Paving My Way

The ball has finally stopped bouncing and the lights have went out. I have been playing organized basketball since I was 6 years old, and it has been a hell of a journey. It all started in Advance, MO playing grade school basketball in the old gym at the age of 6. I wasn't really on the team but my dad helped coach, so I got a uniform and got to be apart of it, which I thought was great.

My dad Luke Below and Dirk Eggimmann coached my group of friends and I all through grade school in baseball and basketball. Those guys pushed us so hard, but in the right way. I have carried so many of those memories from the gym and the baseball field with my dad and Dirk with me through my life. Those guys taught my friends and I so much over the years and taught us life lessons that we will pass on to our sons one day.

Fast forward to 7th grade where my team went 4-10 and it was the worst season of my life so far. My friends and I were all in an awkward stage of being uncoordinated and going through growing pains. That next summer my friends and I spent a lot of time in the gym with Coach Josh Dowdy and we got a lot better. My 8th grade year we flipped our record from the previous year and went 10-4. Coach Dowdy tested our mental toughness so much that we had no choice but to be mentally strong, and with that came improvement.

Coach Dowdy left after that season to take a job at Dexter, where he was originally from. My next coach would be Andrew Halford, and he would be my coach for the next 3 years. Coach Halford was a good high school player at Risco High School and then went on to play at Hannibal-LaGrange for the next 4 years. I was excited when Advance hired Coach Halford because I wanted to play college basketball myself and I figured he could help me get there.

My freshman year I played JV and had a pretty good year. I was about 5 foot 7 and weighed 120 pounds soaking wet. That summer I grew a couple inches and spent a lot of time in the gym improving my game. I was moved up to varsity and was pretty excited about the opportunity Coach Halford was giving me. We ended up losing in the district championship to the Oran Eagles and finished the year 17-10. Like most sophomores, my year was filled with highs and lows, but I learned a ton that year.

Going into the summer I was really excited to get in the gym and get better especially after getting a year of varsity under my belt and realizing my weaknesses and strengths. We were scrimmaging a lot and working out but my back kept giving me trouble though. I ended up going to the doctor and found out that I had a stress fracture in my spine which would sideline me for 3 months. I literally sat in my basement and watched NBA league pass for 3 months every day. I wasn't allowed to run, shoot hoops, dribble, or do anything for that matter.

When I finally got to come back my team was playing in the rib city shootout and it felt great to be back on the floor. My team had a lot of talent and a lot of size for 2A basketball in Missouri. We were expected to have a big year and make a run. Fast forward to the Oran tournament and we are playing Oran, who just eliminated us the year before. We ended up beating Oran by 15-20 points to advance to the championship of the tournament where we would get beat by Scott County Central. We had a pretty good regular season, knocking off a few solid teams here and there.

The biggest win of the year was probably beating Notre Dame, a class 4 school, at home. My teammate Ethan Barr had 30 something points, and because of him, I got a double-double with points and assists. Another big game was against the Bernie Mules at home for the regular season conference title. The game came down to the wire and I got fouled on a 3 pt shot with 0.4 seconds left and we are down by 3. I made all three free throws and Bernie inbounded the ball and hit a full court shot at the buzzer to win the game. Tough loss, I was pretty upset.

We ended up meeting our rivals, the Oran Eagles, in the District Championship again. Oran got a big lead on us and really owned us all game. They had guys like Alex Heuring and Kody Moore who just wanted it more and you could tell it. We finished the year 21-10. Oran went on to the Final Four and had a successful year. To me my junior year of High School was a disappointing season because we had the pieces to make it happen and just came up short.

Coach Halford ended up leaving to take a job at Malden and Advance hired Dennis "Bubba" Wheetley. I was really excited about this because I was close with Bubba and happy he got the job. My summer going into my senior year was my favorite summer. My fiancé Hannah Noe and I had a lot of fun swimming in my pool and going to the gym together. One of the reasons Hannah and I have got along so well is basketball.

That summer I got on an AAU team with a lot of guys that I grew up playing with and against and we were traveling all over the place playing. Every guy that played on that team played some level of college basketball which was pretty special. I was also super excited because I was getting to play a season with my best friends which I had not got to do since I was in High School. My freshman year none of my class really got to play. My sophomore year I moved up and my friends all played JV and had a good year. My junior year none of my classmates really got a chance to play besides Austin Miller.

So going into our senior year we were excited because we all got to play together. Everybody in Southeast Missouri thought Advance was going to be bad my senior year because we lost a bunch of talent from the previous year. My group of guys took that and used it as motivation. We got in the gym and worked our ass off just dying to prove all these people wrong.

We played so many games that summer and spent so much time in the gym together that I knew we were going to be competitive and that we were going to surprise a lot of people. In a pre season article Bubba told the reporter that he liked the way our team was working and he thought that we were going to surprise a lot of people. To start the year out we drew Malden and were playing them in the opening round of the Oran Tournament. We were all pretty excited about this game because we were playing our old coach Andrew Halford. We ended up winning the game, but I rolled my ankle terribly in the game.

We were supposed to play Oran two nights later but somehow the game got moved up to the very next night due to bad weather coming in supposedly. We got absolutely killed and I could barely move. We took our bumps and bruises throughout the year but got really hot the last 8-10 games. Senior night we were playing Oran and we were pretty pumped up for it. Remind you that they had beat us by 30 earlier in the year. My teammates and I wanted this game pretty bad and we went out and dominated Oran. We beat them by 15-20 and I had 49pts to cap my career off at Advance.

