The Gift of the Spark

By LONNIE KING

There’s a certain kind of dream that never really fades. It might grow quieter. It might flicker now and then. But it never dies—not if it was real to begin with.

Recently, I interviewed for what might be the last broadcasting job I actively pursue: a lead play-by-play voice for an NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball program, with some potential additional duties like cohosting a coaches’ show.

I wound up not getting the gig, but the opportunity alone stirred something in me again—something I hadn’t felt this strongly in a while.

That spark.

It’s hard to explain unless you’ve felt it—that deep sense that what you’re doing is more than a job. That moment when work aligns with purpose. When your voice and your soul are in sync. When you’re doing what you’re meant to do.

Broadcasting has always been that for me. Not because of ego or exposure, but because it lets me tell stories in real time. It puts me in the moment—and that’s where I come alive.

I feel the spark just getting to be around the game, around the players and coaches. I love getting to know them as athletes or tacticians, but also as people…and then getting to tell a listening or viewing audience about the people I’ve come to know.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get another full-time “Voice of the…” job.

But I do know this: if I don’t, it won’t feel like a door slammed shut. It’ll feel more like a chapter turning. Not the end of a book—just the shift into something new, and likely a return to what I’ve been doing for the last several years. And that will be enough to keep the spark alive.

And enough to share it.

Passing the Mic—or Is It the Match?

Just days before that interview, I watched my son Hunter’s most recent demo reel.

He’s a television news reporter now. And as I watched him—steady, sharp, completely in control of his presence—I felt something more than parental pride. I felt like I was looking at a monument I had a part in creating.

That may sound brash or egotistical, I know. But, there has to be a certain amount of joy an architect feels when he or she stands back and sees the building that once existed only in his mind. When the carpenter steps back and takes in the results of the work he spent hours constructing.

I am not his architect. I did not construct him. So I understand that the analogies are poor. But, suffice it to say that when you feel like you have a role in developing a fire, it feels like recognition.

I saw that same spark. That unmistakable fire. The one that’s fueled me for decades, even when I had to shield it from people who didn’t understand it. Especially when it wasn’t convenient or practical.

And here’s the thing: Hunter’s going to be better than I ever was. I’m not saying that out of false modesty. I’m saying it with awe. With admiration. And with total peace.

🌱 Nature. Nurture. Something in Between.

I don’t know for sure where his spark came from.

I’d love to think I had something to do with it. That he saw me chasing my dream and decided to chase his too. But I’m also not naive. The truth is, you can’t give someone the spark. You can only create the conditions for it to catch.

I do know he was interviewed by his alma mater’s media department just before his graduation, and he mentioned that, growing up, he “loved watching his dad work as a sports broadcaster, out on the field calling games, doing something different from the typically nine to five.”

He made a lot of road trips with me over the years, even learning to run a board and produce a broadcast while he was still in high school.

But whether I handed him a lit match or he was born with the same fire in me, I can’t say. But he has it.

You can’t manufacture passion. You can’t program purpose. But you can nurture it. You can encourage the dream, make room for curiosity, and give a kid the tools to try something bold—without shaming them into safety.

That’s the delicate dance between nature and nurture, isn’t it?

Some part of the fire was probably already in him. But maybe I stacked some of the kindling. Maybe I helped block the wind long enough for the flame to take hold. Or maybe—just maybe—I simply got out of the way.

What Happens When the Fire Shifts

After I stepped down as the primary voice of Houston Baptist University athletics following the 2020–21 season, I wondered if the fire in me was fading. That year—like it was for so many—was exhausting. Internally and externally, things had changed. And I started to believe that maybe my broadcasting run had, too.

The spark felt dim. The passion seemed quieter.

But it turns out the fire wasn’t dying.

It was just waiting. Waiting for new fuel. A change of scenery. A reminder of why I started in the first place.

That’s the thing about fire—it doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it smolders. Sometimes it sleeps.

But when the right conditions come along—oxygen, opportunity, timing—it reignites.

The Flame Lives On

So I did not get the job, but here’s what I know for sure: the fire is still burning. In me. And in him.

The story’s still being told. And it’s in good hands now.

Grace and grit to you! — LK