I’ve conducted basketball tryouts for 37 years.
I’ve seen just about everything.
Kids who were so nervous they couldn’t make a layup.
Kids who thought they were much better than they actually were.
Kids who walked into the gym like Michael Jordan and walked out looking a little more like Michael Scott.
But last year at Lighthouse, a kid gave me a tryout experience I’d never had before.
Part Two of “A Different World,” a series about what a tiny Christian school taught an old public-school coach.
He Had the Guts to Come Out
He wasn’t going to make the team.
I knew it pretty quickly.
He was a kid with some significant learning challenges, and basketball didn’t come easily to him. But he had something I immediately respected.
He had the guts to come out.
That matters to me.
It’s easy to walk into a tryout when everybody expects you to make the team.
It’s a little different when you’re probably the least-skilled player in the gym and you walk through those doors anyway.
So we started practice.
In the middle of one of our drills, his hand went up.
“Coach, can I get a drink?”
“No. We’ll get a drink when we’re done with the drill.”
A few moments later, his hand went up again.
“Can I run to the locker room?”
I figured he wasn’t feeling well. Maybe he was going to throw up.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
He disappeared.
He Came Back With Documentation
A minute later, he came running back into the gym.
He wasn’t sick.
He was carrying a piece of paper.
He walked up and handed it to me.
It was documentation from his IEP explaining that he needed to be allowed water breaks.
Thirty-seven years.
Hundreds and hundreds of players.
State tournaments. Championship games. Parents. Officials. Technical fouls.
I’ve seen some things.
But I had never had a player produce official documentation during a tryout proving that Coach Harr had to give him a water break.
I looked at the paper.
I looked at him.
“Go get a drink.”
The kid had come prepared.
Honestly, I had to respect it.
”Coach, I’m Done”
He got his water, came back and participated in another drill.
A little while later he walked up to me.
“Coach, I’m done.”
And I felt this enormous sense of relief.
Thank goodness.
I wasn’t going to have to cut him.
So I put my arm around him and gave him the speech coaches give in those situations.
I told him how proud I was that he’d come out. I told him it took guts to put himself out there. I thanked him for giving it a shot.
It was a pretty good speech.
I was feeling good about it.
Then he looked at me.
“Oh, I’m not quitting. I’m just done for today. I’m tired.”
Pause.
“I’ll be back Monday.”
Ugh.
Apparently, we had slightly different understandings of how basketball tryouts worked.
So now I had to explain that tryouts weren’t quite a come-and-go-as-you-please situation and that, unfortunately, he probably wouldn’t need to return Monday.
That wasn’t nearly as much fun as the speech I’d just given him.
He Still Showed Up
I’ve thought about that kid several times since.
He didn’t make our basketball team.
He wasn’t close.
But I’m not sure that’s the most important part of the story.
I’ve coached some incredibly talented athletes over the years who were scared to fail. Scared to be embarrassed. Scared to put themselves in a situation where somebody might decide they weren’t good enough.
This kid walked into the gym anyway.
He tried.
When he needed something, he advocated for himself.
When Coach Harr wouldn’t give him water, he basically returned with supporting documentation and won the appeal.
And when he’d had enough for the day, he apparently decided we’d pick things back up Monday.
He wasn’t a varsity basketball player.
But courage doesn’t always look like a varsity basketball player.
Sometimes it looks like the kid who has almost no chance of making the team…
and shows up for tryouts anyway.
Next week in “A Different World”: I’d finally had enough of losing. I went home and told my wife I was done babying my players — I was going to hold them to the same expectations I’d had at Twin Falls. A few days later, an opposing coach looked at the ten healthy players sitting on my bench and asked, “Are all those guys sick?” “Nope.” “I’m starting four.”
Start the series with “Coach, You Said Never Give Up an Easy Layup”, or read more about what those Lighthouse years taught me in “I Thought They Didn’t Work Hard. I Was Wrong.”.
This story first appeared on Matt’s Substack. Read the original post — “A Different World: I’ll Be Back Monday, Coach” — and subscribe to the newsletter for short stories and practical lessons like this one every week.
