Coach R-Jay Barsh. Faith, Hoops, and Gonzaga Grit

When you meet Gonzaga University basketball coach R-Jay Barsh, one thing is clear—he’s a live wire for Jesus. In this inspiring episode of Amazing Greats, we dive deep into the journey of a man whose passion for the game is matched only by his passion for Christ. From his early days in High School and Tacoma Community College to leading college teams across the country and now coaching alongside legends at Gonzaga, R-Jay’s story is a powerful testimony of perseverance, calling, and faith in action.

Listen right here, right now!

Watch right her, right how!

A devastating back injury ended his playing career and sent him searching for purpose beyond the scoreboard. That’s when God revealed a new game plan—coaching, mentoring, and ministering through basketball. Along the way, R-Jay was profoundly shaped by Fred Crowell, founder of NBC Basketball Camps, whose faith and mentorship sparked ripples that continue to change lives. R-Jay's story is another example of the ripple effect of one man, the late Fred Crowell. Fred’s own powerful journey is captured in Amazing Greats episode 10  and another “Fred ripple” can be heard in episode 78 with Indiana Pacers VP Ryan Carr.

With his trademark energy and authenticity, Coach Barsh shares how adversity deepened his faith, how he lives out his calling on and off the court, and why every practice, huddle, and halftime can become a place of ministry. Whether you love basketball or just need a reminder of what it means to live on fire for God, this conversation will move and motivate you.

Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen Full Transcript

The Live Wire: Coach R-Jay Barsh on Faith, Adversity, and Basketball as a Mission Field

Featuring R-Jay Barsh — Gonzaga University Basketball Coach

More Than a Winning Résumé

Ric Hansen:We are live and right with a new friend. It is R-Jay Barsh, coach on the coaching team at Gonzaga University. That's our guest on Amazing Greats.

Not only is he a passionate basketball guru, but on top of that, he's a live-wire follower of Jesus Christ.

And we're going to talk about that, the basketball career, and all the things that make up R-Jay Barsh.

So let's get started.

R-Jay, thank you for being here today.

R-Jay Barsh:I'm excited to be here.

I like the term "live wire." There's something special about that, right?

You don't get to touch a live wire and not be changed.

Ric Hansen:That's right.

I've got to tell you a quick little story. I have this jealousy kind of relationship with basketball players.

When I was in high school, you'd go to a Friday night basketball game and the stands would be crowded with people, there'd be cheerleaders, and it'd be a big, big event.

Well, it just so happens that I was a five-foot-seven wrestler.

So when you go to a wrestling match at a high school, there's like 12 people in the stands, and usually they're just moms and dads, right?

R-Jay Barsh:Yes.

Ric Hansen:So we always relished the idea of having an actual stadium full of people.

And you've got that for years and still do. So that's great.

R-Jay Barsh:It didn't—well, I didn't know it wasn't always that way.

The career started off in some places where the gym could only fit 300 people and maybe 100 showed up.

The Adversity Behind the Résumé

Ric Hansen:Well, let's get started right there because the whole story of R-Jay Barsh, from a guy on the outside looking at your résumé—which I have right here—looks like a career of nothing but winning all the way down.

You started out as a Lincoln High School basketball player back in the day, and they were red hot when you were playing with that team.

Then you went on to Tacoma Community College.

Tacoma Community College says right here that you won three Western regional titles in four seasons, and then an NWAACC championship in 2012.

Then you moved on to Lakeland, Florida, where you spent seven years. Over those seven years, you led Southeastern University to its first three NAIA Division II national tournaments.

Then you're off to Boise State, then Florida State, and now you're here in Washington State at Gonzaga University—a school that is respected and successful and has been for years—and now you're a part of that coaching team.

So, wow.

And then on top of all of that, somewhere along the line, I read where you said one of the things that you like to teach new players is how to face adversity.

I'm wondering how you got to that when it doesn't seem like you've had adversity.

R-Jay Barsh:There should be a section on the résumé called "trial and error."

So people can see the steps it took to be in those places.

I believe I faced adversity as a player.

When I was at Central Washington University, a Division II school, I broke my back.

Ric Hansen:Wow.

R-Jay Barsh:Breaking my back—I was the one guy who always heard coaches tell their players, "You never know when you play your last game."

Well, I did not know when I played my last game.

