From Indiana To Texas
The Texas Story Project.
My Father was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has 4 siblings: 2 older brothers, 1 older sister, and 1 younger brother. My dad grew up playing basketball and in 1980 had an offer to play at Our Lady of the Lake University down in San Antonio, Texas. After deciding to play ball there, he packed his stuff and moved down to the big town.
He told me when he arrived to San Antonio that it was like nothing he had ever seen or felt before. Because he had lived in Indiana and it snowed all the time, he was not used to the nice weather in San Antonio. He was only 18 when he first moved and left his family. He was very nervous and didn't know what to do so he spent most of his time with his basketball buddies. After a few weeks in Texas, he eventually got the hang of things and started to settle in. He felt like he had his own freedom being away from home. At this time the drinking age in Indiana was 21. The drinking age in Texas was 18. This was a huge change for him because he would go out with his buddies and experience something totally different than in Indiana.
In 1982 my father had decided to transfer out of San Antonio to play basketball at Schreiner University in the small town of Kerrville, Texas. It's a very old, small country town where not many people lived and you were pretty much able to do whatever you wanted. My dad lived with his sister. Her house was just a few blocks away from the school so my dad would ride his bike every morning. Playing college basketball back then was very tough. His schedule every day was to wake up at 5 a.m., work out with the team, practice at 7, then go to school at 10 o'clock. After school, they practiced again from 5 p.m. until 8 or 9 o'clock. They repeated that program every day until the season was over.
Despite his rough schedule, he found time on the weekends to go out and have fun with his team. One night, they went out to a bar in Kerrville. A few hours into the evening, a women walked into the bar. She was a cheerleader at Schreiner but my dad had no idea. He had never seen anybody like her before. Now she is known to me as Mom. After a few years of dating, they both dropped out of college because they could not afford it. My dad had to get a job to pay for the house they lived in. His work took him to Houston, Texas. About a year later, my parents got married and were about to have their first child, Allie. Five years later they had another child, Delaney. Then, in another 5 years, last but certainly not least, me.
The moral of the story is you never know how life works and how all the little decisions you make could change your life forever. Moving from Indiana to Texas changed my Father's life forever. And he could never have been more grateful for the decisions he made.
Matthew Moran is a student at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas.
Posted August 09, 2018
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