This is the first part of my series regarding adversity called – Mid-Season: Jimmy Carr Taught Me About Courage
picture is the property of the University of Rhode Island
There was a time when I considered Coach Carr the enemy. He was working for our rival at Five-Star, Eastern Invitational. We competed for coaches, players and industry stature.
Coach Carr would start his journey as a college coach and we would occasionally say hello at the Final Four or in passing.
In 2011, Coach Carr and his wife, Natalie, went through the most trying experience that a parent could go through. Their son Brayden suffered through epileptic seizures and passed away that May.
In response, they established the Brayden Carr Foundation to help other families.
“As coaches, we have a tremendous sense of entitlement and self-worth”, describes Coach Carr. “With the Foundation I feel like we’ve done the right thing. People would say that we turned a negative into a positive but I don’t like that expression, it trivialized the experience. As coaches, we get into this “next play” mindset, this was the next right thing.”
The Brayden Carr Foundation, courtesy of the URI website description —
“ By way of service projects and fundraising ventures, they hope to provide athletic, social, rehabilitative, and academic opportunities to children with seizure conditions and their related physical needs, as well as provide humanitarian support/relief to their parents.”
The Foundation holds an annual Coaches Clinic which has featured a who’s who in the basketball fraternity including five who are in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Carr recalls how the Clinic idea started, “Van Gundy came to me and said if you do a Clinic, I want in.
The Clinic has taken off.”
The Clinic raises significant funds to families in need. The Brayden Carr Foundation provides scholarships to assist kids and their families living with seizure conditions.
“Creating in his honor (the Foundation) a way of helping people was selfish (in one respect), it helped us through the process”, explains Carr. And unselfish, the acts of charity. We were fortunate of the response from the basketball world and the people who had lost children who reached out to me. They were great and it helped.”
Adversity strikes in all different forms at all different times. There are external acts that spark true turmoil whether it’s getting fired from a job or death of a loved one. Sometimes there’s is an internal awakening that something is wrong, that there’s an imbalance and one can no longer stand for it.
“Adversity of this (type) doesn’t go away”, describes Carr. We have a three-year-old daughter, Lucia and we want this (the Foundation) for her. We hope she continues the Foundation some day. (We are happy) that people get to know Brayden thru the Foundation and that it has inspired others to create other good causes.”
Carr’s Mid-Season advice:
1. Time is the most precious commodity
2. Do the next right thing
3. Can’t dwell on what you can’t control
4. Do your best, make the next thing the best
“If anyone loses a child, we are there for them. We are a support network.” Coach Jim Carr
Angela Duckworth’s book, “Grit”, profiles the characteristics of resiliency. One of the core ingredients for “Grit” is purpose.
The book breaks this down further-
“At its core, the idea of purpose is the idea that what we do matters to people other than ourselves.”
Duckworth is describing Natalie and Jim Carr who fought through the darkest of circumstances to be a beacon of inspiration and hope to others.
