Friends Top Health Issues
Thursday, August 6th, 2009My (well-known, for readers of this space) back problems flared up recently and my seven-year run of working at the Michael Jordan Flight School (summer basketball camp) came to an end. The days were too long and there was too much walking and standing around. Â
Earlier in the summer (June 11-14 in St. Louis at the Nike Hoops Jamboree to be exact), I had seen several of my coaching friends from MJ’s Camp and we talked about getting together in Santa Barbara in August. There were several reasons (just catching up with what was going on in each other’s lives being one of the most important) we were looking forward to visiting. Then my back went out and, well, . . . the best laid plans - you know how it goes.
So, . . . after treatment and a great deal of yoga instruction and practice, I decided to make the four-hour one way jaunt to catch up on some old times - as well as learn from the masters. My good friend, Peter Sharkey (he, another East Coast transplant to Fresno) - on last minute notice, agreed to make the trip with me (thus making the ride seem a whole lot shorter and infinitely more enjoyable) and we left at 8:00 am, pulling into the Tropicana Dorm on the UCSB campus sometime after noon.
Camp had just concluded and as expected, a slew of coaches were just finishing up lunch. It gave me a chance to reminesce a little bit before going to lunch with one of my favorite people, George Raveling. His best friend, Glenn Wilkes, Sr. (a highly successful coach in his own right at Stetson University for nearly 40 years - check the books now and see how many coaches are remaining that loyal to their employer these days - or vica versa) gave me a lesson in internet marketing and some of the latest ideas in using technology.
I also got to see his son, Glenn, Jr. - the guy who does the real work running the day-to-day camp operations (his real job is the women’s basketball coach at Rolins College, where his teams perenially win 25 games and make deep runs into the NCAA Tournament). He’d been threatening to bring his wife and two boys out to camp and this year, he finally did it. He also seemed the happiest he’s ever been there, so that “family togetherness thing” must have some merit to it.
Peter spent most of the day at the beach, not exactly a daily menu choice in Fresno - and we hopped back into the car at about 4:30, drove up to Peter’s friend barbeque joint for a leisurely dinner and got home about 10:30. The back’s not exactly as good as new (my personal yoga instructor, Katie Flinn-Gardner and her soon-to-be-born-in-four-months son, Noah, will work on curing what ails me later today) but whatever I feel is more than offset by the acquaintances I rekindled.Â
I even bumped into one of our family’s best friends from our days in Pasadena (1991-95), Evan Jurgensen,  a youngster who used to attend day care with our older son, Andy, when each was about two! He’s now on the tennis team at UCSB and was working their camp. Our families used to, for many years, vacation together!Â
The whole trip was proof positive of the fact I’ve heard, but deep down, always knew:
“One old friend is better than two new ones.”Â