Recently, I received another birthday phone call from Coach K. When it comes to dates and other trivia involving numbers, he is freaking rain-man. Every year on my birthday, it never fails. I get a call from mom, dad, and Coach K.Excluding my parents and family, I have known Coach K longer than any other person on earth.
We met at a christian camp in the summer of 1986. K was a new high school graduate. I had just finished my freshman year of high school. Back then I could tell he was kind of different from the other kids. But I didn’t care because he was one of the few older kids who didn’t mind hanging out with me.
After that summer we wrote a few letters to each other. His were mostly disturbing pleas for help that involved psycho-drama and being kicked out of his parents house with virtually no life skills. We soon lost touch but found each other again a few years later here in the fair mother city. We were both enrolled at ACU. The brother of my long-time roommate helped get K enrolled.
Unfortunately for Coach K, he was and never will be college material. That’s one of the reasons I’m not too fond of my alumni university. They’ll take anybody as long as their bill is paid. And if that means guiding someone into gobs of student loan debt, regardless of their dismal grades, so be it.
One of the many ironies of christian education.
After four years of college and never finishing, Coach K became somewhat of a 300+ pound parasite to the ACU hill. He was often homeless, sleeping on people’s couches and floors – mostly the ACU crowd. K was a house guest of me and my roommates many times over. Too many times actually.
After a few years of hell, Coach K arrived with his dream job at a TV station (he’s a TV nut). And a few years ago he moved to Waco to work for a TV station. I never thought he’d leave the fair mother city before me.
Over the years I figured out some of his issues. He is more or less stunted emotionally as a five-year old. At least, that’s the age he was when his step dad nearly killed him by throwing him down some stairs. And I think he witnessed a lot of incest and crazy stuff as a kid. To this day, his high-pitched-voiced, rotund frame finds peace and comfort in TV and junk food. He is not too smart, being guided by emotion and sentiment rather than reason or common sense. But he’s memorized every sports stat ever thrown at him. So, he's got a some brain power up there.
Nearly half of the fair mother city and the entire ACU campus had helped Coach K at one time or another. He’s doing well now. He had a rough go for many years. It’s good to see him be somewhat self-sufficient and giving to others now.
I’ve always thought that the CEO put Coach K on this earth just to see what everybody else is going to do about it.
Several years ago during my early years as a secret agent, I realized how the CEO put certain people in my life to train me where I am today. Coach K is one of the main chapters of my agent training.
13 comments:
Agree with me? What was I trying to persuade you on?!?
hey, I like your writing and perspective. more please. now I am searching my mind for all the cool people I know in Abilene...
"I realized how the CEO put certain people in my life to train me where I am today."
Sucks to be them, huh?
Matt - care to elaborate before I assume too much? Should I respond with an equally cynical, drive-by quip?
Oh, I just meant that it sucks for God to make you retarded just so somebody else can learn to be a secret agent.
Uh, revise that to: it sucks for God to make somebody retarded just so you can learn to be a secret agent.
Meh, revise the whole thing to: Nevermind.
You can't or won't see the problems with the way you talk about God, and I'm an idiot to keep trying to point them out. Forget I said anything.
matt -
1) Coach K is not retarded. Not brilliant, but not mentally handicapped. Sorry if my description was unclear.
2) Yes, it is silly of you for trying to point these things out over and over. I am intentionally jacking with you here because I think I know the thought process you possess: "you can't blame god for the good without blaming him for the bad too".
Well, that's a huge discussion. One I don't agree with, primarily because of james 1:17 and ALL of Job. And I choose to thank him for the good. And I try to ask for help through the bad, not blame. I know you have your own thoughts on this subject. Good.
3) A person or persons are put in the journey of my life as agent training: I'm sure that's not their only reason to exist.
I mean, they were not placed on earth for MY benefit or amusement. They have their own callings, etc. But god used our brief or lengthy encounters for my refining, so it goes.
Coach K is one of my best friends and we'll be there for each other until one of us dies.
I am weary of your cynical, drive-by, intellectual wanna-be grenades.
Enter a discussion. Don't stir up a bees nest, then run.
Fiiine.
1. You said yourelf that Coach K is emotionally retarded. "He is more or less stunted emotionally as a five-year old."
That's what "retarded" means. Stunted.
2. Please quit with the "drive-by, intellectual wanna-be" name-calling. I *am* an intelligent person, and I am not afraid of you.
If you really want to argue about providence, then I'd certainly be willing to do that. I just don't think we'll get anywhere. You'll appeal to the Bible, and I'll say you can't use the Bible that way, and we'll be right back where we started.
On the other hand, if you don't want to argue about providence, then geez, quit with the baiting, or at least quit getting pissed off when I occasionally take the bait and drop in a barbed comment.
Matt - who's baiting? I'm writing the experiences I live through and believe. You drop in with self-righteous jack-ass snips designed to put me on the defense. That's drive-by to me.
You appear to be just a watch dog, combing through people's blogs for a brief sentence or two that goes against your "god is bad" mantra, then letting us have it.
I don't have anything against your belief(s). Share some kind of fruit or testimony to these beliefs, then maybe you'll me (and others) over.
I'm serious: enter a discussion if you don't agree.
that's "...you'll WIN me..."
Oh, I thought that when you said this:
"I am intentionally jacking with you here because I think I know the thought process you possess"
that meant you were baiting me.
I obviously haven't been clear about the things I do believe, because I believe the exact opposite of what you said - if nothing else, God is perfectly Good. It's just that in my opinion, believing that God is good requires one to give up some other beliefs about God doing magic tricks on our behalf. I'll probably have to post some more about this on my blog soon.
In related news, I think it would be smart for me to take your blog off my feed reader for a while, cause right now I'm obviously just a little too reactive to ideas that I find nasty. I'll try to come back later and say what's up. Like I've said before, I think you're one of the few people in the Fair Mother City that thinks clearly about church and the local poverty culture, and so I'd hate to lose track of you.
Sorry you're feeling sick. Hope all of your people get well soon.
I'd love to meet you someday, Matt.
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