By B.J. Bennett
 
Tim MacAllister is in his second season as the head men's basketball coach at the College of Coastal Georgia. His career also includes stops at Murray State, Emory, Creighton, Texas Tech, where the Red Raiders played for an NCAA Division I national championship, Georgia Southern and Western Kentucky. That journey, for MacAllister, started almost 7,000 miles away. His first coaching job came, on a whim, during his first career, a six-year stint in the Air National Guard. MacAllister, as an Airman First Class (E3), volunteered to be the head coach of the Manas Air Base basketball team in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
 
Little did he know all that would come next.  
 
A generation ago, MacAllister actually saw himself in the Golden Isles, however in a much different role. Though the son of a long-time successful high school and college basketball coach, MacAllister, as a younger man, never saw himself on the sidelines. He saw himself in service.
 
"It was something that I had thought out pretty well. My dad was Air Force, my grandfather was Air Force. When I was growing up, I wanted to be here in Brunswick at one point to do FLETC," MacAllister explained. "I wanted to be either ATF or Secret Service or potentially go FBI, hostage rescue. But I always wanted to serve. I always wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself. And I thought that was going to be my path. And then when I got into college two things occurred; one, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do those things without experience and then, two, I didn't have money."
 
MacAllister decided to follow in his family's aforementioned footsteps, a path that often leads to far parts of the world in defense of the principles that keep it spinning. Joining the Air Force as a freshman in college, MacAllister suddenly found himself in Central Asia, a California kid stuck somewhere between the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountain ranges of Kyrgyzstan. It was there, of all places, he ultimately found his purpose.
 
"I tell people all the time that I got more out of the Air Force than the Air Force got out of me. I got so much in terms of discipline, obviously the financial freedom of being able to go to college for free, the ability to get just the skills and leadership opportunities that have helped me tremendously throughout my career. So, I'm really, really thankful for the Air Force for that piece," MacAllister offered. "When I joined, it was probably the scariest thing I had done because I had never committed to anything for six years. It turned out to be one of the biggest blessings of my life."
 
Lessons learned in the United States Armed Force, for MacAllister, were both foundational and functional. With his father Scot being an Airman and an extremely dedicated and successful head basketball coach, Tim already grew up with a passion for people. He saw it in action every day. That devotion only strengthened in the service. MacAllister quickly experienced, in sometimes difficult circumstances far away from home, the how behind those relationships. Correspondingly, he also better understood the why.   
 
"One other thing I got from the Air Force is just a love for the guy next to you. I think that in our program we're hoping that these guys have that for one another as well. When you're sitting there in a foreign country and you have no family there and you've been there for maybe three, four, five, six, seven months, and in our case, it was really cold in Kyrgyzstan, you're wondering why you're there," MacAllister acknowledged. "You have to have another reason for it. And you have to be able to look at the guy next to you and go, 'I'm here for him'. And, 'I'm here for the people at home' and, 'I'm here to do something that's bigger than myself'. Those things really came through for me."
 
Who MacAllister is, as a veteran, a head basketball coach, a husband, a father and a man, is a byproduct of what he has given, what he has received and the sum of what he has experienced. He has seen the wide-ranging reach of duty. He has lived the sacrifice of selflessness. And he has felt the often-hidden challenges of what that service to a cause costs. It's not just MacAllister's time in the military that matters, it's the ethos behind what that oath represents.  
 
Like countless veterans with stories similar to his, MacAllister, years after returning to life as a civilian, is still sharing that charge with those in his sphere.
 
"These guys didn't join the military, that's not what they're here for, but we do want to give them a level of discipline within our program that is going to serve them well for the rest of their lives. Whether they become pro players for ten years or if they get into the workforce quicker, I hope that the discipline that we give them helps them to be able to get through tough things and to be able to work through adversity and to be able to stay the course when things aren't perfect," MacAllister stated of his players. "I hope that all of those things come through for them from our program because that's what the Air Force did for me."
 
Life has a way to taking you places you would never expect. Like Kyrgyzstan, for example. Or down a remarkable path towards a new career. Somewhere on the other side of the planet, somehow, MacAllister found a mandate. Even if it was camouflaged at first.
 
There's an old saying; I didn't choose my profession, my profession chose me. While overseas, MacAllister would occasionally have some downtime after working logistics and security for stretches of six consecutive days at the Manas Air Base on the northern border of the country. This, while being deployed for seven straight months. Away from home, open to suggestions for activities to occupy his mind, MacAllister inevitably received one.
 
"There was an email that went out base-wide that asked if anyone could help coach basketball. I went ahead and volunteered because I love hoops," he recalled. "Little did I know, there was no team and there were no other coaches. They were like, 'we need you to make the team and you are the head coach'. I was extremely unqualified for that."
 
MacAllister had helped his father at times in high school practices and was certainly an avid basketball fan, but, at that point, he was no coach. Nor, interestingly enough, did he have any plans to be. MacAllister was early in his military career and working towards a future in the federal government. His introduction to coaching basketball promptly came on the international stage. Before MacAllister could pick up his clipboard, however, he had to pick his roster. Easier said than done on an air base, in a country about as far away from the United States as possible, in an active duty zone, surrounded by his superiors.   
 
