Lessons from Teaching and Upward Basketball

A few weeks ago I attended the high school boys' basketball game on Friday and enjoyed watching many former students play on your court.  The next morning I headed to church to work Upward Basketball.

When I arrived at the church on Saturday, I noticed a knot of high school aged boys in the bleachers.  As I approached, I saw that several of my former students who are basketball players were in this group.  To be honest, I was a little bewildered.  What was a group of high school boys doing at a church on a Saturday watching a kid's basketball game?

I walked over to say hi, and then I asked the boy nearest me that very question.  He pointed to the boy on the court wearing the number five and said, "That's our ball boy, Preston. We came to cheer for him."

As I looked into the faces of those boys in those bleachers - these boys who are leaving boyhood and rapidly approaching manhood - I felt an overwhelming sense of pride and hope.  Pride because these boys could be doing anything.  They are talented, popular, and in high school.  Their free time is in high demand.  And yet, here they are, investing in a young kid.  Hope, because I have wondered, particularly at this point in the school year, if teaching is worth it.  There are long hours, there are angry parents, there are difficult kids, there are endless meetings, there is little time, the list goes on.  Why teach?

Those boys answered that question for me that morning. We are training up kids to be leaders...and they are learning it.  Because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter whether they learned the capital of Brazil, or how to spell mitochondria, or what mitochondria is.  What matters is their character.  Who they are going to choose to be? What are they going to do when no one is looking? How will what they do help to impact and shape the lives of those around them?  I don't mind saying that I shed a few tears as I drove away, thinking about that boy on the court, and what he must feel like knowing that he had the high school boys basketball team cheering for him, and thinking about how proud I am of those boys.  I congratulate those boys, not on their performance on the court on Friday, but on their performance off of it, because ultimately, that is where it really counts.

Hats off to that coach and to those fine young men.