Sept. 28, 2011 By Gregg Bell - UW Director of Writing SEATTLE - Terrence Ross was behind a counter placing slices of bread on plastic trays. He was passing them to C.J. Wilcox, who was filling bowls of soup. Desmond Simmons contributed slices of ham. An elderly woman without teeth in a white, high school girls softball championship sweatshirt barged through the quiet line at this homeless shelter announcing, "I'm diabetic. I need my food!" On the far side of this small dining room painted grayish-brown, Lorenzo Romar was in a black UW sweat suit fixing sandwiches with slices of turkey, ham and roast beef. Abdul Gaddy was doing the same immediately to the coach's left. They were placing their work into brown paper bags for meals that would go out later that night on a van that finds and feeds Seattle's homeless. Related Links
"Coach Romar is fixing sandwiches back there?" a staffer out front at the Union Gospel Mission marveled. A few feet to Romar's right, senior 3-point shooter Scott Suggs was serving hot-crossed buns and slices of apple pie. Andrew Andrews was next to him at the cafeteria-style table, serving scones from a second, large baking sheet. A few dozen shuffling men and women who looked to be anywhere from 20 to 70 years old were passing through the line. One was a disheveled woman who had her flat, brownish-blonde hair parted down the middle. Military dog tags dangled over her battered, black sweatshirt. "I'm from Portland," the woman, who couldn't have been older than 25, growled to no one in particular as she sat to eat her lunch. Andrews, a freshman guard, sat up, turned around and said, "You're from Portland? Hey, I'm from Portland, too!" Twjuan Scott walked up next. He didn't want pie. He was there to dispense wisdom. He is a case manager at the Union Gospel Mission, an oasis for the needy that serves an average of 850 meals each day along a rugged stretch of 2nd Avenue South off Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. The UGM is a private, faith- and donation-based organization that provides food, shelter and direction to hundreds of the city's needy every day of every year. No one is ever turned away, regardless of circumstance or habits. The shelter is about 10 minutes from the UW campus. But it's essentially a world away. "It takes a hard life to get into this place," Scott, the case manager, told Suggs and Andrews. The two Huskies nodded. Their eyes were as wide as basketballs. I was with Romar and half the UW basketball team last week for the second of its two days in what is becoming an annual visit to the shelter. Darnell Gant, Tony Wroten, Aziz N'Diaye, and Martin Breunig had led the other half of the team to the Union Gospel Mission two days earlier. 
The Huskies served lunch with a side of compassion to those in far, far more need than any of them can likely even fathom. See, when you are on Romar's team, you do far more than just play basketball. You prepare for -- and appreciate -- life. Romar doesn't like to advertise it, but the 52-year-old coach and father of three grown daughters fills his players' Septembers with real-world education that transcends basketball. It's what makes him a perfect mentor within college athletics. And it's why he can easily say no when the NBA calls for the championship-winning and universally respected coach every few years or so. Romar and his Huskies pursue public-service and charity work like it's a loose ball in the open floor. They do it in September because that's when they players are back on campus for organized, preseason conditioning drills and have relatively more free time. Classes didn't begin until Wednesday. A week before the visit to Union Gospel Mission, Romar led his guys to Sullivan's Steakhouse in downtown Seattle to be celebrity waiters for lunch. That was to benefit the non-profit organization Sports in Schools, which works to ensure all of Washington state's grade-school students have the opportunity to play organized athletics. And the Huskies are again planning to visit Seattle Children's Hospital, a short ride north of campus, before full preseason practice begins Oct. 14. One of the highlights for me last year - beyond being there for Isaiah Thomas' "cold-blooded" shot at the buzzer to win the Pac-10 tournament title or the near-upset of North Carolina in the third round of the NCAA tournament - was being there watching Thomas leading teammates through the intensive-care unit at Children's Hospital last September. He talked compassionately to parents at the bedsides of critically ill children. He joined teammates in leaving signed T-shirts in the bed of a sleeping cancer patient. Something to remember the first time a Husky blows a layup this coming season. 'NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED' Back at the Union Gospel Mission, Hikeem Stewart mopped floors. Assistant coach Jim Shaw washed dishes and trays. Alex Wegner served lunch, too. Romar, Gaddy and other Huskies fixed their sandwiches under a wall mural with a quote from "Ann," apparently a shelter resident: "I'd never had a safe place to make mistakes and be loved anyway." The coach brought bags of used basketball shoes and backpacks to donate. The players and coaches signed autographs, posed for pictures and signed gray Huskies T-shirts for the shelter to keep. The shelter relies upon private donations for 75 percent of its operating budget, according to Reggie Tanner, the kitchen supervisor. "The people eating here, they know these are college basketball players," Tanner said. "Yeah, they are used to volunteers coming in here, but the Huskies have been doing this for a while now. "They give us a better atmosphere." If only for a day. These Huskies got the intended message: They could be - we all could be - one or two life changes from being on the other, receiving side of this lunch line.
