Football

A long one, but a post God has been writing on our hearts for the last 5 years or so.

I remember my husband coming home late one night this Fall-among many late nights, but as a football coach's wife the Fall simply means-late nights.  He set all his stuff down and said, "Guess what? We have 4 guys who want to be baptized and one of them is Mike." Mike is dear to our hearts because he is one of the players who has come to Hume Lake Christian camp with us.  We go up to the mountain camp once a year to help be a part of football camps for public school kids and where Brian gets to share the gospel message with the players each morning after breakfast.  It is my kids favorite weekend of the year and mine too because they get to play with other coaches kids and we also get to see some of what God does with football-apart from pressures of a season.  Mike's life was changed dramatically at Hume Lake this year and now he was ready to make public his devotion to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Two weeks into August camp, Mike dislocated his knee cap and instead of leading on the field, he was leading off, regularly sending Bible verses to his teammates and coaches & praying with other injured players.  One week later my husband came home and shared that, that night, in the waters of a pond at APU, 11 players and 1 trainer were been baptized.  Coaches and mentors joined the campus pastor in the water as those 12 lives stood publicly for Christ.  

After he shared the amazing news I said, "Who gets to do this?  Whose job includes so much?"

I am in complete and utter awe of what God has done in our lives through football. 

When I met Brian 16 years ago, he was a football player- a team captain and leading tackler at UCLA.   He wanted to play for Christ in the pros.  He thought, playing football and sharing Christ with teammates-what could be better?  We got engaged and 2 weeks later found out God had very different plans.  Eventually, the pro route did not go according to the plan.  So many things in Brian's life, until this point, had just "worked out."  This did not.  A slump like I had never witnessed him go through, hit hard and had a lasting impact.  Several months down the road, he was working out illegally at the Azusa Pacific gym. When he was approached by another man working out, he asked him if he had played football and then followed up with asking him if he'd be interested in helping coach for the university.  Once the head coach gave the thumbs up, Brian was on board.  I think he coached linebackers that year.  That was 14 years ago. Since then, he has coached almost every position on the defense and is now the Defensive Coordinator.  As a team, they have had playoff years and had years with only 2 wins.  We have won by 50 points and we have had 70+ points scored against us. 

To many, football is just a game, and to some degree it is, but to us, it has been many things beyond. For starters, it is our bread and butter.  We are so thankful God has given Brian work.  Football has its exhilarating moments, pouring the Gatorade over the shoulders moments. It has moments so humbling, the line between hurt and being shaped becomes almost too thin, too raw. So many non-coach folks, shared with us during the teams tough losing years, "You know, God teaches more to us through losses than through wins."  At first, we agreed. We were in it for the lesson and we were trusting God that no matter how much we won or lost by, He was in charge. We were at APU for a reason.  We would not waste His time there-ready to coach and ready to serve-day in and day out, eyes on the prize.  But after 5 years in a row of tough losses, we would look at each other and just say, "God, we'd love to see what lesson you could teach us through winning a game....surely not all lessons have to come through losing?!"  It hurt to watch Brian work so hard, so many hours and to coach alongside coaches with true integrity, to lose and be David looking up at Goliath almost every week.  To be able to give no excuses. To be obedient no matter what the cost or how it felt.  Keep your chin up and coach your heart out-no matter what the outcome.  God was shaping.  We were learning to pray, to hope, to press on, to show commitment to the not-so glamorous.  He was using football as a means to make men (and women).  It is easy to love what you do, be classy, and be upbeat when you are winning, but it is who you are when the chips are down and your back is against the wall, when you are 1-7, that tells the story of a deeper commitment/resolution. 

When the pros didn't work out, but coaching at APU did, Brian took his heart for football and evangelism and went full steam ahead.  2001 was his first year of discipleship.  He began a group that met every Thursday morning at 6am, all year long.  It started with 4 guys and has grown to years with 20+.  Praise God!  Last year he had his first Men's Banquet.  It was a sort of sending off for 4 young  senior players as they ended football/college and began life in the real world.  It was moving & momentous to hear their testimonies and to watch godly men lay hands on them, launching them forward with their prayers.  Each older Christian man with a specific area of life to pray over for the young men. It was powerful. God was glorified over and over as these 4 young men shared their testimonies and opened up about the ways God had been moving, had been alive, and had been preparing them for their next season in life.  

There are many things I am proud of my husband for- his optimism, his integrity, his steadiness, his handiness around the house, he can laugh at himself, he is goofy, and his ability to make the kids and I feel so loved no matter what time of year it is...to name a few.  One thing I love most is watching him yield to Christ, watching him labor through life at times and also watching him rejoice.  I love the man he becomes more and more each day.  God uses football to tear down our carnal dreams and to build His new & perfect ones, to rock our world and to show us even more what is possible, to bring about discipline for on the field as well as discipline off,  that pain often precedes praise and humility is always more pleasant than pride,  to teach us what really matters, that hard work is for more than earthly success because earthly success may never come & if it does, it pales in comparison to the daily journey with Christ.  Finally, God can use a football to bring about His work in our lives.    

 

My husband is a football coach....

who gets to go to work and coach young men to play tough football. 

who gets to visit players in the hospital after they've been injured.

who gets to watch young men turn their lives over to Christ.

who get to see wounded lives begin to heal.

who gets to bump chests with his defensive lineman after a sack.

who gets to go from the practice field to the waters of baptism.  

who gets to open his home for player dinners on Thursday nights.

who gets to marry his players and do pre-marital counseling with them.

who gets to teach a bible class and watch a Mormon student commit his life to Christ.

who gets to bring players to Hume Lake to watch God use football to bridge the gap between kids with no real hope and the message of the gospel.

who gets to win and feel the elation of a gift well earned and who is more able to receive that gift because of all the handshakes at the end of a games given with a humbled hand.

who gets to have parents feel so blessed to have their sons walk away from football with more than just football, b/c one day God might change their plans too.  And who will they be once that last down is played?  Who will they follow? 

    I will never forget Pete Carroll's response to a reporter during his glory days at USC, when asked "How does it feel to play such a vital role in your players lives-you get to shape the next generation of young men?"  He replied, "I am not here to make good men, I am here to make great football players." I'm sure that is how many coaches view their jobs, after all they coach, but I am married to a coach who God empowers to do both-to make great football players and to make great men and to help build them to be the great employees husbands and fathers God desires them to be.  

"'I am about to go the way of all the earth,' he (David) said. 'So be strong, show yourself a man, and observe what the LORD your God requires:  Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go...'"  1 Kings 2:2-3