We were the 3 seed going into our District Tournament. We won our first game pretty easily and then faced a physical Chaffee team who took us to the wire. So there we were faced up against Oran again in the District Championship. Oran had owned Advance the last few years in post season and we knew could be the team to get over that hump. The gym was completely packed that night and even had people standing along the baseline. When they called my name for the starting lineup I had goosebumps and was just locked in.

I think every Oran fan in there was booing and yelling stuff at me when they called my name which I loved. Oran hated Advance and we hated them. It was back and forth the whole way and it was an up-tempo fun game. We were down going into the fourth quarter and made a run and stole the game. My brothers and I had just won a District Championship after hearing all off season how it was going to be a down year for Advance.

We went on to win the sectional game over New Haven and my best friend Austin Miller had a great game and I played pretty solid as well. Miller hit 5 threes and just played with incredible effort and emotion, the whole team did. I finished the game with 28pts and with the help of a few more guys, we lived to see another day in the State Playoffs.

The next game we played the Thayer Bobcats who would be a serious challenge for us. Thayer had some big strong country kids who just played super hard and knew their role. Thayer had a great game plan and slowed the game down which was uncomfortable for us. Towards the end of the game we had the ball with about 10 seconds to go and Bubba called a timeout. The play call was for everybody to space out and let me make something happen. Every guy on the team put up a couple hundred mandatory shots a day so in the huddle Bubba was confident that if a guy was open to shoot it and shoot it with confidence. I got the ball and drove the lane and drew 2-3 guys which opened up Austin Miller for a three from the right wing. Miller nailed it like he had done plenty of times throughout the year.

Thayer called timeout and drew up a play that would end our season. They got the ball up the floor pretty quick and got it to a shooter in the corner who nailed it at the buzzer. I think the thing that hurt the worst about that shot was that Ayden Henry had not made a shot all game but hit one to win the game. We finished the year 21-10.

My senior year was my favorite season I ever played and still is because I got to do it with my brothers and we over achieved big time. Bubba was a great coach and a great guy and I will be close with him forever. After I relaxed for a couple weeks my parents and I started to talk about where I would go to college the next year. I knew I wanted to play college basketball but that is hard thing to do coming from a small town like Advance.

I ended up getting an opportunity at Three Rivers Community College and was really excited about that. I learned so much in my two years at Three Rivers about the game. Gene Bess is a legendary coach and holds records that won't ever be touched. Coach Brian Bess has a great basketball mind and taught me a lot about mental toughness. Coach Bryan Sherrer has a high IQ when it comes to the game and has been a great friend to me. We had two solid years at Three Rivers winning over 20 games both years in a tough region.

We did not finish how we wanted to, but overall Three Rivers was the toughest two years of my life, and it pushed me to places I had never been mentally and physically. The thing I loved about Three Rivers was every drill we ran in practice was competitive. There was always a winner and a loser and always a punishment for the loser. My teammate/roommate Justas Furmanavicius had great individual career at Three Rivers and was recruited highly. Justas ended up signing at The University of Mississippi and he deserved it.

Justas and I went down to watch Ole Miss vs Mississippi State and got to tour the practice facility and meet the coaches and the whole 9 yards. A few weeks later Justas would give me the best assist of my life when I got offered a walk on spot at Ole Miss. I jumped on this offer in a heartbeat because I knew that it would be a great opportunity for me to experience high level basketball and network and meet people in the mean time.

My junior year at Ole Miss was great. I was getting to do things and experience things I never thought I would. Being in a power 5 program spoils you honestly. We got 5-6 track suits, all kinds of shoes, backpacks, flip flops, anything you could imagine. Anytime we traveled to an away game we got to go to the Ole Miss airport and hop on a small plane and take 45 minute flights to our game.

I knew going into Ole Miss that I wasn't going to play much, if any, but that was fine with me. I knew my role. We went to the Virgin Islands for an opening season tournament and lost to #10 Creighton in the championship. I got to see coaches first hand like John Calapri, Greg McDermott, Rick Barnes, Tubby Smith, Mike Anderson, Buzz Williams, Kermit Davis, Bruce Pearl, Shaka Smart, Jim Boehim, and my own coach Andy Kennedy. We finished the year 22-14 and lost in the NIT Quarterfinals.

The next year we were pretty excited because we had a good recruiting class coming in and some good pieces returning. In non conference we were up and down struggling to find our identity. We played in an opening season tournament in Las Vegas that was a ton of fun. It was my first time out there and my teammates and I had a blast.

Throughout the year we never could find our identity and struggled to find consistency. After Christmas break Coach Kennedy was having a team meeting like we did every day and called me to the front. Coach said "I am going to be a direct reflection of you guys. You guys give me all you got and I will give you all I got. We have an open scholarship and we are going to give it to Lane."

I was really excited about the scholarship and that my parents would get refunded for the whole year, meaning the only year of school they had to pay for was my junior year. I took this scholarship as an honor because I earned it and it had nothing to do with playing ability. I just tried to come in every day and be a good teammate, work hard, and do everything I was asked.

Coach Kennedy ended up walking away from the program but I will be loyal to him forever. My senior season did not go as planned because we struggled and never could pull it all together. We finished the year 12-20, and I learned more this past season than any other season. When you have a season like that it tests everybody mentally and shows everybody's character.

Now I am a few weeks away from graduation here at Ole Miss and my playing days are over. My plans now are to find a graduate assistant spot on a division 1 staff and work my way up the college ranks. I haven't ever been handed anything in life that was worth having, and my parents have pushed me to follow my dreams and never give up. I have been blessed with great family and friends who have believed in me since day one. It has been a hell of a ride but I am not done yet. Basketball is a vehicle for me in life and I am going to drive until I run out of gas.

I'm still paving my way.