These Huskies got the intended message: They could be - we all could be - one or two life changes from being on the other, receiving side of this lunch line. "Learn from these experiences, from the decisions you make in life," Scott, the Union Gospel Mission case manager, told Suggs and Andrews. A shelter resident named David got to the end of the lunch line and also stopped to talk to Suggs and Andrews. Without being asked, the heavily tattooed, 50-year-old described his path that led him to the Union Gospel Mission. A product of a broken home, he had started abusing drugs at 13. Despite his ongoing addiction, he eventually held a steady job at Boeing, living family and professional lives -- until his wife and five-year-old son were killed in a head-on automobile crash. After identifying their gruesomely disfigured bodies, David had a nervous breakdown. He spent three months in a mental hospital. He came out homeless and broke, without his job. After being beaten while living in the streets of downtown Seattle and treated at Harborview Medical Center, he came to the Union Gospel Mission. Again, Suggs and Andrews just sat silently listening. "It reminds me to never take anything for granted," said Andrews, last season's Oregon Class 5A state co-player of the year at Benson Tech in the center of Portland's Eastside commercial area. Later, out the back door of the kitchen, as Ross, Wilcox and Simmons kept filling lunch trays a few feet away, David told me how much he appreciated college athletes -- kids used to a life of adoring fans, games on television, NCAA tournaments, Twitter and their smart phones -- taking the time to care. "It's really an awesome thing to see these players here, helping," said David, who wore a silver cross around his neck and over his white, buttoned-down collared shirt. "It's amazing they are here. People here see guys 6-feet-6 serving them sandwiches and it's like, 'Wow!' "A lot of those guys think they are going to go pro. You always want to keep those kids' heads level." This 90-minute visit certainly did that. It's hard to flaunt an aura of superiority when you are mopping floors or wearing plastic gloves and aprons inside a homeless shelter. Which is exactly the point to the Huskies being here. 'SOME HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS' Suggs grew up in Washington, Mo., a relatively well-off suburb west of St. Louis that is reputed to be in the center of Missouri's wine region. The U.S. Census in 2000 found three percent of that city's families lived below the poverty line. The most recent Census found Seattle, by comparison, had more than twice that percentage of families in poverty. "I was curious what it would be like, just seeing how they were going to interact with me," Suggs said of the shelter's residents in between dishing out slices of pie. "They've been cool. It's fun." Romar, UW director of basketball operations Lance LaVetter and administrative assistant Jamee Ashburn chose the Union Gospel Mission a few years ago partly because Ashburn had volunteered there before, and partly because it is faith-based. After Romar played for UW and in the NBA, he played and coached for the Athletes in Action sports ministry. The UGM's mission statement is: "To serve, rescue, and transform those in greatest need through the grace of Jesus Christ." A large scripture mural above the lunch line recited from the New Testament's Gospel according to Matthew 11:28-30. "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest ... " Romar surveyed the Union Gospel Mission's lunch room and the approximately 35 homeless people eating and talking around him. Suggs and Andrews were gawking at a 30-ish looking guy with an unintelligible tattoo across his forehead and down his arms and neck, covered some by a long, straight beard. "Some of the guys we recruit grew up in situations not far from this," Romar said. "And some have never seen anything like this in their entire life. "Anytime you can step outside yourself and be concerned about someone else that is a good thing." 
Terrence Ross and C.J. Wilcox prepare lunches for local homeless at the Union Gospel Mission. Near the end of lunch time, a young, fit man who looked not much older than the visiting Huskies came through the line. With short, dark, neatly kept hair and self-assuredness, I assumed he was a staff member. Another supervisor, perhaps. "No, I'm a resident here," the native of Everett, Wash., told me with a smile. He was referring to the upstairs sleeping quarters that accommodate 100-120 homeless people each night. Some stay through residency, others nightly by first-come, first-serve sign ups. Just as I was about to insert my foot into my mouth for mistaking him as a staffer, DuBois smiled again. "It's OK," he said. "I get that all the time here." He is 27. He works in the shelter's bakery - he helped make the scones and pie Andrews and Suggs were serving behind him. In 2002, he was named to The Seattle Times' second-team All-King Country League for Class 3A as a quarterback at Cedarcrest High School in Duvall, Wash. In 2003 he played at Santa Rosa Junior College, a fact a school spokesperson confirmed to me Tuesday. DuBois described how he was a partial academic qualifier for the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-AA), but he could not get into Eastern Washington because EWU had already filled its yearly allowance for partial qualifiers. With the nation's manufacturing sector booming after his year at Santa Rosa JC, DuBois said he found a job selling aeronautical parts by force of personality and initiative. He was doing well, a bachelor in his early 20's with a good job. But then the manufacturing industry bottomed out with the rest of the economy. Without a college degree, DuBois couldn't find work. He served a couple years in the Army reserves, as evidenced by the name-rank-and-serial-number dog tags he was wearing. That stint provided brief stability. But he didn't want to pursue that lifestyle full time, nor did he want to go to war. Instead, he became homeless and penniless. "I had to look myself in the mirror and accept what I was," DuBois told me. "I am a homeless man." He looked at the Huskies who were looking at him. "It's just incredible. I can see the wheels turning in their heads - because I've been there before, a college athlete," DuBois said. He says he's since earned an associate's degree and is now starting work toward a bachelor's, through the UGM's Martin Career Education Center that is a centerpiece to its men's shelter. He was seated and eating when Romar walked by to sign a purple UW T-shirt one of the shelter's staffers was wearing. DuBois stood up with military-like bearing, firmly shook the coach's hand and thanked him and his Huskies for coming. "I'm coming to a game this season!" DuBois called out, as the Huskies headed out and back to campus. Outside, on the corner of 2nd Avenue South and Washington, amid panhandlers and loiterers on the sidewalk wasting away a cloudy Thursday afternoon in September, Romar gathered his players. He relayed DuBois' from-well-to-Hell story to his Huskies, some of whom are only a years younger than the clean-cut homeless man. It's a lesson far more important than learning man-to-man defense or inbounds plays. Once again, the eyes of every Husky grew huge. Some shook their heads. "Our guys can now see," Romar told me before he drove half the team back to their normal lives on the UW campus, "that you can be one, two or three missed paychecks from being homeless." About Gregg Bell Gregg Bell is an award-winning sports writer who joined the University of Washington's staff in September 2010 as the Director of Writing. Previously, Bell served as the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He received a master's degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley in 2000. Gregg Bell Unleashed can be found on GoHuskies.com each Wednesday. Click here to email Gregg Bell. |
