My Greatest Defining Moment

By Tommy Burleson

Former NBA & NC State Basketball Player, NCAA National Champion

This post has been made possible by our wonderful partner New River Building Supply.

My grandfather, a preacher of the gospel, started Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church where I was saved when I was 15 years old. My grandparents and mother were instrumental in making sure I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday night. They were good role models for me as a young Christian.

My physical attributes came from my father who was in the military. He taught me the value of developing my athletic abilities. A three-mile run became normal for me as well as working on calisthenics, which were very important. Between the four of them, I had a good, solid combination of role models in my young Christian life.

Church Was Where I Needed to Be

My high school years in Avery were good. When it came time for college at North Carolina State University, I needed direction. Everything was wide open but, thankfully, a friend of our family’s, Evelyn F. Alexander, who grew up in the Hughes Community, called mom and promised to take me to church. This was a key point in my time at State. Of course, I didn’t want to go but after the first six weeks or so, I knew it was the right thing to do.

If it had been left up to me, I may have backslidden my first year in college. But I realized being in church was where I needed to be. Once college students get away from home, they don’t realize that they haven’t accumulated enough wisdom to direct their own lives. I was no different.

Recognized as a Winner

It was fun to help out in the church during my years in Raleigh while I played on State’s first national championship team. We ended the reign of the seven-time NCAA Division 1 basketball and their dynasty, UCLA. That NC State team is still considered the most dominate team ever. It was exciting to achieve such success in the college basketball ranks. Everyone knows that is the brass ring. We accomplished every coaches’ and players’ dream. It was a defining moment. We were “recognized as a winner.”

UCLA’s players tried to make excuses as to why they lost. We won because we were able to pull together as a team, had a great coach Norman Sloan and we had David Thompson, one of the game’s best ever. David had a strong Christian background as I did. I truly believe that is what drew him and me together.

It’s very hard to go to the NBA, National Basketball Association. It is a major step up in one’s basketball career and it has unique opportunities and challenges all its own. Seattle asked me to join their team and when I got there I tried to do things in a proper way. Being the third person drafted that year, new experiences came daily.

Living Life Away From Christ

After some time in Seattle, I realized my desire to start a family. I married a young woman I had dated in college. Before marriage, we met often with a pastor and discussed all the issues married people encounter, including raising children. After three years of marriage, I told her that I wanted children. She told me that she didn’t want a family. Anyone who knows me knows that children had to be part of my life. I thought I had done everything the proper way, but my marriage fell apart.

After the divorce, I was angry with God. I turned my back on Christ. I quit attending church and started going to the wrong places. I began drinking and, even more foolishly, I began playing basketball very recklessly. I was with various women and committed fornication. Before long, I found myself living a life away from my Christian faith, from Jesus Christ.

Everything changed in February 1979 when the Kansas City Kings were playing in Philly. Phil Ford and Maurice Cheeks were arguing and I was trying to bring peace between them, when a player, who shall remain nameless, hit my leg sideways. The hit severed three ligaments in my knee. As basketball injuries go, this was known as a career ender.

The doctor sent me to a research hospital in Kansas City, Kansas. For some strange reason, my meds got messed up and my temperature soared to 102 degrees. I was packed in ice but was not expected to live through it. The doctor even prepared my death certificate. Mom prayed over me all night long. The next day, I came out of the coma.

I was in a body cast and wheel chair for 6 months. Rehabilitation took over 18 months. The doctors told me my career was over, but I wouldn’t give up. I was the first player to ever return from this kind of injury with loss of 65 to 75 percent ability. But I was big enough to be a utility player with the Atlanta Hawks. So, here after what should have been a career ending injury, I was back playing in the NBA averaging five points and two rebounds per game. My knee continued to swell and there was lots of pain. Finally, I realized that if I didn’t retire, I’d reinjure my knee. This, too, was a defining moment in my life.

“I realized God had to be number one, family second and then everything else.”

It Was Time to Live My Own Faith

I still had a home in Seattle and went back there to live. A friend invited me to church. Mercer Island Methodist Church was only two blocks from my house but I’d never gone there. The pastor, Dr. Frank Woolridge, took an interest in me and I realized I needed to start going. On June 23, 1981, I rededicated myself to the Christ. I was baptized in Lake Washington. As I spent time at Mercer Lake, I began to realize what Christ was doing in my life and how I needed Him in my life, directing it.

