“It’s time to go home. New Mexico is always a home for me, so too is Minnesota.”
Transfer student Douglas Lemon, an English studies major, expected to return to Minnesota after graduating from UNM.
Despite living a big part of his life in Minnesota, the transplanted Lobo was actually born and raised in Albuquerque until his early childhood.
“I always wanted to come back here to New Mexico,” Lemon said.
Lemon said his parents moved to Albuquerque after his grandfather accepted a position in aerospace engineering. Lemon’s father then began attending UNM.
Although he said his father was unable to finish his degree, Lemon decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and transferred to New Mexico.
“I always wanted to be a Lobo,” Lemon said, but because he had spent much of his life in Minnesota, “I never considered myself to be a Lobo until I finally got here.”
The Land of Enchantment was always on his mind, and he recalled cheering for New Mexico during NCAA tournaments.
Prior to making the decision to complete his degree, Lemon was coaching basketball at the high school level. He said his coaching experience was a factor in making the decision to go back to college.
He was the assistant coach of three sports programs in Minnesota over eight years. His coaching stints included a stop at DeLaSalle High School, where Lemon demonstrated coaching leadership en route to helping the school win six championships.
Lemon said he enjoyed practices, where he not only helped players become better players, but helped tutor them with homework so they would be better students as well.
He said some players graduated from college and became lawyers and doctors. That encouraged the coach to pursue a degree of his own.
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“I used to help them with their homework, and they got to pass me up to college,” Lemon said.
Hall of Fame coach Faith Johnson Patterson said she remembered Lemon approaching her about completing a scouting report for an upcoming opponent. She said his basketball IQ was amazing, his report yielding immediate results.
“We blew this team away based on his scouting report and I said, ‘I’ve got to have this guy on my staff,’” she said.
Twin Cities Metro Select reported that Johnson Patterson was the first African American female to be inducted into the Minnesota Girls’ Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
She said she has won eight championships, with Lemon playing an integral part in the success.
Johnson Patterson said coaching girls can be tough — especially for a male. She said it takes a special ability to connect with players, understand emotions and realize what affects them, adding that “words are huge when it comes to coaching girls’ basketball.” Lemon did all that with ease.
His way with words wasn’t limited to the confines of basketball, though. He is also a published writer, authoring a work of poetry entitled “The Diary.”
He said he pleaded (unsuccessfully) with publishers to print his poems unedited, mistakes and all. Lemon said some of the errors were purposeful. Others weren’t, but he said there was a certain sense of beauty in them.
The writer elected to self-publish, but he didn’t sell as many copies as he had hoped. However, Lemon said he did receive letters from Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou, two of America’s most renowned poets, about his book.
“If they are the only two people to read my book, I would still consider that successful,” Lemon said.
They would have likely endorsed the decision to pursue a degree as well, but it was another important woman in his life that helped Lemon start that journey.
He said it was his girlfriend, Michelle Olson, who got the ball rolling, enrolling him for classes without telling him. She just told him what day he needed to show up.
“She said ‘You know, I signed you up for college. You have to be there on Monday,’” Lemon said.
He said it wasn’t so much a nudge; more like a push off a cliff with a parachute. But in a way, Lemon seemed to have received the same type of help he had been giving others for so long.
The soon-to-be-graduate said he felt coaching was a position of authority, and it came with a responsibility that inspired him to always try to help others succeed.
“Coaching is essentially teaching,” Lemon said. “You can win a lot of games by just having good players. But if you want to succeed in coaching, you have to be able to teach.”
The assistant coach said his dream job after graduation would be coaching at the collegiate level. He hopes to teach a few English literature classes as well.
Lemon enjoyed several other activities outside of his studies, especially soccer and volleyball. But despite the extracurricular interests, he said he found being a transfer student was difficult due to lack of information and resources.
“(UNM has) a very good program for incoming freshmen, and so do international students,” Lemon said. “It could be something similar with transfer students.”
Lemon said one of the skills he was able to hone in college was learning different types of communication skills, especially from international students.
“The best way to learn is to be around people with different ideas,” he said of UNM’s globally diverse student culture.
Even though there are a lot of things Lemon said he loves about Albuquerque, most of his friends are back in Minnesota and admitted it will be time to return once he graduates.
“It’s both bitter and sweet to graduate,” Lemon said.
He said some of his former colleagues have already reached out to him after hearing the news that he was returning home. Lemon joked that they asked when he could come to practice and start helping again — something he’ll likely never stop doing for others.
Bo Yu is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers cross country and volleyball. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Bo_YuB.
