I'm sitting listening to Midnight Vultures (the Beck album, it's 9:16), smelling like a Kenyan who named his first born son after me. I've taken my shirt off in an attempt to smell more like me, but I'm only courting mosquitoes to give their best shot at fever-ing my mefloquine-girded blood. I still smell like Frank.

Tonight at practice we went white against dark. I had on a white Coca-cola shirt I'd picked up at a San Antonio Salvation Army so I traded shirts with Frank Ochieng, the only husband and only father and only Theology student on our team (6' 6" Kenyan who used to be a bouncer and is now a Sunday School teacher). I didn't play, I blew the whistle. I'd been running the ladies practice, with only six girls (five of our 8 ladies are all-stars in the league, the other three couldn't square dance with seventh-grade learners at Jane Macon Middle School, much less play basketball until a month ago) at the other end of the court, the guys were down doing ball drills at their end. They'd been going pretty hard. I let them get a drink of water (poured from a 5-gallon plastic yellow jerry can into aluminum cups) and then I split them up and traded shirts with Frank and they played. After practice, we met in a huddle at mid-court, all hands in on top of mine--like always I said, "Good work, thank you. Someone say a prayer." Frank gathered breath and prayed. I thought about the backseat of the landcruiser while he prayed. He said "Amen." We all leaned into the center toward our hands, Robert counted 1-2-3 and we said, in a quick crescendo, "ooooOOOOO CANONS!" (Canons as in the distinction of an ordained priest, or canons as in canon laws of the Church)(but, even though we don't have two N's, we'll still gun down anyone standing between us and big African over-priced but not over-valued trophies).

Immediately after the "CANONS," I said, "Everyone at the car. Hurry!" I hit the disarm button on the alarm remote (an unlocked Landcruiser is too much of a temptation for the dozens of barefoot village kids who flock to the court everyday in rags to watch us practice). I opened the back door and pulled out two basketball rims. It was dark, but could see by the light of the moon and the light from the court what they were. I didn't have to tell them, everyone gathered around and grabbed a piece of rim as I held them both out in front of me. I hate ... HATE it when I hear anyone praying for victory. God wants to purify hearts as they pursue him, if winning helps, fine--if losing helps, just as fine. I had no idea what I wanted to do or say, but I knew it was right to pray.

"God," I said, "you're giving us a unique opportunity. These rims will be used in the most important games this team has ever played. You've allowed us to have access to them now. We're not asking you to do any magic, we're not asking for you to favor us over anyone else. We're asking you to make us fully aware of the opportunity we have every time we play, and especially this weekend at University Games, to show this country that we're serious about basketball and winning. I pray that they also see that we're serious about trusting and honoring each other and and serious about trusting and honoring and following you. In Jesus name, Amen."

Tomorrow morning, I'm going into Kampala to talk to the marketing manager of Nile Breweries about the possibility of Club Pilsner taking over sponsorship of the semi-pro League next year. Friday morning, I'm gonna jump in the car with Frank and another player, Sam (the only two guys who don't have final exams--Frank because the theology students are having their semester break right now, Sam because he doesn't have enough money to pay tuition and has been sitting out for a year-and-a-half), and we're gonna grab a drill and a few bolts and drive two hours north to Luwero to put those prayed-over rims up at the court at Ndejje Secondary School, where the University Games Championship will be decided.

Two years ago, the University Games were held at Mandela National Stadium in Namboole--the stadium is for soccer--there's an outdoor court on the perimeter. I spent five hours in the rain working with another coach and a couple other players replacing the shattered fiberglass backboards that were on the arena-style goals that had been left out in the African rain and equatorial sun for five years--the counter-weights in the back of the goals had been removed at some point, and the backboards nose-dived to the pavement, disfiguring the rims and shattering the backboards. That was probably three years prior. The morning the games were to begin, I walked from the bus to the court and found a ref standing around. I asked him who was going to fix the backboards. He said, "No one." The rims were up at a 45-degree angle. Mark Bartels, a buddy out here, will tell you that was my moment of self-actualization. My heart and soul and whatever else is inside, turned green, and I became an incredible hulk of a justice-hound. I"ve since realized that it's better to hunt some problems down and solve them before everyone has to see you turning green.

I hope the last two posts on the Joe Jarvis blog (http://joejarvis.typepad.com/)(I'm not up with all the link-ing junk) have lit a bit of a fire in me to write more. If you folks threaten to return, I'll have a reason to tell more. But first let me warn you--the magnificence ascribed to me by Joey--I've gotta accept it as genuine because I accept everything that accompanies Joe Jarvis as genuine--hair cuts to Har Mar to his being annointed with Mazola by African refugees in his boyhood Pentecostal church to his first theological comment to me, stepping out of Clark St. slush into my '85 Wagoneer, "The first thing I'm gonna do when I get to heaven is kick Paul's ass." I've gotta accept it as genuine, but I can't accept it as realized. I can only pray I remain worthy of such esteem, and that that esteem helps build the will necessary to strive like Jacob for more and more Blessings--to own and to share.

The simplest way to help is by giving money--money that'll buy rice and beans for Loiuse and me, and will also be used to help guys like Sam and Geoff and Robert and Brenda and Lorraine and Celia and Flavia continue studying and get their degrees. Getting married is going to change the structure of how money is processed--maybe slightly, maybe drastically--so right now, I can't give you a definite address. But I'll gladly explain alternatives over email.

There are other ways--donating men's and ladies balls and other equipment, donating basketball shoes, donating knee braces, ankle braces ... donating dvd's of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld and/or 24.

thanks

Solomon never stood under the African sun. If he did, he didn't stand long enough. If you've ever left home to live and teach and coach under the African sun, you know that no matter how long you stand under it, you'll find new things--only the rice and beans remain the same.

