1 – The recent injuries we have experienced serve to remind us of a very important truth.

Chapel – Comparisons

1 – Do you watch web sites for the weekly team power rankings?
• Do you pay attention to the state or national rankings of teams in our sport?
• Do you read the paper to see who beat whom?
• Do you make comparisons between teams and players?
• Sometimes, such comparisons could be misleading and lead you to a poor performance and with it a disappointing loss.

1 – Your coaching staff and your senior leaders have a vision for your team.  To be champions is a vision worth believing in and pursuing.

2 – Habakkuk 2:2-3 (read the text)

1 – Competitions like this one require tremendous team unity.  Each one must bring his/her best to make the team all it can be.

2 – Think for a moment about how diverse your team is:

• Size
• Strength
• Background
• Ethnicity
• Skill sets
• Personalities

3 – Think about how the team is diminished if any one of you is at less than 100%.

4 – Think about how the team’s personality on the floor changes with each substitution.  You are not interchangeable parts in a machine.

5 – Think about the factors which unify such a diverse set of people.  These are most important.

1 – Today’s contest will require strength and courage for us to finish the day with a victory.

2 – Strength and courage are character qualities required for all of life and especially for competition.

• Joshua 1:9 (read the text aloud).

3 – Be strong

• Strong of mind (focus well and tune out crowd noise)
• Strong of body (prepare to finish the contest strongly)
• Strong of soul (to deal well with momentum swings)

4 – Be courageous

Chapel – Attitude

1 – Attitude:
• It can be our greatest asset.
• It can be our greatest liability.
• Your attitude will affect how you perceive your teammates, your coaches, your opponents, the officials and your team’s support staff.

Chapel – Adversity

1 – The events of these last days are those which try men’s souls.
• Disappointment
• Failure
• Loss
• Illness
• Injury

2 – How we deal with adversity is a strong indicator of our character.
• Will we bounce back or will we wilt?
• Will we encourage or will we criticize?
• Will we accept responsibility or will we shift blame?

1 – How does a competitor demonstrate genuine love for his teammates?

• In the book about Coach Joe Ehrmann, “Season of Life” it says that the coaches’ job is to love the players and the players’ job is to love each other.
• Over the last …… months you have done that.
• Let’s continue that in today’s contest. 
• Such love and sacrifice could be the key to a victory today.

2 – This is a great scripture on this theme.  I John 3:16-18 (read text aloud)

Success in Football
• Name the two most important things in order to succeed in football as a player or team. (Impossible to answer, use as icebreaker with team….
• What are do you as a team want to succeed in this year? I will use this time for captains to cover major goals –
o (7 shutouts, no region losses, region champions, state playoffs etc.. Should be specific for your team..)
• As team I remind them of the quote “if you don’t know where you are going you will likely end up somewhere else – (John Maxwell)

Vince Lombardi – The only place success comes before hard work is in the dictionary

Chapel – Discipline

1 – Today’s characteristic of Successful People and Successful Teams is
Discipline.
• To achieve the success we all want, we will have to grow increasingly more disciplined.
• To be well disciplined is to be self-controlled in all areas of one’s life.

Chapel – Attitudes

1 – I’ve been very pleased with the attitudes of this team thus far.
• Valuing the team over individualism
• Making sacrifices rather than demands
• Expressed on the field, between teammates, with coaches and even in the media

2 – This reminds me of Philippians 2:3-4 (read the text aloud).
• Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.
o Don’t draw attention to yourself – deflect praise to others.
o Don’t take offense to trash talk or cheap shots – respect your team and the sport.
o Don’t overestimate your importance – there are other players ready to step into your spot.