Build It They Will Come part one

When I lived in Newport Beach, California after being discharged from the Marine Corps, friends visited. When I attended college in San Francisco, friends visited. When Sharon and I taught school in Park City, Utah, friends visited. When we reared our children in Corvallis, Oregon, friends telephoned, emailed, but stayed home, so we visited them. Retiring in Mazatlan figured to transport us to those days when we could show off a city we loved to live in. Corvallis came to Mexico the past couple of weeks, and we loved sharing it with our friends.

Mike Green, his two younger sisters and his wife Ali arrived on a cruise ship a couple of weeks ago on a Wednesday. Mike played on my varsity basketball team all four years of his high school career. We experienced some tumultuous moments during those years, but we maintained a close relationship as evident in an article that I will post at the conclusion of this piece that ironically appeared the day before he arrived. Not only do we know Mike well, but we also know his wife well. Ali grew up next door from age three to this day. Mike and Ali live with Ali’s parent as I write this. So when they emailed us to let us know that they would spend six or seven hours in our adopted city, I scratched my head as to what to do with four folks almost forty years younger than I. If nothing else, they would love the beach, the sun, and a pina colada. Right?

Tourists love Mazatlan in February as they tire of the rain, wind, and snow north of the border. As I met my four twenty somethings dressed for the beach and sun, the skies opened up and drenched my poor guests before I could escort them to my car parked blocks away due to all of the touring vans, pulmonias, and taxis waiting to scoop up cruisers for the day. When five thousand people disembark, it’s big business here. Today two cities dressed as ships had arrived.

I drove through town towards our condo and pointed out the sights as I barely kept ahead of the storm that headed north …. as in our way. We eventually pulled into our room at Pueblo Bonita and chatted as the roads flooded. After three hours the deluge trickled and we wandered around the beach, hit the hot tub, had a couple of drinks, and headed downtown. I had a basketball practice, and I really wanted to use Mike’s incredible abilities to demonstrate a variety of skills that this 60 something can’t do so well.

As the girls shopped, Mike and I dropped by the school to discover the court drenched. We then wandered through the city. We made our way to Te Amos Lucy, an excellent Mexican restaurant that locals recently voted as one of the three best restaurants in the city. The girls met us there. The rain wasn’t the only glitch to the day. Ali ordered an item off the menu. Frankly, this irked me because when Mike asked us to take him to an authentic Mexican restaurant, everyone should have taken my word that this restaurant rocks. So she asked for a burrito with meat and cheese, but not melted and lettuce. The waiter patiently asked, “like Baja Fresh?” Mexicans make small tortillas. They don’t supersize them. After wading through Ali’s frustrations with her order, the attention it achieved, and snide asides from her husband, she started to cry. Enter White Oprah. She whisked Ali off to an interior courtyard with two beers in tow and worked her magic.
Alls well that ends well. The meal pleased all. Yes, even Ali. We dropped our first Corvallis visitors of the year off at their ship which we watched sail away into the night from our palapa with happy hour drinks in hand.

