Helping hand can make the difference

Randall Body was a good student and a member of the Fort Smith Southside boys basketball team in 2002 when then-Southside coach Eric Burnett called him into his office.

ody worked hard in practice, but he appeared disinterested and uninvolved one day and coach Burnett demanded to know why.

“I was ready to chew his butt out and I was just getting started on him when he hung his head and broke down crying,” said Burnett, the Fort Smith Northside coach who previously coached at Southside. “It caught me off guard. Then, he told me what was going on with his life and the problems he was having.”

The problems Body was having were immense, especially for someone still in high school.

Body’s grandmother died, which left him without a place to live. Body scrounged up enough money to rent a room at a boarding house but was soon evicted after he was robbed of the little cash he had.

“I didn’t have a checking account, so I hid my money in my room,” Body said after I first learned about his situation years ago.

With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, Body spent three nights sleeping on a bench at Tilles Park before rising each morning and hurrying to school and then to basketball practice. He did it for three days, day after day after day until he was close to quitting school and leaving the basketball team.

“I was thinking ‘I just can’t do this anymore,’” Body said when I reached him by phone last week. “I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t want to play ball. Nothing.”

Fortunately, Body had a caring coach in Burnett, who helped arrange for Body a place to stay. Others stepped in and not only did Body graduate with the rest of his class at Southside, he began taking classes the next semester at Arkansas-Fort Smith. He eventually transferred to the University of Arkansas, where he earned a double major in sociology and criminal justice and spent two months at Oxford University in England, where he studied philosophy and history.

“I wouldn’t have made it out of high school if it weren’t for coach Burnett,” Body said. “He went above and beyond what I could have hoped for.”

I know for sure, without even asking, Burnett is just as proud of Body’s achievements as he is of Isaiah Joe and Jaylin Williams, his two former players at Northside who are now teammates in the NBA with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Body’s story is a reminder that a life can change for the better when a caring person gets involved. I’m sure it’s happened for you and it happened for me my senior year in college when my aunt Darlene allowed me to stay at her house in Jonesboro instead of trying to make a 50-mile round trip in a beat up old car for classes each day at Arkansas State. Darlene had her own kids and there were many nights I slept under the dining room table with a blanket when the two beds and one couch were occupied.

At least I had a roof over my head, which is more than Body had during the nights he spent laid out on a park bench in Fort Smith.

No one should be surprised Burnett sprang into action when Body desperately needed help all those years ago. Burnett needed help himself while growing up poor in a house full of brothers and sisters in the projects on the north side of Fort Smith. He gained a mentor in James Waggoner, an insurance salesman who was active in the Boys Club of Fort Smith. Waggoner gave Burnett his first job washing cars and helped steer him away from trouble that can take down even the most promising of our young people. Burnett eventually graduated college after a standout basketball career at Arkansas Tech and he’s become one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in Arkansas.

“If it weren’t for Mr. Waggoner, there’s no telling where I’d be,” Burnett said.

Body is now 39 years old with two children, ages 13 and 9. He works for a school district in the Dallas area as an educational diagnostician, a job that evaluates and then implements a plan to help special needs students to reach their potential. He remains an academic powerhouse who just last week was accepted into a Ph.D program in Texas for educational psychology.

Body was able to succeed with help from caring people like Burnett and he wants others to know, especially young people, there’s a way forward when the weight of the whole world seems to be crashing down upon you.

“Don’t let your situation define who you are,” Body said. “Everything is temporary. Know that God has a plan for everyone.”