Open Look by Jay Triano

Author:Jay Triano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER 7

STEPPING BEHIND THE BENCH

My decision to retire as a player was fairly easy; that was one of the advantages of playing basketball internationally in the era I did. There weren’t a lot of opportunities outside of international competitions, and without the national team, the effort it took to stay ready to compete at the highest level was tiresome. Driving down to Seattle every weekend and sleeping in my car or on the floor at my coach’s house had been exciting in my twenties but was less than ideal now that I was in my early thirties. Besides, once you’ve gone to the Olympics, playing in a men’s league feels like going backward. At least that’s what it felt like to me. I’d been fortunate to live my boyhood dream for half of my life, but that chapter was ending and another was beginning. I was excited about the new path opening up in front of me. I just had to take the first steps.

Stan helped me with that. My friends were well into their careers, getting married, buying homes, and starting to make decent money. I was engaged, but the rest of the things on that list seemed beyond my reach.

“Let’s buy a house,” Stan said to me when I first started coaching with him. It was something he offered a lot of former players; it was his way of helping them get a head start in life.

“Stan, I’m broke. I can’t buy a house,” I replied.

But he had a plan. “You’re a first-time buyer, so you’ll get a grant for five thousand dollars. I’ll match that,” he said nonchalantly. “That makes ten thousand. We can get a good mortgage. It’ll be good for you—I’ll show you how it’s done. Let’s start looking.”

Outside basketball, real estate was Stan’s area of expertise. He owned Basketball House, where we’d had all those epic parties back in my university days. He had bought several run-down houses and hired us as his demolition and landscaping crew, fixing up the places so he could flip them.

“Get rid of that hedge. Do these floors. Drywall here. Paint it up.” Even as a contractor, Stan coached us.

Together Stan and I found a house smack-dab on the way up the mountain to SFU—perfect for student housing. We got a $50,000 mortgage and bought the place for $60,000. We turned the garage into two bedrooms and rented the house to five of our players to cover the mortgage payments. As soon as everything was running smoothly, Stan said, “You’re all set now. Buy me out.”

Just like that, I was no longer a broke, about-to-retire Olympic athlete but a full-time assistant coach, property owner, and landlord. Thanks to Stan looking out for me, when Beth and I got married, we had a home to live in. My parents were delighted that I was settling down and about to start a family.

My post-Olympic life was coming together, but I still had a lot to learn about coaching—namely, that it’s harder than it looks.

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