Oklahoma Baptist basketball coach John Marcum recently did what few in his profession have the opportunity to do. For ten days in May, Marcum traveled to Bamako, Mali and Lomé, Togo to teach at coaching clinics and share his two driving passions: basketball and his faith.
While Marcum is used to traveling with his team, his trip to West Africa extended far beyond his normal job duties. Marcum and two other coaches visited prisons and orphanages in addition to hosting coaching clinics that served over 100 coaches from eight different countries, including Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Benin and Senegal.
Marcum was accompanied by Mark Jarvis, Jr., associate head coach at Florida Atlantic University and Paul Johnson, assistant coach at Mercer University.
The American team partnered with Athletes in Action (AIA), the sport ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, and worked with local staff in Mali and Togo to organize the clinics. Once abroad, the team “followed the direction of the local people there,” said Marcum. “They had everything organized. All we really had to do was show up and teach it. We had some indoor stuff, some outdoor stuff.”
AIA sponsored the clinics, which were offered cost-free to participants. AIA also covered some lodging, food and travel expenses for coaches traveling from outside the host countries.
Although the team did face language barriers and the challenges brought by the limited basketball facilities available, Marcum said traveling to West Africa allowed him to see new places, make recruiting contacts and help out with what he knew best: coaching basketball. But sharing basketball knowledge was not the only reason he and his team chose to travel abroad. Team members used the medium of basketball to incorporate practical lessons of faith into their clinics.
Along with a certificate of completion and coaching notebook, participants were offered a free New Testament in French for participating. Marcum said “We just tried little things day by day” to incorporate faith and basketball. “There was one day in particular that we just kind of shared the gospel, and tried to follow up those that made decisions with AIA staff there.”
“I think it was really really fruitful,” said Marcum. “From a basketball standpoint we shared a bunch of knowledge. The coaches that went did a great job. The AIA people that organized it were great.”
The trip allowed the team to share their knowledge with other coaches on multiple levels. “The basketball part of it was good. They liked a lot of the technical information,” Marcum said. “But a lot of them had questions about team dynamics and how to get kids to accept the role of coaching. The question and answer part was less technical and more about being relational, how to do this and that with their team.”
Marcum’s experiences with the trip left him noticing more than just the differences in basketball knowledge between the two cultures. “We have kind of a Westernized Christianity: Jesus with blue eyes and perfect skin and all that stuff. I’m not sure we’ve got it exactly right in a lot of our churches over here.”
Although he went abroad to share his knowledge with others, Marcum’s travels left him with a fresh perspective to bring back to the States. “As a coach, when you go on these tours you see your players a little differently, more as people and less as stats. It’s refreshing for the soul to be uncomfortable, to get outside of yourself and get outside of the Western Hemisphere and realize that we are so fortunate and so blessed to be where we’re at.”
by Ashley Eggenberger
ashley.eggenberger@athletesinaction.org