, admittedly.

This guy plays basketball professionally for the Chicago Bulls. He's one of the more exceptional athletic wonders in the history of the sport too because he's not the prototypical NBA player. But recently a friend of mine gave me ears on the ground about the guy's character. The anecdotes he described painted a less-than-admirable picture of this public figure and you know how it is...you might not have been there but ya boy was there so you trust that he ain't got no reason to lie. So you buy the episode without much investigation.

Womanizing exploits, arrogance displayed in a setting where charity was the focus and a gross sense of entitlement rounded out the sketch of this revered basketball superstar who has 916,321 followers on Twitter alone. See, the number 916,321 is alarming and is for me beyond my scope of reference. All I know is that a full Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum seats 93,607 for a football game. That's not even 100,000 people. The dude I'm talkin' about has more than 9 times that amount of people interested in...HIM.  At least via social media, this rapacious human being is adored by nine coliseum's worth of humans. All those people, on some level, care about the tweets of one guy. This is 2013. This is reality. This is why leadership has to be something people embrace from places of grandeur. We can't always control the places our gifts take us. But yo, who you gonna be when you get there? Seems like everybody is watching...

PATER pronounced (PAT-AYR)

KEEP CALM and TELL YA STORY!

I read on history.com that Father's Day was introduced in 1910 but didn't become official until Mother's Day did circa 1972. It's a cool expression, a truly worthy sentiment. And on Father's Day 2013, I did something that was a first. I wished God a happy Father's Day. I figured, when I was runnin' from that knife, my father looked out. When I was in that intersection on two occasions getting hit by cars, my father eased the gas pedal and heightened the driver's awareness. It was the difference between 37 and 15 years on the planet.

Pater is the latin-based Greek word for Father. It has a range of meanings including: someone who originates, ancestor, even someone who serves as a paternal figure...a stand-in...a surrogate. The father piece can be a touchy subject for many of us. Suppose you don't have children of your own like me. Or suppose you didn't have an adequate father figure in your home growing up...like me. It makes days like yesterday not-so-much awkward as much as an adventure in transparency. There are few days like Father's day where such a private reality is exposed, where your designation is so clearly communicated. Father issues present an interesting confrontation on days like we just celebrated.

And it's not, at least for me, a volatile encounter. It's simply an opportunity to talk straight, to be who you are without apology for who you've become. In my case I'm honestly just a guy who doesn't have his own children. It's not a crime committed toward me. It's not technically a defect of personality per se. It just...is. And because IT IS, I'm thrown into two potential realms of conversation. On one hand I wasn't raised by my biological father. On the other hand, I'm 37 years-old and not a father myself. Both scenarios, while not as uncommon as one might think, evoke pity. I'm not sure why.

When I graduated from Chapman University in 1997, a family very close to me gifted me with a Pullman luggage saying I would need it. They were right but they may not have known the reasons for my travels. What else?...KIDS! I've been to 5 of the seven continents on behalf of mentoring via basketball. I thought it would be as a player all those years ago but let's not open old wounds LOL. The point is, as ironic as some might have it be, I may not be a father but damn...I sure feel like one. Is that wrong? God has offered me a privilege to be the "other" voice in the lives of literally hundreds of kids worldwide, some of whom will one day do what I'm doing in light of their Father's Day awkwardness. To all my PATER brethren...stay true to the cause.

NEW MOTIVATION

Kind of surprising when you become that dude comparing yesterday to today, saying things like, "That's the problem with these youngbloods..." I used to laugh at people who talked like that. Back in the day was back in the day for a reason.

I text guys pretty regularly about working on their game (feels more like I'm beggin' these dudes to come out to a free gym with fiberglass backboards and nets that aren't tattered.) I hit 'em up because I figure these players are like me and my old crew. I would've followed my cousin Billy to Zimbabwe if he thought there was a good game there. We never had to look that far. In the city of Los Angeles you might hop the fence at Samuel L. Gompers Middle School, John Locke High or hope that the gym wasn't too full at Mary Bethune Park. We usually played outside 'cause you did what you had to do. I'm not gonna lie and say we never "found the door ajar" at a local gym. Getting on the court was the optimal Friday evening.

But here comes the old man speak. As recently as yesterday I sent a text out to collegiate and even professional guys in town for the summer. All they really need is a gym I would imagine so I offered one and kept the invitees to a minimum thinking to keep the runs from going south. All you need is 15 heads so that there's always only one team waiting to get on. But alas, the responses these days usually sound like, "Awww man, I'm in LA right now." (translation = I'm with my girl right now). Here's another common retort. "Who's all these ppl in this group text? Last time the run was weak." I couldn't argue with that last comment because he was right. For a guy of his caliber, the last open gym he attended wasn't competitive for a professional. But I still submit that brothas like me would've played and just tried to destroy the weaker players in the gym.

