It is better to have loved and lost..."

I was a fool when i had a good girl to date. I was very foolish.

I will leave it at that.

I must say that im not sure if I will ever know what it is like to find "that person". I know what it is like to find someone that you can settle for. I know what it is like to be rejected. I know what it is like to like someone that doesnt like you back. I know what it is like to have someone like you when you dont like them.

I dont believe love exists in japan. Not romantic love. At least in my situation. It seems "love" is a decision based on wiether my life will improve should i choose to be with you. If that improvement is not quantifiable, then there is no love. Maybe im being a skeptical 33 yr old. But in my eyes, peoples dating choices almost exclusively are determined by improvement in "social status".

I just remember being younger and believing that "love" was this incredible, supernatural entity. And uncontrollable force that could conquer anything.

and it is, but not romantic love. Love for the fellow human being.

I substitute my need for love with a woman with love for kids. I pour it into basketball and teaching now.

But there was a time when i loved a particular person in a way they i cant quantify with words. It consumed me. And now that i dont really talk to her anymore and i can step back from it and see objectively, it was both a very good thing and a very bad thing.

When i was in that relationship, i needed people. I needed her. I was dependent. I had a weak spot. That was the bad part. The part that i couldnt control. Now without that dependency, i am truely independent and self-sufficient. I have surpised myself with how i can deal with Christmases and Birthdays alone.

It doesnt hurt anymore and i know that means i am getting stronger.

Heartbreak does that to you. Of course in this situation, it may have in fact been my own recklessness as a young man that costed me someone who was one very near and dear to me.

We must take life as it comes and make the best of what it is. Enjoy today, value those people that are most important to you and remember the feelings of others first.

words of wisdom from a single 33 year old man.

What id like for Christmas.

Id like my mother's stuffing and sweet potato pie.
Id like to see Barry Sanders playing football again.
Id like to hear my mother cooking Christmas dinner early in the morning.
Id like to get a Christmas present from someone in my family.
Id like all the troops in the Middle east to come home.
Id like to feel love from my family.
Id like to be in naive love again.
Id like to see the NBA go back to calling travelling and carrying again.
Id like to see my mother sitting on the coach in her jogging suit drinking egg nog.
Id like to get presents without feeling like i owe anyone.
Id like someone to know what I want or need for a present.
Id like to cuddle by the fireplace.
Id like my gifts to be appreciated for thoughtfulness and not price.
Id like to forget having my heart broken.
Id like every child in the world to know happiness for just a day.
Id like my family to fix the rifts that time and incident have caused.
Id like to spend a lot of time with my brother.

Id like to have a place to call "home".

Its interesting when you dont have a place like that anymore. No place to call home. It changes you. It makes you hard. It makes you put up with less garbage from family. I miss home.

Learning to live without "home" has been the challenge of my life. Its like an uprooted plant floating in the sea. you have the roots to plant yourself into good soil, but the soil that you were planted in to grow in the beginning is no where to be found. as a plant, you have to adapt to floating in the currents of the world, or die.

I have to forget Thankgiving and I have to forget Christmas. Forget what they were. What they meant to me. How much i loved them.

I am getting closer to that, yet everytime around this time of year, i cant help but remember how good it felt being at Lacksbur Terrace and Coach House Dr. on those special days.

Dreams pass in time. Just a little bit longer and i will forget. I try hard everyday to remember how much i loved them less, and forget how good i felt on those days more.

Or continue to wait for a love that will remind me all over again.

Solitude.

Id have to say, for the greater part of my time in Japan, i had great difficulty adjusting to the sheer amount of time i spent alone. Sundays in particular were relatively lonely days as no work, no basketball practice and that most people use that day for family. Now that i have had more time, i am not only getting to where i can handle the time alone, but i am starting to enjoy it...without alcohol.

I admit, i have my issues with alcohol. I have my mental battles. Im sure im not the only one, nor do i feel like a victim. But i also noticed that no one really took the time to notice my difficulty and that of course sent be into further solitude. Now that i have had a chance to get to where i enjoy the solitude, i find it hard to go the other way. I can be around people and enjoy myself, but more and more i find that after about an hour or so of it, i want to go back to being alone.

I dont see anything wrong with it either. Its all about the path that we walk. If i had some from a very strong loving, interconnected family, i would be more needy of the connections that family brings. Instead, i come from a family they is "connected by the family title". What that really means is that in my family, it is very easy for people to go a month without talking to a certain family member. Im not saying that is good or bad, it just is the case. Even moreso, it is hard to go back to being a super close interconnected family after years of such a situation.

