Nashville–Collin Chandler knew that he may never be the same, but he was ok with that.
Kentucky’s now-emerging first-year guard took a leap of faith and left for a two-year Mormon mission prior to his freshman year of college. That meant no organized basketball, very little conditioning and weight lifting, just going out and spreading the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
For two years, the sport that put Chandler on the map had all but exited his life.
“Sometimes life is bigger than basketball,” Chandler told Southeastern 16. “I’ll double down on that. If I wasn’t totally sure about that when I left, I’m sure about that now. I don’t regret it at all. Even though it’s been super tough coming back from not playing for two years, the experiences and the people that I’ve met and the joy that I felt sharing the good news, I couldn’t trade for anything.”
Prior to his departure, Chandler was a four-star recruit and the highest-ranked recruit in BYU history. He did all the things that four-star recruits do, too. He went to Pangos All-American Camp. He scored over 20 points per game at his high school, too.
Then he dropped all of it.
Chandler could’ve been heading to Provo, Utah, to inevitably start as a freshman on a BYU team that ultimately fell one game short of being a 20-game winner. Instead he sat in his family room on Apr. 12 of his senior year with no idea as to where he’d be spending the next two years of his life.
His family surrounded and his Instagram live was rolling for nearly 700 viewers, who all wanted to see the commitment that Chandler was gearing up to make. It wasn’t your classic, pick a hat type of commitment, though.
“You’re assigned to labor in the Sierra Leone, Free Town, West African mission,” Chandler read off.
“WHAT,” his sister yelled while somehow not losing her control of the phone.
This was real. This was it.
Goodbye basketball, hello to a life across the world.
The decision to give up basketball for two years–while college coaches called and made an effort to entice him to stay–included some doubt. Chandler knew that there was a risk of his trip taking his basketball career completely off track. He may not have had the athleticism that he once did. He may not have been able to score it effortlessly like he did in high school anymore. All of it could’ve been gone. Chandler took a chance, though.
“It took a lot of faith and trust in God’s plan,” Chandler said. “As soon as I left, I made a commitment that my will and life was gonna be more aligned with God’s.”
Instead of heading to BYU to play for then head coach Mark Pope, Chandler journeyed through Sierra Leone, Washington, DC and London preaching the Gospel to anyone who would listen.
Not everyone would lend the Kentucky guard an ear, but he made an effort to connect with anyone that crossed his path. He got to know their cultures and their beliefs while trying to establish common ground with them. He tried to relate to them.
“Collin is the definition of a servant leader,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “He, on his own desire and expense, chose to leave basketball and his life to go and serve people in Africa and Europe for two years.”
The then high school senior had it good. He was on track to start as a freshman at BYU. He was playing what appeared to be the best basketball of his life.
He just felt as if that wasn’t good enough, though. There was something more out there that he had to do rather than just aiming to maximize what he could do on the floor.
“I just felt like I had something special in the Gospel that I needed to spread to the world,” Chandler said. “I felt this impact that it had on me and my life and my family. I always knew that it was something you want to share. That’s what’s so special about the Gospel, you want to share it. It makes you want to help other people feel that joy.”
Chandler quickly dealt with the reality that not everyone would be open to his beliefs, though. But, that didn’t stop him.
If it did, his trip wouldn’t have fulfilled him the way that it ultimately did.
“A lot of people just want to go out throughout their day or even have hatred towards you,” he said. “When you find someone has been prepared by God to actually receive me and when I feel like I’m actually led to somebody that will listen to me and is willing to change to align with what the Gospel teaches. I think those are the moments that stick out to me.”
The moments involved people of all different ethnicities and backgrounds. Very few of the moments that stick out to Chandler involved basketball, though.
Chandler “never even saw a basketball hoop” in his time in Africa and was “lucky” to be able to shoot a basketball once a week while he was stationed in Washington, DC, and London. There was no world in which the 6-foot-5 guard was improving, he just had to hope he didn’t lose the skillset that he did have.
“I missed the game a lot,” Chandler said.
Little did the Farmington, Utah, native know, the future he envisioned in the game he missed was about to change. If two years off wasn’t enough to put Chandler behind the figurative eight ball, Pope suddenly took the head coaching job at Kentucky. Chandler was committed to Pope at BYU while finding out in London that he’d be leaving for Kentucky. He quickly followed his coach to Lexington despite BYU’s Mormon principles.
The bigger stage didn’t mean that Chandler would all of a sudden figure things out, though.
“It’s always an adjustment when somebody returns from a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints,” Kentucky Director of Basketball Operations Nick Robinson, who served a two-year Mormon Mission in 1998 and 1999 told Southeastern 16. “Your body, your mind and your spirit is all in a unique place.”
Chandler didn’t describe his transition back to the floor as kindly.
“I would run full court in practice and I would stumble like a baby deer,” Chandler said. “It was so weird sprinting and trying to stop. The weirdest things were so hard for me. It took a little bit of time and those were the moments I was worried. I was like ‘I can’t even run and catch a ball running.’”
Chandler got off the plane in Provo, Utah, to a greeting from Pope and Kentucky assistant Cody Fueger with just a month until the beginning of Kentucky’s session. Between that day and his arrival Chandler would have to gear up for guarding Otega Oweh, Koby Brea and Lamont Butler.
He’d also have to learn how to be a college kid and a non-missionary citizen again. Kentucky’s coaching staff believes he quickly answered the call.
“Colin did a fantastic job of adjusting to life at Kentucky,” Robinson said. “It took some time to be able to adjust his body and his mind to become a now high level basketball player.”
A look at Chandler’s numbers on the season wouldn’t indicate that his adjustment went smoothly, but in Jaxson Robinson and Kerr Kriisa’s absence Kentucky has needed Chandler.
He’s come through.
Since Robinson suffered a season-ending injury on Feb. 26, Chandler has played 17.5 minutes a night while averaging 6.5 points per game while shooting 42.8% from 3-point range. The Kentucky freshman saw a season-high 22 minutes in Kentucky’s Thursday night SEC Tournament win over Oklahoma.
“He’s getting more and more comfortable on the floor,” Pope said Wednesday. “He gives us some things that we don’t have a lot of on the roster. He’s doing so much defensively, and we’re gonna need him to be great on the defensive side.”
Perhaps had Chandler pursued things from the get go, he’d be taking on a more prominent role within Kentucky’s rotation. Perhaps he’d be putting it on the floor to get his own shot more often rather than relying on Kentucky’s older guards to create shots for him.
After all, he’d be a junior with two years of college experience under his belt. Chandler says he wouldn’t trade what he experienced as a result of his out of the box choice, though.
“I’ve found some joys when I can look back to see where I was and see the progress,” Chandler said. “I found that there’s so much more to life than the game of basketball.
“It’s so much bigger.”