Since the last time I was out here, I've had my "Introduction" ceremony (the traditional Ugandan engagement ceremony--a bigger deal to most Ugandans than the wedding itself), coached the UCU Basketball team to the Championship of the 2nd Division of the MTN League, hosted Joe Jarvis and Monica Francois, good friends from Chicago who were in Kampala for four great days, helped Louise re-organize and re-paint with the goal of converting the place where I've been sleeping into a worthy first home, dragged a class of 7 third-year literature students--60 pages at a time--through Moby Dick, received the "Rotary Vocational Award" by the Rotaract Club (student version of Rotary Club) of UCU--an annual award given to what the president of the Club called "the professional of the year" (I was able to hold my laughter in front of 500 students watching me receive the award), taught children with diseases in the bones of their legs to juggle tennis balls, helped coach the Uganda National Basketball Team (men) to their first-ever Regional Championship, and sat in the front seat of a borrowed car and held the hand of one of my UCU players and prayed as he asked Jesus to forgive his sins and change his life.

I could write 6 pages about each one of those events between commas, but I've gotta grade Moby Dick exams and buy bus tickets to get players home to Mombassa for Christmas and ...

What I want to do and need to do right now is testify. What I want to do and need to do right now is cry (with joy), but I'm going to testify first. More than ever before, God has been assuring me. These last few weeks in particular, I've been busy coaching the National Team, trying to still give attention to my UCU teams--both men and ladies, writing the Moby Dick exam, finishing those lectures, talking over SkypeOut to Louise a couple nights a week (she's been back in Ireland since November 4), I've had a fever that I thought was malaria that's now turned to tonsillitis, I've been leading a Bible Study for basketball men and women every Sunday night (about half the players show up). But the biggest thing has been that I've been made aware that some of the basketball players have been going out on weekend nights, drinking. Who, anywhere in the world would be shocked to hear that college athletes are going out on Friday for a few beers? Probably no one. I wasn't shocked, but I was disappointed. There's a University rule forbidding drinking on campus, and being drunk on campus, but there's no rule about what happens off campus. So, no one is officially breaking any rules. But there are rules and there are rules. In East Africa, it's a basic rule, I wish was unspoken, that "Christians don't drink" (a potentially tragic message that leads to a mixed-up understanding of Behavior as Faith that makes it complicated to truly understand and experience Repentance and Grace). So I know these guys, Christians or not (I'm sure many of them are not) don't want me to know they're going out, which means they're hiding something from me. I talked to a couple guys on the team who I knew weren't involved, talked to a few administrators, talked to Louise, prayed, but still never really knew exactly what to do. Finally I went with, "I played four years of college basketball without ever drinking a drop of alcohol, why can’t they?" I decided to make a list of rules, the most important of which was one forbidding ANY drinking, ANYwhere, that everyone'd would agree to follow and sign at the bottom, acknowledging they were prepared to face the consequences (first two offenses, a ridiculous amount of sprints--third, removal from team) also printed there. I gave the paper with the rules and consequences to the Dean of Students for his approval and he was supposed to meet with some folks and give it back to me to give to the players. Two weeks later, I hadn't heard anything from him and I kept working on all my other stuff. One night after practice I talked to one of the guys not involved in the drinking. I told him about the rules and that I was waiting to hear from the Dean of Students. It took courage for him to encourage me not to make guys sign a list of rules to follow. He thought I should talk to them all, one-on-one and just see what happens as a result of the conversations (this was also Louise's suggestion). I thought more about it, prayed about it and realized that Louise and the guy were right and thanked God for holding up the Dean of Students paper-work.

Monday at practice, all the guys sat down on the court and I was telling them we needed to spend the next two weeks totally focused on doing well on exams and on winning the championship of University Games. I talked about a couple commitment kind of things, then I said, "Just so you know. I know some of you have been going out drinking. I want you to know that I know because you can't fully respect someone if you think you're getting away with doing something behind their back. And I want to say, if you feel strange or weird knowing that I know, then there's a reason for that. Think about that reason. I'm gonna talk to you individually at some point. But I encourage you not to wait for me. Talk to me. Two line lay-ups ..."

After practice, Jerry, a first-year guy who's not really a student yet, but will start studying in January--6' 2", super strong, lots of muscle, quick, runs well, plays mostly in the post, can dunk with two hands from standing right under the basket with no noticeable effort--walked up to me and said, "Coach. I'm thinking about what you said and I want to stop boozing and I think I might want to get saved." It's funny the words and phrases that become part of another culture and the ones that don't. The other day, a player asked me what a "moron" was--no one else knew either. But they all know "boozing" and they all know "get saved." I told him we'd meet for lunch the next day. So, yesterday, Jerry and I had lunch. I explained to him that quitting drinking and accepting Jesus are two different things. He understood and explained to me why he wanted to do both. We talked while we ate, walked from the canteen/restaurant to the car, sat, held hands, and we both prayed. He asked Jesus to change him. He said Amen and had tears in his eyes, joy in his eyes.

That was yesterday, Tuesday.

Saturday I was in the middle of the on-court celebration after the Uganda National Basketball Team won the East and Central Basketball Championship for the first time ever. Uganda hosted the tournament. I was called and asked to help the head coach prepare the team three weeks before we started. We practiced twice a week and there was only one practice where all 12 players were there. In the first game, we lost to Tanzania by one at the buzzer, then lost to Kenya by 6 in the second game, then put it together and beat Rwanda and Burundi. We then beat Burundi again (in a crazy game) in the semifinals and then played Kenya in the final and beat them by one. The first time Uganda's beaten Kenya in 15 years. I had people I'd never seen or heard or smelled before hugging me, thanking me, grabbing my hands, one guy draped me in a Ugandan flag--I was smiling all over the place, absolutely loving it. But that was Saturday.

Yesterday, Tuesday, in the front seat of a borrowed Landcruiser, Jerry had tears in his eyes, joy in his eyes. I did too. Yesterday was the best day I've ever had in Uganda.

