A Diamond in the Rough

Tags

Australia, Brian Goorjian, Ed Goorjian, Olympic Basketball, second chances, West Coast Conference

Coaches, do not get discouraged. Everyone has problems.

I once heard a story about how they mined diamonds in South Africa. It seems they moved tons and tons of rock in order to find a diamond no bigger than my fingernail. The moral of story is that, even though we as teachers/coaches of these young people might get discouraged after having one problem player after another. If we just keep working with them, hopefully eventually they will become mature. And one day we may also find our “diamond in the rough”.

Years ago at Pepperdine University I had a young freshman by the name of Brian Goorjian. He was a good person but he was so immature that everything he did drove me and my staff crazy. After repeated incidents of irresponsibility, including trashing the Volkswagen that his dad gave him by letting everbody on campus use his car in an effort to be “everything to everybody”, I kicked him off the team. I called him in and said he could keep his scholarship and go to school but he was not ever allowed to come in the gym again.

A couple weeks later his dad (a legendary coach in California) called and asked if we could get together and talk. I readily agreed, and we got together. The bottom line was that Coach Ed Goorjian was going to personally take him out of school if he did not straighten out, but asked if we would give Brian one more chance. He added that he would come to the campus and pick him up if he got anywhere out of line…”his focus will be basketball and books” as he put it.

I had my doubts, but I liked Brian very much and we decide to give him one last chance.

Amazingly, Brian became one of the joys of my life, and led us to two big victories over Santa Clara and University of San Fransisco by hitting clutch shots down the stretch on the road. We won the WCC championship and went on to the the Sweet 16 thanks to Brian. Soon after that I put a picture of Brian on my wall behind my desk because he was truly a diamond in the rough for me.

Brian went to play pro ball in Australia, then went into coaching. He was named the “Most Outstanding Coach” in that country by winning several professional championships, and was honored by being named Australia’s Olympic Coach.