Payne chronicles a family's journey through basketball, and life
Two of the most important times in Kent Payne's life can best be summed up by Charles Dickens' oft-repeated start to the classic novel "A Tale of Two Cities."
It was the best of times as Kent and his wife Sherry celebrated the birth of their first child Cully. And it was the worst of times as they also found out that same week that Kent's father Jim had received the equivalent of a death sentence with the incurable disease of ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
The Payne family endured a lot as Jim waged an incredible 17-year battle with the disease. They also experienced a lot of "best times, worst times" with the high-profile basketball ups and downs of Cully and his younger siblings Katlyn and Quinten.
There were plenty of stories, experiences and lessons learned from both aspects that Kent Payne wanted to share with others. So, the former Schaumburg High School basketball star, high school and college coach and current athletic director at Elgin Community College started to put together his plans for a book about 18 months ago.
The result is "A Family's Journey With Hoops, Life and ALS," which is currently available for an Amazon Kindle or computer PDF download for $12.95 through the website www.familyhoopsandals.com.
Providing some perspective to different areas that hit close to home was more of Payne's goal than ending up on the New York Times bestseller list or being linked to legendary writers such as Dickens.
"I started to put all of my different thoughts together and people said, 'You have some pretty unique experiences with your family life,'" Payne said. "When I first wrote it, it was awful.
"Then I started reading everything I could swallow about writing and memoirs. It all flowed right to me. I knew I had something to say."
Payne's father Jim was blessed to have a wonderful life as an NAIA All-American running back at Carthage College in the early 1960s and a career as a respected educator and coach at East Leyden High School. He was part of the school's amazing group of coaches that included Jack Leese in football, Norm Goodman and Jerry Wainwright in basketball and Chuck Farina in wrestling.
He was also cursed with the legacy of familial ALS, where nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord degenerate and those afflicted ultimately suffer total paralysis.
Payne shares the joy of spending his first year as a head coach at St. Edward with his dad as an assistant and the pain of knowing a Class A state quarterfinal defeat a year later in 1992 would likely be the last time his dad saw one of his teams play. He chronicled the roller-coaster ride of the 14 years his father spent on life support until his death in 2007.
"It's one of those things where you seem to remember the beautiful and the really awful things," said Payne, who also describes his relief when he found out he didn't carry the ALS markers. "When I wrote this it brought back a lot of little memories."
Payne's coaching career would also include stops at Addison Trail and Harper College. Ultimately he wound up at ECC as his own kids lived through their grandfather's battle with ALS and became accomplished basketball players.
Payne and his wife also played college basketball but the game - or more accurately the games surrounding the sport - changed dramatically from the 1980s to when their kids were all on the way to playing at the Division I level.
"I share some of the things kids and parent should be looking at when they get the opportunity," Payne said. "The realities of it. We had some wonderful times and some devastating times.
"Some of the mistakes we made and hurtful things that happened. We made a lot of mistakes with college choices and the people we trusted."
That's why Payne also tries to provide some guidance on his website. It helps shed some light on the escalating list of D-I men's basketball transfers, which ESPN's Jeff Goodman said exceeded 700 last year. Payne's kids all transferred during their careers and Quinten is currently coming off the bench as a junior at Dartmouth after starting out at Ball State.
Payne finished the manuscript on "A Family's Journey with Hoops, Life and ALS" in April and is now looking to do some traditional hard-copy printings. Payne said he has talked with the Les Turner ALS Foundation of Chicago about having copies of the book available in the rooms of patients.
"I loved putting it all down on paper," Payne said. "It was important to me. The book will hopefully have some value, whether you are dealing with a loved one who has a terminal disease or it can help with a child who is playing a sport."
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