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The Point Loma Nazarene University Sea Lions are located in San Diego, California, play in the PacWest Conference in NCAA DII and are coached by Matt Logie. I would like to thank Sea Lions assistant coach Julius Smith for sharing his basketball journey with me.

Julius played on the William Jessup University Warriors coached by Lance Von Vogt with Justin Downer who is currently an assistant coach for the Cal Poly Mustangs in San Luis Obispo, California, in the Big West Conference in NCAA DI coached by John Smith.

I was the team manager of The Master’s University Mustangs who were coached by Chuck Martin at that time and are now coached by Kelvin Starr in Santa Clarita, California in the GSAC in NAIA DI from 2010-14 and we played the William Jessup University Warriors as they transitioned from the Cal Pac to the GSAC.

In sharing his journey with me, Julius wrote, “I played my collegiate years at William Jessup University (NAIA D1) in Rocklin, CA. These years helped to cultivate some of the best relationships that I currently have to this day.

I met my mentor and best friend Justin Downer (current assistant coach at Cal Poly SLO) who was my teammate and would eventually end up introducing me to coaching. I think the best experience I had while at Jessup was my time recollecting after Jessup.

While I was always a good player, I was not the best player on the team, and I learned a lot about humility and self-sacrifice. There is no greater teacher in my opinion than experience. The lessons learned playing collegiate basketball have helped me be the best version of myself with my current players at Point Loma Nazarene University.

You try and help them to understand that while basketball is a huge part of all of our lives and competing is at the nucleus of our success, they are more than just wins and losses and we are hunting ways to make them better men as well as better basketball players.

Everything we do in our program is surrounded around our core values: Trust, Love, and Commitment— those are things that I believe shape you as a player and a coach!”