* * *

Mike Green, who was a standout basketball player for Crescent Valley High from 1999-2003, has found coaching is both fun and difficult since returning to his alma mater as a volunteer coach.(Andy Cripe Gazette-Times)
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Mike Green had no idea what was in store when he walked into the Crescent Valley High gym for the first day of basketball practice in 1999.
Like most children who grow up playing basketball, Green dreamed of playing at a Division I university after a standout high school career.
As cocky as he appeared on the court - how can you blame a guy for being confident when he could seemingly hit a big 3-pointer anytime his team needed it - he was anything but in those first few weeks as a freshman.
"I remember coming in first day of school (with) big eyes and (being) nervous walking down the hall," Green recalled last week.
"My goal was always to play college basketball. I didn't know if I could do that until after the first couple practices. I didn't know how good I could be."
Green turned out to be a pretty darn good player for the Raiders. He was deadly from long range, and had the rap for being pretty brash in his actions. It was like he was invincible on the court, and let that emotion get the best of him at times.
He may never forget the two technical fouls he received in a win at Corvallis his senior season and having to sit out the following game against McNary. The Raiders lost and failed to win the Valley League title and automatic berth to the state tournament.
To this day, Green swears the Raiders would have won that game had he played.
If that was the worst memory for Green, his story wouldn't hold the impact that it does, and who knows where he would be today.
The choices and decisions high school students make usually have an impact in shaping them as they get older.
Green is no different, but his story isn't like most.
His struggles with alcohol and marijuana were well documented in a story in Dec. 6, 2002 edition of the Gazette-Times.
It's not a topic Green readily discusses.
"It's there, it happened, I've tried to move on and not think about it," he says today.
His story could have ended with a great talent being wasted by getting wasted. Instead, Green has persevered, accepted his poor choices and moved on.
Poor choices
It began innocently enough when Mike gave in to a friend's constant pressuring and drank his first beer during his freshman year.
What transpired over the next few months led Green down a path that would change his life forever.
Late in his freshman year, Green admitted to drinking after being pressured by his parents. He remained sober for 18 months.
Green excelled on the basketball court. He became known for his 3-point shooting and helping the Raiders to the top of the Valley League standings.
As a junior, he poured in 46 points in a playoff loss at home to Beaverton.
That summer, Green verbally committed to play basketball at University of Portland.
His dream had come true.
How could anything go wrong now?
Three months after that playoff loss, Green got into a argument with his parents over attending a party. He left home and moved in with a family friend. He would later change his address to Bruce Reid's, his coach and a close friend of the Greens.
"In a perverse sort of way, when Portland made an oral commitment to Mike, that was the pinnacle of what his pursuits were, which was to be a Division I basketball player," Reid said back in 2002. "Somehow, he became vulnerable all over again."
For weeks, friends tried to help reunite Green with his family and convince him to move back home. He did for a few weeks, but then left again when his parents said they couldn't live with someone who had a drug habit.
"I was pretty stubborn about not wanting to live by my parents' rules," Green said back then. "I didn't want to be worried about getting caught doing what I was doing. I got too full of myself. I thought I was untouchable."
He eventually entered the YES (Youth Entering Sobriety) House at Oregon State University. He expected to stay 30 days, but left after 58 - on Oct. 30, 2002, just in time for basketball.
He played his senior season and helped the Raiders get back to the playoffs where they lost a tough 56-53 decision at Southridge.
It was a hard way to end his high school career, coming up short yet again in his quest to get the Raiders to the tournament.
Later that spring, Portland pulled its scholarship offer.
"I wanted to play D1 basketball," Green said. "I knew I could play it. I knew I was talented enough, and I'm not going to lie, I was devastated when it happened. That had been a goal of mine since third or fourth grade.
"That's everything I had ever worked for and it was being taken away because of a decision I made. It was hard for a while and it's still hard, actually. It's still very hard when I think about it."
Following Alison
Mike met Alison Popoff in a PE class when they were freshmen at CV. They began to hang out off and on with mutual friends.
Junior year they became closer and eventually dated throughout senior year.
After they graduated, Alison was going to attend Cal Poly, so Green decided to follow her to California.
Why not?
"When I realized I wasn't going to go to Portland, I was looking at a JC," Green said. "She was going to Cal Poly, ‘Oh, that works out nice, there's a junior college there. I'll go there and play.' "
Green had a solid freshman season at Cuesta Junior College, but hurt his shoulder in the offseason and had to have surgery.
He sat out the next season and signed to play at UC Irvine, a Division I program.
He had reached his dream a second time.
However, his shoulder injury was still bothersome and he didn't get the kind of playing time he wanted.
So after just one season, he decided to transfer and headed to Hawaii to play for Division II Chaminade.
He spent his final two years of eligibility playing for the Silverswords, then focused on completing his degree in Business Administration.
Going to Hawaii meant leaving Alison in California, but she joined Mike in Hawaii after graduating from Cal Poly. They were married July 12, 2008.
"She's amazing and I wouldn't want to be with anyone else," Mike said. "She's definitely very supportive. She has changed my life."
It may not have been the road Green thought he would travel, but in the end, he accomplished his goal - to play basketball and graduate without a lot of debt.
"All the places were great, I enjoyed all of them," he said. "I really wouldn't have changed it. I liked wherever I was."
As much as he convinces himself of that statement - no matter how true it might be - there are still those moments when he thinks about what he may have lost.
"In high school I was getting letters from tons and tons of D1 schools," Green said. "I was fully expecting to do that. But it didn't work out. ... I matured a lot from it. I just kind of looked at life a little bit differently.
"It was a good thing, but there still are, there's always going to be, what ifs. But I try not to look at that because I think I had a positive experience everywhere I was at.
"It all happened for a reason."
A new chapter
Less than 10 years after walking into Raider Gym for the first time for basketball tryouts, Green made a similar journey last June.
After graduating from Chaminade in May, he and Alison were back in Corvallis for the summer and Green talked with CV coach Mike Stair about helping coach the summer league team.
When Alison decided to attend Western Oregon to work on her Masters, Green met with Stair about helping out during the high school season.
Stair was game and Green joined the staff as a volunteer coach.
He's had a good time.
"It's been fun because high school basketball, I mean as much fun as I had in college, high school basketball is the best experience I've had playing basketball," Green said.
"Coming back and helping out has pretty much put me back in that setting. A lot of pretty good memories, some bad, but most good."
It has certainly been a learning, and eye-opening, experience.
"It's a lot harder than I thought," Green admits. "Being a player, for me, I always just would go out on the court and handle it.
"Being a coach, its a completely different element. It's similar in some ways but it's completely different because you have to figure out ways to motivate players to try to do things you want them to do based on your experience and how you think they're going to win.
"With high school kids that's a challenge."
If anyone knows what it's like to be a challenge it's Green. Maybe now he understands how Reid and others felt when they had to deal with him as a player.
"I was a big challenge and Bruce and a lot of other people will definitely attest to that," Green said with a laugh.
In the past
Brian Green, Mike's dad, still has a weathered copy of the Dec. 6, 2002, edition of the Gazette-Times in his office at Dallas High where he is an assistant principal.
It serves as a reminder of how quickly life can change, and can be a teaching tool.
"(At times) I have to cross paths with kids in the same scenario," Brian Green said. "If I am inspired to do so, I will crack out the story. It's amazing still the impact it has on kids. I will share that same hope with parents."
It has also taught the elder Green a lot about life, and how he values all of his children.
"The biggest thing for me to glean from this is to understand true unconditional love," he said. "I realize I love my kids and Mike for who he was, not what he did. We have a good, strong relationship now."
Of all the accomplishments over the past six years, Brian knows the most important one.
"By far it has been his ability to conquer his demons and challenges in life," he said.
It has been a long road and Mike Green admits he couldn't have done it without the support he received, especially his parents, wife and Reid.
"They mean everything to me," Green said. "My family was always supportive. Alison and her family. And Bruce, he's pretty much like a second dad to me. I think the world of him."
Reid is living in Mazatlan these days, and the former player and coach will spend Wednesday together. Green is on a cruise with his grandparents and siblings this week.
Life is good these days. Green has a tough time believing its been 10 years since he began this journey.
"You're just young and dumb and sometimes you don't think things through," he says now about his choices in high school. "But I think everything that happened in high school, everything that's happened in my life, there have been steps taking me to where I'm at now.
"I think that I'm in a really good place right now. I think I have a good grasp on life and I'm comfortable with who I am and I'm just enjoying it right now."