FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: Carrying the ‘Big D’ spirit in us all
Good week to all. Welcome to the “front porch.”
This past Saturday morning as we sat in the back of the auditorium preparing to honor our friend Big D, two tall young men walked in and sat down a couple of rows in front of me. Recognizing them, I joined them on the row, giving and getting hugs the way we always do. We, along with several hundred others, had come to the Oaks Fellowship church in Red Oak to celebrate the life of our former player and teammate Darren Eubanks. To us, he was always just Big D.
The two young men who came to honor Big D were two of our talented Red Oak players from near the end of the 2010 decade. Trevor Conner was one, and he had texted me a couple of weeks ago to let me know about Big D. With him was Big Earl Graves, the post man on our region semi-finalist team during that era. Both young men hover right at 6'7", as does Luke Eubank, who, on this day, was walking down the aisle with Big D’s large extended family. Luke had the heaviest heart, for Big D was his uncle, even though the two were the same age.
Most of you who read our columns will not know Big D nor the stories – the valuable morals, really – hidden within his life: Huge in Big D’s life was his work as a professional vocalist and musician. What a dream come true it must’ve been when he recently made it on American Idol with his former Red Oak High School friend in a group called D and Chi. Appropriately, “Chi” – Chima Ijeh – performed brilliantly on stage for his partner and friend that morning with their band.
Darren Eubank’s amazing life, cut short by that familiar culprit we all know, was amazing from the very beginning. The Lord had a plan for our friend from the start, of that we can be sure. Significant in his life is that he was a black gentlemen raised by a white family. The Eubank family took him in as a foster child and kept him until agencies sought to place him with a new family, a family – as Big D’s doting wife Brecia said at the ceremony – that matched his ethnicity. While he was scheduled to leave the Eubank family and go to a new home, the transfer never transpired. The Eubank family sought to keep Big D and raise him, and they did. They raised one of the most humble, easy-spoken, cheerful young men I ever knew.
That storylines in this young man’s twenty-nine years would rival the plot of a Steinbeck or Mark Twain novel. For me, it was powerful sitting in that auditorium, looking out over the hundreds who had come to honor a young hero of our age, and it was special sitting beside two of my ballplayers who fought side by side with us themselves in their key growing-up years. It was powerful, in particular, noting that the greatest feeling in the air came not from what we could see but what we could not see. In that vast auditorium – stretching across four sections like a curtain – you could see no race, no color, no cultural differences. None of that was to be found. As the great apostle says, we are all one in that One, Christ Jesus.
Amen, and amen.
Trev and Big Earl sitting beside me that day, even, would fit into different groups in the world’s society – but when you see Big Earl Graves and the now-bearded Trevor Conner, you don’t see skin tone any more than we did with Big D. I see Big Earl taking his first lob-dunk from Big D as a lanky sophomore (a moment I had forgotten until Big Earl and Trev reminded me), and I see Trev nailing a late-game jumper from the short corner and smiling over at the bench as he ran back down the floor.
For all those years, when any one of them dived on the floor for a loose ball in practice, they got the same spirited congratulations and the same “get a sip of water” as the other. Once, years ago, somebody noted that my team heavily favored a particular shade of skin, and I said, “Really? I never noticed” – and that was true. I smile at that today as I remember that if anyone represents that great phenomenon, it is Big D.
When you see Big D, all you see is a brother, a nephew, a son, a ballplayer, a leader, a man who sung for the Lord most of his young life, a young man who would dive on the floor for that loose ball (a story for you there another day), and a blessed, honored child of the Lord created for a special purpose.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The same phenomenon applies to yet another ballplayer I met in the lobby that morning. When I walked in, immediately I saw Brendan Porter with his athletic sister Hunter, along with mom Hope, with whom we worked and coached alongside every year I was a Hawk. Hope was hired the same year I was – 1998 – and we all became family – she and her family, Big Earl and Trev – and Rasheed, Melvin, Caleb, and the Fernandez, Hawkins, and Brady brothers, Dexter and Andrew (yes, those two drove me crazy as some of you know, but they’re my boys), and Hebert, Boson, Officer Lindsey, Coach Burns, Coach Garcia and, of course, Big D and the Eubanks… all part of a family whose only color was maroon and white. Thanks to all of you, too, whose name we have not given here but equally a part of this brotherhood.
And, of course, we must note the man with whom I sat beside on that bench for so long (though we didn’t actually do much “sitting”), Coach Foster. He and I spoke on the phone before leaving for the service, sharing some of those memories just as we had shared life as Hawks for a decade and a half – all of us part of the Big D family, for he represented it better than any.
These relationships go deep, even beyond a single city or school. I received a call from another branch of the great basketball fraternity later that Saturday, Randy Weisinger, from our old North Shore days of the 80s and 90s. Coach Weisinger would’ve loved Big D as the young man represented him and his values, too, as did the ballplayers from the North Shore years, such as former Houston Rocket Joe Stephens, and Darrel Bogan (the best inbounder and deep-thrower we ever had), and Sonny, Lionel, Mark, and Reggie with a big smile, along with a young man Coach W sometimes teasingly called my son, Kerol McGusty, a young fella who had the sweetest shot ever to step on the Mustang basketball floor. Again, there are so many more to name.
Different branches, but the same family, the same brotherhood.
I guess all of the coaches and all of you players who stepped on the floor for us kind of adopted each other the way the Eubanks did for Big D.
Today we pause together to give thanks to Big D for reminding us of these great truths. Oh, young man, you left us far too soon, but you left an indelible mark in just a few years. Everyone you met loved you, even many who never saw your tremendous spirit up close. You were a big man in stature, yes, but so much bigger in heart, in hope, in faith.
We are part of a special family, one that goes far beyond even the basketball world with its players, fans, and coaches. It is that spirit within us that makes us one, a spirit you represent better than any. As we walk away, we’ll all carry a bit of that Big D spirit in us, too.
Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a full-time writer and preacher of the gospel. In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text 972-824-5197.