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August 31, 2013
Set:
One of the things I have always liked about Notre Dame football is the fact that the players don’t have their names on the back of their jerseys. There is a sense that when you play for this school, you are part of something far bigger than you. There are decades of history, legendary coaches, and miraculous wins.
No one player is more important than the team. It takes commitment, sacrifice, and a relentless pursuit of excellence from every single person in the locker room—from the water boys to the head coach, from the athletic trainers to the quarterback.
February 03, 2012
Set:
Tomorrow, June 26, 2010, thousands will gather at a memorial service to honor the life of legendary coach John Wooden who passed from this life to the next earlier this month. Coach Wooden lived 99 full years. He lived well, died well and understood his eternal fate. He once said, “There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior.”
November 28, 2013
Set:
A Christian competitor is a thankful competitor. Every time you step onto the field of competition, your heart is exploding with thankfulness, because you are abundantly grateful for God’s blessings. You have a deep conviction that your gifts, talents and skills to play and to compete come from Him alone. You never take it for granted. Every stride, swing, shot, pass, goal and point is a response to God’s goodness. The way you compete is marked with, Thank you God, because you count all of God’s blessings in your life. You always show gratitude.
October 16, 2012
Set:
In my first year as a football coach, I was unsure of what to expect. But I went into the season with one goal: being satisfied not with producing a winning record, but with producing winning athletes.
Billy Graham once stated that one coach would influence more people in one year than the average person would in a lifetime. This was an idea I took to heart. At the beginning of the season, I had no idea who my players were or what their backgrounds were like, but I did know one thing: while they were on my team they were going to learn not only about football, but about life and God.
July 18, 2012
Set:
Have you ever noticed that, when racing, runners tend to wear the lightest outfit or the least amount of clothing possible? From the weight of their shoes to the amount of hair on their heads. Why is this so important to them? The answer is easy: because the less you have weighing you down, the faster you will be and the more endurance you will have.
The same principle applies to the Christian life. Several times in his letters, Paul relates our lives as Christians to running a race. When running this race as Christians, God wants us to run with perseverance because He has so much set out for us to do. But, when we allow sin to cling to us, it slows us down.
December 02, 2013
Set:
When David wrote this instructive psalm, he was in trouble. He was likely cowering in a hole dug deeply into a hill, hiding from enemies pursuing him. He was lonely, desperate, and in need of help. As he hid from his adversaries, he felt out of control and uncertain of the future. So David implored the Lord for guidance, acknowledging in this time of distress that his trust and confidence had to come from God.
August 22, 2013
Set:
When the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens are getting ready to go into battle, the sound system blasts music and the giant screens exhort the team to “Protect this House.” This same scene is replayed week after week in stadiums all around the league. In the history of sports, there has never been a team that has liked losing on their home field. That is why most homecoming games are scheduled against competition that the home team should easily defeat.
God refers to our bodies as His house. Because we are believers, the Holy Spirit actually lives inside of us. And because God lives within us, He expects us to protect His house! This is a high standard, especially since we live in a culture that promotes winning above all else.
October 24, 2012
Set:
Despite not possessing any superb physical attributes, I discovered the Lord can still allow everyone to pursue their own path toward success. Not all men have been blessed with strong athletic physiques and growing up as a thin kid living on a cattle farm in western South Dakota, the odds were against me achieving any athletic success. However, the Lord had other plans for me!
April 07, 2013
Set:
Today's lesson comes from a few years ago when former Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson expressed his frustration regarding the lack of effort displayed by the Lakers after Game Three of the 2004 NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons. "I am angry," Johnson said at the time. "You have to compete, and we're not competing. No one is welcoming anyone to the bench. Guys are sitting there, wandering off into the crowd, defeated. We've got to get that look off our faces and play basketball the way it's supposed to be played."
In the verse from 2 Thessalonians, Paul is warning the believers there against idleness, as many in his day were sitting around waiting for the Day of the Lord to come and were eating bread they did not earn.
January 25, 2014
Set:
We live in a performance-driven, presentation-focused, and public-image world. In the sporting world, much emphasis is put on game time. “How do I look?” and “How will I perform?” are questions in the forefront of our minds. We are thinking, lights, camera, action! In athletics, this drive is magnified. We are drawn more to the presentation than we are to the preparation. The reality is that what we do in private affects what we do in public.
May 22, 2013
Set:
One of a coach’s toughest jobs is telling athletes what they are doing wrong. Most coaches try to do it constructively, but even then many athletes will choose to ignore the instruction or make excuses, blaming everyone else for the problems they themselves have caused.
January 01, 2009
Set:
If you hear someone extolling the virtues of teamwork, it’s usually within the context of a group of people pressing toward a common goal or successful result. That’s certainly something you would expect to hear from legendary UCLA head coach John Wooden, who led the Bruins to an unprecedented 10 NCAA men’s basketball championships between 1963 and 1975. But in an age when players and coaches are primarily judged by wins and losses or by individual performance, too often the journey from point A to point B is overlooked, even though there can be significant contentment found in the process alone.
September 06, 2013
Set:
At the 70-mile mark I started to cramp up in my calves. I began to “super-hydrate,” attempting to prevent the inevitable. At about that point, there was a “bail out” where riders could take a short-cut to the finish line but not complete the full 105 miles. Determined to press on and complete the ride, I passed it.
