Play with Heart
How many times have you heard a coach ask you to play with Heart? Why do coaches choose your heart? Why not you brain or your muscles?
Is it because the heart supplies life by pumping blood full of oxygen throughout your body into your muscles and brain? Maybe it has more to do with the fact that you can function with minimal brain cells or muscles, but the one thing you can’t function without is a heartbeat.
The famous racehorse Secretariat had an incredible oversized, thus strong heart. The average Thoroughbred’s heart weighs about 8.5 lbs. Secretariat’s heart weighed nearly three times that number!
A few years back, I was blessed to help coach the USA U17 team, while doing so I had the privilege of coaching with some amazing coaches like legendary Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim. I asked Jim what players during his years coaching USA Basketball played with the most heart at the age of U17. His answer two future teammates of the NBA World Champion Golden State Warriors André Iguodala and Draymond Green. No doubt two players who have demonstrated what it looks like to play with heart, but let’s take this heart thing to another level!
Let me share with you today the inspiring heart filled stories of three very special basketball players: Pete Meravich, Hank Gathers, and Dorian Dawkins. I believe their stories are living proof that a person’s heart is not only a significant gift from God, but a person’s heart is at the center of what makes them special. What are the odds of three incredibly gifted basketball players all having special hearts?
Hank Gathers, died in March of 1990, from a rare heart condition. He collapsed at half court after throwing down an emphatic alley-oop dunk in a game. Gathers, a 6-foot-7, 23-year-old who led the nation in scoring and rebounding as a junior, had collapsed on the court during a game earlier in his senior season. He quickly recovered, and doctors were unable to fully ascertain what was wrong with him. An autopsy would later reveal he suffered from a heart disorder known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Despite being prescribed heart medication, Gathers was cleared to play again and, after a few sluggish performances, appeared to be back to his old self after a 48-point, 13-rebound game against an LSU team that featured Shaquille O’Neal.
Bo Kimble, Gathers’ best friend from Philadelphia and one of his college teammates said of Gathers., ‘It’s indeed impossible in three minutes to describe Hank ‘the bank’ Gathers… He loved little kids. He wanted to take the time to cheer someone else up. You could not be around Hank Gathers and not smile and be cheered up. No one I know worked harder to achieve. A lot of poeple thought Hank wouldn’t make it. But they’re all wrong — Hank made it. Hank is a special person. I love Hank and a part of him will always live in me.’
Loyola Marymount Coach Paul Westhead said it was hard to find words to soften the blow of Gathers’ loss. ‘As a player, Hank was the best I ever had and will have and he was more than any character in literature because he was so human. Hank made all of us better people. To the team he was our leader. It was Hank’s team. We played for him.’
Next of this special trio is Pistol Pete Merovich, the most prolific scorer in college basketball history. His college statistics are so amazing as to seem almost absurd. He is still the all-time NCAA scoring leader with 3,667 points. Over his three-year college career he averaged an incredible 44.2 points per game. In addition, these accomplishments were achieved prior to the institution of the 3 point line. Experts surmise that he probably would have averaged close to 50 points per game had the 3 point line been in effect at that time. Suffice it to say that Pistol Pete’s scoring records will never be broken.
Pistol Pete went on to a very successful professional basketball career. He retired from basketball in 1980. Eight years later, at the age of 40, he passed away suddenly while playing a pickup basketball game at his church in California. Friends, family, and fans across the nation were shocked. How could such a young and seemingly healthy person die at such a young age?
Maravich’s autopsy revealed a stunning finding. Pistol Pete was actually born with a congenital heart defect. He had a single right coronary artery. Almost everyone is born with two coronary arteries, a left and a right one. Amazingly, Pistol Pete was born without a left coronary artery. He had a single right coronary artery that wrapped all the way around his heart. At the time of his death his heart was massively enlarged and scarred secondary to long-standing chronic oxygen deprivation. Pathologists were shocked that he lived as long as he did.