"Now, you have to be really careful when you're creating a team of base personnel," MacAllister laughed. "You're on the same base with them. If you're making cuts and you start looking around going, 'they help me with food, they help me with computers, they're in the same unit as me. Alright, who am I going to cut here?' You have to be very selective and careful with that. I was blessed with the opportunity to have some really supportive guys. Every single guy that was on our team outranked me and that was an interesting power dynamic. Each one of them was tremendous in their ability to just help me."
 
The end result of a response to a random email, in a landlocked country along the Silk Road, was the start of something special.
 
"That was my first ever head coaching job, the Manas Air Base Basketball team," MacAllister beamed.
 
Somewhat shocking given the military setting, there were no immediate instructions for the new head coach. MacAllister was now leading a basketball team, but doing so without guidance or a clear objective. When there were opportunities, the squad practiced, a process that went on for weeks; so long, in fact, that one player rotated off the base. As spontaneously as the initial solicitation came, direction came just as unexpectedly. MacAllister suddenly had his schedule. And make no mistake about it, this was no makeshift mission.
 
"We had no idea why we were practicing. Finally, we get an email on a Monday and they said, 'hey, on Friday or Saturday you all are going to play the collegiate all-stars of Kyrgyzstan, the entire county. You're going to do it in front of the U.S. Ambassador, you're going to do it in front of 3,000-4,000 Kyrgyz people and it's going to be a really big spectacle at the biggest arena in Bishkek'. I said 'Oh, okay, great'," MacAllister recalled. "They said, 'you need to get a suit', I said, 'I didn't bring a suit on deployment'. They actually had a translator go get me a suit."
 
Long before MacAllister coached the Racers, Eagles, Blue Jays, Red Raiders, Eagles, Hilltoppers or Mariners, he, quite literally, coached Team USA. Men who wore the flag on their arms and represented all that it stood for in their hearts were under his command, this time on the basketball court. MacAllister was a proverbial Chuck Daly in jump boots and a buzz cut. There could be no better coaching debut.
 
It was less a start to a career and more the start of a script.  
 
In that spotlight, however, the pressure was most definitely on. High-ranking officers, including MacAllister's bosses, and international dignitaries watched nearby. It was a "hearts and minds"-type of event. On hand, and at the other end of the floor, were some of the best players in all of Kyrgyzstan, along with a large crowd of passionate Kyrgyz supporters, not to mention MacAllister's brothers and sisters in uniform. The environment was a surreal one. Simply put, the United States of America was playing. And the United States plays to win.
 
That, exactly, was MacAllister's message after a disappointing opening period of play.
 
"It wasn't a win-one-for-the-Gipper speech, but it was one of the coolest things that I've gotten to be a part of. I didn't know anything about FIBA rules, I was frustrated, I'm trying to figure this thing out and we're down 10 or 15. The officials are literally holding the ball after they score so that we can't fastbreak, which is not part of FIBA rules, it's just cheating. I got those guys together and I just said, 'hey fellas, listen, I'm never going to wear USA on my chest again, you're probably not either from the standpoint of basketball, let's go do this thing'. They responded in a big way, it was one of the coolest things, we ended up winning the game by about 20," MacAllister shared. "It just became one of those moments and you look back on it and say it changed the course of my life."
 
MacAllister and his men won the game and the rest is history. You could say his coaching career was forged on the front lines.
 
"That was a very cool experience, we ended up getting to play a couple of more pro teams there in Kyrgyzstan and from there I decided I wanted to be a college basketball coach," MacAllister nodded. "It was a tremendous opportunity to jumpstart my coaching career. It was the seminal event that led me getting into coaching rather than going the other route."
 
That pick and roll moved MacAllister back stateside and into a student assistant position at Murray State. Now entering his second season as the head coach at the College of Coastal Georgia, in the very town he once thought he would be training for a lifetime of federal service, MacAllister is now mirroring his father's very path, Airman to Jumpman.  
 
For MacAllister, there have been powerful similarities between leading young men in albeit very different environments. There is a tempo, an intensity and a direction to all that he does on the basketball court. You could call it a cadence. There is also a purpose, a selflessness, one that dates back years. The brotherhood that MacAllister found in the military is on full display in every game and every practice with the Mariners. He ends every team huddle with the tagline "family". You can feel the authenticity of that refrain from everybody involved.
 
"A lot of guys I served with, they look for that when they get out. They look for that family piece and being able to serve something that's bigger than yourself," MacAllister added. "And I've been able to find that immediately. Being a part of a team and being able to have guys that you can count on. The things that you go through, the struggles that really bind you and connect you and give you love for another, are in athletics just as much as they are in the Air Force or another military service. I'm thankful for that, because I don't have to go searching for it again. I get to help instill that into guys that are in a very moldable age and hopefully they can take it and have that allow them to be successful later in life."
 
Tim MacAllister's basketball coaching career started in service to others. Nearly two decades later, leading young men wearing a different type of uniform, that commitment continues.