Featured Sports Figure:  Lorenzo Romar

        Northwest Passage          

By Gail Wood

             As Lorenzo Romar reflects- as he looks back on a life that began in a gang-filled neighborhood in Southern California and has reached the heights of NCAA basketball first as a player and now as a coach- he can't help but wonder "what if?" There have been so many choices along the way. So many life changing decisions. From the day he stood as a frightened 15-year-old boy before a gun-waving gang member asking him, "Are you going to join us?" to the time as a lightly recruited, underachieving high school basketball guard who enrolled in a California junior college only to become academically ineligible, he wondered to himself, "Is it worth it?"  Perhaps the most amazing thing about Romar's unlikely journey is not what he's become--last year's Pacific-10 Coach of the Year as his Washington Huskies shocked the West with a 29-6 record, a conference championship, and a ride to the NCAA's third round of the playoffs. Perhaps it's what he has not become: a gangster with a rap sheet, a college dropout pumping gas. Romar's achievement isn't as much what he's done, as what he's overcome. "What kept me out of the gangs were my parents," Romar says, "It was my fear of them. And it was also my fear that if I got messed up into this gang stuff, my basketball career was out the window. My love for sports kept me out of the gangs." 

           When Romar was 14, a gang member pulled a pistol from under his shirt, pushed the barrel of the gun against Romar's temple, and snarled, "What if I pulled this trigger." "I was scared," Romar says. That was the life in Compton, California, home of the notorious Crips and Bloods gangs. When Romar was 15, he was playing touch football with his younger brother and two friends in the street in front of their Compton home. A gang member peddled up on his bicycle and asked if the Romar brothers were going to join his gang "I said, 'Sure,' "Romar says. "I wasn't going to, but I said that just so he'd go away. But my brother said, 'No, I'm not joining.'" The gang member reached into a basket on his bike and pulled out a handgun from under a sweatshirt.  "The kid then asked, What do you think now?" Romar says, I'm looking at my brother and he's got tears in his eyes and he reluctantly says, 'Yeah, I'll do it.' We were both scared."  The gang member rode off and the Romar brothers raced home, vowing never to join that gang.  The brothers, who would spend their summer days playing basketball or throwing the football, always had the safety of home to escape to.  Romar's parents, Dennis and Dorothy, provided a loving home, one their son remembers as being filled with laughter and music.  Dennis, a welder, and Dorothy, a thermostat company supervisor, instilled a strong work ethic in their two sons. "My parents believed in God," Romar says. "But I wouldn't say we were a regular church going family. We'd occasionally go to church on a Sunday."

That changed when Romar bumped into a life changing realization at age 25. Through some friends, he found that being a "good guy" wasn't the entrance requirement for heaven.  "After reading the Scriptures, I realized that wasn't how you had a relationship with the Lord," Romar says.  When I realized that it took asking Christ to take over my life, to ask for forgiveness of my sins, my life changed.

Romar uses his past, his faith in Christ, and a determination to succeed as a compass. He doesn't allow his players to wear their hair in braids or cornrows. Players who show up late to a meeting aren't allowed in. If a player isn't fitting into the offense and is playing one-on-one, he's benched. His teams don't curse, usually. They don't wear headbands. Romar's coaching is shaped by his Christian faith and built on discipline, commitment, and trust. Discipline is a priority.  The word Bible doesn't come up.  But the principles are used.

"I'm convinced that I'm only in this position because God has placed me here to bring glory to Him," Romar says. "The perspective I have is that the more publicity, the more high profile the better, because God is going to get the glory."

Gail Wood is an award-winning sportswriter for The Olympian in Olympia, Washington.

 Taken from Sports Spectrum, a Christian sports magazine. Used by permission. For subscription information call 1-800-283-8333 or go to www.sport.org.