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September 07, 2011
Set:
As student-athletes we are pressed from all sides; to be a better at our sport, to get better grades, to get the best paying job after graduation, and even to look a certain way in order to be attractive to this world. We challenge ourselves physically, academically, and socially, but how often do we challenge ourselves spiritually? How often do we step out of our comfort zone to please God and not men? In the moment it seems as if playing time, grades, and our social life means everything. But the short-term happiness that comes from our worldly accomplishments is fleeting and of no comparison with the everlasting joy we will receive when we please our Father in heaven.
January 20, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: There are some great stories of come behind games. Times when teams were down and out but worked their way back to score goals and win. Sometimes its after they come out of the locker room and just play like a new team. Sometimes it’s putting aside the fact that you just lost 3 straight games in a best of seven series. In the final playoff series of the 1942 NHL season, the Toronto Maple Leafs did just that and went on to beat the Detroit Redwings the next 4 games and hoist the Cup.
September 10, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: When you’re on defense, one of the worst things you can do is let your opponent stand in front of your net waiting to tip the puck, get a rebound, or just screen your goal tender. Detroit scored buckets of goals against Colorado in 07 doing just that and swept them right out of the playoffs. You cannot let that guy stake his position there. It takes work to get him away but if you let him stick around, he’s bound to cause trouble.
February 11, 2012
Set:
I’ve come a long way in my life. I’ve been blessed all along this road I’ve been down. I’ve prayed a lot. I have a praying family and I have a lot of praying friends. I do believe that God is the Father. You trust in Him. He’s whom you answer to. He’s who knows you. I know that all the ability in the world wouldn’t amount to anything if I didn’t acknowledge that God gave it all to me. I pray about everything and it’s helped me get through a lot of situations.
December 19, 2009
Set:
Coaches often use signals in competition to tell players which play to run, which pitch to throw, where to attack or defend, and more. It’s the best way to remind a team what they need to do without letting the other team find out.
Not many know that a familiar Christmas carol was really a song of hidden messages. In the early 16th century, British Catholics were forbidden by law to practice their faith. Anyone caught speaking or writing of his or her faith was arrested or executed. In a time of persecution, similar to the Christians in Rome, Catholics in England went underground. They met and studied secretly and had signs to share their faith.
August 05, 2010
Set:
Less than six months after he was hired to take over the University of Alabama football program, coach Mike Price was fired because his behavior failed to coincide with university policies. While Price admitted to “making mistakes and at times inappropriate behavior,” he did not agree with the firing, saying, “I don’t think the punishment fits the crime.” When we make poor choices in life we (and sometimes those around us) will have to pay the price for our actions. It may not always be as big as losing our job, but rest assured there is a price to pay. So how can we honor God with our behavior?
September 10, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: Passing is a key in the game. Have you ever seen someone try to go end-to-end around 5 attackers only to get stripped before he’s able to get a shot off. Players that try to do it all to get the glory usually lose it all and are left empty. What’s all that hard work for if it gained nothing?
August 16, 2009
Set:
Staleness is the first sign of decay. Avoiding getting stuck in a rut is key to any training schedule. All training regimes get old unless changes are made. The body plateaus and needs a new stimulus or it won’t improve. All exercise routines need variety. No matter how hard we work, we need change.
Spiritually we also need to be challenged, or we go stale. There is nothing spiritual about sitting in the same pew for 30 years. Recently I asked a man who ran a retreat center if he had seen any other retreat centers lately? He replied with an air of conceit that he had been too busy ministering and had not seen any other center in 10 years. His center had that sad stale smell.
January 16, 2012
Set:
French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “The human race is governed by its imagination.” For Bonaparte, considered a military genius, imagination enabled him to conquer most of western and central Europe. As leaders of this world through our joint inheritance with Christ, we too face many seemingly insurmountable foes. Fourth and long, down by three with four seconds left on the clock, an away match against the state champion—these obstacles pale in comparison to the matchless superiority of our Lord’s power.
June 11, 2009
Set:
It seems like only yesterday that I was in my high school weight room pumping weights with the music cranked.
I have no doubt that the thousands of hours I spent in the weight room as a high school, college, and professional
athlete paid off. As a young man I wanted not only to get big, but also to excel in my sport. Lifting weights built
me up and strengthened me to be the best athlete I could. The muscle that I added helped me perform better and
kept me from injury. Too bad my mom didn’t like the fact that my clothes weren’t fitting anymore.
Paul wrote that we need to be “rooted and built up” in Christ. The Lord desires for us to develop spiritual
November 01, 2008
Set:
Throughout my years of training as a wheelchair athlete, I have found that memorizing and reciting Bible verses helps me in many ways. It helps me to stay focused, to get to sleep and to stay calm in anxious moments.
Prior to a race, I often recite a verse in my mind to calm my heart. I know that God is going with me as I race and that He will give me what I need on that particular day.
One of my strengths as a wheelchair racer is my endurance, but I’m usually slow off the start. I will never forget the time when one of my coaches shouted at me after a race about my slow start. “What were you thinking? Where was your mind, anyway?” she asked.
