Kanye, speak to 'em about that Good Life for a minute:
Have you ever popped champagne on a plane
While getting' some brain
Whipped it out, she said "I never seen snakes on a plane"
Whether you broke or rich you gotta get biz
Having' money's not everything, not having it is
I was splurging' on trizz
But when I get my card back activated
I'm back to Vegas cause
I always had a passion for flashing' before I had it
I close my eyes and imagine, the good life
When we step out into this journey that is "The Real World," its not in reference to the reality television show that became kinda wack after the turn of the century. No, the real REAL world is the one where your mama says you've got three options when you turn 18 and/or graduate from high school. You either gotta go to school, get a job and help with these bills or go join the military. At least, that's how my mama put it down, your mama might've put it down a little differently. You get my point. Life just got real.
So you begin to matriculate through life, live through its never-ending ups and downs, and try to chart out a "good life" for yourself. Make a little money, find someone who likes you, dirty drawls and all, and put yourself in a position to be stable for a lengthy period of time.
However, what they don't tell you is that there will be times where this thing called STRESS will enter your life. Sometimes you won't even know what it is until after the fact, or you'll agonize about it as soon as you feel it coming. Let it be known that STRESS is real, and as someone who's done 29 years of living on this earth, my one thing I try to avoid more than paying taxes is STRESS.
In the college hoops world, there may be no more stressful job that the head coach. The head coaching job is one that men and women will turn themselves into nomads, travel from coast-to-coast to work in places like Siberia, Nutbush and Bumblefuck. Eventually, through hell and high water those coaches on the grind eventually find their way to success and begin climbing that coaching mountaintop.
What we've seen from coaches like Shaka Smart of VCU, Brad Stevens of Butler and Greg Marshall of Wichita State are three prime examples. For Smart and Marshall, their talents took them to various assistant coach positions until they finally secured their head coaching job. For Stevens, his tenure basically was an internship where his job as an assistant eventually led to be given the head coaching role. Three jobs, three schools of a decent prestige, but nothing close to an elite gig. Three men that are happy living that good life in places like...
Richmond, Virginia. Indianapolis, Indiana. Wichita, Kansas.
Making well over $1 million a year.
Look at those three cities I just listed again.
Living THE good life, indeed.
Marshall is now two wins away from bringing a national championship to the Heartland of America in Kansas, where Dubb-State is practically sneered upon compared to its in-state peers Kansas and Kansas State. While one school lives the life of a blueblood (KU) and a coach who's only expectation every year is to win another national championship, the other school (K-State) just desperately wants to be KU. Wichita State? Man, they're chilling. Eating peeled grapes, rocking Jordans and just out here living. Listen to how Gregg Marshall's living, courtesy of CBS's Gary Parrish, in the Dub-K:
"I'm already making seven figures. You can eat a lot of steak and hamburger and pizza for what we're making at Wichita State . ... I live on the golf course. We have a beautiful backyard. My wife has four dogs. She gardens. We fly around on private planes to Napa and back to South Carolina. We have a good life, man." -- Wichita State head coach Gregg Marshall
You have a good life, man. Yes indeed you do sir, and as much as a national championship would make life even better, living a good life still ain't a bad way to live. I'm sorry UCLA, Minnesota and whatever piddly "big school" comes calling for these guys, your big-city lifestyle and lofty expectations pale in comparison to living a good life, man.
Eddie Maisonet is the founder and editor emeritus of The Sports Fan Journal. Currently, he serves as an associate editor for ESPN.com. He is an unabashed Russell Westbrook and Barry Switzer apologist, owns over 100 fitteds and snapbacks, and lives by Reggie Jackson’s famous quote, “I am the straw that stirs the drink.”