In other words, my adjustment to enjoying solitude has been a necessary evolution for me. You must adapt to survive. I have adapted and i like the way i have adapted. i dont like the idea of being fake to have many people like me. I by nature am grumpy about alot of things. First of which, life without my mother being here for the holidays. about being short. about how people deal with me and my blackness. About the rarety of communication from family. about the country my home is becoming. about the garbage that surrounds us on tv and on the radio. about the lies i read in the news on a daily basis. about people not caring about things bigger than trivial garbage like fashion, music, tv shows and blackberries. about people turning on president Obama after a year. The list is long.

Im just a person who doesnt want to have to hide my dissatisfaction. I want to be free to express my displeasure at people hating on Pres. Obama, even if it costs me "friendship". My freedom to express my opinion is much more important to me than is having friends call me all day all week asking me to do stuff. And so i spend time in solitude...

...working on how i should think about myself, about people, about the world. Thinking about what i can do. How i can control my feelings.

I assure everyone, i was not alone in creating this "monster". It took years of struggling alone without help. It took many moments of private sadness. It took people walking away from me when i needed them most. It took heartbreak and repeated rejection.

So now at 33, what happens? I really like the person i have become. Very guarded. Very aware. Very caring. Less sensitive of how people think about or view me. Very independent. and mostly, very comfortable with who i am.

Time in Japan has be a great teacher for me. I was like a gullable, naive catepillar coming here and i have opened up into a "butterfly" very secure in who he is, what he chooses to do, and how much (or little) he wants from grown people.

I feel it is my mission in life to teach children that they should not be LIKE the adults they know, but be BETTER more complete adults. Adults that tell the truth, that dont cheat on their mates,that are considerate of others, that judge by character and not height or skin color, that arent bullies, that believe hard work and not cunning is the way to success, that even the down and out deserve sympathy and understanding...because goodness knows, these are not things they learn from watching the adults running the world now.

Fall tourney 3rd place.

Kasuya gun runner up 2007
Chikuzen tourney appreance 2007
7th grade tourney champs 2008
Kasuya gun fall tourney 3rd place 2009

As hard as I am on myself, i must say I am semi-pleased looking at my accomplishments in my first 3 years of coaching basketball. Semi-pleased.

So we were able to finish in third place after pushing the best team in Kasuya gun to a semi-close 10 point game. Its amazing. The longer i coach, the more harshly i critique myself. And ofcourse, the more i learn about how to do the job. There are i think 3 elements to coaching at this level. 1) Team atmosphere 2) Recruitment 3) Motivation.

Team atmosphere is the correct balance of disipline and fun. I see some coaches go overboard with their hard disipline at the middle school level. You can only yell so much I think, to be effective at the level. To much yelling has kids scared to make plays and makes the either 1) tune you out or 2) play too stiff. I constantly remind myself that my job is not so much to win games as it is to develop talent. At this level, talent almost always beats stategy.

Recruiting WITHIN THE SCHOOL is important. I dont agree with kids commuting more than an hour to go to school. But getting kids involved with the club is very important. Good example. One game this past weekend was a game against a team of all 7th graders who had play on the same junior basketball team for at least 3 years. Their play was very seemless and surely they will be a force to deal with down the road. On our side, 3 kids that played junior basketball together were in the game with a 8th grader who moved from Kagoshima who had never played basketball until a year ago and a 7th grader who first picked up a basketball some 5 months ago.

It was a close game, which we won, but what i think was most important about this was that the 3 kids with skill had to learn to evolve their game to include the less experienced players. And the less experienced players had to understand how important their defense was. With them all working together, it gave a new group of kids the chance to enjoy the euphoria of basketball, even having limited skill. This was possible only by an open, friendly recruiting approach. The Kasuya Higashi program went from 15+ in 2006 to 14 in 2007 to 9 in 2008. I knew last year that a bad recruiting year would all but end the basketball program, so i let the kids do something very creative at the school recuritment assembaly.

I wish i could have seen it, but certainly it was very funny. One kid tied on a blindfold and made a free throw. One kid hit (or tried to hit) a three from near half court. One kid crossed over 2 kids who pretended they broke their ankles. Whatever they did, it got 11 kids into the basketball club. And thus, a new group of kids enter the basketball stage. As i watch schools stuggle with numbers, i have to remind myself that even though these kids are new to basketball, I have kids available to teach. That is a wonderful feeling.