But I also played with a certain level of energy and enthusiasm, and I was thankful with the way I left the floor.

So I didn't play another college basketball game after that.

I was faced really early in life, between the ages of 20 and 21, with which direction I would go.

That was kind of my bridge to coaching because I was still fresh in the basketball scene, and it's what I knew.

It seemed to be the place where I felt the most comfortable to correct, encourage, and teach.

So I threw myself all the way into basketball as a teacher.

And that was a lot of adversity because my friends were talking about their highlights and their stats, and I had nothing to give in those moments.

A Faith That Had to Become His Own

Ric Hansen:So back when you were in high school, prior to all of that, were you a Christian at that point?

R-Jay Barsh:Did I know Jesus?

I went to Puyallup High School. I was born and raised in the ways of the faith by my parents.

My dad was a pastor and a preacher, and my mom is a diligent prayer warrior.

The Bible is front and center in our family.

So it was modeled throughout my entire life what it looked like to be a follower of Christ.

I would say I was always vocal about those things growing up. It just naturally was who I was and who I am.

That adversity of the back made me double down on my faith because I needed to be carried.

Up until that point, I think I was living on the faith that I was borrowing from my parents and from my pastors.

My faith was tested in that moment.

It wasn't the temptations that most humans face at that age. For whatever purposes, God had graced me not to have those.

But that failure—now I have to have a different dream, a different direction—made me find my prayer life.

But in high school, I definitely wore my faith on my sleeve.

Losing the Identity of "Basketball Player"

Ric Hansen:I did not know that about your story, the back issue.

That was a kind of change of identity at that point because you were a player, and that's what you intended to be and wanted to be.

All of a sudden, you're not that.

How did you make that pivot? Was it an automatic kind of, "Oh, well, I'll do this then"?

R-Jay Barsh:For me, growing up, the way my parents raised me, I always wanted to be seen as more than just what I was doing as a basketball player.

I was a high-level academic. I loved to read. I loved to write.

So I always, in the back of my mind, knew the ball would get flat.

I remember hearing this story—I’m not sure which coach it was, maybe John Thompson, maybe not—where he had a knife and put it into a basketball during a talk with one of his players.

The point was to let his players know that eventually the ball goes flat, and you better have something in your life you can lean on professionally, spiritually, or vocationally.

Because you don't know a lot of 45-year-old basketball players, right?

You've got to figure out a different path.

So I've always been thinking about that part of my life and what that would look like.

I always enjoyed being around people and coaching people, so I knew it would be somewhere in that capacity.

But losing the identity of, "Now I can't chase something that's so tangible," was a high-level frustration.

"I've Equipped You to Help Others"

Ric Hansen:And prayers at that point were significant.

That's kind of where you made your pivot from growing up as a Christian and becoming a real follower of Jesus on a whole different level.

Is that right?

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah, I definitely would say on a different level.

I don't know if the realness necessarily changed as much, but the depth of my relationship with God went to a different level.

Because I understood—like, in the back, I mean, God was yelling, and I was yelling, "Why?"

Up until that point, the prayers were pretty modest.

Ric Hansen:And did you get an answer to the "why"?

R-Jay Barsh:Yes, I did.

Ric Hansen:And was that answer, "Because I have a new direction for you"?

R-Jay Barsh:Well, the answer was more like, "I've equipped you to help others reach their goals. So are you okay pushing someone else?"

And I was thinking in my head, "Okay."

I always heard the quote, "We're standing on the shoulders of those before us."

So I thought, "Okay, I guess in coaching you can encourage and motivate."

I just started motivating people to chase their dreams, and I got so much momentum in my heart from that.

NBC Camps and Fred Kroll

Ric Hansen:And when did you hook up with NBC Camps? Was that earlier on?

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah, and that's a big part of the faith journey too.

I was about 13 years old when I started going to NBC Camps.

My best friend, Jacob Washburn, invited me and took me to camp.

I couldn't afford camp the first year.

So Fred Kroll and Roger Smith allowed me to be a junior counselor in Auburn.

I was able to clean up the gym during camp and then attend camp the next day.

I ended up doing that for eight weeks a summer from age 13 all the way until I went to college.

At 15 and 16 years old, I was coaching the eight-year-old coaching division.

And by the time I was 20, Fred and I were traveling the country running camps together.

Ric Hansen:You're listening to Amazing Greats.

