Coach Evans

My photographer, Nassar
I was invited by a friend, Atman Mujahid, to teach basketball at an Islamic school where he is the principal. Arriving at noon, I wasn't to teach until 4 PM, so I hung out in his office until then. The school, Al Rasul Al Akram, which roughly means the "The Most Merciful or Generous Propet", is a private school that takes students from all religious backgrounds. Since it was Friday, the muslim students wore white robes as symbol of purification. At 1 PM they had their weekly prayer service, which I was not invited to as a non-Muslim. They returned and we ate pilau, a rice dish popular on the coast where many of the Muslims in Kenya reside.


Atman took me to a Swahili class before basketball, asking me also to teach. I can speak about ten complete sentences in Swahili, and thankfully he was joking. About the only thing I understood was that while one student wanted 9 wives, Muslims were 'limited' to 4 because that's how many the Prophet had. (Later my friend told me that one wife was more than he could handle.)



Then it was time for basketball. The boys, ranging from 14-18, had never had a coach before. But because they had not played very much, they did not have many bad habits to break. I began with passing, then shooting, dribbling and finally the heart of it all: defense. Afterwards, I spoke with Atman and it looks like I'll be coaching the boys once a week. I tried to learn a few of their names, but their voices were so quiet and names so unfamiliar that I had a very hard time. I DO remember that the captain's name is Mohammed!

Magical Coaching Moment: Teaching the kids how to shoot, I said the most important thing about shooting was that in your mind you had already made the shot before you ever released the ball. To prove my point, I threw the ball without thinking and it clanged off the backboard. Then I said, "But if I see myself making it in my mind, the form doesn't matter-" and with that I threw the ball up and nailed the shot. As they stood around agape, I had them continue the shooting drill.


And I couldn't stop from feeling a bit blessed to be here, to pass on a few skills to these kids: both in the game of basketball and in life.