Hanging Around
Every evening about twenty minutes before their phones tell them the sun is supposed to set, people on the beach flock with cameras in hand to stare to the west. Part of why people go to Hawaii is to watch the sun show off. Both the rising and the setting are spectacular on the islands due to all sorts of scientific things like volcanic dust and trade winds and equator juxtaposition and the steep angle at which the sun dips in and out of view. So people –both the ones on vacation and the ones who live there—pause in the evenings to watch it go to bed.
But a crazy thing happens the minute it disappears. So do all the people. They just disperse, in the same way they do when a game is over and the final buzzer sounds. After the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ have finished, after the selfies have been snapped and posted, after the sun slips “officially” below the water’s edge, people scatter like the chickens who live on the island. They just dissipate into the night. Yet the show is far from over. With very few left paying attention, the giant denouement begins. And the lottery goes to the lingerers, the ones who just keep looking. It’s like God rewards them with an encore just for hanging around.
When I was growing up, I loved spending time at the gym. That’s how I got to practice with the high school girls when I was only in junior high. And playing with girls who were older and better than me is how I got better and faster than most of the other players my age. Opportunities were always waiting if I just hung around. Later, once in high school, I’d sit on the scorer’s table after our practice in hopes that the boys’ team would need an extra guy to play. And lots of times they did. That’s how I got tougher and quicker and how I became a better passer and a better decision maker with the ball in my hand. I improved quickly by being the disseminator to a bunch of guys who were bigger and faster than me who desperately wanted the ball. Loitering just kept giving me chances to get better at the game.
Once in college, I continued to hang around. When my practices were over, I’d grab a legal pad, a pen, and a jug of water and sit on the court against the bleachers watching Dan Hays lead his men’s team at our school. That’s how I learned how to teach, and run drills, and plan a practice, and build a team. I picked up all kinds of little nuggets sitting beyond the baseline where I’d linger after others had long gone.
Years later at coaching clinics and on Nike coaches’ trips, I caught all kinds of drippings from the rich minds of coaches like Hubie Brown, Theresa Grentz, Dean Smith, George Raveling… to name a few. I’d hang around after everything was over and catch all I could in a pan. They taught me what to look for and how to share it once I knew. I learned by simply paying attention to these caretakers of the game that there are lots of ways to look at things and lots of ways of thinking about what you see when you look. And I learned that the great ones will always tell you what they know. Coaches have a special affinity for those who like to hang around.
That’s how some of the best stuff comes to be. It grows in the down time, after the show is over when people are just sitting around the edges of what they love. That’s when songs get written and game plans get hatched. It’s when ideas are born and bands are formed and where people make the unspoken promises that they one day formally repeat.
The prizes are there for the taking for those willing to just hang around.
When conditions are just right in Hawaii-- for one to two seconds right before the sun formally disappears-- a tiny green light flashes in front of the descending sun. Science explains this as a phenomenon that results when a mirage and the dispersion of sunlight collide. As the sun dips below the horizon, the light shoots through the earth’s atmosphere and comes out the other side like a prism. What our naked eye sees is a brief, green dot. It’s like God’s low-key invitation to sit for a spell and keep watching. A nod to keep hanging around.
As the sun dips below the horizon, the light shoots through the earth’s atmosphere and comes out the other side like a prism. What our naked eye sees is a brief, green dot. It’s like God’s low-key invitation to sit for a spell and keep watching. A nod to keep hanging around.
And those that do don’t regret it. The rainbow sherbert sky deepens with orange turning to red, while blue morphs into violet and then, finally, navy. The light just keeps twisting and turning in the clouds like a little kid tangled up in the covers who isn’t quite ready for sleep. It’s the good stuff after the good stuff that everybody came to see. Mahalo for the magic you get by hanging around.
Sherri Coale
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