Today's guest, R-Jay Barsh, isn't just a basketball coach. He's a man on a mission to use the game as a platform for faith, purpose, and transformation.

I don't know how many of our listeners have heard the Fred Kroll story, but he was one of our guests a couple of years ago, and he's since passed.

His story was incredible.

NBC Camps is Northwest Basketball Camp. It started here in the Northwest, but it's all over the place now.

I'm giving that little description for those listeners who aren't up to date.

And so we can talk about Fred, who is an enigma all of his own—just an amazing individual.

Tell us your take on Fred Kroll.

"Fred Kroll Was an Anchor for Me"

R-Jay Barsh:Fred Kroll was an anchor for me.

He allowed me to run wild, but not get too far.

He allowed me to express my creativity in basketball and coaching, and I felt safe to chase some of those dreams as a head coach very young because he had done those things when he was in Alaska.

I wasn't scared of a pivot in my career because he pivoted from Samford to being a counselor to running the greatest camps in the world.

And he held me accountable.

His son Jay and I became really good friends, and it gave me a community.

Being close to Fred gave me a community of men who were living in a way I could admire and mirror.

But there was an accountability factor with Fred that was a little more intense.

I think the thing that was special about my story, because I can't tell my story without talking about Fred, is that all men crave a sense of accountability and a sense of coaching.

And that's what I got from Fred: coaching.

Bringing Jesus to the Basketball Court

Ric Hansen:Was he the one who modeled the idea of bringing Jesus to the basketball court?

Because that's exactly what his whole camp was set up for.

He wanted to preach the Gospel, but do it in a real, tangible way through basketball.

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah, I would definitely say that was a big part of it.

Spiritually, I've always made sure the Gospel was where I was at.

I don't see basketball as anything separate from me going to 7-Eleven.

If there are people there, then my spirit enters the same way.

Basketball just happens to be the vehicle in which I am feeding my family, and there are people around.

So they're going to get that live wire.

Faith in the Flow of Coaching

Ric Hansen:Along the way during this career path, was the administration totally comfortable with your integrating Christianity into the basketball court with your teams?

Was that okay?

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

I had really, really strong bosses—or I would say head coaches—who I worked for early in my career.

And there's something about this.

Before I preach something or do anything, I always tell myself to check the box of high-level competency so they can trust my decision-making.

So if I'm excellent in that area, then this area will be accepted as, "That's just part of his excellence," and not just something he's doing just to do it.

I didn't ever make it a standalone situation.

It was in the flow of life and coaching.

I didn't have chapels. I didn't have Bible studies.

It was one-on-one with players, and then the flow of my life.

Then all of a sudden we've got five guys and we're praying because something happened.

Since I think I've seamlessly done it that way, I think I've been blessed.

The second thing is I'm very loud on social media about who I am.

Wherever I've worked, I've always made sure they grasp that part's not changing.

When I was a junior college assistant, I did have some coaches tell me I would need to change that to become a Division I coach.

And I just said, "Okay, then I won't be a Division I coach."

It would be very hard for me to all of a sudden put that in a separate corner of my life.

When Faith Becomes Real to Someone Else

Ric Hansen:Back to the NBC Camps for a moment.

Was there a story from that period, when you were coaching younger people and young kids, where you saw some real change in somebody?

Maybe a specific situation where you said, "This guy was going down the wrong path, and Jesus changed him."

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

There's a coach who came over from the islands in Hawaii.

I guess some people would say he maybe had a little bit of an attitude and was tougher to coach.

For me, he just reminded me of the inner-city guys I grew up around.

So he and I struck up a great relationship.

In the beginning, he thought I was just being a camp coach with high energy and that it wasn't real.

He thought, "You're not going to care by the third day."

Now we're 15 years into our friendship and relationship.

He's a high-level trainer in California. He's had multiple guys make it to the next level.

I can definitely say in our relationship, there have been conversations where he could have gone left, he could have gone right, and before he made any decisions, he prayed.

We often remember the NBC Camp days because watching me was a great example for him.

He saw that it could be real.

I wasn't being phony.

He just thought all people like that were fake. Like, they're not like that all the time.

And because if I'm having a day where there are some tensions and some struggles, I'm okay sharing that with my team.

The reason I share that with them is because I also want to share why I can lift myself up.

I think in the past I've seen people just share the lifting-up part.

