Up at the College (41 page)

The buzzer sounded and Sonny Todd put in his most hateful and dirty player, Chavez Jones. Chavez ran out on the court and
right over to where Sherron was. He waited until Sherron had the ball and bore into him like they were on a football field.
Sherron fell, was still a moment, and then hopped up like nothing had even touched him, and Chavez had to weigh a good 315
pounds.

“FOUL!”

“WHAT!” Sonny Todd screamed, and then started kicking the bench and knocking over stuff.

The team went to the basket and once more Sherron made his baskets effortlessly.

By now the score was so disparate that a few folks thought that they could just end it now. The chances of Bouclair making
their current score of two points catch up to Eva T.’s 56 were slim at best.

Sonny Todd called another time out and instructed Chavez to hurt Sherron so bad he would have to go to the hospital. Chavez
ran back on the court and made his way over to Sherron. As soon as Chavez saw Sherron with the ball, he bore into him and
sent the poor baby sliding across the court. Again, Sherron hopped up and dusted himself off, now quoting Psalm 91.

“For they will hold you with their hands to keep you from striking your foot on a stone.”

The members of Jubilee Temple started praising God in their seats, and the band started playing the shouting music. Sherron’s
grandmother left her seat and did the Holy Dance right on that basketball court. A few of her fellow church mothers came down
and joined her. One mother fell out, and Linda, Sherron’s mother, hurried down with a lap cloth she brought from the church
to throw over her knees.

Linda shook her head. Just a few days before this game she had met with the church mothers and told them to wear pants, and
then suggested culottes for the super-saved women in the group. But some of these old ladies were hardheaded. And the one
lying on the floor, slain in the spirit at a college basketball game, was the worst. Mother Davis was always going against
the grain and trying to do her own thing. Now here she was on the floor of a gymnasium with a lap cloth thrown across her
knees because she didn’t have sense enough to do what the First Lady had asked her to do in Christian love and wear some culottes
to this game.

“Lawd, we are having church in the middle of a basketball game,” Lena whispered to Obadiah, who whispered back, “Baby, you
know black people can throw down some church just about anywhere.”

“FOUL!”

“WHAT?” Sonny Todd said again. Only this time the fool ran out on that court and chased the ref down. When he caught up with
him, he took a swing at the man, and then practically passed out when the man said, “
GAME FORFEITED
! Eva T. wins the game, and they are going to the play-offs. Praise the Lord!!!!”

Folks went wild! They were crying and laughing and shouting and jumping up and down all over the place. Nobody had ever seen
a game like this. Because nobody had ever really taken note of a game where the real ref was God.

Yvonne and her people ran onto the court where Curtis, Maurice, and the team were. Curtis scooped her up in his arms and kissed
that girl until he made her toes curl.

He said, “What a mighty God we serve,” in the midst of all of those hallelujahs, praise the Lords, and amens.

Bay followed everybody to the floor to join in on the celebration, and then paused and held out his hand to Charles and Pierre.
He started singing Jonathan Nelson’s “My Name Is Victory.”

Curtis looked up, not caring that tears were streaming down his cheeks. Victory that came from the Lord was so sweet.

1.) What is Kingdom Living, and how do the characters in
Up at the College
exemplify this way of life for the saints?

2.) Which characters best represent Kingdom Living? Which characters are the antithesis of this way of life?

3.) Coach Curtis Parker couldn’t understand how God needed to be central to his life and his work as a head basketball coach.
Do you understand how he could arrive at such a conclusion? And why was it so necessary for Curtis to alter this way of thinking?

4.) Yvonne Fountain is a woman in transition both naturally and in her walk with the Lord. How did Yvonne regain her confidence
in herself? More importantly, how did Yvonne grow and mature in her faith walk and confidence in the Lord?

5.) Why did Yvonne and Curtis need saved and Holy-Ghost-filled friends in their lives? Why are those kinds of friends important
in all of our lives? And how did these friends make a difference in their burgeoning faith walks?

6.) There were characters in this story who were struggling with letting go of the world and giving their lives over to Christ.
Who were they? Why do you believe that they were having such a difficult time making this transition for both spiritual and
natural reasons?

7.) Throughout the Bible, God has used the most unlikely people to carry out His will: Samson, Gideon, David, Jael (the wife
of Heber the Kenite in the book of Judges), Rahab (the prostitute in the book of Joshua), Peter, and Paul, just to name a
few. Who were the unlikely folks God worked through in
Up at the College
to help push things through for Coach Parker when faced with the works of the enemy?

8.) Who were your favorite characters and why?

9.) Who were your least favorite characters and why?

10.) What scripture spoken by or thought of by the characters touched you? And did any additional scriptures not mentioned
in the novel come to mind, and why?