Motivating kids isnt as hard as it may seem. Honestly, disiplining kids isnt either. They have to understand 1) the coach knows more than they do 2) the coach is looking out for their best interests 3) the coach has the same goal as the kids, to win. When kids figure this out, it all but eliminates the need to yell. Kids have to understand how beautiful it is, how good it feels to be able to count on someone else to have your back. They have to know why defense is most important. I find the key to this is give kids opportunities to succeed.

I wasnt really given a chance to succeed in high school. Im not sure why things went as they did, but my problem in school was my desire to be a good passer/playmaker and not being willing to shoot the ball. I needed a coach that would run a play for me in the first quarter so i could see the ball go in. A coach that would tell me/order me to shoot a shot. What it got was benched on a team that lost alot without having a true chance to see if i could do it at a high level.

So now, when i see a kid struggling with defense, i understand that i can motivate him several ways as opposed to just writing him of. My job is to get the most out of the kids that i have. I am getting better at doing that.

Did i mention that of the 6 games ; 2 seeding games( 1 win and 1 lost to the eventual number 2 team) and 4 tourney games (2 must win games on the first day, then loss in the semifinal to the eventual number 1 team and winning the consulation game) where all played without the starting point guard and 6/7th man? I hope it was a lesson to them that the team moved forward without them.

Good month. could have been better, ill give it a B-.

Now I gotta go back to breaking these kids down again.

The last thing I want.

Not that i expect to die soon, but there are some points I want to make about the people that give eulogies at my funeral (and yes we all will have one).

If you cant send me a letter or email within a year or 2's time, dont stand up in front of people and front like we were close. It takes all of 80 cents to mail a letter to japan from america. I know who has taken the time to send me letters and/or cards and it is a surprisingly small number.

I dont want people going crazy, crying, carrying on and such when they couldnt take 1 minute a year and send me a birthday or christmas card. Now there are certainly people exempt from this because they were caring enough to send me cards. I appreciate them for that. But i cant stand the idea of people that havent contacted me in months or years to be at my funeral crying like we talked everyday.

Dont front. I remember during the 80s that was a popular saying. Dont pretend to be something you arent. Stop frontin. Frontin would be people that cant bother to ask for my address in japan to send a christmas card crying and going crazy like they cared. Thats bunk. Seriously. People show what they believe and think by what they DO and not what they SAY. Talk is cheap(See Rush Limbaugh). People that believe in Christianty for real, do what they read. People that front are asking for forgiveness everyday because they continue to do what they know they shouldnt.

I hope when im laying in my casket (or on a prye before being creamated which i prefer) someone reads this.

I have seen so many contradictions. Too many to name. Im not even trying to pretend im perfect, because i am far from it. But looking around me, its the same contradictions over and over. People love to use the word "Love", but how can you know you love someone that you knew less than a year? Why is it that love must come in a certain package, i.e. handsome, tall, relatively wealthy, and whatnot? Why is it that "Love" so often lasts for about 10 years or less then results in a divorce? Why is it "Love" until someone gets laid off.

I miss substance. The age when everything wasnt made of plastic. Plastic is the best example of how the human being has "evolved". It is a compound originating from oil, something of substance, and created into, everything. Computer shells, shirts, houses, whatever. We as humans have found extravegant, ornate ways of taking something of actual value and filling stores with a cheap derivative of it. Wal mart, a store full of chinese made plastic (more or less). The point of my rant is, how long does a plastic...anything last? We buy it, use it until it breaks, then chuck it.

As humans, we have become that kind of species. The emphasis isnt on value anymore. Its on appearence and convienience. We dont want to pay people a good solid wage to make the things we need to live. We dont even care about those people or their living conditions. We only want the convienence of a low price and the appereance/color we choose.

So it is of no surprise that i dont want a bunch of crying and such at a funeral full of people that i havent communicated with in more than 5 years. A room full of people who never considered visiting me overseas (props to my sisters and brother for showing the desire yet constricted by funds). Im here right now. Checking my email everyday. Opening my mailbox everyday. Send me a couple letters or emails, then we can chat a little on the phone. I hate phone calls out of the blue.

