2 Hall-of-Famers and a Lesson Learned

September is back-to-school time. If you or your child is not very motivated for the start of school, here’s a little story that might help.

Growing up, I wanted to become the next Larry Bird and, eventually, play with Bird on the Celtics. But I wasn’t that good. Other people knew it, but I didn’t.

One day, I had a funny interaction with Red Auerbach, the legendary Hall-of-Famer who coached the Celtics to 9 NBA titles. I was a freshman at George Washington University, Red’s alma mater. I walked into the gym, and Red happened to be there with my college coach. I was stunned to be in his presence. Here was the man responsible for bringing Bird to the Celtics.

My coach introduced us, saying, “Red, this is Peter Young, one of our freshmen.”

Red said simply: “Ah, Young, you can shoot, but you can’t do nothing else.”

Undeterred, I spent the bulk of my time in college in the gym rather than the library, convinced that if I worked hard enough, I’d turn into the kind of player Red would value. That, obviously, never happened. I graduated from GW but didn’t really take advantage of my scholarship and get the kind of education I could have if I’d prioritized learning.

Taking learning seriously is the lesson to be learned from my next story.

I grew up in New Jersey at a time when Princeton’s head coach, Pete Carril, was the most successful coach in the state. Carril coached the Tigers for 30 years and was voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Princeton was in the Ivy League, and players had to have excellent grades to get into the school, no matter how good you were on the court. During my senior year in high school, my play caught the attention of coach Carril. Clearly interested in recruiting me, he called my coach, and the first thing he asked was how my grades were. They must not have been very good because after that one phone call, coach Carril never called about me again.

GW is a good school, but Princeton is in the Ivy League. Coach Carril was a Hall-of-Fame coach, and his teams made several trips to the NCAA tournament during my years at GW. Would my life have turned out differently if I had good grades in high school and ended up playing for Carril at Princeton? Maybe… maybe not.

I do know this: I worked hard during my athletic career, and it was a lot of fun, but not very long. However, being passionate about learning can last your entire life.

I never played like Larry Bird, but "I wanted to be the next Larry Bird" is literally the first sentence in my first novel, The Blue Team.

Never stop learning and never stop reading.