June 17, 2009
Set:
Last night our FCA Huddle completed our city clean-up project. While the act of adopting a one-mile stretch of the city streets in our small town is a small service, the fact that we had six Huddle members show up in cold, wet conditions said wonders about their dedication and commitment to serving their community. It would have been easy for them to blow off the event and stay home where it was dry so that they could work on homework or the 15-page paper many had due for their composition class. But these kids chose to take the path less traveled and work through steady rain showers to make their community a little nicer.
April 22, 2010
Set:
Just prior to pregame warmups during my rookie season with the Kansas City Chiefs, one of the officials introduced himself to me as the father of a friend of mine. After a brief chat, he suggested I let him know if I was having any trouble in the game. Not thinking too much of his comment, I thanked him and joined my teammates for drills.
May 18, 2009
Set:
In a pro basketball game in South Africa, I drove the baseline and dunked on the guy guarding me. I then stole the inbounds pass and dunked it again. After that, I received a pass from a teammate who stole the ball on the next ossession and yet dunked again. I had three dunks in a span of about 60 seconds. However, in that same game I also was dunked on and fouled the guy on the play. As it was my fifth and disqualifying foul, I went to the bench to watch my team lose the game.
April 28, 2010
Set:
It appears that our hearts are the repositories for both confidence and fear. When we feel overmatched by a seemingly superior opponent, it’s our heart that keeps us from fearing him. When it seems like everything is going badly, when all the momentum has swung to the other team’s bench, it’s our heart that brims with confidence in spite of it all. A coach’s heart is the key that enables his or her team to compete strongly.
September 10, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: Frank Boucher of the New York Rangers in the 1930’s won the Lady Bing Trophy for most sportsmanlike conduct 7 times. Lady Bing herself actually gave him the trophy to keep permanently because he had won it so often. You would think with that kind of clout he could get away with stuff on the ice saying, “But I am considered a good guy by my awards so I can’t be in penalty trouble for something I did.” That didn’t work to well. He still tallied up 20 penalty minutes in just 44 games in one season after winning the award and that being the only year he was denied it within 8 years.
August 22, 2010
Set:
As long as we are involved in athletics, we are going to encounter adversity on a daily basis. An athlete will come face to face with failure, mistakes, and errors. As coaches, we will come face to face with pressures to win, compliance issues, ineligible players, and recruiting battles. As people we are tested on and off the field by sin and Satan. In almost all sports, there is a certain degree of defense needed in order to win the game. How do we as Christian coaches defend against Satan to become a champion in heaven?
September 10, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: Wood, aluminum, carbon composite, fiberglass. Hockey sticks are made up of all kinds of different materials. It takes time and practice, but once you find YOUR stick, you know it and use it with confidence. You puck handle and shoot the best you can with your stick. Have you ever broke a stick and had to grab a different one quickly. Right off the bat you know it’s not going to work well. Your not use to it. It’s not yours.
October 12, 2010
Set:
The perfect season was in 1972 when the Miami Dolphins did the improbable. They won seventeen games (including the Super Bowl) in a row. People still call them one of the greatest teams of all time. On the other side of the coin, Northwestern lost thirty-four games in a row over a four-year period. The adjectives used to describe these teams were much different. Streaks—either you love them or you hate them. If you are on a roll and winning games, then everything seems to go your way. But if the steak is the other kind—the bad kind, the losing streak—then it seems the harder you try, the more small things grow into huge problems. When you have been on both sides, you learn the difference between winning and losing is very small.
December 14, 2009
Set:
The player was struggling, missing foul shot after foul shot in practice. Obviously frustrated, the player continued after practice working on her game. Her coach sat idly by, watching. He got up to watch more closely. Rebounding miss after miss he offered, "Do you want me to help you?" "No, I do not. I can fix my own problem," she shot back. He smiled and continued to rebound.
September 11, 2010
Set:
Every year I look at my team’s schedule of games during preseason and start to calculate wins and losses. One game I’m certain we’ll win, another we probably won’t, and still another will be a toss-up. Though each season is filled with uncertainty and challenges, the majority of coaches still dream about championships and most valuable player awards. What’s exciting to me is that God can do immeasurably more than all of those expectations combined.
September 10, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: You may not remember Ned Harkness when you think of hockey’s greatest, but he truly was. His name is not inscribed on the Stanley Cup but it is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He didn’t run up the scoreboard with goals but filled the hearts and minds of the players with knowledge and passion.
September 10, 2010
Set:
Hockey Chat: When Martin Brodeur first started playing goalie in a game when he was six years old, he didn’t know what he was in for. He moved in ways he hadn’t had to move when he was playing forward. Skaters charged him like never before, and at that age they don’t all have the stopping thing down to good.
September 10, 2010
Set:
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December 08, 2010
Set:
Dave Barnes is a coach at a large public school in Spokane, Washington. He is a legendary, state-honored coach, having led his teams to city championships in each of the last twenty years. However, what is more impressive than all his titles is the fact that he is a father to so many of his students and athletes. When Dave was two years old his father abandoned the family, remarried, and moved to another state. When his mother remarried three years later, this new dad became a true father to him. Sadly, when Dave was ten years old, his stepfather was struck by lightening and killed. His mother married a third time a few years later, but this new stepfather was an alcoholic. Dave never really had a dad who lasted.
