Win The Day

Basketball was always the most important thing in his life. Until drugs and alcohol took over.

- Vin Baker

What’s the best job i ever had? The answer might seem obvious. From 1993 to 2006, I was a professional basketball player, a four-time NBA All-Star. I went to the playoffs multiple times with the Seattle SuperSonics and the New York Knicks and won a gold medal representing the United States in the 2000 Olympics. I earned millions doing what I loved.

A no less worthy answer might be the jobs I held after my NBA career was behind me. For three years, I was a youth minister at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, one of New York City’s most vibrant places of worship. Two years ago, I joined the staffof the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA team that had drafted me right out of college. I’m now an assistant coach.

Illustrious career, right?

Well, maybe. But you could make a case that the best job I ever had wasn’t related to basketball at all. That was the year I spent as a barista making lattes and macchiatos at a Starbucks.

I held that job from 2015 to 2016. At the time, I was a recovering alcoholic looking for a new direction in life. That NBA career? I was cut from the last team I played for in 2006, after it became clear to coaches that I couldn’t get a handle on my drinking. My struggle with alcohol began during my earliest days as a pro player and lasted until I hit rock bottom in 2011. By that point, I was broke and living at my parents’ house in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, drinking a gallon of cognac a day and waiting for the alcohol to kill me.

How did I sink so low? How did serving gourmet coffee help me climb back? The answer to those questions is a God story, pure and simple.

I have no excuses for the addiction that wrecked my basketball career. I had a happy childhood in a stable home. My father worked as a mechanic and as a Baptist minister. My mom worked for a cosmetics company. My loving, faithful, no-nonsense parents didn’t even push me into basketball.