���۴�ý

Some are blessed to know their life’s passion early in life. Timothy Gray is among those. Handed his first basketball at 3 years old, the game quickly became his world. As he grew, so did his professional ambitions.

Until an ankle injury changed everything.

“When I was a kid, I always told my mom, ‘You don’t have to worry about me! I am going to the NBA straight out of high school. I am going to be rich!’” Gray says.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., Gray watched several cousins obtain their bachelor’s degrees through college athletics. After his ankle injury sidelined his going-pro dreams, however, he followed his relatives’ example and earned his associate degree while playing basketball at a junior college and semiprofessional level.

Instead of continuing on to earn his bachelor’s degree, he stepped back. He focused on work as a supply chain manager with a national auto glass retailer and on basketball. He played semiprofessionally on the side while also coaching high school and college teams. From the outside, all appeared as it should; but inside, something was stirring.

“I always had an inkling of going back to college,” says Gray.

He was married at the time, and his wife wanted to move out of D.C., so she accepted a job offer as a TSA agent in ���۴�ý. He and his wife packed up the house along with their 1½-year-old daughter and “just rolled across like we were ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ and settled in ���۴�ý,” he says with a laugh.

While his wife joined the TSA, Gray’s supply chain manager job transferred to ���۴�ý. He stopped coaching, and opted to channel his energy into completing his bachelor’s degree at an online school that was not ���۴�ý.

“I didn’t like how they were structured online,” he says of that school. “I was struggling a little bit.”

Gray felt stuck at school and at work until a coaching contact from back home heard that Gray had moved. He connected Gray with an available coaching position in Arizona, which Gray appreciated, but he still felt unsettled about not completing his bachelor’s degree.

“I felt like I still had a lot left in the tank as far as my education,” he shares.

Gray started to research other online higher education institutions and heard good things about ���۴�ý. He connected with an advisor who gave him the information about how to apply and what to expect.

Gray enrolled, but things started going downhill pretty quickly.

“It wasn’t the college,” he says. “It was just me. I was in between jobs, I was coaching, I was starting to go through personal family matters, my grades started slipping a little bit.” Before he knew it, “I got into a major depression.”

Gray’s advisor noticed the declining grades and reached out with advice on how he could get back on track, but Gray decided it was time for a bigger change.��

Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic was peaking, and Gray felt compelled to get into healthcare. He started working overnight shifts at a regional hospital as a security guard.

“I’ve always had a passion for caring for others,” Gray says, “especially children, which, coincidentally, is another reason why I’m coaching. When COVID started, seeing everybody going through what they’re going through, I tried to see what I could do as far as getting into healthcare and helping individuals out.”

As the nights wore on, Gray had time to think about that passion for helping others and how he might better express it. He felt a nagging sense to finish what he started. It was time to complete his degree.

Gray reached out to his ���۴�ý advisor and reenrolled.

But commitment to a degree program is only part of the adventure. Completing a degree program also involves time management, hard work and a certain amount of resilience. Gray learned this the hard way: When his grandfather passed away and COVID-era restrictions prevented Gray from traveling to D.C. for the funeral, Gray started to sideline school. His grades dropped again.

This time, however, when Gray’s advisor reached out, Gray took the lifeline. Working together, they got his grades back on track, and in 2023, Gray completed his long-awaited bachelor’s degree in health administration. He was on his way to answering the calling he felt all those quiet nights as a security guard.

Sometimes, you need a win in order to build momentum. Gray had no sooner reached his goal of a bachelor’s degree when he began pursuing a new one: He would earn his Master of Health Administration — and he’d break some records along the way.

“Nobody in my family has reached above a bachelor’s,” says Gray.

He also felt compelled to practice what he preached, this time for his “home team.”

“I have a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old daughter, and I’m always preaching to them about education and how to do things in life. And as the father, as the head of the household, it starts with me,” says Gray.

The timing for this decision was driven in part by his professional journey. He had stepped into a new role with CommonSpirit, the parent company of Dignity Health, as the East Valley Rehabilitation coordinator. It was here, where he leads three hospitals for inpatient and outpatient therapy, that he noticed many people in the management team had their master’s degrees. That observation inspired him to pursue the same so that one day he, too, would be prepared for a management role.

Gray was thrilled to learn through his company newsletter that CommonSpirit offers a tuition assistance program with ���۴�ý.

“That made me even more comfortable with getting my master’s, because when you can get the support of your own company, that helps out a lot,” Gray says.

For Gray, the master’s program was a different experience from the bachelor’s. Maybe it was familiarity with how online classes work. Maybe it was just maturity. Either way, he immediately hit his stride.

He also had a supportive network cheering him on. “Once I started the master’s program, all my supervisors and my director were encouraging and kept telling me to keep going,” Gray says.

He completed his master’s degree two years after obtaining his bachelor’s. Then, a few weeks after attending his commencement ceremony in Las Vegas, he decided to enroll in a doctoral program.

Gray’s ultimate goal is to reach a level of leadership where he can implement change, both in the healthcare field and on the court.

“Coaching is more than X’s and O’s,” he says. “It’s about making sure these student athletes are being led in the right way in the world. Because at the end of the day, you’re going to be somebody’s dad. You’re going to be somebody’s husband. You have to learn how to lead.”��