“Shoot
around time” back in grade school could be a little chaotic. This was the
fifteen minute period that separated the end of school and the beginning of 6th
grade basketball practice. During “shoot around time” it was expected that we quickly
change into our practice clothes, hopefully find a ball younger than our
parents, and then spend the rest of the time working on layups, jump shots, or our
dribbling technique.
One day in December of 1988, our coach started
practice a little later than usual. A buddy of mine, who will remain nameless,
suggested to me that we had already spent enough time working on individual fundamentals
and now we should focus on passing. This started out well enough, with the two
of us tossing one ball back and forth. After a minute or so, though, we had
mastered that skill and were ready to move onto something more challenging.
Why not pass two balls back and forth, he suggested.
Granted, this activity had no offensive merit, but true growth, as you know,
comes from constant struggle. Thus, one of us passed a ball at a casual arc while
the other tossed the second ball back in a straight line, and this actually
went surprisingly well for about seven seconds.
But then coach walked into the gym.
The specifics of what he said to us have been lost
somewhere in the mists of time, but the gist of his message was loud and abrupt
and it went something like this: if the team ever needed circus clowns for a
half time show, we could sign up. In the meantime, however, we had better work
on basketball fundamentals or leave the gym.
Our halftime show career was over.
Sometimes, particularly when we’re young and unfocused,
such immediate correction is exactly what we need. In just a few short, gruff
sentences, coach taught us one of the most important of life’s lessons: Time is
valuable; don’t waste it. Don’t waste your own time, and don’t you dare waste
anyone else’s time, either.
About a year later one of my English teachers passed
me back a Halloween story I had written for a creative writing assignment.
“This is really good.” She commented. “Do you mind if I enter it into a
contest?”
At the age of twelve, writing was something I simply
did as school work and not much else. It didn’t really occur to me that writing
was something I might be good at and could pursue outside the parameters of the
school day. Regardless, I said “yes,” of course, and entered the contest. The
story didn’t win, but that was irrelevant. A teacher told me I was good at
something. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.
One gesture, a little extra time on her part, made a
huge difference in my life. All of my columns—the decent and the dull—grew from
that seed. Everything I’ve ever written was planted on that day.
Considering gestures, we just finished reading October
Sky in my sophomore English class, the Homer Hickam book about his high
school days building rockets in Coalwood, West Virginia. One of the most
important events in the story takes place when Homer’s science teacher, Miss
Riley, gifts him a book entitled Principles of Guided Missile Design.
Hickam later reflected that the tome represented the “Holy Grail of rocketry;”
a treasure trove of science and math and precisely what he and his friends
needed to continue in their academic quest.
Miss Riley’s confidence in Homer’s potential and her
willingness to make the extra effort to secure such a gift—decades before
Internet search engines—made all the difference in the young man’s life. He
went on to learn how to make exceptional rockets, to win science fairs, and to
eventually work for NASA. (And, of course, to write a best-selling memoir that
eventually became a popular Hollywood film.)
I’ve been thinking about such gestures quite a bit,
lately. With Christmas finally here, I’ve been reflecting on Decembers from my
own childhood, and also Decembers from earlier days of parenting. It’s
remarkable what kids—what young people—remember. It can be intimidating, in
fact, to think about what children carry with them into adulthood. For
grown-ups and our mile-a-minute schedules, seemingly common events can become
mere punctuation in the pages we call our days. For a young person, though,
what might seem mundane to us can take on tremendous—even
catastrophic—importance.
This is why the adults a community allows in front
of its young peoples—its coaches, its youth group leaders, its mentors,
teachers, principals and school bus drivers—are so important. These adults are—if I can borrow a phrase
crafted quite eloquently by St. Louis Children’s Hospital—the “defenders of
childhood.”
In closing, then, I want to return, very briefly, to
6th grade basketball practice. By our modern, softer standards,
coach’s response to our silliness might come across as a little harsh, so it’s
important that I mention something relevant: he set high standards for our
conduct in practice because he knew it transferred directly to our game. He
expected hard work and seriousness because he knew those attitudes transferred
directly to all of life, inside and especially outside of the gymnasium.
Having fun was one thing, but wasting time was too
high a price to pay. It’s what we do with our “shoot around time,” he taught us
on that day, that would help define our lives.
That lesson, among others, is something to consider
when we get the privilege of parenting, coaching, mentoring or otherwise
teaching our young people.
After all, you really can change a life today. You
may have done so already.
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