“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” — Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and statesman
I’d like to be able to tell you that I am a world-class coach. Again, I’d like to tell you that…but it would be a complete fabrication of my ego and misguided subconscious. After 27 years of coaching, I can honestly say that I have failed much more than I have succeeded. And, I spend way too much time thinking about all the ways I should have done it better…how I could of and should have been more significant as a teacher, role model and coach.
With that said, I got a text and phone call today from a former player today. He has been very consistent throughout the last 20+ years at maintaining a long-distance relationship with me. His story is the epitome of significance.
I remember getting a phone call in my office at Maryville University of St. Louis about 20 years ago. It was from a young man who was so shy and had such a thick Georgia accent that I struggled to even make-out his name. He was so unassuming in his tone that I was sure one of my old college buddies was playing some kind of gag on me. After asking him to repeat his name for me a good 10 times, I finally put the consonants and vowels together to realize he was saying “Ryan Dyer from Dalton, Georgia.”
Even though my northern Illinois ears struggled to fully grasp this young man’s thick northern Georgia accent, he immediately impressed me without doubt. He was beyond respectful. He was raised so well that I could have used him to make instructional videos on how to raise a young man the right way. He was so hungry to play college basketball that I think he would have cut off a finger if I told him that was the only way I’d recruit him. That was far from necessary because it only took about 5 minutes on the phone with him for me to know that I wanted to coach him and be a part of his life.
I must have done something right because, sure enough, he showed up to campus in late August with his equally wonderful parents and little brother. They, too, were also more respectful, kind and generous than any human beings I had ever met.
I surrounded him with a group of upperclassmen who were what the Dean of Students described as the campus “pied pipers” and the Head of Campus Security described as “his constant pain the butt.” They were loud and fun and lived life to the fullest.
Ryan was like a newborn puppy surrounded by a bunch of hound dogs juiced up for the next hunt. He quickly became somewhat of a mascot to the older fellas, and he became an easy target for me in practices to tease and get a laugh out of the team. He struggled to articulate the plays he had to call. If normal volume of conversation is a 10, we never stopped attempting to get his volume above a 2.
He was such a fantastic shooter that I did everything in my power to get him game minutes as often as I could because he was always seconds away from making a handful of 3-pointers in a row and quickly changing the course of the game. With the ball in his hands, he was a completely different human being and was absolutely fearless. He shot the ball with a quick flick and release that it seemed like the ball was magically transporting out of his hand and into the bucket. [If you ever get a chance to watch Ryan’s daughter and son play basketball, you’ll know what I’m talking about. They both shoot it like their dad, and both are going to play college basketball because of it.]
Unfortunately, Ryan suffered a terrible lower back injury toward the end of his freshman year, and we could never get him healthy enough to get over the injury. That summer he had surgery on his back and transferred back to a college near home to recover (and I’m pretty sure a beautiful little Georgia blond had something to do with it, too) and was never able to become the player I knew he was capable of.
You would think that would be the end of the story, but then you did not know my group of hound dogs, and you surely don’t know Ryan. Ryan had become a brother and huge part of our family. He was stuck with them and he did not have a say in the matter. They were determined to be a part of his life; even though, he had moved half way across the country.
20 years later, they are all still thick as thieves. They vacation together. They support each other and each other’s spouses and children through phone calls, social media and weekend get-aways. And for me, the kid who only played for me for one year is the one I hear from more than all the others.
What did this quiet, shy kid from Georgia do with his life you ask? Well, he became one of the best high school basketball coaches in the state of Georgia taking a program who had never broken a .500 record to the State Playoffs multiple times breaking every school record along the way.
Because he has become such a great leader and an amazing role model, the school made him the Director of Athletics and Assistant Principal. He was so determined to be great in that role that he not only finished his Masters degree, but he went ahead and knocked out his doctorate just to prove to himself that he could do it. That small, shy, unassuming young man who called me all those years ago is now Dr. Ryan Dyer, and he is changing lives one young person at a time.
At the end of every phone call, we still tell each other “I love you”. I still get teary eyed when I think about him, and I continue to be thankful for the coach he continues to help me become.
If you ever question the significance of a coach, I hope you’ll think of Ryan because like most coaches I talk to every week, he’s one of the 200-or-so reasons I can call myself a coach of significance.
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