Life isn't Exactly Basketball, is it?

Life and basketball seem to have something in common-- ups and downs. I must admit, my basketball career has been a roller coaster. I've been on top of the world. I've been on the bottom. There were dark days when I was playing in Poland after being cut from the Phoenix Suns-- days with minutes of complete depression, hours of self-pity, and moments of melancholy nostalgia for living in America again.

The grey hairs sprouting in my beard are like weeds in a garden, reminding me that life isn't always a bed of de-horned roses. I've adapted, worked, and been asked multiple times to quit the world of competitive basketball. I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't close to hanging up the shoes a few times.

I was close. But I've decided a long time ago, to never give up because things are a struggle or suffering is felt. I never wanted to give into the critics, to the people who told me I couldn't. But the critics were there from day one and sometimes I was walking right next to them.

Maybe I still am:

"You aren't good enough."


"You don't belong."


"You are too slow."

As I've gotten older, these voices are replaced with positive ones, but is it a human desire to "not fail," to shun the negativity and push forward even when my mind and body tell you not too?

Aren't we all full of the same capacity of the human spirit and will; to be certain, that against all odds, everything is possible?

Is it who we listen to, learn from, or get coached by that matters? If I had listened to the critics and naysayers, I wouldn't be rounding out a ten year career. I wouldn't have learned what works and what doesn't work.

I've loved basketball since I was little boy playing in my driveway, but the challenges get bigger and more complex as you get older and move up to more competitive levels. Suddenly, you are faced with hype, politics, money, contracts, lies, deceit, playing time, production, and selfishness. It wasn't that way when I was little. But maybe the times are different.

Maybe parents are pushing their kids too hard. Or maybe they aren't teaching them what really matters. Maybe kids aren't learning the life lessons that basketball would inevitably teach them if they chose to dedicate their lives to the challenge of self-improvement through dedication and practicing with a purpose.

Maybe that is the only lesson we are supposed to learn anyways.