God is doing things. I'm so grateful he's letting me participate with these few of the many things he's doing in Uganda. I'm so grateful that he's letting me see clearly that my presence here is making an eternal difference. I can hope it's making a difference, and I can tell other people I think it's making a difference, and I can make it sound as good as anyone can, but only Jesus can get inside Jerry and make him cry.

Jerry is new! Testify!

Amen.

I am engaged to marry Louise Kane--a fantastic Jesus-loving, Holy Spirit enlightened and enlivened servant of God from Northern Ireland with stars-at-night eyes and a smile always eager to laugh and real and honest love always ready to share, with anyone from anywhere willing to acknowledge they need it.

I am engaged in nursing and nurturing and trying to feed a baby Athletic Department at Uganda Christian University--trying to get the kid from the womb into a muscle and discipline driven sprint that accepts nothing less than the best of itself.

I am engaged in teaching Moby Dick to a new group of third-year Literature students. My engagement in the Athletic Department was supposed to keep me from having to teach anything, but they asked and I asked if I could cut the reading list down to the one book (which I haven't read yet) and they said yes so I said yes.

I am engaged in balancing these engagements and meeting and learning from and especially enjoying all the challenges that accompany each of them. It was a lot easier a few years ago when I was driving a fork-lift during the day and writing a book at night when the Cubs weren't on. But this is a lot more fun.

I spent the second week of September in South Africa at the American International School of Johannesburg, with a couple dozen African coaches and a couple dozen NBA coaches and players and the best 115 male basketball players in Africa under 19 at the Basketball Without Borders camp. For about a thousand reasons it was one of the best weeks I've had in Africa. One afternoon I stood in the air-conditioned halls of the Apartheid Museum with 5 Arab kids over 6'6" from Sudan and Egypt and talked about the pit-falls of contemporary developed societies. The most vocal one (who can jump like crazy and shoot from anywhere) referenced the prominence of the ancient Egyptian civilization. Established historian that I am, I looked up at him and said, "Yeah, they were doing great until Pharaoh made the big mistake." "What was that?" he was looking down at me, but with no trace of a threat. "God asked him to do something and he didn't do it," I said. I'm not sure if it was good or not that our South African tour guide came up and told us we had to get moving. We shuffled down a hall, then came out of the building and talked about the NCAA Tournament and then they laughed at me trying to pronounce their names. I hope to be coaching in Uganda 3 or 4 more years, and I hope to attend this camp every year I'm here.

We just hosted the MTN League All-Star Game at UCU on Saturday. The top 20 players from 2nd Division (the division we're in), the Ladies Division, and 1st Division all came out to UCU and played ball and dunked and shot from noon to 9 p.m. I coached one of the 2nd Division teams and Robert Mugabe, one of the two brothers here on scholarship from Mombassa, played for my team and was MVP of the game. His brother Geoff won the 3-point shooting contest. The highlight of the day was the 1st Division game--about 25 dunks, virtually no defense at all and it was close the whole way. But the biggest thing was that it was played entirely under lights. We now have the only basketball court in the country with adequate lighting to play league games at night. Everyone thought it was great, but only a few of us thought it was miraculous--only a few of us knew that the poles holding the adequate lights weren't in the ground until 7 p.m. the night before.

Louise brought two groups of kids to the All-Star Game and we gave them a tent where they all sat together in the shade. One group of 15 or so was made up of children who live up the hill at a physical rehabilitation center called Cherub (where Louise's sister Denise works) that provides specialized treatment for kids with limbs damaged in various ways. They come to Cherub and stay up to a year having arms or legs straightened or lengthened by braces tightened with a pair of pliers every day. They love getting out of the clinic and they're starting to love basketball. The other group of 25 was made up of children of various ages found alone on the streets of Kampala and brought out to an orphanage and school where they're cared for by a dedicated Ugandan woman named Flavia. The highlight of the day for the street kids was the fifteen minutes we gave them to play their own music over the sound system and dance. They stretched it into 20 minutes and no one complained. No one enjoyed it more than Louise.

You've all got to meet Louise. Most of you will. Louise and Denise are coming over to spend Christmas in America. A wedding date will be announced soon.

God bless everything.

I first heard the song one Sunday afternoon back in February driving through Valdosta. I'd just finished speaking at the annual oyster roast at Christ Church, Savannah and was on my way to Dallas via New Orleans.

"have some chicken and some baked beans"

I wasn't close to hungry, I wasn't home sick, I'd just spent a week with family, I was looking ahead at six more American weeks of burgers and fries and burritos and driving in the right lane, but my eyes were wetter than normal. I've got no problem with being made a sucker in general, but I do have a problem with being made a sucker by popular radio--country or not.

"35 cents off a ground round, baby cut that coupon out"

But I listened to the whole song and liked it. My cd player wasn't cooperating with the tape deck, so I was stuck with the radio for most of my driving around the country. As I crossed that corner of Georgia over to I-10 and then along toward New Orleans, I caught mostly country stations. It was Sunday. I didn't think of trying to count how many times I got "That's What I Love About Sunday."

"new believers getting baptized"

After that one big day, I did a lot more driving and lot more radio searching (spent a couple hours in Muskogee, Oklahoma driving around looking for Wal-Mart where I hoped to find a Muskogee t-shirt--they were all out--ate sweet-and-sour chicken at the Mall--never once heard Merle Haggard), and I don't remember the sun going down on one day of driving that didn't get me at least one full listen to "That's What I Love About Sunday."

"sweet Miss Betty likes to sing off key in the pew behind me"

It was a big deal, it was a big song. But I don't think I said anything about it to anyone. It was me and my heart and my memories and my country in the car on the highway and it always stayed on the highway. Once I listened all the way through Jeff Foxworthy doing the weekly countdown, knowing it would have to be coming up. It came up and I listened, but I missed the singer's name.

