Four Liners

“Olin, put twenty two seconds on the clock! Ready! Go!” I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have heard this over my four years of basketball. These were the dreaded four liners. In these you had to run baseline to baseline four times within the twenty two seconds on the clock, and if you did not make it, well then get back on the line because you are about to go again. The reason I am starting out like this is because it gives the perfect example of how Delmar Johnson, my basketball coach, has impacted my life in high school.

For four years now I have been around Delmar just about year round. I’m with him all basketball season, I helped him with his youth basketball season, and I’ve traveled all around Arizona and even up to Colorado during the summer for basketball camps and tournaments with him. That is a long time to be around someone. Now I can’t say that Delmar was always my favorite person during these times, but looking back, he has taught me a lot.

Delmar has to be the most passionate person about basketball that I know. He truly loves it and he understands how it should be played. Now, how basketball should be played and how high school kids play are two completely different things. Delmar would yell at us, yank us out of the game when we made a mistake, and run us to where we felt like our legs were going to fall off.

I have never told anyone this but there was a point where I felt so low that I wanted to quit basketball. I texted Delmar and told him that basketball just wasn’t for me and that I’ll turn in my jersey on Monday. Within thirty seconds I received a reply from him telling me to meet up with him so we can talk this out. Well, after about thirty minutes of talking he finally told me that he isn’t going to let me quit and I will be forever grateful for that.

Delmar had broken me down.  He had put me through tough times, but I didn’t realize what he was doing in the process. He was breaking me down all the way to the bottom, but then he slowly helped build me back up even stronger than I was before. Just like with the four liners, when you are running them and he tells you to run another when you are already exhausted, and you think he is just being mean. However, then when you are in a game and you can run faster and longer than your opponent you realize that all of those four liners were to help up not to punish us. Delmar has put me through a lot; however, now when I look back at it, I realize that he was only doing it to make me better. Delmar has taught me that I will have really low parts in my life, but he has made me strong enough to  never give in. Thank you Delmar.