Players would see God or Jesus or Christianity as Santa Claus delivering only gifts, versus someone who can carry you through your tough seasons, but also someone who, when you're at the highest of highs, lets you understand how to use that moment.

In my language of coaching—and this is just natural—I don't use a lot of religious overtones.

That's not by choice or design. That's just how I speak.

So guys often ask me, "Coach, what are you talking about?"

And then I'm able to go right into what I'm talking about.

I think that's just being surrounded by basketball my whole life.

I speak their language that way.

The NBC Camps Legacy Continues

Ric Hansen:Are you still associated with NBC Camps today?

R-Jay Barsh:Oh, I'll be associated with NBC Camps until the end of time.

The school where I used to coach in Florida, the Division II school, still hosts NBC Camps.

I have, I would say, seven or eight former players who are running and are part of running NBC Camps—who are directors of NBC Camps.

There's a fraternity of young men who were introduced to NBC Camps who are sending their kids now to NBC Camps.

Fred Kroll's Lessons: RPE and PMA

Ric Hansen:Back in the day when Fred was alive and a part of your daily life, he had a lot of phrases that he used that people remember long-term.

What was your favorite Fred Kroll phrase?

R-Jay Barsh:There are two.

"Piss on pity."

Ric Hansen:Okay.

R-Jay Barsh:That one would be because I got to a place where if my biggest problem was that we lost a game and that's what I'm calling complaining about, he'd just say, "Get over it."

Don't sit in that.

Don't look for pity from anybody.

Get over it. Go be a leader.

I can't believe I shared that one because those were our private conversations where he would just come on:

"Come on, R-Jay. You know. You know. Have the spirit of fear? You know. Piss on pity."

Ric Hansen:I love it.

And what was the other one you were going to mention?

R-Jay Barsh:RPE: Relentless Pursuit of Excellence.

Sometimes I'll change the E.

The relentless pursuit of energy.

The relentless pursuit of everyone.

The relentless pursuit of an enemy—not to make him an enemy anymore.

That RPE one resonates deeply.

You have to pursue something relentlessly.

There's a level of pursuit that you have to have if you want to change something or become that thing.

I want to make sure that I do that in a few areas, not all areas.

You cannot be relentless about everything.

So I choose those relentless areas very wisely.

That came from Fred.

And I have another one: PMA—Positive Mental Attitude.

The reason I like that one is because if you start your day by recognizing where your attitude is, you can course-correct and put it into a positive mental space.

I've been able to use that one in secular environments where you can't walk in and talk about God.

I'm able to use that one, but they know where I'm coming from with that phrase.

The Light Shines Brightest in Hard Times

Ric Hansen:Because they know who you are.

R-Jay Barsh:One hundred percent.

Ric Hansen:Yeah.

That's the glory of it—that when you're wearing that on your sleeve and everybody knows it, what you say and what you do naturally points to Jesus whether you talk about it or not.

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

And fortunately—or unfortunately—I think sometimes the light shines the most when the organization is going through tough times.

Because they can see, "Okay, something is sustaining him. What is that?"

After you're with someone longer than a year in coaching and you see that, that's when the questions start happening.

Questions don't happen when you're winning because everyone's smiling.

It's when something hits the program, either outside or inside, and you're like, "Okay, what do we do?"

That's when I stand really, really strong on the faith part.

Following God's Direction

Ric Hansen:Very good.

From winning records in Florida to the elite coaching team of Gonzaga University, R-Jay Barsh's journey is one of perseverance, passion, and a deep love for Jesus.

What about the transitions between one job and another—between one career move and another?

Was that guidance of the Holy Spirit?

Was that something where you took direction from God in those choices?

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

When I was at the junior college and we had just won the championship, I went on a fast.

During that fast, I thought about something I'd learned professionally.

If you're really good, you probably should go far away from home early to test your theories.

If you get a good report, maybe you can duplicate your product.

But if you never leave home and you keep having success at home, eventually you're going to have a ceiling.

So when I was at the junior college and we won that championship, I looked at a map and saw the place furthest away from Washington State was Florida.

I prayed about it for about a minute.

And then I think sometimes you don't need to pray about things because you've been praying about the thing that just showed up.

So God is answering you in the thing that showed up.

I had a friend who was the campus pastor because it was an Assemblies of God school in Florida.