"every verse of Amazing Grace"

Craig Morgan

It's Sunday in Uganda and all over the world. "That's What I Love About Sunday" is quickly climbing the chart of my iTunes Top 25 Most Played. I know there are scores of critics who'll be justified in saying, "Yeah, but what about all the terrible things going on in the world on Sunday and every other day of the week?" Maybe the rest of Craig Morgan's album talks about those things--probably it doesn't--it doesn't have to. Let a guy sing about what he loves about Sunday, and maybe it'll make other people think about what they love about Sunday and other days and if everyone's out there thinking about what they love about days in the world, there'll be more good things happening.

"havin' a hallelujah good time, a smile on everybody's face"

If not, it's worth a shot. It's at least worth 99 cents.

What I love about Sunday in Uganda is the same thing I loved about Sunday in Nigeria. Things are quiet, things are slow, you have to go out of your way to find something to distract you from the calmness of everything. In that calmness I'm able to sit and listen to an American song and think about things and write some rambling junk that starts somewhere and ends, because I intended it too, with thanking the people who have contributed to sending me back to Uganda Christian University.

I'm here. I'm coaching the basketball team, we're 1-1 in the second division of the MTN League, we've gotta win the rest of our games in order to move on to the next round and then to the playoffs where we have to finish either first or second to move up to first division next year. Friday (June 10) Robert and Goeff Mugabe arrive on a bus from Mombassa, Kenya. They are brothers, orphans, and good basketball players who are the first two scholarship athletes at UCU. They'll be able to join us as soon as they come and hopefully get us the wins we need to move up to first division. They'll begin studying in September. For this summer semester, I'm teaching a European Novels course. We finish Madame Bovary this week and move onto Voltaire’s Candide next. I'm theorizing a lot with UCU administrators about how we can develop an Athletic Department at UCU that will benefit the University as well as the student-athletes for years to come. Soon we'll move into putting the theories into practice. It's our hope that I'll be able to stay here a few more years, devoting time and energy to developing the Athletic Department, and then leave it running in the hands of Ugandans I'm currently working with.

"That's What I Love About Sunday" just topped my Most Played chart.

Along with those things I'm expected to do by the folks here at UCU, I'm communicating as constantly as possible by text message and email and phone calls with Louise Kane who is up in Northern Ireland. July 1st Louise lands in Uganda for four months of doing serious work for God's coming Kingdom. Louise will be living just up the hill from my place. Four months, sixteen Sundays.

"you curled up next to me, the smell of jasmine wakes us up"

God is so good.

I registered the UCU team in the semi-pro MTN League which begins April 2nd and runs through the end of November. It was immediately clear that, if I had no classes to teach, I should take advantage of the time to come home now and try to raise support to get back in time for the first game and then stay through the season. Otherwise I'd have to try to explain things over email or leave the team for two months in the middle of the season.

So I've been in the U.S. for a month now traveling around thanking old supporters and talking to new ones. My immediate goal is to return to Uganda at the end of the month and stay through the end of the MTN League season and then through the Uganda University Games in December. Then I'll return home and try to establish a broader base of support that will send me back for a few more years--to teach and coach basketball, but primarily to establish an athletic program offering at least a few scholarships for each of the ten athletic teams we have on campus. The vision is to attract the best athletes in East Africa to Uganda Christian University. When they come, they will help the University by helping us establish a reputation of being committed to the development of individual leaders through disciplined and excellent sports teams. And, the athletes themselves will receive a top-notch education that is founded on and promotes the Gospel as essential to life.

Anyone who wants to be a big or small part of all this can contact me at mehljason@yahoo.com.

financial support can be mailed to:

Global Teams
P.O. Box 490
Forest City, NC 28043

As soon as the construction of our full court was finished here on campus in February 2004, we started talking about Nairobi. The guys were out playing everyday and I’d play whenever I could and if I blocked someone’s shot I’d say things like, “You won’t get away with that weak stuff in Nairobi.” When I left to come home for the summer, I left guys knowing that any work they did on their own would be work toward getting them to Nairobi.

I remember one day this summer in Georgia. I was in a department store with my mom and I picked up a pair of athletic pants marked down to $6. “I’ll wear these in Nairobi.” Turns out, I didn’t wear the pants--I’m not really one for athletic pants--but those pants and a million other little consistent thoughts were always pointing me to Nairobi.

Upon returning this year, the first conversation I had with the Dean of Students was about Nairobi.

“Jason, welcome back. Will the boys be ready for Nairobi?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of them yet.”

“They should be ready.”

We talked and he told me we had to limit the total number of participants to 70 so we could only take the lowest possible number of athletes in each sport. I told him I had to have 12.

So, before I knew who was back to play and who wasn’t and which of the new guys were any good, I knew I’d have to decide on 12 guys who’d be going with to Nairobi in December.

A lot went into that decision and it wasn’t easy for me and it especially wasn’t easy for the three guys who’d been practicing with us and working hard but who I had to leave here since they weren’t going to help us. It didn’t hit me until the day we were scheduled to leave--50 on a chartered bus, and 25 on a smaller University bus--how big of a deal it was. Most of our students are from Uganda and most of them have never left the country for as much as an afternoon or a weekend. They were full of questions for the few Kenyans and Tanzanians who’d traveled the roads we’d be taking--questions someone from Kansas might ask “Will we see lions?” “Do they eat dogs?” “What about the warriors?” Nairobi was much more than a place where we were going to play basketball or soccer or volleyball or netball or run track--it was a once-in-a-lifetime destination.

I’d been to Nairobi twice. Once for a week-long Episcopal missionary retreat at a retreat center outside of town in Limuru, and once for about two hours between midnight and 2 a.m. waiting on the street to transfer from the bus from Kampala onto the bus to Arusha. I was excited for everyone who was going for the first time. And I was excited for me because I’d just finished grading my last final exam and was getting on the bus with a cd player and charged batteries and a whole lotta George Jones.

