Mentee Blog #1-Champion

This past week, I got the chance to meet with my mentor, Reed Rawlings. Reed was in Chicago for business, so we got the opportunity to just catch up and talk about life. I first met Reed my freshman year in high school at a local gym in my hometown of Suwanee, GA. I was shooting some hoops and Reed walked up to me and asked if he could rebound for me. It made me a little bit uncomfortable, being the shy freshman that I was, but over the next half hour or so we started to hit it off. He explained to me that he had been playing pro basketball for a few years and was getting ready to head to Australia in a few months to play for a new team. I instantly looked up to Reed. I kept seeing him at the gym that summer and we continued to talk. I found out that he led a small group at the church I go to back home (It’s a megachurch with about 300 small groups) for high schoolers. Pretty soon, I joined his small group. Before he was about to leave for Australia, Reed injured his back in a workout. He had had problems with his back before, but this time he knew that it was an injury that would cause him to have to give up playing at the professional level. Now that he was technically unemployed, he now needed a job. He found one coaching my team at high school. I was thrilled to play for him. He only coached me for a year, and has since moved on to a job with a successful real estate company, but I still try to talk to him regularly and ask for advice. I enjoy Reeds mentorship in my life because he is a great example of what I would like to become. He is a great father to his kids, husband to his wife, employee for his company, and mentor to a kid like me. I can only hope that that when I am older, I can do something like Reed did and take the time to invest in a random kids life. I thank him a lot for going out of his way that day to rebound for a high school freshman, even though he was a pro basketball player. I’ve never asked Reed what made him come up to me that day, but I know that somehow God had a plan for our paths to cross, and I thank God they did.