Motivation is harder to master these days...I mean from the "older guy" side. By the way, anything beyond 30 is considered aged in basketball. I can say this though, as I toggle between writing this blog and texting one of these young bucks. In order to create good competitive open runs (pick-up basketball games) you have to purge the guest list. You have to make sure it's not lackluster hoopers disinterested in improvement. Distraction lurks like never before and all it takes is an opportunity to show off overseas earnings to ruin a consistent summer pick-up basketball scenario. Good player are bit more fragile these days and their tolerance is low for anything sub-par.

It's a bigger, better deal mentality that puts the pressure on guys like me to stay attractive. And it ain't changin'. Long-live the art of character development in the age of elite ELITES.

HUMILITY AS PRACTICE

CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY'S all-time winningest head coach, still learning. 

My college coach Mike Bokosky said some classic things in our practices back in the 90s at Chapman University. There was color to be sure. Athletes, y'all know what I'm talkin' about. But listen. Of all I learned, I think one of the cooler things he ever said was when I started coming back around the school in the early 2000s. I heard him say, "I think I'm a better coach than I was when you were here."

There's a lot of grace in a statement like that, the grace one learns to afford to himself. We have to look at where we are and evaluate the stage of life against where we've been. When I finished in '97 I could see coach making tremendous strides just based on my final conversation with him after the last collegiate game I ever played. Coach and I had a typical player-coach relationship where he was the clear authority and I was the disgruntled player always wanting more minutes, more limelight. But he told me on the way to the van after that game that he should have played me more during my career. When you see someone you admire admit a failing, the power is immeasurable.

There comes a point in life where growth seems either impossible or too costly. It's easy and acceptable to coast. In '97 I was only 21 years old. I didn't get the significance. I was more focused on the fact that he was saying I was a better player than he thought during my college career. Forest for trees ma brothas and sistas. Here was a guy modeling a learning posture, still coaching me. When I saw him somewhere around 2006/2007 and he still claimed to be transitioning, being formed into a calmer more collected version of himself, I started paying attention. Am I a better me today than I was last year, or even last month? Hope so.

INTERRUPTED

Reading a chapter of C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" tonight made me think of the 2010-2011 Western Christian Fighting Lancers Basketball team I coached that year. They were, in a word, stellar! But here's why.

In chapter 22 of the book, Screwtape continues his advice to his protege Wormwood. If you've not read it, it's an imaginative work depicting how an apprentice demon might mentor a junior devil on how to ensure the failure of his subject, a human. And this human could be you, could be me or anyone hated by the biblical Satan. But in this particular chapter tonight it was, at least in part, about how the interruptions of life make us angry and how that can be used to destroy lives. See, no one likes intrusions. They get in the way of our objectives don't they? Well, in 2010 the season began at the Webb Tournament and it was the third quarter when Andrew Hyde, my best player, went down with a torn ACL off of a routine rebound. It was an immediate deletion of a leader and flat out go-to guy. The word interruption is an insult here.

This was unjust, criminal, a tragedy. Hyde was a senior along with the other 11 young men on the squad. I had 12 freakin' seniors man who had played together for the better part of 3 years in some combination. Not only that, but they liked each other, hung out away from school and had come to own just enough swag to set them up for a championship run their senior year. But when big Drew went down, it was crazy to watch what transpired.

A group of kids who had already lost their star player along with their previous coach whom they trusted decided to reassign (themselves) roles. They didn't have a private meeting as far as I know but everyone morphed. Mark McMahon led us in rebounding, steals and assists while Michael Broad led us in scoring. Damian Jara was our tireless floor general and defender of all point guards not wearing our uniform. Kevin Michalak started playing like a man 5 inches taller while Zack Carpenter started draining 3's. Joe Allen took a charge from anyone stupid enough to run him over and Tyler Hong exploded for points against some of our toughest opponents. Chris Weeks committed himself to making his minutes count by playing our system with precision and remaining that spiritual leader. Christian Solis rejoined the team after his teammates voted him back in. He had quit to focus on his primary sport, football, but returned to give the team a physicality only he could bring. Jason Ji, our big man form Asia, worked his way back onto the team after quitting and humbly accepted his challenge to earn the respect of his comrades. He succeeded in that and displayed great skill when he finally got a chance to shine. Danny Chakbazof broke down defenses and stuck opponents with 3-balls from multiple locations around the arc. And my man Andrew Hyde? He legitimately functioned as a third coach. He saw things we coaches couldn't see and had the capital with his brothers to communicate it.

In a situation where immaturity could have defined them, the 2010-2011 Fighting Lancers opted to respond the way they had been trained by parents, former coaches and their Faith. It's almost three years later that I reflect and write because I realize the power of choice when it comes to the intrusions life will bring. What will you do when you're interrupted?