They let me sit in the front seat of the University bus which seats 29 with no luggage, but was packed with luggage and balls and 25 people. The men’s and women’s volleyball teams and the netball team (women) were on the bus with Nason (men’s and women’s volleyball coach) and Vincent (Sports Tutor--equivalent of over-worked and under-paid athletic director), and me. The chartered bus was from the Akamba bus company. There are about six bus companies responsible for most trans-East Africa travel, mostly operating between Kigali in Rwanda and the coastal towns of Kenya and Tanzania--and they range between varying degrees of safety and comfort. You can take a Gateway bus from Kigali to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania for about $50. Or you can take a Scandanavia bus the same distance for as much as $200. But, you’ll know where that extra $150 went when you arrive in one piece in Dar Es Salaam. Due to a bad record of often avoidable accidents, many folks refer to Gateway as “Gateway to the Hereafter.” But, whether it’s Gateway or Akamba or Scandanavia or a University vehicle, people mean it when they say “I’ll pray for your safety.” And they mean it when they see you step off the bus at your destination and they say “Praise the Lord! You are welcome!” Behind malaria and AIDS, road accidents are the biggest killer in East Africa.

The trip was as uneventful as an 18-hour overnight bus trip between African capital cities can be. We left campus two-hours late after waiting for the Akamba bus to arrive from Kampala, spent an hour-and-a-half at the border, another hour stopping for tea at 2:00 in the morning in El Doret and then 2 more hours on the side of the road just inside Nairobi getting our fuel pump replaced. Jeremiah, our bus driver had been awake since 6:00 the morning of the day we left and didn’t sleep until after lunch the day we arrived in Nairobi. I’ve been Jeremiah’s co-pilot on many trips between basketball and the Uganda Studies Program, but none of them have been longer than four or five hours. I asked him if he had any trouble staying awake. He said, “When I drove for the Army, we’d sometimes drive three days without sleeping.” All he had to say was, “I drove for the Army.”

We all settled into different spots on campus at Kenyatta University. Our Dean of Students and Vincent and Jeremiah and the three of us coaches stayed in the dorm for “officials” and the rest of our group piled into one huge dorm with the roughly 1,500 other athletes. There were separate wings and floors designated for men and women. Everyone knows about the HIV/AIDS situation in Africa. One of my first thoughts was the potentially lethal combination of young people excited to be away from home for the first time, ready to explore everything, no responsibilities outside of playing their one or two games every day, thrown on top of each other into one big building. Every evening all the “officials” met to discuss various matters. The General Secretary of the Games addressed this potential problem early in the first meeting. “We are aware that these young people are living close together for this week. We hope that you who are their leaders will discourage them from engaging in any kind of inappropriate behavior. We hope none of this happens. But, knowing that it might happen, we have made provisions for those rare cases. 3,000 condoms have been made available to the students in the dormitory.” While such language is common in Uganda, I was encouraged to hear the Kenyan man acknowledge that sex between athletes would be “inappropriate,” but… 3,000 condoms? My “don’t do anything stupid” speech to my guys before they went to bed contained no mention of 3,000 condoms.

Games began the morning of our first day there. All the basketball was played away from Kenyatta University. Virtually all basketball in Africa, on anything other than the International level, is played on outdoor courts. The indoor courts are few and are too expensive for the leagues to rent for games, so they exist for weddings and funerals of important people. All of our games were at the two outdoor courts at United States International University (USIU), so we climbed into the bus everyday and Jeremiah drove us over and stayed when he could and then brought us back. Three other Ugandan schools, KIU, Makerere University, and Nkumba University were also in our pool so we often shared rides back-and-forth from the games. I was already good friends with Lawrence (KIU coach) and Tom (Nkumba coach), but the trips back-and-forth provided an opportunity for me and all our players to get to know players from the other Ugandan universities.

Our first game was against Makerere. Walking from the bus to the court Raymond, our captain, asked me, “Coach, what do you think about playing zone?”

I hate playing zone. I never fully understood the concepts when I was playing so I never tried to explain them to my guys at UCU. I know, no matter what, every player has got to be able to play one-on-one defense first before he can do anything conceptual no matter how easy it is. So I’d been coaching nothing but man-to-man and we’d been playing nothing but man-to-man. Of course, we’d been losing almost all our games and I thought about trying to play a zone, but we weren’t losing because other teams were hitting three’s or because they were pounding it in to their big guys. We were losing because guards were getting beat off the dribble and giving up easy lay-ups and if the lay-ups were missed, we weren’t blocking out--those are problems that are solved by playing better man-to-man defense. I didn’t say any of that to Raymond. I said, “What do you think about playing zone?”

“I think these goals are tough to shoot on and guys aren’t going to be doing much outside and I think if we can play tough inside and rebound we’d be better.”

“Go get 32 and Ken and we’ll talk about it.”

Raymond came back with the other two captains and I asked them and they both agreed they wanted to try a zone. I told them, “O.k. I’ve got no problem with it. But guys’ve gotta block out. The same thing applies--when a shot goes up, you’ve gotta hit a man.”

I got the team together before they started warming up with lay-ups and told them we were gonna play a 2-1-2 zone, and everyone was gonna have to block out. They warmed-up with more enthusiasm than I’d seen before. I figured it was just because “Nairobi” was finally a reality and their adrenaline had them all full-throttle. The biggest problem with basketball in East Africa is rims that can’t handle dunking. So the best court is a court with sturdy rims. The rims at USIU were sturdy--steel welded onto steel welded onto steel looking like terrible modern art bolted to a back-board. They were both about an inch too high and couldn’t have been more rigid if they were made out of concrete. Despite the hardness and height, Ken (our superstar and starting guard on the Uganda National Team) was dunking like I’d never seen him dunk (dunking is legal in warm-ups here) and people were crowding around and watching and our guys were jumping higher and a couple of them put down a few dunks. I don’t think anyone made one jump shot. Even though I feared they’d come out with tons of energy and wear themselves out after ten minutes and we’d lose by 40, I knew it wouldn’t do any good to try and calm them down.

