perspectives
Bouncing Back
A former athletic star finds his golden opportunity after hanging up his sneakers.
By Marvin Mills '08
Passion is the fuel on which the athlete runs; emotion is the daily investment.
For
13 years, all through high school, I gave my mind, body and soul to the
hope of earning a college athletic scholarship. I imagined playing
against Michael Jordan many evenings. However, in spring 2005, when I
stepped onto LMU’s campus under a familiar Los Angeles sun, I felt
cold. Empty. Devastated. The chapel clock tower was nothing but a
silhouette of defeat, for I was embarking on a journey without my
sneakers — a student, with no “athlete” to follow.
I attended
King/Drew Magnet High School, just minutes from LMU in the Watts
section of Los Angeles. I played varsity basketball for four years, and
although I received good grades and was a model citizen, basketball
drove me. I would wake before sunrise, walk the eerie five blocks down
Compton Boulevard to school, basketball in hand, and begin my day in
the gym. Religiously dedicated, I experienced a warmth in my chest that
only God could make when I was offered a scholarship from Stanford
University during my senior year.
But when my worst game
imaginable occurred in front of a Stanford assistant coach, I went in
32 minutes from having a golden opportunity to being another athlete
with nothing tangible to show for his or her hours of practice and
commitment. My dream walked out the gym seconds after he shook my hand
out of courtesy.
Still holding on to hoop dreams, I went
through a tumultuous fall in 2004, jumping east for school, then south.
In the end, I found myself back where I began — this “City of the
Angels” — deciding to attend LMU in the spring as a freshman. No
scholarship. No basketball. Just me.
Basketball was all I had
ever wanted, and without it, I felt naked amidst students clothed with
goals of making a difference — becoming doctors, filmmakers,
entrepreneurs. Walking from Huesman dorm to University Hall was as
unsettling as my morning strolls down Compton Boulevard, more so
because here I had no ball. I was submerged in a pool of possibility,
drowning in underachievement.
But there is something special
about the air at LMU, as if the trees know the importance of
inspiration. Here, I have enjoyed pursuing some of my innermost,
unattended interests. As an editor of The Truth About The Fact, the
nonfiction journal of the English Department, I am blessed with an
opportunity to empower and deliver Truth, becoming an avid reader and
writer in the process. As a resident adviser, I serve as a mentor, a
frontline leader on a campus full of dynamic, eager youth. As a
business major, I am experiencing the revival of my competitive spirit.
Society’s call now drowns the memory of Stanford’s dial tone.
Upon
graduation, I will funnel this ardor through the written word —
hopefully, in a creative writing Ph.D. program — and through social
entrepreneurship. I will leave LMU dedicated to planting sociocultural,
artistic staples in and beyond my community, so others may breathe
aesthetic air.
So the silhouette I spotted years ago has been
transformed into a beacon of limitless opportunity. No longer afraid of
the shine, I am a most wonderful raisin in the sun.
Marvin Mills '08 is a senior business major and editor of LMU’s nonfiction journal, The Truth About the Fact.