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October 07, 2005
Set:
Why is asking so hard for some of us? Whether it’s for a ride to the airport, a few dollars for lunch, or (better yet) financial support to take some athletes to FCA camp, many of us avoid asking like the plague.
Of course, there are times when even the most self-sufficient among us is willing to swallow all pride and plead before the “throne of grace.” I have personally witnessed the amazing transformation of coaches, players and fans whose circumstances turned them into fervent prayer warriors. This phenomenon typically occurs during a game when their team is down by a point with a few ticks left on the clock and the least-talented shooter is on the free-throw line. Who among us hasn’t uttered a prayer in times such as these?
April 27, 2010
Set:
Most sports are made up of teams. And after playing on many different teams, athletes often remember the ones that were real joys to be a part of. For me, it was freshman year in football when everyone was enthusiastic. Everyone wanted the group to do well, and the seniors were just awesome guys--the kind of people who had a genuine interest in all of the underclassmen. They truly set an example for motivation and effort. We saw this in a lot of different forms: the lineman blocking especially hard for the quarterback, the amount of encouragement from the sidelines, the seniors who would talk to the freshman in the halls, and their all-around good attitudes.
August 02, 2006
Set:
In basketball, each player has a cylindrical vertical space on the court. This means that when they jump for a rebound, the vertical space of their body is their's as long as they jump straight up. If an opponent enters this space and makes contact with them, an official can call a foul. Conversely, if they leave their vertical space and make contact with an opponent, they can be called for a foul.
April 07, 2008
Set:
To achieve any kind of success in life takes a certain measure of courage and boldness. This is especially true for the athlete who must believe in his or her talents and abilities enough to chase after a lofty set of goals.
Jon Kitna is certainly no exception to that rule. As the Detroit Lions’ starting quarterback, he has come a long way, thanks mostly to an uncanny confidence in his ability—even when most others failed to recognize what the scrappy athlete had to offer. And it’s that same confidence—a confidence that he developed growing up on the unsavory east side of Tacoma, Washington—that Kitna believes has allowed him the opportunity to be a unifying force in every locker room he’s ever occupied.
June 10, 2009
Set:
Most of us, at some time, have found ourselves at “the end or our rope” or at the end of our own strength emotionally. Maybe we were so tired at practice that we were disrespectful to a coach, a trainer, or teammate. Most of us have been let down by someone whom we look up to because they were at the end of their rope emotionally. Maybe a friend lied, or our parents left, or our coach blew up and disrespected us.
April 05, 2011
Set:
Last night, at the age of 68, University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun became the oldest basketball coach to ever win an NCAA men’s basketball championship. In his team’s 53-41 win over the Butler Bulldogs, Calhoun earned his third title in his 39-year coaching career.
Calhoun’s milestone reminded me this morning about a man in Scripture whose age also made history. His name was Abraham, and, at the age of 100, he and his wife, Sarah, who was only 10 years younger, gave birth to their son, Isaac. While Abraham and Sarah had known for many years that God promised them a child, they couldn’t see how that would happen in their old ages.
October 07, 2005
Set:
Trouble often seems to be waiting around every corner of daily life, especially for coaches. Whether it is a troubled player, an unfair referee, a nagging parent or an unreasonable principal, coaches can count on difficulties. They come with the territory!
Thankfully, Jesus never pretended that life would be a luxury cruise. “You will have trouble,” He told His disciples. In fact, difficulties are guaranteed, an inevitable part of living in a fallen world. Jesus didn’t deliver the trouble; He just knew it was coming.
December 01, 2008
Set:
To hear Ryan Hall nonchalantly describe his winding journey as a long-distance runner isn’t much different from watching him glide with apparent ease through treacherous hills and valleys en route to the finish line. But just because he makes it look effortless doesn’t mean his path to competitive greatness has been without a fair number of trials and tribulations.
“I’ve had a really rocky journey,” Hall says. “The hardest thing is picking yourself up after a shattered dream or an injury or when you know you didn’t give your best.”
July 24, 2006
Set:
Most sports have a playbook or a set of rules to follow for their program. This book tells how things will be done on and off the field for success in the system. As a player, if you follow these guidelines, you should have success in the system. I recently heard one coach refert to his playbook as his "bible." Obviously, he highly values the book.
As we read through Psalm 119, we find many verses that reference God's Word. The author of the Psalms repeated over and over that God's Word guided him. He understood that God's Word was the only playbook he could follow that could give him true, absolute direction for his life.
June 03, 2008
Set:
The other day I decided to go on a new mountain bike trail. I began riding in the shade of the mountain and the trees until I came to a split in the road. On the left there was a trail called Creek Mouth and on the right was Sugar Island. I’d originally planned just to ride Sugar Island, but I looked on the map to see where Creek Mouth would put me out at. Unfortunately, it wasn't on the map. Still, the name sounded interesting and I knew I had to ride it.