Makerere University is the oldest and most established instruction, not only in Uganda, but all of East Africa. It has long been referred to as “the Harvard of East Africa.” While not everyone is aware of it, Uganda Christian University is challenging Makerere’s prominence in every aspect of University life from Academic Programs to the service in the Dining Hall, and UCU is making up ground fast. Makerere sponsors a club team in the MTN pro league in Kampala made up of some current and former students and they’re perennial favorites in the league and have won the championship the last three years. We’d played their university team twice (both times without Ken who had commitments with his pro team). At our place they beat us by 20, at their place they beat us by 50.

Makerere won the tip, one of their guards drove, missed a lay-up, Sam (6’4” forward) got the rebound, passed to Ken, he drove the length of the court, made a move, and made a lay-up. We were up 2-0. We held that lead until the third quarter. We played four ten-minute quarters with a running clock. At one point in the second quarter we were up 18. At half-time we were up 12. It was all the zone. We’d never practiced any of it. We didn’t need to--that’s Ugandan basketball. Guys knew what they were doing, they knew what the offense wanted to do, they were doing their best to stop it and in the first half, their best was good enough. Sam picked up his third foul right at the end of the first half. I didn’t want to, but I put him in in the second half because he was playing well and Frank (6’6” center) was our only other reliable big guy and you can’t play a 2-1-2 against Makerere’s two 6’5” guys and one 6’7” guy with only one big man. Sam got his fourth foul two minutes into the third quarter--I pulled him out. In another three or four minutes, Frank went down with a sprained ankle--I pulled him out and tightened his shoe like crazy and put him back in but he couldn’t go and I pulled him back out. If you can’t play that 2-1-2 with one big man, you certainly can’t do it with no big men. I put in Anto, hard-working but very un-polished 6’2” guy and he couldn’t handle it. The Makerere guys started doing whatever they wanted, and despite Ken’s 26 points, we ended up losing by 20.

But the guys felt good anyway--we’d never led by more than four or five points in any game all season. All I told them is that they played good defense and told them they needed to rebound better the next game.

The next morning we played Dar Es Salaam University from Tanzania. KIU was playing at the court next to us. Nkumba had a game right before us and Makerere was playing right after us so all their guys were around. They were watching both games, but they were standing behind our bench and cheering us on. It was great for our guys, not only to have people cheering for them, but to have big-shot Kampala players (most of the other players from other Universities were scholarship players from the MTN League) cheering for them.

It wasn’t quite as nice for me. The sports culture here is so defined by soccer. A soccer field is big and the action takes place mostly in the interior of the field so fans crowd the sidelines and if the ball does come their way once or twice a match they step back and everything’s fine. The only spot on the field where people aren’t crowding sidelines is in front of the players benches (if they have benches). Instead, people stand right behind the bench and yell at players and coaches just like they would if they were standing anywhere else. So they treat basketball the same way. On campus at UCU, after a few incidents of me going nuts on students for sitting on our bench and for getting in my way on the sidelines, people now know where not to stand. But there were Nkumba and Makerere guys all over the place, and since they were basketball guys and peers of my players and guys I want to get to know, I didn’t want to go off on them. I asked them not to stand between me and the bench and they listened and that was about all I could ask.

We came out the same way against Dar Es Salaam--good zone defense and a ten-point lead. Then they scored six straight points and I called a time-out and got the guys over and I’m telling them something (I might be the worst time-out coach in the universe) and this Makerere guy who’s sort of their player/coach (not much of a player or a coach) comes in the huddle and points to Ken and says to me, “You need to let #4 bring the ball up court and let Ken get open--Ken’s not a point guard.”

I turned to the guy with respect I found somewhere, “Dude. Let me coach.”

Ken and Raymond (#4) and I had had the “Ken’s not a point guard” conversation and we had an arrangement. I didn’t say anything about that and the guys went back out and played. They built the lead back up. Frank’s ankle bothered him but his shoe was tight and he played through it, Sam stayed out of foul trouble--we were maintaining. With a ten-point lead, Ken started slowing things down to take advantage of the running clock. But we quickly lost rhythm and gave up three baskets and I asked the official how much time was left (there was no clock visible, only an official with a watch at the scorer’s table) and we were only up 4 with 4 minutes to play. I told guys to keep pushing and not slow it down but they couldn’t get it back and in a couple minutes we were down by 2. I asked the official for the time and he told me “one-and-a-half minutes.” In what felt like ten seconds they blew the whistle ending the game. We lost by 5. I asked the official why he didn’t announce the time at least at a minute. He said softly, “I did.” I said, “Yeah--that loud.”

The guys felt bad about blowing the lead, but I did all I could to encourage them and convince them the game was ours to win and we needed to win those games in the future. The Makerere and Nkumba guys were also encouraging our guys--it was a real nice thing to see.

Our next game was the same afternoon against Maseno University from Kenya. Jeremiah had left us and gone back to Kenyatta University to pick up as many folks as he could to bring them to watch our second game. Just before we tipped off, the bus pulled off and soccer and volleyball guys and netball and volleyball girls came running off and over to our bench and we had a valid cheering section to combine with the guys from other teams. Sam won the tip to Raymond, he passed to Ken, Ken made a lay-up and our little crowd went nuts. Again, zone. Again, we built the lead up to 10 in the first half and Ken started slowing it down again. Again, we lost rhythm and they got easy baskets and were back within 2. I called a time-out and went close to nuts on all of them for losing concentration and told them to keep pushing and doing what works. “The same thing happened this morning and we LOST. Look at me! Look at me! DON’T LOSE IT AGAIN!” I looked into the eyes of all five in our little circle and pointed and said softly, “Don’t lose it.”

