The Orange Ball Has Given Me More Than I Ever Asked For.

Issue 151- Jason Payne, CMPC

In the last month, I have coached athletes from twenty different countries, alongside coaches from five continents. Building those relationships has been the kind of gift I would never have thought to ask for. It does not seem to matter where I go. The game finds a way to put me across the table from someone worth learning from.

The world is truly a global village, and sport is one of the few things that still unites more than it divides.

Injuries and a lack of interest in playing defense derailed my playing career early in college (it was the lack of defense, frankly). My time as a player was over, and I thought basketball was done with me.

It turned out to be just the beginning. Over the next thirty-four years, and counting, basketball has given me more opportunities and blessings than I could ever have imagined. I have coached hundreds of athletes and played a small role in who they became. Most of my best friends are people I met through the game. I have traveled across Europe and North America teaching life skills through basketball. Coaching led me to sport psychology, which has changed my life in the most profound ways. Sport psychology led me to writing, which has turned into a book. I got to coach my own children, watch them push themselves to be their best on the court, and now watch them share what they know with younger athletes.

The orange ball has shaped my life in so many ways, but not in any of the ways I imagined.

After my playing career ended, I turned to coaching because I loved the game and was not ready to leave it behind. My perspective on the work was simple. Win some games. Help players get better. I quickly realized that none of that brought me real joy or contentment.

Somewhere in the twenty-five years that followed, I figured out that it was never really about basketball at all. I have run more than a thousand practices, won hundreds of games, and lost hundreds of games. None of that is what I go back to. What I go back to is the lessons learned along the way and the relationships that sustained all of it. Slowly, I came to understand that basketball was the vehicle through which I could help teach young men about life.

The wins and losses were still important, but the perspective was easier to hold because the mission was bigger. And then something I did not expect began to happen. Every challenging interaction with a parent, a player, a referee, or an administrator taught me something about who they were. It also, quietly, taught me something about who I was.

As I helped my players work from the inside out, figuring out who they were and how to be their best, I was doing the same for myself. It was not just about building young men. It was building a better me.

I remain incredibly grateful to Dr. James Naismith for the thirteen rules he put down to keep rowdy college students busy during the cold winters of New England.

I cannot imagine what my life would be without them.

Five Things Basketball Has Given Me That I Never Expected

1. Friendship. Most of my best friends have come through the game. Basketball was the starting point, but somewhere along the way the conversations shifted from man-to-man defense to common life experiences. I coached in isolation for years. Finding people to share the experience made it so much more enjoyable. People to share van and bus rides, coaching clinics, and late-night arguments about why a game of basketball can be so euphoric or so soul-crushing. Finding people who understood why any of it mattered has put a lot of fuel in my tank. Life would be empty without them.

2. A game that speaks every language. Basketball has not yet surpassed soccer as the world’s game, but it is in the conversation. I have taught the game to many young players whose primary language is not English, and the game has become their common tongue. It is remarkable to watch young people translate instructions for each other and help each other learn the game we all love. Basketball also unites them by breaking down stereotypes and reminding them that we are all more the same than we are different. The world needs more events like the FIFA World Cup (preferably with less FIFA) that highlight our similarities in a moment that thrives on exploiting our differences.

3. A career I never planned. Mental performance consulting. Writing. Mentoring coaches. None of it was on my roadmap in my twenties. Some of it was not even on my radar when I turned forty. All of it came through basketball. I have given up trying to predict what the game will hand me next.

4. Meaning that carried me through the hard seasons. Life happens outside the gym. Loss, doubt, life transitions, and challenges I never predicted. As a kid, basketball was my stress relief, therapist, and mindfulness rolled into one. Through most of the harder chapters of the last twenty-five years, basketball gave me a place to stand. A schedule to keep. Athletes waiting for me at four o’clock on a Tuesday, whatever the rest of my day had held. The consistency of the work was, more than once, the thing that carried me. I did not always know that at the time. I know it now.

5. What my athletes have taught me. For a long time, I thought coaching was mostly a one-way transaction. I taught. They learned. What I have come to understand is that the exchange has never been a one-way street. My athletes have taught me as much as I have ever taught them. They have taught me about resilience by showing up in seasons when I know I would have quit. They have taught me about honesty, sometimes uncomfortably, in the moments they have told me the truth about what my coaching was doing to them. They have taught me about their generation by living it in front of me, and they have taught me about mine by asking me questions I had never thought to ask myself. Every one of them has, in some small way, made me a better version of the coach and the person I am trying to be. The ceiling of what I could ever hope to give them is dwarfed by what they end up giving back.

What has your sport given you that you never asked for?

Reach out to one person in basketball, hockey, soccer, or whatever your game is in your life. Tell them what they have meant. The two-way street works in both directions.

Twenty-five years in. Twenty countries and five continents deep. And the game is still giving.

Never what I expected, but always something that I am grateful for.

ALIGNED: The Inside-Out Path to Coaching Excellence, my first book, launches on Amazon on October 27. If you want the first chapter free and reader-only bonuses, join the launch list here.

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