He said, "Man, this fits your personality. We could use someone with your youthful energy and your coaching pedigree."

The school hadn't necessarily won as much, and they were going into the next division they were headed into.

So there were a lot of guys who didn't want the job.

I decided to take that jump.

People call it a leap of faith, but you're going from assistant coach to head coach of a four-year program at 26 or 27.

That was a massive opportunity to see if I could go far from home and duplicate the process.

And so that was strategic.

The other transitions, I wanted to make sure that I stayed in a place long enough for the community and the place I was in as a head coach to have an identity for the program.

I didn't want a career where it was one year, one year, one year, one year, and it looked like I was climbing rungs on a ladder.

So I stayed there seven years.

Some of the things that came to me through mentorship from certain people were that, for me to be successful and to keep my identity in the way I wanted, there were only a very few head coaches I could work for.

Once I identified who they were, it was coaches who had been coaching a long time, had tenured assistants, and whose personality and energy wouldn't compete with mine because they were secure in who they were.

That left very few coaches I could work for.

The Florida State Chapter

Ric Hansen:Florida State was an exception to your longevity.

That was just a one-season situation.

R-Jay Barsh:It will look like that on the résumé.

Ric Hansen:Oh, okay.

R-Jay Barsh:But my first year at Southeastern University, on the drive from Tacoma, Washington, to Lakeland, Florida, I called as many Division I and Division II schools in Florida as I could to introduce myself.

Very few coaches called back.

The coaching staff at Florida State called back and interacted with me my first year in Florida as a low-level NAIA basketball coach.

They said, "Anything you need, let us know."

For me, Coach Leonard Hamilton was the person I looked up to the most in coaching as far as how he's done it.

He's also been a civil servant—the way he's served his community, the less fortunate, where he's come from.

And as a Black head coach, I wanted to make sure I had somebody I could identify with that way.

So he brought me in just like Fred brought me in when I was 13.

Coach Hamilton brought me in in 2013, and I was close to the program from then on.

Two players I trained went and played there.

I hired one of his former assistants as my assistant coach.

We played against him twice.

I mean, you're talking about a small NAIA school playing against an ACC school.

Ric Hansen:Yeah.

R-Jay Barsh:So my relationship with him goes way further than that.

And he's a big-time believer.

He owns a gospel recording label.

Ric Hansen:Okay, really?

R-Jay Barsh:He and I connected on that before basketball.

Then basketball ended up being like, "Oh, okay, let's talk basketball."

When I took the Boise State job, he said, "You'll be there until I need you."

And so I literally was not leaving Boise State until Coach Hamilton called.

Maybe a Worship Leader at 50?

Ric Hansen:And so did you have a recording career in mind?

R-Jay Barsh:None at all. I wish.

I have one prayer that by the age of 50, God turns this raspy voice into a worship-leader voice.

We'll see if that happens.

But no, I love the business side of the music industry because it also puts you in different rooms where you can showcase your faith.

He and I always saw eye to eye on that part.

Basketball was fun, but it's just basketball.

Ric Hansen:How many years till you're 50?

How many years do we have to wait until you come out with your first album?

R-Jay Barsh:I will be 43 in March.

Ric Hansen:Okay, we got seven years to go.

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah, close.

When Coaching Becomes Ministry

Ric Hansen:That's excellent.

Along the way, we heard about the adversity regarding your back—breaking your back, which is huge.

But also along the way, were there other things that came up that you had to walk through?

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

My first year as a head coach, we lost, I think, seven games in a row.

I had to have a couple of jobs outside of coaching to financially secure my family.

There were many days where I felt I may have made a selfish and wrong decision.

The only time I didn't feel that way was when I was in the Word.

I had to make the Word—basically, the Bible—what I would call a speed bump.

I put speed bumps where the Word would be around me so that I would remind myself:

"Okay, I prayed. I listened. I responded. What does this situation tell me right now?"

I'm here for a purpose.

It's bigger than basketball.

That was some adversity in that part.

And then the ministry that I had at Southeastern was that I took a lot of Division I and Division II transfers who had been kicked out of school for whatever reason—whether academics or something to do with off the court—and was able to walk alongside them to rehabilitate their careers.

At my institution, Ken Ingo and Drew Watson allowed me to do that with players.

There were a lot of success stories of players showing up and then leaving a different way.

