October 2024

I’m dropping off kids after basketball practice and Michael is the last one in the van. This conversation ensues…

“You know, when I first came to your group I thought you guys were weird… I didn’t know how I could fit in.”

Michael has been playing basketball with us for three years. He is 17 now. He quickly noticed that we are more than a basketball team.

“You guys are different.  Everybody has their own personality and sometimes people get on my nerves… but you all get along. You’re all together.”

This group has been together many years, young men who started with me at elementary age.

“And you… everybody makes mistakes and sometimes we fight but you keep us together. You’re like a father figure to all of us.”

Everyone in this group has their own unique story of family and social dysfunction, isolation, hopelessness and so on. They each struggle with behaviors that are influenced by circumstances of life beyond their control.

“I didn’t know how to handle it at first, but now I feel like I belong.”

Michael came to us purely to play basketball. He was in the streets and his main pursuits were sex, crime and doing drugs.

“Sometimes I can’t believe I’m still with you. I thought I’d be fighting somebody.  When people get on my nerves, I want to hit somebody. That’s how I get in trouble at school. I have anger issues. For a long time, I was afraid you were going to kick me out. I’m surprised you didn’t.”

Michael lied about his age to be on the team and was afraid to tell me because he thought I would make him leave (he’s a year older than everyone else). When he told me he was surprised that I already knew, and hadn’t kicked him off the team. I explained to him that our being together was about more than just playing basketball.  It’s about being a community, in Christ. It’s about learning and growing together into positive young men. It’s about relationships, enduring through arguments and mistakes, working through misunderstandings and bad behavior, supporting one another through hard times. It’s about being a family.

“I’ve never had a group of friends before. I just be myself out in the streets, sometimes with my cousin [who is also on the team, he brought Michael in].  I’ve never had a place to belong. I don’t even be in the streets anymore. When I’m not with you or at school, I stay in the house.”

“Stay in the house” is a euphemism for staying out of trouble.

“I don’t even chase females anymore. I quit that. I decided to wait until I’m ready to get married.”

Now this surprises me (and I take it with a grain of salt). According to conversations in the van, they are all sexually active and looking for their next “conquest”. But this confirms my suspicion that the things they say when they are all together do not necessarily reflect their personal choices. Nevertheless, the expression of this sentiment is a marked departure in attitude from when he first joined the group.

When I drop him off in front of his house, I give him a snack and he says, “Thanks Chris, I appreciate you.”