They went out and got it back and we were up six at half-time. We came out strong in the second half and gave our folks plenty to cheer about. Early in the fourth quarter Henry, a guard and Ken’s cousin and roommate, got a steal and was out on a fast break with only one Maseno guy to beat. Henry went up for the lay-up and the Maseno guy challenged him, but Henry wasn’t shooting--he threw it off the backboard and Ken was trailing and came flying in and caught it with two hands and dunked it hard all over the Maseno guy. Everyone went crazy. We won by 9. Later I said to Ken, “I bet you’ve never been happier about a missed lay-up.” He told me, “He didn’t miss. We’ve been planning that for years.”

It was a great win. Our people were there. The guys from other schools were shaking all our hands. The talk then became about what needed to happen for us to move on to the quarterfinals of the tournament out of our pool. I knew there was no way since the best-case-scenario would have three teams with two losses and we’d lost to one of those teams, but I let the guy postulate anyway.

We came back the next day early so Jeremiah could go back and pick up our supporters. We played Moi University. I’d watched them play Makerere tough the day before and didn’t think we had much of a chance. They were bigger, played with more confidence and had more skilled players than we did. The only advantage I saw was that they never blocked out. I told our guy, “If we block out and rebound, we’ll win. If we don’t, we’ll lose.”

Moi won the tip, missed a shot, Sam got the rebound, passed out to Raymond, Raymond passed to Ken and Ken hit a three and out people were ready to fight the Philistines. We kept up the zone. Our big guys played well--they blocked out--they rebounded. Ken was getting good shots--Raymond hit a couple of three’s--Sam got a couple shots inside. We led most of the game but never by more than five, and we lost the lead a couple of times and had to fight and rebound to get it back.

The guys were exhausted. The starting five played most of every game. The two guards I brought in off the bench played no more than several minutes each. Frank’s ankle was bothering him, and he was fighting through it but then he was fouled hard going to the basket and went down on his elbow on the asphalt. He came off and we had someone attend to his bloody elbow and I knew and he knew he was done. Ken had two fouls in the first half and came out and picked up two quick ones in the second half. I didn’t realize he had four until I asked and knew I had to take him out. We were up two late in the third quarter with Frank and Ken on the bench.

32 (Peter--wears a #32 jersey to practice everyday) is our 6’1” small forward and one of our captains who, when he’s on, can score in unorthodox ways at will. Next to Ken he’d been our leading scorer in the games leading up to Nairobi--in one loss to Nkumba when Ken couldn’t hit anything, 32 had 30 points. 32’d had a tough time in Nairobi--things just weren’t working. But when he knew he had to, he stepped up. Both he and Raymond got good shots and hit them and with three minutes left in the fourth quarter we were up by three.

Ken was rested and I sent him back in. But at the same time, Moi found whatever they’d been looking for. They didn’t miss a shot and we missed a couple and we were down 2. I asked for the time and it was 40 seconds. I yelled at the guys to foul and they did. The Moi guy hit both free throws and we were down 4. Ken got it, went down and got it to 32 and he was fouled and hit one of two free throws and we were down 3. Moi brought it back across and we fouled again and I called time-out. Fifteen seconds left. I’m the worst time-out coach in the universe. I told the guys, “It’s the same thing if he makes one or both of these. Take it and sprint and get a lay-up and foul again.” I didn’t say anything about if he missed both. He missed both. Sam blocked out, got the rebound, passed out to Ken, Ken passed up court to Raymond, Raymond caught the pass on the three point line, took a dribble and a step to adjust and hit the jumper. The official whistled. Game over. We lost by 1. If I’d told them we needed a three, Raymond would’ve stepped back after catching the pass instead of forward. There’s no way to know if he would’ve hit the shot, but he would’ve taken it.

That might’ve been the best game we played all year and it was by far the most painful. But not so much for the guys. Everyone they saw was offering high-fives and congratulations. I was mad at myself, but I was thrilled for the guys who’d come a real long way in the last year and I was thrilled there were other students there to see it. After the game, I was standing in the shade and Ken came over. A week or so earlier I’d mentioned to him that I was working on getting scholarships donated and bringing in a few big players to build the team in the future. He said, “Coach. We don’t need any recruits. This team is good.” I shook his hand and didn’t tell him he’d just made my year.

The week wasn’t over. There were three more days of sun-burn and cracked-lips, and several more basketball games. I got the opportunity to give an impromptu pre-game talk to the Makerere guys before their semi-final game and all the guys listened to me and I felt like a coach who’d proved he was a coach worth listening to--all the guys listened, from the big studs to the player/coach with the point guard advice. I also followed up the basketball advice with advice about the girls they said they were planning to sleep with that night at the dorms which was basically, “Smile and stay away.” I spent an afternoon talking about HIV/AIDS with the African Director of MAP International who’d slept in my bed in Brunswick, Georgia. I went into Nairobi one night with Lawrence and ate dinner at a four-star restaurant where he was the manager before moving to Uganda to coach. I took the team into Nairobi and we ate an incredible meal at the Carnivore--everything from beef and pork to crocodile and emu (meal courtesy of my all-time favorite shooting guard Jim Bloom). But mostly I spent the rest of the time thinking about basketball and what I needed to do to make it better for my guys at UCU and what I needed to do to make them better than anyone else. There were many many thoughts ranging between the philosophical to the physical and the financial to the spiritual. But the one thing that bounced around through all of it was, “This team is good.”

Every Friday night there's a movie shown in Nkyoyo Hall and students fill up the rows of 600 wooden chairs and spill out onto plastic chairs in the grass out under the stars--all faces toward the bug white wood screen. A few of us missionaries are responsible for picking the movies and we try to rotate between action/adventure/thriller kind of stuff and comedy/romance/drama kind of stuff from week-to-week. No matter the actors or the conflict or the conflict resolution, the student audience wants good and bad--someone to cheer for and someone to hate. The first movie last year was Ben Hur--I sat toward the front and watched and listened and during the chariot race, was overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do. I just laughed and laughed. Nothing was funny but I had to respond emotionally and I didn't want to cry. You watch a movie with an emotionally involved audience like that, and it's like nothing you've ever experienced. Every Friday night brought another surprise whether Fiddler on the Roof or Spartacus or The Apostle.