We have more than 10 pastors—two senior pastors of churches in California, one in Atlanta, one in Florida—several athletic directors, one NBA player.

So there were a lot of stories.

After realizing that adversity, I was like, "Okay, why am I here?"

My team never went on a mission trip.

People would always say, "Why is your team not going over?"

Because the mission trip to me was investing so much in my players that wherever they went, they would be on a mission field.

I would tell them, "We're not raising money to do it. I don't feel like that's what I'm called to do."

I feel like if I can help you get to a certain place, wherever you go, you're going to be in that field.

That was some adversity in my community when I made that decision.

But that was a prayerful decision, and I'm thankful I made that one as well.

How Do You Know When God Is Speaking?

Ric Hansen:Whether he's coaching elite college athletes or mentoring young players, R-Jay Barsh on Amazing Greats brings the same message: faith first, love always, and excellence through Christ.

Most of my interviews, I like to ask this because everybody has a different way they hear God's voice.

Some audibly. Others not so much.

It's just a thought or a knowing.

Can you identify how you know when you're being directed by God?

R-Jay Barsh:The way that I like to answer that is, I don't want to identify because I don't want to close a door that could open that I haven't seen or heard yet.

And I don't want to be looking for it in places because I heard it there before.

So I just know this:

If I am disciplined in the Word, it's always going to speak.

The Road to Gonzaga

Ric Hansen:How did the transition to Gonzaga go down?

R-Jay Barsh:Coach Hamilton and Coach Few—obviously two Hall of Fame, legendary coaches—were on a coaches' board for the NCAA together.

My name came up for a couple of different things, and Coach Hamilton was speaking about what I was bringing to his program while we were struggling at Florida State.

We did not have a good year in terms of wins and losses.

But I also knew that was a great opportunity to be at the highest level I've ever been and still not make it just about basketball.

When I was at Division II, we played against a team called Valparaiso.

The assistant coach on that team was a young man named Roger Powell, who's now the head coach at Valparaiso.

He was the assistant who left Gonzaga to go become the head coach.

Ric Hansen:And that's where you got an opening.

R-Jay Barsh:And Coach Few—it's obvious one of his highest skill sets is that he knows how to assemble the right people around his team.

Whether it's personnel, recruiting, or staffing, he knows what his program is going to need tomorrow.

He was getting ready to do the Olympics.

I had coaching experience and a lot of juice when I'm in the gym, and he felt like that was a great fit.

We got on the phone.

Obviously, we'd met before, just being Northwest basketball guys.

We had a short talk, and on to Spokane I went.

It was very interesting because the year before that, I was in Spokane for Fred's funeral.

I spoke at the funeral.

There were a couple of other situations where I was able to speak to a group.

So I felt like I was coming home in a sense, as Fred had just gone home.

What Makes Gonzaga Special?

Ric Hansen:Well, Gonzaga is a legendary school.

The basketball is—it's to drool over.

And Mark Few is a legend himself.

What can you tell us about Mark that we don't know?

R-Jay Barsh:He comes from his parents—his dad's a pastor.

He grew up in the sanctuary.

He's very diligent in his disciplines and how he lives his life with his children.

His children are so present.

That's the thing that gave me so much peace when I came on my visit and took the job.

Here it was, a normal Tuesday, and he's playing pickleball with his wife on one side.

His other two kids are in the weight room.

Then his daughter walks through and says hello.

And I'm thinking to myself, "This is two national championship title-game appearances."

This is a man whose family loves him.

If in 20 years that can be me, I'm okay with that.

He's no-fluff.

If it doesn't matter to the bottom line, he doesn't spend a lot of time on it.

And he hires people and surrounds himself with people who, I might say, make him better, but who are truth-tellers.

Ric Hansen:Yeah, he's not looking for yes-men, but truth-tellers.

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

There's a certain level of respect where a yes-man is required, but he puts you in a position to have convictions.

And if you don't have them, it will be hard to exist here.

That's why I think we're so successful.

We even recruit that way.

On recruiting visits, he wants to see if the player really trusts themselves to be excellent.

If there's a backpedal in a player, we're not taking them.

Being a Father in the Middle of a Demanding Career

Ric Hansen:Are you a father yourself?

R-Jay Barsh:I am, yes.

Carson and Grayson.

Carson is 27 and Grayson is six years old.

