--- id: 20180424_mugshots_basketball title: COUNCIL - Mugshots and Coffee - Dean Rush - Basketball category: Stories predicted_narrative_arc: team-formation-to-workplace-mission sentiment: Conversational emotions: - Reflective - Grateful - Convictional keypoints: - Basketball provided early discipline and team dynamics after losing his father young; learned from farmhands baling hay in Indiana - Progressed from DePaul University scholarship to NBA/ABA tryouts (St. Louis Hawks taxi squad, Cincinnati Royals, Baltimore, Cleveland Pipers) - Team travel and dynamics taught life lessons; met his wife (51+ years married) on a flight to an exhibition game - Principles of teamwork, not relying on individuals, directly apply to corporate leadership and teaching Organizational Behavior at Liberty University - "Core mission - empower people in the marketplace with the gospel of Jesus Christ" summary: In the first Mugshots and Coffee episode inside an Airstream in Katy, Texas, Daniel Comp hosts longtime friend Dean Rush. Dean recounts his journey from a Midwest farm to college and pro basketball tryouts, and how team dynamics later shaped corporate leadership, teaching Organizational Behavior, and his mission to bring Christ into the workplace. tags: - mugshots-and-coffee - dean-rush - basketball-lessons - team-dynamics - leadership - faith-in-workplace - 360men sycophancy: 0 truth_score: 9 entropy: 3 sample: false consent: owner_approved agent: council created: '2018-04-24' updated: '2026-08-25T18:00:00Z' vault_stage: 07_CODEX headwaters: COUNCIL prefix: COUNCIL enrich_status: ok enrich_blockers: [] enrich_method: manual pipeline_filename: COUNCIL_2018-04-24_mugshots-dean-rush-basketball.md source_kind: video_transcript proposed_topic: Stories lane: Stories voice: desk active_voice: desk voices: - desk corpus_topic: Stories content_status: active date: '2018-04-24' share_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5oBYOtV5Y --- # Mugshots and Coffee — Dean Rush — Basketball Interview host: **Daniel Comp** (360MEN). Guest and house voice: **Dean Rush**. ## Original YouTube description Part 1 of a Mug Shots and Coffee with Dean Rush. Dean shares about his early years in basketball and the lessons he learned that helped him excel in the corporate leadership roles he commanded. Dean's character has been fashioned by basketball, Vietnam and Jesus Christ. His professorship sings with deep convictions and connections with young and old. Learn from Dean why he has championed causes and corporate challenges with success and humility. Join him in conversation at [http://360MEN.net](http://360MEN.net) and [http://DeanRush.com](http://DeanRush.com) Source: [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5oBYOtV5Y) ## Cleaned transcript **Daniel:** I’m Daniel Comp with 360MEN and today we have coffee with Dean Rush in Cinco Ranch, Texas. Come on in. Welcome back to the channel. This is D. Rush. I’ve known him for 15 years and he’s dropped in for coffee in our Airstream. We’re in Katy, Texas. I’m gonna have Dean tell you about his experience when he was young playing basketball. **Dean Rush:** Daniel, that was so many years ago but I can still relate to a lot of the actions and inactions that took place over that time. I grew up on a farm and my father died when I was young — that was in my teenage years. For some reason he had foresight before his death and he decided that there was one way he was anxious for us to go to college. No one in our family had ever gone to a post-high school degree. So he had people that he would hire to bale hay — what he called “tuff” in Indiana in the summertime — but between loads of hay these guys came in and they would teach us how to play basketball. That’s really the time in my life we became enthralled with being better and better and trying to discipline myself to be able to do something later on. Well, I was able to get a scholarship, attended DePaul University, played basketball there for four years. At the end of the time I just wanted to go to the next level. So I got a call one day from Coach McCall and he said, “I know you’re interested. I don’t know whether you can make it but would you like to try out for the St. Louis Hawks?” This is before St. Louis moved to Atlanta. I said sure. He said, “Well you have to be at Washington University tomorrow night — this on a Friday — and go through their tryout procedure.” I did that on Friday, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, and then they had us go through another drill on Sunday afternoon. They came in and announced that I had at least made the taxi squad. What that means is you’re in the upper third of the bottom fifth of their recruits. As we began to play I found out I was a little slower than some of the other folks. I could shoot the ball really well, I could handle the ball really well, and I could take abuse. One of the reasons they kept me at that time was I wasn’t afraid to get hurt. As my wife said, I was thrown into the stands by the best. At that time in that era if you got into a fight you both got thrown out. So quite often I would come from the end of the bench, the coach would say go in and hit Johnson or hit whoever that was the leading scorer on the other team. When he hit me back we both got tossed. I didn’t hurt our team but it sure hurt their team. That’s one of the reasons that you would have a nose like this — I have no cartilage in my nose because it was hit a few times. Well I played ball and moved quickly to the Cincinnati Royals for a tryout. I went from the Cincinnati Royals, they traded me to Baltimore and before I received a full contract at Baltimore even arrived actually they put me on waivers which told me where I stood in the basketball world. Well then at that time Abe Saperstein who owned the Harlem Globetrotters was starting the ABA — the American Basketball Association — and they had teams all over the place: San Antonio Spurs, the Dallas Chaparrals, Cleveland Cavaliers. We were the Cleveland Pipers when I went there and Cleveland Jets then became the Cleveland Pipers in the ABA that eventually evolved into the Cleveland Cavaliers. I say all that because I found that in basketball I could relate to other people and I began to learn team dynamics. I learned team dynamics in a way that was sort of uncanny when I began to understand that the people around me were teaching me about life. As we traveled we had some great experiences. I met my wife on one of the trips when we were going to play the Bulls in an exhibition game. She was a flight attendant and we were going to be friends but she seemed to enjoy basketball so we were able to eventually come to an agreement and get married and that was about 51 years ago. So I think the agreement has stood the test of time. Well basketball was something that never ever left my soul. My son played basketball, my daughter played basketball and I’ve watched over the years and those team dynamics that I learned are still going on. I love the teams that actually use the team not individuals. And so much in life today depends upon the people around you. I teach Organizational Behavior at Liberty University and I love the subject because it talks about team dynamics — when you’re developing an organization, when you’re trying to stabilize the team, stabilize an organization. You can’t do it alone and that’s one of the reasons that I’ve enjoyed teaching but I’ve also enjoyed the interaction with the students because I find that many students these days really don’t realize that they’re part of an organization. You know God made us that way. He said that we were to come together as one and quite often we begin thinking that we’re one and our individual thinking takes us away from His real purpose and that was for us to touch other people. My mission in life at my age is to get Christ into the workplace. I don’t know whether you know Christ but the idea for me has been trying to get people to understand what I found through basketball, through life, and through the understanding that it was Jesus who opened the eyes of the blind and He opened the hearts of those that were being persecuted. An idea that I have today is that we can through you and I empower people to go into the marketplace, go into the workplace and let them know about Christ. So it’s with that that I expound on the ideology of empowerment. I found when I was running companies — and it was very fortunate I ran some very large companies — I couldn’t do the work myself. I had to have people around me who were capable and enthusiastic about doing their jobs. With that I would say that I’m very interested in knowing you and having you know some of my thoughts and they’re worth just what you’re paying for them. I believe that God has put us in a position to talk to one another so this is my method of expounding my gospel to you and hopefully the gospel of Jesus Christ and His salvation as well. ======================================================================== # mugshots dean rush hawaiian rr