On a rare moment away from his first season coaching the Georgia State basketball team, Ron Hunter walks into the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for the first time. He immediately focuses on the nine pairs of shoes, worn by those who have been inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.
Hunter doesn’t believe in coincidences. The shoes are a sign.
“I can’t get over the shoes,” he says, more than once.
Hunter was invited to tour the King Center to discuss how his admiration for the civil-rights pioneer has influenced his own work to provide shoes to needy children all over the world.
On Thursday, he will coach in his bare feet, something he has done once a year for the past four years, during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, to raise awareness that there are millions of children exposed to diseases around the world because they don’t have a pair of shoes. The goal is to raise enough money for the charity Samaritan’s Feet to purchase $250,000 worth of shoes. A few pairs will be given away to more than 200 Atlanta-area children at a YMCA near the King Center on Monday.
Hunter looks at another exhibit which, again, features shoes and the steps taken by other pioneers. He says he needs to call his mother as soon as he gets back to his office.
“I do know my purpose now,” he says before walking to another exhibit in his size-13 black dress shoes.
Hunter had grown up dogged by the same person in his dreams — King — and had always wondered what his subconscious was calling him to do to change the world. As he rose in the coaching ranks to IUPUI, the question inside him persisted until four years ago, when the founder of Samaritan’s feet approached him.
Hunter initially wasn’t interested in talking to Manny Ohonme, but agreed to talk to him at his IUPUI office — where Hunter had prominently hung a poster of King.
Ohonme asked Hunter if he realized that he might not be coaching if not for King’s work to bring equality to America — to buses, schools, even basketball courts.
“You can help others the way he helped you,” Ohonme said.
Realizing this was his answer, Hunter agreed to help. Shoes — all sizes, all types, all brands — became Hunter’s tool. He would coach annually barefoot to create awareness, and in the offseason travel to impoverished countries to deliver the donated shoes.
“In our country, shoes are a fashion statement,” Hunter said. “I didn’t understand it until I washed the feet of a child and understood this is the only time they will get a pair of shoes. The look on their face and in their eyes. We just gave them a bit of hope. Dr. King was about hope. That’s what these shoes represent. They represent hope.”
Understand that Hunter does everything fast. He talks fast. Even with a limp because of a bad hip, he walks fast.
Moving around the King Center, Hunter reaches an exhibit about the sit-ins that King led. Hunter stops and is silent.
After a few seconds, he starts talking about dreams.
He was 4 years old, living in Ohio, when King was assassinated. “All I remember is watching television when I used to see him. I was captivated even though I didn’t know what was going on. Even growing up, I never quite understood it.”
His main connection to King came through his mother. He understood from her that King had a dream. King became part of Hunter’s dreams.
“I used to wake up in the middle of the night, and she would ask me about my dreams,” he said of his mom. “In all of my dreams he would be in there. “
But not until Samaritan’s Feet did King’s work connect to Hunter’s mission. Today, “I understand exactly what he meant and what he was doing,” Hunter said.
Continuing his tour, Hunter also searches for more than spiritual inspiration. He’s looking for a pregame message to give to his players Thursday. In his first season, they have surprised the Colonial Athletic Association by starting 11-4, 3-1 in the conference, including wins over Drexel and at Virginia Commonwealth. They face another conference opponent, North Carolina Wilmington, on Thursday.
“I want them to understand the purpose of what we are here for,” he said, a gospel song playing the background, as he turns away from photos of police confronting King.
“If we as coaches can make things a little bit better for everybody, why wouldn’t we? As coaches, we get caught up in shoe contracts and winning and losing. It’s not about that at all. It’s not about winning and losing. That’s what these pictures represent to me.”
Last year, when Hunter interviewed at Georgia State, his ride to dinner drove by Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King preached. Just seeing the building made him forget anything anyone said the rest of the night. When his wife asked him why he had that faraway look in his eye, he replied that Georgia State and Atlanta were where he needed to be.
When he was hired at Georgia State, he asked for a mural representing the best of Atlanta to be created and that it include the civil-rights pioneer. King, standing at a podium with his left arm raised, dominates the art, which greets visitors as they walk into Hunter’s office.
Hunter, who has attended Ebenezer for a few Sunday services, believes that he will one day meet King. He wants to thank him.
“He’s the only person I would call a hero or someone I’ve looked up to other than my mom,” he said. “There’s no way I’m coaching here without him. Not coaching here, but coaching period.”
Toward the end of the tour, Hunter finds the message for his players, on an exhibit just across from the row of shoes.
“What are you doing for others?” it reads.
A few minutes later, he sums up his visit.
“Now I see the whole picture,” he said. “Before, I thought I saw part of the picture. I understand the purpose, and I understand the meaning. I understand all of it. I don’t know where it’s going. I don’t think I need to know where it’s going. But I do know the purpose.”
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