What if?

August 26, 2023 - I got picked up from the apartment I was renting in Carbondale, Illinois. A smallish town, hours south of Chicago, and home to the Salukis basketball program. That’s why I had been in town—figuring out what to do post-basketball career.

It was still dark when I jumped into Justin’s truck—SIU’s Director of Basketball Ops. He had been at an event all night, but still found time to take me to the regional airport for my flight home. My couple-week stint in coaching seemed to be coming to an end. The same health issues that had flared up and brought unwanted closure to my professional career were now preventing me from opening this next chapter.

On the short flight home, I was in self-pity mode—feeling sorry for myself, and uncertain of how to move forward. I couldn’t play basketball anymore. Now, I couldn’t coach it either. What else was there in the world to do?

At some point during the flight, while staring out the window, I saw something between the clouds—as if my entire career was laid out on a storyboard, waiting to be used as the outline to a motion picture… or a book.

A book. That’s it.

When I get home, this is the book I must write. If I can’t actively participate in this game, I needed to commemorate the memories before they slipped out of my grasp. If for no other reason than the fact that I was emotional, vulnerable, and scared.

I wanted to hold on to something that had been special to me for so many years—something I had worked and fought for on many levels. And something that was charged with many different feelings.

So the plan was in motion. My brother was in D.C. on a work trip. My parents were in Minnesota at a family wedding. And I was going to write a book about my career.

I Ubered to my house, but the car wasn’t going fast enough. I needed to capture what I had saw on that plane. As soon as I walked in the door, I dragged down my speakers from my old bedroom and plugged them in near the dining room table. I propped up my laptop on top of a thick dictionary that nobody ever reads. And I started writing from the beginning.

Words flowed—more bitterness and regret than the journey deserved. But I was navigating an ending, and the hardest part about endings is they often don’t come at the time of our choosing.

I wrote through it, as I had learned how to do in therapy, and in English Class—and I just kept going, as I had learned how to do in training. The result was tens of thousands of words by night’s end—and over 50,000 words by week’s end. In two weeks, I had written what I thought was a book. Now better known as the first draft.

Since that first draft, I’ve found other collaborators: Ryan Doolittle, who became a generous and clever writing partner; Bree Barton who shared her editing skills and storyboarding ideas; and my brother Grant, who read and contributed and even wrote his own chapter. My family and friends, Charlie Clifford, to name another—have all played their part.

Since starting that draft, I’ve worked a job in tech sales, gotten recruited to a newly founded single family office in Chicago, and continued to find opportunity during dark days—and light ones. The world has fluctuated in chaos. It’s hard to not feel for the humanity. It’s difficult to turn off the news.

But I have to focus on my contribution. As if the world wasn’t ending. As if we are going to find the solution. Which I’ve found isn’t about immediately knowing the answer—but about having the courage to ask the right question.

While working on different pieces of my story—and also finding new avenues to communicate, relate, and impact my life and the world around me—it doesn’t feel right to release a book, but it also doesn’t feel right to share nothing. The narrative most worth sharing will reveal itself with time.

The start of my journey in basketball wasn’t in knowing the answer—it was in finding the courage to ask the question I’d been avoiding. The words at the bottom of this page—which were first written down in permanent ink within the walls of my bedroom back in 2011—represented the release of a long-waged internal struggle, and also the seeds of newfound belief, leading to a road of taking back my power.

Of all the reasons life gives you not to believe, it only takes one to start. One reason, one question, one moment—and everything that comes after is better for it.

This was mine.

Except below:

…Inspired, I found myself working out my own ideas, and they started to stick. No longer were my writings merely questions or expressions of inner turmoil; they began to reflect deeper thoughts, even theories.

The more I wrote, the less I needed to throw out.

I gained a sense of clarity that had long eluded me. My studies carried on. Through the process, I turned the lens inward. Although I had endured hardship and adversity, I reached a pivotal realization.

The sports I missed, the raw deal I thought life had handed me—it was time to acknowledge that some of my circumstances were also the result of choices I had, or hadn’t made. Some of the things I’d dealt with had been out of my control, but had I also given up on myself? My head continued to spin . . .

But what if there was still time? What if the chapter wasn’t closed?

A fury of thoughts burst into my consciousness. I grabbed the nearest thing to write on: a thin piece of cardboard from my desk. The speckled multi-colored carpet beneath me was hard and unyielding as I sat down in the middle of the floor. My heart raced, my mind questioned every assumption I had made.

With each stroke of the pen, I was challenging everything I had believed. Questioning the reality of my own ambitions. Had I buried them too soon? The metaphors seemed to flow out of me, giving the voice in my head a visual. The questions felt almost rhetorical, but they weren’t. I started walking around my room, down the steps toward my bedroom door. Did it even matter at this point? Did I realize that nobody cared? I began filling up the backside of my door with the questions. Any way to get them out. What if no one else in the world saw my vision? Could I possibly allow myself to believe in it again?

I scribbled furiously, words and symbols pouring out, filling the space around me. Don’t be afraid to open up. I wrote it in a circular motion around my door handle. The flow didn’t stop. I walked back up the stairs and sat down in the center of my room, my mind and thoughts whizzing above me. What if I tried and it didn’t work out? I poured back over my piece of cardboard and started spelling it out slowly, like I was trying to convince myself to give myself permission . . . to what? To try?

So many potential roadblocks clouded my mind. I could barely see the first step, let alone the finish line. How could I make such a leap? The anger surged inside me—anger at myself for even daring to entertain the thought. Who did I think I was? That guy—the one who used to believe he was gone. Too many things had happened, too many setbacks, too many closed doors. It felt like every reason I could think of to move forward was battling every doubt that had held me back. I knew what happened when I went down that road.

But I kept writing.

The sharpie trembled in my grasp as more ideas spilled out, they had overtaken the walls, the door, crowding the cardboard until only one blank spot remained.
And then, everything stopped. The stream of thoughts, the chaos inside me, all went quiet.

I paused. My chest filled up with air; my hand fell over my gut. It was like a river, one that had started as a trickle up in the mountains, but now it was craving through rock, unstoppable. I was past the point of no return. There, in that final empty space, I took the leap.

I jotted down the question that would become a turning point in my life.

What if I’m the only one in my way?