5-Day Devotional To Dreaming BigSample

In December of my senior year, I went on the only recruiting visit I would have out of high school—a trip to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The three-day trip was an eye-opener...

The coach invited me onto the team before I left. The school was technically a Division I-FCS school. It was a nonscholarship conference, so there would be no football “full-ride” scholarship. However, coaches and schools at that level are adept at throwing together financial aid packages that deliver many of the benefits and coverage that a scholarship would. But as much as you might dream your dreams and make your plans, you take God’s bounty as it is provided, and you’re thankful. So I was grateful that I made it to college even if it wasn’t an Ivy or one among the many on my “dream list.” No matter what, I had a feeling inside that Marist was just the beginning. I knew I would have other dreams, and I knew God had big plans for me.

That kind of understanding, the lessons that life teaches you if you listen, was something I collected and kept. At the beginning of my senior year in high school, I had begun compiling what I called my “book of wisdom.” It was just a plain spiral-bound notebook, like all students use. It had a black cover with an NBA logo on it. I filled it with lessons I learned or wisdom I overheard people in my life say. By the end of my senior year, I needed a new notebook. Now I have a shelf of them, and I continue to gather that knowledge. I look forward to passing them down to my children one day.

I knew if I was going to be an agent of change, someone who could switch up the narrative of Compton and places like it, the wisdom I collected was going to be crucial. And I knew I’d need every tool I could grab to affect that legacy—the intractable generation-to-generation pattern of poverty and hopelessness that has plagued inner-city neighborhoods for so long.