I Called My Friend “Coach”

I first met Coach Ron Bishop when I tried out as a walk-on for the men’s basketball team at Tennessee Temple University. Forty guys putting it all on the line for two roster spots. Being short and slow, I liked my chances. I could shoot the rock, which was advantageous to me, but there were too many hoopsters with athletic builds for me to overcome. Alas, I missed the cut.

However, my love for basketball kept me wanting to be a part of the game, so I asked Coach Bishop if he needed any volunteer managers. He said “yea,” and told me to check with Gary, the lead manager for the men’s basketball team.

Not long after, I was busily scampering around the locker room picking up loose socks and jocks, filling water bottles, running to the laundry for fresh towels, sweeping the gym, and loving every minute of it.

Coach Bishop, for some reason, could never remember my name. Kraig. After all, it’s not like I had Rudolph Valentino’s name—Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antoguella—but he always referred to me as “Hey, Manager.”

“Hey, Manager. We’ve got water in the middle of the floor.”

“Hey, Manager. Have you seen Gary?”

“Hey, Manager. Make sure you pick up after Eubanks. He leaves stuff everywhere.”

Finally, three-quarters of the way through the season, Gary reminded Coach Bishop that “Hey, Manager,” actually had a first name. Kraig. Soon after that, Coach Bishop started calling me Kraig, and I called him friend.

Oh, and there were funny stories to tell about Coach Bishop. Like the time we were on a road trip and the bus kept backfiring. Finally, the bus pulled over. The coaches and team disembarked, and Coach Bishop led the procession to the source of the problem—the tailpipe. Coach Bishop, wearing tan khakis, got down on his hands and knees, looked under the bus, and yelled, “Fire it up!” The bus driver complied and so did the bus, as it backfired one huge soot ball that sprayed Coach Bishop’s formerly clean khakis. Everyone stifled a laugh, although there were plenty of snickers as we made our way back on board. The bus was quiet when a voice thick with an Indiana-Kentucky accent boomed, “Hey, Coach Bishop! How about getting down there and checking that tailpipe one more time!” The hoopsters cracked up laughing as Assistant Coach “Lefty” Glascock brought down the house with the one liner.

One Halloween, the team travelled to a church to put on a “Haunted Maze” in the woods for the kids. I couldn’t wait to hide behind a tree and scare the ever-loving snot out of a teenager. However, it was not meant to be.

“I need you to help me out in the gym,” Coach Bishop explained.

“Lovely. All the room in the woods to make a kid cry, and I’m going to be filling paper cups with Kool-Aid,” I thought.

“We are going to need someone to lay down in this coffin. When the kids come in from being scared outside, they will walk by the casket, take a look at you, and then get seated. You will need to be as still as possible. Later on, I will give you a cue, and you will rise up, climb out, and make a dash for the kids who will be trying their best to get out of the way.”

Is this a great country or what?

“Really, I can scare the kids? Like, really bad?”

“Oh yea. The worse the better.” And then he laughed. It had a maniacal timbre to it. “But first we need to practice.”

I climbed in and tried being as still as a not-so-dead person could be. When Coach Bishop gave the verbal cue, I was supposed to pop my arms straight up, sit up kind of herky-jerky like, and then s-l-o-w-l-y climb out of the coffin and do my best to scare the kids.

Unfortunately, in my exuberance, I shook the casket too hard and the lid slammed closed before I could crawl out.

“Help! Hey, Coach. Hey, hey, hey!”

I heard that maniacal laugh again and then Coach telling me where to push the button on the inside, and it would release the lid. It worked. Amen, it worked.

I had to get painted up so when the strobe lights turned on, it would add a great effect to the whole drop-your-kids-off-at-church-and-let-the-Crusaders-from-Tennessee-Temple-scare-the-crud-out-of-your-offspring night.

Show time.

I was lying there in the casket hoping that the stupid lid wouldn’t close on me as kids of all ages—girls and boys—came sauntering by to look at the stiff.