You want to try, go old school and send me a letter(email). Sit down, take 10 minutes and devote it to what you want to say to me. You dont have time to do that, you dont have time for me.

And Im gone.

In need of a change.

I guess now i can admit several things to myself. Number one, i havent been in love in almost 3/4 years. Number two, its time to stop checking my email waiting for someone in my family to email me. Number three, it time to stop expecting anything more than a token phone call for my birthday or Christmas.

I can pretend to be happy, but at the core of my unhappiness or should i restate, my dissatisfaction with those who are supposedly "closest to me" is the fact that i havent fitted in anywhere in a very long time. When my family worked properly, i.e. birthday, thanksgiving, christmas gatherings; christmas cards, sunday stuff, it was very easy to feel part of a family that gave me confidence to go out in the world and do my thing. When I was young, my thing was the books, studying. I certainly regard myself as a very intelligent individual. But when i fought my way to a 3.5 gpa after my first year at Georgia Tech, and coming home badly in need of money, my father basically told me get a job, and ill sell you a car. My supposedly successful father telling me this made a very deep impression on me less than 3 years after the passing of a mother who i know would have reacted in the EXACT opposite manner to such news.

Needless to say, my demeaner and approach to life and family changed. Very slowly, it began to seem that people only associated with me only to get things out of me. Not always the case, but outside of my brothers/sisters/cousins and grandmother, it was overwhelingly the case with family. Helping my uncle with his meat business for 2 months and getting about 200 or so bucks for it. Helping my aunt with church programs and getting gas money out of it. And of course, anything having to do with my father the last 15 years, at the center of it was him demanding money from me.

My problem is that i havent truely felt that someone truely cared about me and my best self interests in many many years. With kids, it always legit. Kids are upfront about what they want, and show appreciation even when they dont say it. They are honest. And they know when someone cares for them. We as adults owe it to kids to show them that all that stuff we teach them isnt bullshit. That its not the outside but the inside that matters. That hard work pays off before nepotism. That we owe more to the world than just looking out for ourselves and our "group".

Yet with adults, its much different. Kids dont really understand much about how money affects people except that they need it to live. But with adults, some of us become absorbed by our preceived self importance because we are richer, taller, better looking, more famous, better educated or lighter skinned. Even family. But we still lie to kids about things that we dont do ourselves.

I am defintely in need of something. I need to be reminded that people want to be around me for more than just what i can do for them. I need to still believe that love in its true innocence is still possible and still exsits.

I hate that my skeptism is so right so often. That my company can so willingly break the law to save a few bucks and smile and lie to me to my face. That adults place status on things other than willingness to work to better ourselves and the world around us. That people place money above people. That people act in social groups based on whatever, and live most of their private lives in these small social groups.

I think i just need to fall in love again. or maybe i just need someone to send me a thoughtful letter. or maybe i always get like this around the anniversary of my mother dying. maybe i could have used a birthday/christmas present of some kind from someone "close" to me the last 4/5 years. Whatever the case, maybe socially, i am not the person that is willing to walk into the room and start joking to make everyone laugh and like me. Maybe im not the person that can rattle off lyrics to the most popular songs. Maybe im not the person that has the most friends or the newest clothes. But dont want to be any of those things. Being liked by a lot of people has not been my aim for a long time.

I dont want to be popular if it means being compromising core beliefs about people and the world around us. I dont want alot of friends if it means that i must turn my nose up at people not like me because of any reason outside of their desire to better themselves and the world. I really just want to be myself and be loved for it. I guess that is what everyone wants, even if some of us dont have it.

Im not even sure how i became this person. Maybe its seven years in asia without even a hint of anyone wanting to visit. Maybe its having my heart broken a couple times. Maybe its all of the family structure and organizations of my youth being built on a crumbling sand foundation. Maybe its that after 33 years, i have yet to find a place via family, socially, or emotionally/romantically. Maybe i was just born in the wrong time. or Maybe i just a guy who is here for a purpose that is different than just making alot of money, making alot of friends, and finding romantic love. Maybe my lot is different than most because of the path I chose to travel.

I will not lie when i say that i feel there is a higher purpose to why i do some of the things that i do. Why have i coached basketball to japanese kids for 3 years for free? Why have i stayed in japan over going back "home"? Why i am so irritated by the world i see around me? Why i am more interested in politics and social issues than the average person? Why i dont subscribe to a major religion?

