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Define Your Passion
What do you really want to do in life? What burns way down inside of you? What do you absolutely love to do?
VIRTUALLY ALL THE STUDENTS IN THE PACKEDbleachers across from me rose to their feet, cheering wildly and jumping up and down. All I could do was sit down and cry.
Never before had I made a coaching move with this kind of impact. Never in my career had I felt such emotion. You’d think we had just won a championship. It wasn’t a buzzer-beating basket; it wasn’t a heave from half-court that made the place go nuts. In fact, it wasn’t even a play. All I had done was turn toward the player with uniform number 52, point my index finger at him, and say, “J-Mac.”
Up bounced seventeen-year-old Jason McElwain. My team manager’s dream finally came true on February 15, 2006, the last home game of his senior year. Jason—or J-Mac, a tag I had hung on him early in his sophomore year—was about to see his first varsity action.
He was small and skinny, standing all of five feet seven inches and weighing only 120 pounds, and his blond hair was partially covered by a headband. You may wonder just why the fans were going so nuts.
Because Jason was not your average team manager. He’s also autistic and learning-disabled.
He had been cut three straight years from his teams, the last two from the varsity by me. But he lives and breathes basketball, and was so dedicated that I had planned for months to give him a special treat on Senior Night: getting him a uniform and hopefully finding him some playing time as well.
Jason had taken a lot of grief over the years because of his disability. Go to just about any high school, and the kid who’s a little different gets singled out for ridicule. In Jason’s case, he was an easy target with his unusually loud voice, his tendency to laugh at inappropriate times, and his habit of repeating things he heard other people say. Occasionally I would say something to the team and Jason would repeat it several times—never anything very insightful; just general comments like “We gotta play as hard as we can,” and those kinds of things.
Basketball was his salvation, a constant bright light that outshone the teasing in the hallways. It kept him enthusiastic and filled his mind with pleasant thoughts. He was a bona fide hoops junkie—loved watching the game on television, loved Kobe Bryant, memorized Final Four rosters, scouted our high school opponents, you name it.
Above all, he burned with passion for Greece Athena, the high school for which I’m head coach and he proudly served as team manager. Jason had an infectious attitude that was so positive. I saw how, gradually, the kids on the team started to develop an appreciation for what he brought to the table every day. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” That’s a terrific life lesson.
Jason was almost fanatical in his devotion. I doubt there was a comparable team manager in all of Rochester, all of New York, all of anywhere. On game days he would go up to the blackboard at the beginning of each class and write “Beat Arcadia” or whomever we were playing that night. The players came to greatly respect him because he cared so deeply and wanted so badly to c