Ric Hansen:Oh my gosh, a little spread.

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah.

Carson was through my previous partner. I adopted him when he was 11.

He's a phenomenal young man.

He lives in Tallahassee, looks like a superhero, is a disciplined weightlifter and physical trainer, and runs a gym. He's doing very well for himself.

And speaking of Coach Few, the way in which this organization is run, I'm able to take my son to school every single day.

I'll leave practice and come back to practice to go and pick him up, and he'll go sit in the stands.

My son's school is literally two blocks from my office.

Ric Hansen:Wow.

R-Jay Barsh:There's a reason this place stays special.

I believe it stays unique and intimate.

Whereas a lot of places would have started hanging their trophies and sticking their chests out, that's just not who he is.

And I think a lot of that comes from his faith.

Sky Motivation

Ric Hansen:Excellent.

There's a thing online that I saw called Sky Motivation.

Is that still around?

And what is that?

You founded that, yes?

Tell us about it.

R-Jay Barsh:Sky Motivation—there's a record label in Tacoma called Sky Movement that had several artists make it to the big time.

I wanted to find a way to be in the room and talk about God without having to use language that would cause certain individuals to close their ears.

So "sky"—look up to the sky as God—and then "motivation."

Sky Motivation became my hashtag, in a sense, to talk about my faith in a way in which others would also talk about it.

It's still a thing today.

I would say there's not a tangible business model to it.

It's nothing I've profited off of.

It's literally me taking the Bible, using quotes, starting conversations off of those phrases, and then hashtagging Sky Motivation and using that as the language to the masses.

Ric Hansen:That's so good because sometimes just the word "Christianity" scares people away.

When you can model it and integrate it without being forceful or pushy, what a great opportunity to share the Gospel.

R-Jay Barsh:And I think there's—I mean, you witness in your personality.

If someone else is forceful and pushy, but that is who they are, that's how they negotiate their lives, then I think it works.

For me, I just like that it's "Coach" in front of my name and not "Pastor," because coaches—I can walk in any room and young men are going to listen.

So those are conscious decisions I made through prayer.

The AIM: A Daily Spiritual Discipline

Ric Hansen:All right, final question for you.

You've given me a good chunk of your time, and I appreciate that.

Can you share with us your spiritual disciplines on a day-to-day basis?

Is there a discipline that you stick to regularly?

R-Jay Barsh:Yeah, 100%.

I call it AIM.

It's affirmation, imagination, and then meditation on Scripture.

Before I go to bed, I'll take a water bottle and take the label off it.

I started doing this about 14 years ago.

When I take the label off, I take the label off because I don't want to label anyone, and I don't want to be labeled.

Then I'll take a marker and write a word on that bottle.

It's usually a word from Scripture.

I've been studying Hebrew, so I'll use a Hebrew word.

The word yesterday was emunah, which means a conviction through faith and trial—like, you know why you believe what you believe.

I'll write that on the water bottle and put that water bottle right in front of my phone.

So right when my alarm goes off, the first thing I do is see that word on the water.

Then I'll drink the bottle of water—which you've got to drink some water.

Then I'll imagine myself becoming that in my day.

Then either some worship music or quietness or straight to my devotion for the day for three or four minutes.

That's the mindfulness or meditative part.

The acronym is AIM because I feel like if I aim in the morning, then it's really hard not to have a phenomenal day.

When I say phenomenal, it doesn't mean a lack of adversity.

It means one in which I open the door for God to enter that day before I jump on the treadmill of worry, doubt, comparison, and envy that happens to be my cell phone.

That's one that I do no matter what.

"The Live Wire"

Ric Hansen:All right.

You're a live wire out of the line.

We're going to title this podcast episode The Live Wire.

R-Jay Barsh:Thank you so much for having me on and doing what you do.

You never know who's going to be listening, why they're listening, and I'm just thankful I was on this platform.

Ric Hansen:Thank you so much.

Have a great day, R-Jay.

R-Jay Barsh:You too.

Ric Hansen:Well, from community college courts to the national spotlight, Coach R-Jay Barsh has shown that the victory isn't necessarily on the scoreboard, but in living boldly for Jesus and shaping lives through love and purpose.

His journey reminds us that when faith drives the mission, every moment on and off the court can become a ministry.

Thanks for joining us once again on Amazing Greats.

God bless. We'll see you next time.