Maybe my greatest dissatisfaction is that as techonology evolves and we call ourselves becoming more "advanced"; our relations between other people is moving the opposite way. In america, the rich are using to government to steal from the poor. In asia, people place continue to place disproportionate value on skin color. In the middle east, poor palestinians are being killed off like america did native americans.

Maybe my dissatisfaction is a result of me seeing how people are and knowing that as long as people continue to live lives worried about hair length, account balances, social status, skin color, ipod verson, car make, and reality shows; we as a human race are in for great calamity, and in the not too distant future.

But hey, who am I? im just a nobody. Just my thoughts on what i see.

And i know this for a fact. The absolute most destructive emotion for a human being to have is not hate. Hate still means you care about something, and even allows a chance to change a persons heart.

But it isnt hate i see in people. It is apathy. Apathy to changing myself and the world around me, apathy to the wars that scurge this planet. Apathy to age old things methods about race. Apathy to current events. Apathy to intercultural relations. Apathy to those people that are outside of my "group". Apathy to things that dont directly concern you on a daily basis. Apathy to changing my views on how i view people different than me.

And it is this apathy that alarms me the most.

The kid.

I coach a kid that reminds me of how i would have been if didnt have a strong father.

Dealing with my dad is difficult, granted. but growing up with that helped me understand how to be a man. See, a real man can use someone to lean on at times, but he doesnt need someone to lean on all the time. A man can make his decisions and live with them. He can be content with the idea that he can make his own choices, and the people around him can suck lemons if they dont agree.

The kid is blessed with raw talent. He makes incredible plays. But he wants attention so much that he makes plays based on that and not solid basketball decision making. The only way to deal with it is tough love. I know that i am not the poster child(man) for tough love. I am generally mild tempered if not jovial with kids. I disipline kids from time to time outside of basketball practice, but never in a loud, repremanding tone.

The basketball situation is different. I sense myself changing into a real coach. I use strategy against other coaches, in motivating my players and even in motivating myself. I used the whole summer to develop talent, handling, shooting. In our first "exhibition" game, we played the champs from last year and got beat up pretty good. My best player had his finger broken (goodness knows how...but knowing how some other coaches feel about being beaten by a black coach, i can imagine), another twisted an ankle in a 16 min, 2 quarter game. I certainly understand the intensity, dont get me wrong. But on the middle school level, the hard fouls was a bit more than i expected first game of the season. Nevertheless, i deliberately did little game prep for this game. I only had the returning starters practice as normal without implementing any strategy before or during the game. I made sure that no one saw me call out one single play.

Im good at basketball strategy. Mainly because i teach my kids to think on the court so they can solve problems together on the court. That is where the basketball around me is failing. The kids are obeying the coaches direct orders. So its basically get it to the big man or jack up a 3. There are times for that, but i am teaching kids how to beat someone off the dribble. I am teaching kids to play in high school. How to get into the paint and make split second decisions. How to read your man by his feet and back posture. How to see the whole court. So yes, we did take some lumps in not preparing as hard as we could for the seeding games. now comes the games that matter. On Oct 17, we will be ready.

The real problem is the me attitude. I am certain that american coaches deal with this. but in america, we also know to ride a hot hand. We know that if someone is hot and we take a shot and miss, it could get you yanked. I am in the process of teaching that now. It isnt that only one person wins. The whole team wins. So if one guy gets 47 pts and the offense is working properly, then there is a chance that someone has 23 assists. There were 23 good screens set for the one player. But when players have a me first attitude, they only see when the crowd is clapping for them and not the team.

So back to the kid. He is in a tough situation because, well, its not much unlike inner city black kids living with just one parent. quite similar actually. But as the youngest, he is attention starved and it makes for an unruly kid at times. He can be a happy and jovial as the next kid one day and barely say a word the next. He believes the weight of the world is on his shoulders, and i can identify with it. He is teaching me. There are times i get so mad at him i cant see straight, and times when i cant help but laugh. But i need to teach him life lessons; lessons that i learned.

That you are your own P.R. agent. That you dont have to be best friends with people to work together. That we should always remain open minded. That we should be modest at times. And most importantly, we must put our best foot forward when we are engaged in an endeavor.

I am not afraid to bench any player on the team for not doing what i say. And i feel secure enough in my position to not suffer any serious flack for it. But in order to reach our goal this year, we need everyone to get on the same page.

I need to make sure that happens in the next two weeks.

And i love doing it with all of my heart.