SPORTS

Adoption a blessing for Josh Huestis

Mark D. Robertson

"Adopted people's parents don't love them."

It's the only time I've really come close to mercilessly beating the snot out of somebody.

You see, I was adopted at birth. I've never not known I was adopted. I've met both of my birthparents. It's been a part of who I am since Day 1.

That summer day, we were at the neighborhood swimming pool. I was probably 13, the kid who said it 11. He didn't know any better, but I threw him up against the chain link that surrounded the pool ready to pound some sense into him like adolescent boys are so quick to do.

His brother pulled us apart.

I was so angry I went home.

Flash forward to December 2012. Procrastinating on my studies for college exams, I'm watching Stanford's basketball play NC State when the announcers start talking about this Stanford player who is adopted, a kid from Great Falls, Mont. by the name of Josh Huestis.

It just so happened he averaged almost a double-double, too. He was immediately my favorite collegiate player not wearing a Duke Blue Devil jersey. (I justified rooting for Stanford by taking solace in the fact that Cardinal coach Johnny Dawkins is a former Duke All-American himself.)

So I followed Josh Huestis, this adopted kid from Montana. I read everything I could find on Josh, learning that his birth mother, Sutton Lindsey, had placed her boy (actually boys, Josh's half-brother Christian Dean was adopted by a family in California in 1993, and the two are now close) for adoption through a Houston agency that finds adoptive parents willing to allow contact between the birth parents and their offspring. I learned that his birth father, Poncho Hodges, was an actor in Los Angeles. I learned that his mother, Bonnie Huestis, was his biggest fan and traveled thousands of miles at every opportunity to see him play.

I'd never been to Montana. A college senior, I'd never lived outside of a two-hour radius of Roanoke, Va. and never planned to do any different.

Two years later, here I am in Josh's hometown, getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a time of year I think about what could have been were I not placed for adoption, if my birthparents – both graduate students at Virginia Tech at the time of my birth – had decided to keep me.

I wondered if Josh felt the same.

"It just makes me feel really loved," Josh said over the phone from Oklahoma City, where he's playing for the Blue, the Oklahoma City Thunder's NBA developmental league affiliate. "I've got family all over the country."

Like my adoption, Josh's was at birth. Though he was born in a hospital in Alvin, Texas, Great Falls is home. He came to Montana on a flight with Bonnie 30 hours after he was born. She and her husband, Gary Walsh, raised Josh and his sister Kava, 21, in Great Falls.

"I might as well have been born there," Josh said of the Electric City.

Our circumstances after adoption have been similar as well. Neither Josh nor I have ever not known we were adopted. We've both met our birth parents and had extended contact with them. We both like it that way, too.

"It answers a lot of questions," Josh said. "I can imagine if it wasn't open, if I didn't know, there would be a lot of questions in my mind about where I come from."

Josh has known his birth parents since as long as he can remember. They've been in regular contact since, even living with his father in California for the summer prior to his senior year in high school. That's when he was discovered by Stanford.

"I wanted to get out of the state and go play against better talent and get noticed more," Josh said. "… Him putting up with me for an entire summer, it really put me where I am today."

He's probably right. The Pac-12 doesn't generally recruit in Montana, and Josh got to see much better competition playing a summer in Southern California. A standout at C.M. Russell High, he probably still would have earned a Division I scholarship, but it likely wouldn't have been Stanford.

"You know, his birth father would have taken him anytime he wanted," Bonnie said of the summer move to Los Angeles.

She said it came to Josh in a dream. He dreamt he was getting drafted into the NBA, and he knew he had to go somewhere else to make that a reality.

"It was just amazing how that even happened," she added. "… In order to accomplish the dream he wanted, he knew someone had to see him."

Bonnie and Gary were nothing but supportive, Josh said.

"My mom is my hero because of the fact that I can see how easy it is to get jealous about birth parents wanting to spend time and see me," Josh added. "She's always been great about my birth parents spending time with me."

What struck me the most about Josh's adoption is that the story the commentators told, the articles in the newspapers, they were all positive.

You see, one of the most common reactions people have when they learn you're adopted is to say, "Oh, I'm sorry."

They have pity in their eyes. It's like they think you're damaged goods.

"It's got kind of a negative stigma to it. I've never understood it, either," Josh said.

There is a negative stigma, for sure. A 2002 Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute survey showed that one-third of Americans believe adoptees are more likely to suffer medical and addiction problems and are "less well-adjusted" to society, whatever that means. Furthermore, more than 40 percent of those surveyed thought adoptees more likely to cause trouble and have behavioral problems.

Take away the roughly three percent of American children who are adopted themselves, and that's darn near half the country.

Even the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services has this view, and they don't seem to have backed it up with research.

"For adopted children, developing an identity is more complicated (than those not adopted)," a 2009 DHHS publication entitled the 'Child Welfare Information Gateway' stated. "They must merge two separate families and histories as they explore how they fit in. … Many struggle with issues of self-worth, self-esteem and being different. … These emotional tasks can interfere with concentration and distract children from schoolwork."

I've never felt that for a second. Being adopted was a blessing, putting me in the lives of parents (and later, an adopted brother) who have chosen to love me unconditionally with zero social obligation to do so. I imagine I saved my birth parents from sticking together for the sake of me. They took different paths in life, even living on different coasts for awhile. It's gotten me dates (that's a long story in itself), made me friends, given me a more interesting story to tell. Like Josh said, it's given me two families: the one I share a home with and another that comprises my DNA.

It's given me the life I have, and I can't complain.

I could be wrong. Maybe Josh and I are different from most adopted children, regardless of positive contact with our birth parents.

Or maybe not. There's an inner peace with your parents – the people who took you and raised you to be the person you are today.

Josh put it better.

"They chose me," he said of Bonnie and Gary. "They chose to love me and raise me. … They're my parents. They've always been my parents. They might as well be my birth parents."

Now, as young adults older now than our birth parents were when they made one of life's toughest choices, Josh and I can gather with friends and family on Thanksgiving and rejoice the selflessness of those involved in our lives.

For the Huestis family, that's Sutton Lindsey.

"Most of us do not have the ability, the compassion, the love inside of us to place a child with someone else," Bonnie said over the phone from Oklahoma, where she's spending Thanksgiving with Josh and Kava. "Most humans are too selfish. … It takes such love. I am just totally amazed at the love it took for Sutton to place Josh."

And it surely wasn't easy for Sutton.

"She tells me it was the hardest thing she's ever had to do," Huestis said. "It's true, I guess it's easier when she's setting it up, I'm not born yet. … But she said as soon as I was born, it was difficult to let go."

23 years later? Not so much.

"She knows I was raised by the perfect family," Josh said.

Huestis supports United Way

Former C.M. Russell High and Stanford star Josh Huestis has signed several pieces of memorabilia, including a jersey from his current team in the NBA, The Oklahoma City Thunder, to support United Way.

The signed memorabilia is a gift to the United Way of Cascade County, which is selling raffle tickets for the items to raise money for its annual fundraising campaign.

Tickets are $10 each; the drawing will be held Tuesday, Dec. 15, at Scheels in Great Falls.

Items include a basketball in a display case, a pair of Huestis's size 16 shoes, some jerseys, and sports shirts and hats. Each winner also will receive an autographed 8x10 photo of Huestis.

Tickets are available for sale at the Peak or by calling United Way at 727-3400. Also, members of the CMR boys' basketball team will be selling tickets during the week of Dec. 5.