This is a point I make to people today: While kids are raised in church they must, finally, come to Christ, by their own will. I had lived off my mother’s and my grandparent’s faith. It was time I lived off my own faith. I realized God had to be number one, family second and then everything else. It’s a hard choice, a difficult transition to make, but that is what makes a good husband, a good father.

Special Olympics and pediatric hospitals had always been important to me and I realized, at another defining moment, that I had to live life as a role model. I knew that if I didn’t turn 180 degrees, that I couldn’t ever see what needed to take place. I was seeing portions of my life that I had to fix. That’s when I returned to Jesus and that’s when the burden lifted off my shoulders.

I started my day off with prayer and put it into the hands of God. I studied the Bible. It was a long time between being saved and becoming what God intended for me to be. But He has brought me to that place. A few years ago a woman called me. She said she had my grandfather’s Bible and wanted to know if I’d like to have it. I went the next day to get it. Harrison Burleson would be pleased that his grandson has his Bible and is trying to follow its teachings.

Once I was back in Seattle and was attending Mercer Island Methodist Church, the Lord had my future wife in an important place to me: a restaurant. I love food. Denise was a waitress at a local restaurant where I often ate. She was a good Christian person. Although her family didn’t practice the Christian faith, she loved the Lord. We talked to our pastor, who understood my desire to have a family. Denise wanted the same. We married and God has blessed us with three sons.

Ministry in Everyday Life

I returned to Avery County in 1982. Denise had social shock, coming from such a large city, but we both agreed that it was a good rural area to raise young people. Avery is very family oriented. After searching for a church for several months, the Lord led us to Fletcher Presbyterian. We have a good relationship with the pastor and the people. It was during this time that my service to the Lord began in earnest.

From 1985 to 1995, I sat on the board of the Baptist Children’s Home. Denise and I were house parents from time-to-time to give the on-sight house parents a weekend off. Many of the young boys came to my basketball camp where I could teach them how to play and how to love the Lord in the process.

The next charge the Lord gave me was to serve as chairman a four and one-half million dollar fund raising effort for the Black Mountain Children’s Home.

Of course, with Ruth Bell Graham as co-chair, all the money needed to meet the budget was raised. It was amazing to see God work. Within months, the ministry grew in leaps and bounds. Transition homes were built to house those 18 and older. They have a place to live and scholarships are available to help with their education.

Divine Appointment, New Direction

In 2001, I stepped down from that position. It was then that I prayed the prayer of Jabez (a descendent of Judah, of whom it is recorded that “God granted him that which he requested” 1 Chron. 4:9,10). I had been in a restaurant and when I walked out I met a lady named Barbara Nagy.

Dr. Nagy worked at a local health clinic in Banner Elk. She had gotten a doctorate at Oral Roberts University. Barbara was to begin working in a hospital in Nkhoma, Malawi, Africa. She needed a mission team to obtain, organize, and send supplies for the hospital. Dr. Nagy asked me if I would be willing to lead that team. God answered my “Jabez prayer.” Along with Teresa Lock, Tom Gilmore and Western NC Presbytery, we put together a mission team.

The first year, the hospital had one doctor with 12 nursing students. It is now up to six doctors and 55 nursing students. We are in the fourth phase, which will enlarge the maternity ward, pediatric ward, and install a generator that will provide dependable electricity to the hospital. More children live now because they have a steady flow of oxygen.

The Western North Carolina Presbytery is the pass-through agency that coordinates everything. The government in Nkhome has also assigned us 10 bush remote health clinics. They are being renovated and adding doctors now; eight more clinics will need to have work done on them.

Real Life is Serving Christ

I try to live a humble life. When you’ve been on an NBA team and you’ve been at the top and then see the bottom full faced, it teaches you that there is more to life. Real life is serving Christ in whatever place of opportunity He provides. What He has given us - whether it is athletic ability or social position - only brings fruitful results if it first passes through His hands.

Being a college basketball player, an NBA player or having fame and fortune is not the defining moment(s) in my life. It was when I rededicated my life and gave it to Him. It’s His “game” and He’s allowed me to play. It’s definitely the best and most winning team I’ve ever been on. It’s my greatest defining moment.

This article was originally written for the Winter 2011 Edition of The Journey magazine.