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A video fell into my electronic lap this week, and not the kind of video you see in sports these days. It's not video of an NFL champion illegally taping another team's sideline. It's not a baseball superstar testifying before Congress. It wasn't shot from a police cruiser.
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| Billy Gillispie was caught on tape -- and it's good. (US Presswire) |
Billy Gillispie isn't just a famous basketball coach. He's something better -- he's a human being.
Extrapolated further, that means they're all human beings. That's the reminder. That's the lesson. And this is not me preaching to you. This is me preaching to me, driving home the point inwardly, after watching this home video taken within hours of Kentucky's 63-58 victory against Arkansas on Saturday.
The video starts with Gillispie greeting roughly 500 Kentucky students nearing the end of a 24-hour marathon to raise money for the UK Pediatric Oncology Clinic. Pediatric oncology is fancy talk for "children with cancer," and there's nothing fancy about that. Gillispie wasn't trying to be fancy, wasn't trying to be a star. He was just trying to thank the students for raising nearly $415,000 to help children with cancer.
One student had walked over to Rupp Arena to invite Gillispie to the event. He agreed to come, then walked on stage and was given a microphone. Gillispie tried to say a few words but couldn't. He paused. The crowd laughed. The crowd misunderstood. Gillispie wasn't trying to be dramatic. He was trying not to burst into tears.
"I'm going to have a hard time getting through this deal," he finally said. "They just asked me to come over, and I'm kicking myself in the rear end for not knowing what was going on the last 24 hours."
Gillispie went on to thank the students, saying, "What you're doing, what you've done the last 24 hours, that's what makes life worth living, because you're giving someone else a chance to have a better life than they might have."
Gillispie then turned and gestured to the children, some of them bald, on the stage.
"Y'all are big stars," Gillispie told the college students, "but here's the real big stars right here. These young people right here have more courage than all of us put together. They keep fighting, and the parents are tougher than nails, just tough every single day."
And so went another day in the life of Billy Gillispie. Wake up. Beat Arkansas in front of 23,000 fans at Rupp Arena. Talk about it to the media. Go to a cancer-fighting rally. Hug a kid. Cry. It was just a few moments, but how many of those moments happen without our knowing about it? How many other moments in how many other famous lives?
Dayton coach Brian Gregory does grunt work for a local charity, Secret Smiles, that donates beds to poor families. He goes out in a truck and delivers a bed. He doesn't introduce himself. He's not there as the Dayton head basketball coach. He's just a guy and a truck.
For years Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has saved the best seat at Cameron Indoor Stadium for a Duke fan with Down Syndrome, putting the man behind his own chair on the bench. I don't know the man's name or his connection to Krzyzewski. Neither Coach K nor the school wants to talk about it. It's not about publicity.