October 17, 2012
Set:
I have been coaching for more than 20 years. After spending 17 of those coaching at the collegiate level, I decided to step down and enter the “slower paced” high school environment. To my surprise, I found out quickly that teaching and coaching at the high school level was just as challenging, time-consuming and hectic as coaching in college. In some ways, it is even more stressful, as I found myself running ragged trying to get everything done.
January 26, 2014
Set:
What’s the secret of an athlete? Speed? Strength? Size? Training? Any of those will provide an edge, but none are the real secret. The most powerful secret of an athlete is actually a spiritual discipline—prayer. When was the last time we really pressed into prayer? Not the prayers that say, “God, help me with the big game today,” or, “Help me to play well.” I’m talking about intense prayer—a time of truly seeking God’s face and asking for His will.
Many athletes may want to pray but simply don’t know how. Here are eight simple tips for praying:
July 23, 2012
Set:
Recently, my teenage son had to do something that was way too grown up. He had to get up, put on a suit and head to a local church for a funeral. It was the funeral of a friend, another teenager. It was not an easy thing for him to do or to face at such a young age.
Sadly, he has walked this path before. Several years ago, another of his friends lost his life in a four-wheeler accident. In that service, my son and his eighth-grade football teammates served as pallbearers. They all wore their football jerseys to the service and stood at the casket with so many questions running through their minds. “Why? Why him? Why now?” It was an awfully young age to struggle with such questions and to endure the sadness of never seeing that friend again—at least not here on earth.
March 29, 2013
Set:
Becky was the best player on her team. Every one wanted to play like Becky. She was a hard worker, but there was more to her than what people could see. On a road trip, the last freshman selected for the team that year broke her foot during a practice before a game. When they arrived at the hotel that night, Becky carried her teammate's bags to her room and asked her to stay with her. For the rest of the trip, Becky helped this little freshman with everything she needed.
March 01, 2014
Set:
In sports we put our bodies through the wringer. We study game film, review game plans, and tax ourselves mentally. All of it is done so that on game day, we are prepared to win. To achieve victory, we battle our way over virtual mountains, following our dreams—to get to the pot of gold.
Do we follow the same routine in our faith? We rigidly “train” by reading our Bibles, praying, witnessing, and attending church. We compete in “games” when we face setbacks, difficulties, and temptations. And we often do it with a militant attitude of struggling to get to the final pot of gold—heaven.
January 28, 2014
Set:
Football players come to camp and are handed a binder filled with plays, formations, and adjustments built to withstand any opponent during the season. A lot of work, foresight, and detail went into putting together what could be a championship playbook. However great a playbook may be, though, it is useless without memorization and proper execution.
August 09, 2012
Set:
In every sport, coaches teach their athletes what they need to do and how they need to do it in order to have success. As believers in Christ, this is what God does for us, as well through His Word, the Bible.
A coach is never happier than when an athlete experiences success by performing in a game what they were taught to do in practice. You've seen how excited the defensive line coaches get in football—jumping up and down, head slapping, chest bumping, high-fiving his athletes the moment after they made a big sack.
February 13, 2014
Set:
God blessed me with many accomplishments during my football career, but my greatest accomplishment actually occurred on the day my career ended. I didn’t see it that way initially, however. My whole life had been built on the dream of getting to the top in football, so the day I was forced to stop, I began a walk down a road to a life of destruction. I soon destroyed everything in my life and reached rock bottom. However, it was this path that brought me to my knees and made me powerful through my Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, this was actually the first time that I knew what it really means to be strong.
October 12, 2012
Set:
My daughter likely receives more scrutiny playing sports than some other children do. As a parent, I tried to motivate her to be more aggressive and to play harder and use many tactics to do so. I tried having heart-to-heart conversations and even tried bribing her with a steak and shrimp dinner. I thought I had tried everything, but then I came up with another great idea. I would put her on a “Hustle Contract.”
The purpose of the Hustle Contract was to set some expectations for her effort. In my heart, I knew God was saying that He had a different, better way to do this. But I didn’t listen. I went ahead with the Hustle Contract anyway.
November 30, 2013
Set:
Characteristics of the world’s best athletes are: self-control, discipline, teamwork, an ability to focus and perform under pressure, intensity, teachability, and knowing how to win with grace. So why is it that when someone has a temper tantrum, gives a cheap shot, cheats, disregards a victorious opponent, and screams at a referee—it is rationalized as being competitive?
I recently met a man in his late 30s who was bragging about being kicked off the church sports teams. He assumed we would be impressed at his machismo. He faintly conceded that he was too competitive. I disagreed with him and suggested he was not competitive enough. Rather, he was indulging in selfish ambition, disrespect, envy, and lack of self-control. He needed to grow up.
January 08, 2014
Set:
The phrase “my bad” is used by many, especially among young people. The phrase is used in reference to a mistake that someone has made. In some athletic settings, the phrase is almost a guarantee when a coach asks a player about a particular situation. The problem is that the phrase is almost like a “get out of jail free card” in Monopoly. When a player uses “my bad,” there appears to be no accountability for his or her actions.
September 24, 2012
Set:
It was the biggest decision of my life: What was I going to be when I grew up? I was a junior in high school, and I felt like I had to decide what college to attend and what my major would be. And to those pressure-packed questions I added the anxiety of getting a high score on my ACTs. I remember thinking, "How can I make such big decisions? There are so many choices! How will I know what to choose?"