But last night was unreal. I brought Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky IV over knowing they'd be big hits with the students because they were such big hits with Grace when I watched them with her in DC last spring. Things got pretty intense and loud at the end of the first one when Rocky and Apollo Creed exchange blow after blow for 15 rounds, and there was a noticeable climax right toward the end of the 15th round, but the bell was rung and the fight was over. The focus immediately shifts from fight to Love with Rocky calling for Adrian and Adrian calling for Rocky and it's easy to miss that Apollo Creed wins the decision. When I watched the movie with Grace, she had a triumphant grin and I asked her who won the fight and she said "Rocky!" I hit rewind and talked about moral victories and going the distance and all that, but all she said was "I want to see the next one."

I didn't bother trying to correct 700 potential misconceptions after Rocky last week. But last night, as Samuel Kato struggled to figure out a way to get the audio from the little projector speakers and out through the sound system without using the cables which were somehow distorting the picture, I quieted everyone down and asked them who won the fight last week. They didn't understand the question. I asked again and they all said "Rocky!" with "of course" implied. I smiled and pointed to the screen where there was a messed-up still shot of Apollo's trainer's jacket. "No, it was that one." A few cheers rang out but were answered by a mass of "boo"s. Kato brought out two microphones and placed one directly on top of each of the little speakers and turned up the volume. We went back to the beginning and the music played...

I sank in my chair smiling the Ugandan movie smile I can only smile while watching movies in Uganda with Ugandan university students. As the story overlapped just enough with the end of the first one, students became aware that I'd told them the truth. Rocky had lost. If any of them thought, "Of course, Stallone knew he'd get more mileage out of the sequel if he lost in the first one" or any other such cynical things, it wasn't apparent. Throughout the movie you could feel hope rising from the audience. Hope that Rocky and Adrian would always love each other, hope that Rocky would find a good job, hope that Adrian wouldn't have to work, hope that Adrian's baby would be healthy, hope that Adrian wouldn't die after giving birth, hope that Pauly would somehow prove to be a good brother, then, when they realized Rocky would fight Apollo again, hope that he would win.

I watched Rocky II with Ma in the living room in Brunswick late one of the last nights before I flew out to Uganda. She thought it was going to be a big brutality movie--Rambo with white trunks. I told her it was a great story and she stayed awake through the whole thing and even winced a couple of times with open eyes during the fight at the end. My dad was in the back of the house in bed asleep.

Last night, no one within a half-mile radius could have slept undisturbed. A wave began to grow even as Adrian was in a coma. Rocky was in the chapel with Mickey, praying, then he was beside Adrian's bed and her hand moved and here eyes opened and everyone knew, not only that Adrian would live, but that God had answered Rocky's prayers. The wave grew as Rocky did sit-ups and push-ups and ran through South Philly with a growing throng of children behind and then he went into an intense sprint and flew up the colonial stairs and it was already almost as fevered and ecstatic as the Ben Hur chariots. On the way to the fight Rocky stops by for a blessing from the Priest, in the locker room he kneels at the sink, in the ring he kneels at his corner--with each prayer the students roar. Then they fight. Punches taken, punches thrown, flashes of Apollo Creed's attractive black wife and the villianous students applaud, flashes of Adrian at home with Pauly drinking High Life and the good-guy lovers erupt with hope, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger. I'm sitting in the front row and I'm laughing almost the whole time and no one could hear me laugh cause it's way too loud and no one can see me laugh cause they're all over the screen. People toward the middle are fighting the urge to stand, some losing and standing and those behind them shoving them back into their seats with rabid though smiling eyes and mouths, and it's the 15th round and they all know what that means and the corners are visited and no one's stopping this fight and the bell rings and Rocky takes a few early and then pounds and pounds and pounds and staggers Apollo and then Apollow gets in one good one and then Rocky gives one back and they trade a few and then Rocky goes hard again with a couple body blows and then a big cross and Apollo goes down and I'm still laughing hard and loud cause it's all I can do with the wave that's coming strong behind me and I don't know what I think is about to happen but there's something in the air that makes it feel like something big and strange and crazy is gonna have to happen if the wave keeps growing cause everything's gotta stop growing at some point and then ... Rocky goes down, from the momentum of his own swing. So they're both down and the ten-count is going but there's no way anyone in Uganda can hear it under the wave that dropped just a bit but is now back and bigger trying to get Rocky off the mat, then Apollo flops and Rocky stands and staggers and stands and it's over and the wave crashes and I'm glad I chose laughing instead of crying cause I'd've drowned otherwise.

Beautiful. All night the smile stayed with me. This morning I woke and thought about it and wondered why it was such a big thing. Not just why it so big for the Ugandan students, but why they're big reaction so big for me.

Last week in an Understanding Worldview lecture, Dan Button said to 400 African students, "The trouble with you Africans is you have no future." The students gasped and then grumbled loud and it took a while before they got quiet enough for Dan to explain that he was joking--that he was only pointing out the fact that in most African languages there are several different tenses for the past and often no tenses for the future. His point was that Africans are traditionally more Past-oriented than Future-oriented.

I'm tempted to observe the passion elicited from Ugandan university students by American movies, and say it's the result of innocence. Innocence seems an appropriate opposite of cynicism. Cynicism/sckepticism/realism keeps us from getting "sucked in" to movies and their manipulative stories and messages. But I don't think it's innocence/ignorance/idealism that allows Ugandan students to get sucked in. I think it's hope--not hope for the distant or theoretical future--hope for the future that everyone knows comes right after the present. Though most of us fallen humans--African, American, European, whatever--know sadness or disappointment are likely to come in those quickly coming futures, maybe it's more than distraction or escapism to practice hoping for futures of big joy. I hope so.

Global Teams
PO Box 490
Forest City, NC 28043

phone: (828)248-1377
website: www.global-teams.org

my US phone: (912) 617-4017
my email: mehljason@yahoo.com