Pistol Pete’s testimony is one of the most powerful stories of faith that I have ever heard. I challenge you to take a few moments to hear it for yourself. Here is the link. https://youtu.be/R1Dyh8IFswY?si=78YBHUPeIkXAXROf
This past week I decided to take a phone call that I normally would have let go to voicemail. It was an unknown number from Michigan. My first thought was telemarketer, but that small voice inside me, I know to be The Holy Spirit, said answer the call. On the other end of the line was Coach Lou Dawkins. I had never met Lou, but I knew his name from his days leading Tulsa University to the 1994 Sweet 16.
It took just a few moments on the call for The Spirit inside of me to sense God was involved in the phone call. Lou mentioned he was now the head coach at Muskogee High School, but shared briefly the coaching journey God had taken him on. That journey included coaching Draymond Green in high school, then on to an assistant coaching position at Northern Illinois. Funny thing, he returned to Oklahoma for the same reason I did, to honor the dreams and wishes of our wives. Two powerfully spiritually strong ladies who God has blessed us both with.
After God connected our paths in the conversation with former players and coaching friends. Our conversation shifted to going deeper into God’s plan for the call. I mentioned to Lou that both my son’s birthdays had been the day before, Aug 31st. I shared that after twice going in to hear the heartbeat of our babies only to hear nothing. I shared how painful it was losing our two babies to miscarriage, the doctors told us that we were most likely not able to have children. I told Lou that God changed all that and He blessed us with two amazing sons born 8 years apart and amazingly both on the same birthday. I added the fact that they were both blond haired, blue eyed, and left handed, which were details we asked for and equally amazing is the FACT that the year following my son’s birth, God took my teams on amazing championship runs. I shared that God not only did those miracles, but He also gave us two beautiful daughters. God always has our back and does greater than we can even dream or imagine.
Lou responds, “Coach. Do you have time for a little story?” I told him I had all day. The next few minutes Lou shares an incredibly miraculous story of how he had tragically lost his enormously gifted son. Dorian Dawkins, a one of a kind creation of God, died in June of 2019 from a 1-in-100,000 heart condition — as he collapsed at the free throw line during a high school basketball camp at Michigan State University. He was only 14.
Dorian’s nicknames were reflective of both his promise and innocence: Some deemed him “The Future,” because there was so much hope surrounding his arrival at Saginaw High. Others called him “Ice cream,” because, well, he liked ice cream.
“He played the flute and chess, and took both seriously. He had a rich personality, above average amount of confidence for a kid that age, and incredible versatility in terms of using it. In sports, in class, in dealing with nonathletes, across racial lines, he was just a really smooth guy to be that young,” said one of his coaches.
Read the entire article on Dorian’s passing on this link. https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/sports/college/2017/12/29/lou-dawkins-northern-illinois-basketball/986227001/
Lou said he felt he died that day as well. He went on to share, that only through the grace of God and prayers of so many, he was able to make it through the darkest of valleys and was still striving to fulfilling the call God has on his life.
He then told me the latest chapter in that journey. After Lou and his wife had three children, he had had a vasectomy, but after Dorian passed they decided to have one more child. So Lou had a reversal done and they were soon pregnant. Much like my story, they suffered through two miscarriages and were told due to his wife’s age and blood pressure issues their chances of having children were low.
After hearing the doctor’s report, they decided to stop trying. However, God heard their cry, and soon after they found themselves pregnant again. There was a high risk pregnancy hospital close to their new job and their new journey had begun. Midway through that journey his wife started having complications. Just at the moment when the darkness seemed to be overcoming all light and the storm was about to sink their dream. They gathered all their prayer warriors in a hospital room and prayed. Their new baby boy, Elijah Legacy Dawkins, was born July 2015, 1.9 ounces and in Lou’s words, “He came out swinging!” Eight years later, Elijah is a mirror image of Dorian and I can not wait to see the fruition of the rest of this story!
The Bible says David was a man after God’s own heart. God says His eyes roam the earth looking for someone to be strong in, whose heart is completely set on Him. Is there any wonder why these three men created by God with enormous basketball talent all also had special unique hearts? These men may have lived shorter lives on earth than we would like, but their impact continues to ripple across the earth today.
I believe these three special men are back with their Maker after fulfilling God’s plan for their lives while on earth. I also believe that if they could give you one piece of advice today. It would not be to play with heart. I believe they would say “Make Jesus King of your Heart by asking Him to be your Lord and Savior!”
That decision will decide way more than the score on a scoreboard!