“Oh, look at the dummy,” chuckled one girl as she and a friend took a peek and left. Better laugh now, my pretty.

Coach Bishop gave the cue, and I imitated a turtle and slowly made my way out of the shell. I was herky-jerky and then some. The paint on my face gave the appearance of someone ghastly. I hopped out of the casket, landed on the floor, and herked and jerked my way past Coach Bishop and to the front row of the crowd. The crowd was starting to move backward, so I ran toward them to help close the gap. I turned around and noticed the widest grin on Coach Bishop’s face as he was enjoying seeing these kids have fun.

Kids weren’t the only people Coach loved. Have you ever been to a prison for a basketball game? I have.

Coach Bishop told the basketball team we were headed to Pikeville Prison to play a game against the inmates. It was so quiet in the gym that practice, you could’ve heard a dozen jaws clank on the floor.

“It’s not a big deal guys. It’s a minimum-security prison. We’re going to play a game and at halftime, we will share the Gospel,” stated a confident coach.

When we got to the main gate at the prison, one of the first things everyone noticed was the razor wire and guards with guns. And having to sign a little slip of paper that absolved the State of Tennessee from anything foul that might happen to a certain visiting basketball team.

The team bench was directly in front of the inmates who were cheering wildly for Tennessee Temple?

Coach Bishop heard the confined cheerleaders yelling for us and asked: “Why are you cheering for us and not your buddies?”

Good question.

“Because you don’t think we’d root for a bunch of cons, do ya?” hollered someone who was parked directly behind the team’s manager. Me. But I was not about to search for the source.

Coach Bishop laughed, and then everyone else around him laughed at the comment.

But the reason Coach had his team there in the prison wasn’t to see if he could beat a team behind bars. It was to let them know that life is all about choices. Maybe poor choices had littered their lives, but at halftime, he would speak to them from the heart about the most important decision they would ever have the opportunity to make.

I worked three years in various capacities for Coach: volunteer manager, equipment manager for the University with an emphasis on men’s basketball, and I was in charge of stats one year.

After my third year of working with him, Coach Bishop resigned his coaching position to start a new ministry, “SCORE International.” I worked one more year with the basketball team and a new coach, graduated, married, and moved out of Tennessee.

Years later I coached basketball—both girls and boys—and I was always trying to think about how Coach Bishop would handle a certain situation. There were times I handled it well and times when I didn’t, but the mistakes I made were never a reflection on my coaching mentor and friend.

Coach Bishop took me, a college kid, and taught me so much about relationships. As a manager, I was there for the wins and the losses, but also witnessed him talk to, teach, and relate to young people. I always saw Coach Bishop treat everyone with dignity and respect. He loved people. He loved me.

When I heard the news that Coach was sick, I was in shock. Then I heard that it was bad. ICU bad. There was a fever and other complications. It did not look good. I prayed that God would intervene.

I grabbed a box of college stuff and started to pick through it. I found all kinds of memories. Then I found something that I had totally forgotten about. It was something Coach Bishop had given me 32 years ago. It was a plaque thanking me for my service to the men’s basketball team at Tennessee Temple.

I cried.

Coach Bishop thanked me for my service when, in fact, Coach himself was nothing but a servant—to everyone. He always met a new friend with an outstretched hand. I saw him put his arm around the shoulders of more people than I can count as he calmly reassured and loved them. He gave.

I looked at a few of the media guides I had held on to and read his bio again and again and again.

Reflecting back on the time I was able to spend with Coach Bishop, it seems like just yesterday that I arrived from one culture of Alaska to another of Tennessee. I was a scared kid who wasn’t sure of himself, being taken in by someone who would teach me more about life and people than any class I would ever attend.

I can never put into words the effect that this man had on my life. I can never put into words how much I wanted to be like him, to coach like him, and to love other people the way he did.

Thanks, Coach Bishop, for teaching me that there is more to life than basketball. I love you.