Breadcrumbs of Joy
How God used Iowa basketball to shape my path — and teach me to hold it in its place
On the drive home after Christmas from my mom’s, the kids and I made a pit stop in Iowa City to watch the Hawkeyes battle UCLA.
After a lap around the concourse to browse merchandise — and the requisite Carver Cones — we descended the arena steps and settled into our seats.
As the teams finished warm-ups, an intro video ran on the huge scoreboard hanging high above the court.
I got goosebumps in a packed Carver-Hawkeye Arena as highlights of my boyhood heroes flashed across the big screen, to hype music and words from new coach Ben McCollum. My kids smiled in a sea of black and gold, and it hit me how long this joy has been with me — and what God has done with it.
Looking back, I can trace a line from a boy’s love of Hawkeye basketball to my career, my city, and even my family. And I can see how that same love needed to be reordered.
At the time, it felt like sports and chance and timing. Now it looks like breadcrumbs.
A Hint of the Real Thing
Probably early pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.
C.S. Lewis
Growing up, baseball was my favorite. We played it nonstop each summer — on the field Dad made on our farm and on the town diamond for our small-town youth team.
I had the most success in wrestling, which unexpectedly gave me the opportunity to attend an Ivy League school.
But the sport most responsible for my move to Chicago — the city I’ve lived in for the last thirty years — was basketball.
A lot of wrestlers don’t like basketball; it’s almost a badge of honor.
But I’ll always associate basketball with our family huddling around our fireplace on winter nights, watching the Hawkeyes face off against Big Ten rivals like Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers or Gene Keady’s Purdue Boilermakers.
There was nothing else we all watched together like that — especially my mom, who got into Hawkeye basketball more than any other sport.
Losing the Signal
When I went to college out east in the early 90s, I lost my lifeline to Iowa basketball. I could no longer watch every game on the statewide network. There were no websites. No streaming. I remember being so happy once on a clear winter night, when I somehow tuned in WHO 1040 out of Des Moines from over 1,000 miles away, listening to Jim Zabel through the crackle and static.
At the end of my first semester of senior year, I had a two-week layoff between my last exam and the next round of classes. Not having enough money to fly back home or go on a trip, I stayed on campus.
By then, the college had allocated file space to each student to create their own personal website, but few students took advantage of that. With this free time, I dove into learning HTML and built my first website.
I built a Big Ten basketball site to keep tabs on the Hawkeyes. This was before conference sites, even before ESPN had a web presence.
I found a site called Satchel Sports where I could reliably download the box scores to my computer after every game. I wrote a program to update the standings and parse the data into season stats, providing the only source on the internet with up-to-the-minute Big Ten leaders in categories such as points per game, rebounds, and assists.
My friends would shake their heads and laugh a little when I rushed back to my dorm room to update the site.
Then traffic picked up. The school newspaper reached out — my Big Ten page drew more hits than any other student project, beating out a Pink Floyd fan site. Indiana All-American Alan Henderson emailed me, telling me he used my site.
As senior year wound down, a full-time job offer never came, and my nerves grew. I followed the crowd into on-campus interviews with the big accounting-and-consulting firms — Arthur Andersen, Price Waterhouse, and the rest — hoping for an offer that likely would have stuck me in New York City. But week after week, I was cut. No feedback, no second round interviews, just silence.
With the website as my calling card, I sent letters to the Big Ten office in Chicago and every other major conference — the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Pac-10.
After flying to Chicago for a one-day interview, I eventually secured an $18,000 a year internship from the Big Ten, receiving the congratulatory offer call in my dorm room on my birthday, less than two weeks away from graduation.
The Door That Opened in Chicago
While at the Big Ten, I started working with the owner of their computer/network company, a young guy my age named Charlie who had just sold his first website.
Before long, I was working nights and weekends with Charlie, scanning photos and typing in content as we built a site for his new customer.
After about a year of working two jobs, I realized that working with Charlie and his company was a better fit for me. Not only because of computers and the internet, but because of the fun and excitement of starting a company and building it up.
Even though I moved on from the Big Ten job, Iowa basketball is what led me to Charlie’s company, where I’ve worked for thirty years now.
Some of our biggest early customers were college sports conferences. The Big Ten site helped us land the Big East, and we kept building from there.
When the Heart Confuses Signposts for Home
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
Saint Augustine
Over time, my passion drifted into something else. I got too wound up — too invested in outcomes I couldn’t control.
I carried wins and losses around like they were my own.
In my early 30s, my real desire was a wife and family, but God had a different schedule. With no prospects in that area, I poured everything I had into work and then grasped for things outside the office I could be excited about.
Looking back, it was a way to deal with loneliness outside of work hours. Watching the games was a way to feel connected to home and childhood memories, but with an unhealthy intensity on my team winning or losing.
Mercifully, Coach Steve Alford moved on, and the program slipped under Todd Lickliter. The downturn all but forced me to loosen my grip.
A Love Reordered
I’ve followed Iowa basketball loosely for the past five years. This season, I’m watching regularly again — but differently.
I bought a hoop for our driveway two years ago — one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. It’s something Eric or Elizabeth can do alone, or something we can do together.
A young family moved in across the street from us a couple of years ago, and one of their boys is a basketball fanatic. He and Eric play against each other all of the time, having fun outside and improving their skills every day.
Eric wraps up his first season of basketball at school this week. The wins have been hard to come by, but I’m proud of his effort and dedication all year. He’s loved the quick progress that comes with a new sport — something he doesn’t feel as much in baseball anymore, since he’s been playing it for years.
And it all happens as Iowa basketball ushers in a new coach. Ben McCollum is from Storm Lake — about an hour from my hometown — and he was raised on the same Hawkeye teams we watched in the 80s and 90s.
Gratitude for the Trail
I pulled onto eastbound I-80 in the glow of a Hawkeye victory over UCLA.
The kids asked me what was wrong, that I sounded sick.
I laughed, explaining that I had lost my voice from yelling so much at the game.
I said, “You know, it sounds strange, but without Iowa basketball, I’m not sure I ever would have moved to Chicago. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be working at my company, and I probably wouldn’t have met your mom…”
Elizabeth finished my thought, “Eric and I wouldn’t be here.”
God, I can see how you used my early interest in computers and my love of sports — mixed with a farmer’s work ethic and toughness — to shape my path.
And I can see how you drew me back to you after my wife passed away.
Thank you for these joys you put in our hearts — the delights you use as breadcrumbs to lead us where you want us to serve.
Help us keep our loves ordered properly, knowing our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
And… Go Hawks!
Sharing Midwestern values through the stories of a hard-working single dad, all for the glory of God.