For now, I wanted to entertain my friends and impress girls. If somebody upstairs was watching out for me, lining up everything that would point my life to a certain destination, I was none the wiser.
When I wasn’t making scarves appear and disappear, I was playing basketball or guitar. With my height and intensity, I began to stand out on the court. My parents never missed a single game. They were proud of me as I began putting up points and making all-star teams. In particular, they were thrilled that basketball gave me an opportunity to have a fully paid college education. Some of the smaller colleges were scouting me, and I eventually committed to attend the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. North Carolina is a state known for its university system (not to mention its basketball), and this was a great opportunity.
The only problem was that Greensboro was eleven hours away. When I was a senior, there was a girlfriend in the picture. Isn’t there always?
I’d been dating her for almost a year, and naturally, she was way up on my priority list. She was headed to LSU, nearby in Baton Rouge. I wasn’t interested in North Carolina girls—this was the only one who counted. She confronted me, “Robby, you can’t go that far away! Can’t you find somewhere a little closer to home?” And you know, when your girlfriend says it to you, in just the right tone of voice, you’re likely to do almost anything.
I began to think about nearby colleges that had basketball programs. It was very late in the recruiting game, of course; the important schools had filled out their rosters. But I figured a Division I prospect like me could get some interest from a smaller NAIA program. I got out the phone book and called William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi—a simple ninety-minute drive. I didn’t know a great deal about Carey, just that it had a basketball team and wasn’t far from my girlfriend. I called the head coach and told him my situation. He hesitantly agreed to look at me in a tryout session—the team was already set.
“You’re too impulsive,” said my mom as she drove me up to Carey.
“Impulsive, but also close to home, if this works out,” I pointed out. She had to admit she didn’t mind that idea. Eleven hours away, and my parents would see me only for summer and Christmas, only making it to a couple games in person.
Something strange happened at the tryout: I played well—that is, I played really, really well. As if the spirit of Michael Jordan got into me for an hour. Afterward, Mom said, “I’ve seen every basketball game you’ve played, and a lot of the practices, and you’ve never played like that—ever. You must really like this girl!”
I shrugged. Again, it just felt like something that worked out. Just like magic.
When you’re young, you expect things to fall neatly into place. As you get older, you may begin to feel there are higher purposes at work. Some might even call it divine providence. In my seventeen-year-old mind, I thought it was all about a girl, but now I see other things were moving into place.
Coach was all smiles. It didn’t take him long to offer me a scholarship to play for the William Carey Crusaders. I called UNC-Greensboro and let them know I had a change of plans.
One simple, impulsive decision had vast implications. The irony was that two weeks after school started, my girlfriend broke up with me—having gotten the mistaken idea that I was cheating on her. Her reasoning was that I wanted to purchase clothes at the mall, something I hadn’t done before. If I’d wanted to cheat on her, I’d have gone eleven hours away! She was the whole reason I was here playing for an NAIA school instead of one that could be invited to March Madness.
But I took stock of my new home—a very Baptist new home.
My entire culture growing up was so thoroughly Catholic, I didn’t even know a Southern Baptist, and now I was surrounded by a whole army of them.
William Carey is named after the Father of Modern Missions, who lived in the eighteenth century. I was in a whole new subculture. There was no casual drinking. No Thursday night Frat parties. Faith was more overt, and I found myself to be the number one target of a campus game called “Convert the Catholic.”
I made a visible target, cruising through the campus in my red 944 Porsche, blaring uncensored Tupac tracks from the ten-inch bazooka subwoofers in my trunk. I always had a nice car because of my dad’s occupation. He’d told me that if I could maintain a B average and earn a college scholarship, he’d fix up any car I’d wanted to drive, other than a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. He forgot to mention Porsche, so that was my choice. He fixed one up and made it look brand-new.
I had brought my rap music, my alcohol, my sports car, and especially my Roman Catholic affiliation to this new Baptist world. For the first time, I knew what it was like to hold down first place on every local prayer list. Or to be a deer during hunting season.
I’d be walking to campus, and a vague acquaintance would approach me. “Hey, Robby! Wait up!” I could see the Bible and the tract in his hand.
“Hey, man. What’s up?”
“How’s basketball going?”
“I’m redshirting this year. Waiting on the six-foot-six and six-foot-ten guys to graduate.”
“Cool. Hey, if you were to die tonight, do you know where you’d—”
“Good talk, man, but I’m going to be late for class.”
I’d duck into a doorway—didn’t matter which doorway—and escape another barrage of earnest gospel invitations. I couldn’t understand this whole witnessing culture.