January 15, 2010
Set:
Hannah made the varsity tennis team as a sophomore, eventually beating Mindy, a senior, for the number two singles spot. Hannah became very arrogant in her new position of power, bossing her teammates around and telling them to do things for her. When Mindy did not budge, Hannah became angry. She would do anything to make Mindy look bad in front of the coaches. Mindy did not retaliate; she went about her business playing doubles in her final year. Hannah would not let up. Her dislike for Mindy turned into hate, and she tried to get Mindy kicked off the team. Does this sound familiar?
October 07, 2005
Set:
One of the Division 1 schools in my area entered its conference tournament as the number eight seed and appeared to be a long shot to win it all. The head coach for the team admitted they fell short of expectations, but that the one goal they could hold on to was winning a conference tournament championship. Despite the odds, the team achieved that goal by knocking off the first-, second- and fourth-seeded teams, earning an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament in the process. As one player said, the team put it together when it counted most.
June 09, 2010
Set:
I must admit that one of my guilty pleasures is to watch MMa (mixed martial arts) fights, particularly fights in the UFC. Mixed Martial Arts is a hodge podge of wrestling, boxing, taekwondo, jui jitsu, and other fighting styles thrown into an 8-sided cage. Fighters battle for 15 minutes (25 minutes for championship bouts) until someone is knocked out, the referee stops the action, or a fighter “taps out”. The act of “tapping out” tells your opponent, the referee, and the millions watching on pay-per-view that you gave up because you are feeling immense pain brought on by your opponent.
October 30, 2007
Set:
Game four of the 2007 World Series featured a pitching match-up of two men who had faced more pressure than their current big stage could offer. Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox and Aaron Cook of the Colorado Rockies both had life-threatening illnesses they had to overcome in order to make it to the pinnacle of baseball. "I don't think it's a coincidence," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "I think this game drips with irony. I believe in a lot of different venues that God's fingerprints are all over a lot of things if we are able to open our eyes and recognize it."
January 25, 2010
Set:
Sports are a big thing for me. My whole year pretty much is revolved around sports. The time I do have between seasons, it's usually really busy with working and such, but you also have to have time for friends and family too. I got to thinking the other day, if I prayed, and asked for God as much as I played sports, where would I be? I am pretty sure that my relationship would be 10X stronger, even stronger then it is now. I am sure a lot of people think the same way though.
November 26, 2008
Set:
Wait. One of the worst words in the English language, isn’t it? That’s where I am right now. Waiting. It’s my senior volleyball season, and I’ve been out with a shoulder injury for over a week. There’s nothing I can really do but wait. Wait for recovery. Wait for my doctor’s appointment. Wait for my trainer to clear me to play.
For me, all the waiting does is make me think about my injury, stress about missing games, and get anxious to play. I’m so tired of all this waiting! Are you? What are you waiting on? Waiting for a shoulder to heal might be trivial compared to what’s on your mind. A doctor’s diagnosis. A job offer. A way to pay the bills.
January 05, 2013
Set:
Growing up with two older brothers meant I never got anything new. I was always dished secondhand items:clothes, sporting equipment, and toys. My big day came when I was eight years old and my dad bought me a new lacrosse stick. It was a glorious moment. The lacrosse stick glowed from newness. That experience marked me as a young athlete. It passed through my hands first—not second, third, or fourth!
God does not want our secondhand glory. Secondhand glory is taking credit when God should be getting the credit first. It is subtle. As athletes, it is easy to take credit because we are always getting it from teammates, coaches, and fans.
August 30, 2010
Set:
I had to make a tough decision in my senior year of high school. Coming out of basketball season, I had to decide between playing baseball or running track. My junior year, I had played baseball because we didn't have enough boys to fill a track team. My senior year, however, presented a dilemma. If I ran track, there would be just enough to have team. If I didn't, there wouldn't be a track team that year. When I approached my baseball coach about it, he told me that I would never do anything in track and that his baseball team would probably be going to the state finals. My decision was simple after that. I chose track.
April 26, 2007
Set:
They sat there and wondered how they got there: one player, one coach. All the games played, all the games coached, all the teammates and coached athletes, all the labels that had been given to them by fans and media--those thoughts all ran through their minds as they prepared for their championship games. Peyton Manning endured this in January. Billy Donovan did earlier this month. And it's a situation I know I could only imagine.
October 07, 2005
Set:
In the 1980s, the San Francisco 49ers made popular what became known as the West Coast Offense, an offense characterized by short, controlled-pass plays that gained only five to six yards. By running such low-risk plays, San Francisco nibbled away at their opponents. Even strong defensive opponents who never gave up “big plays” were humbled by the 49ers’ consistent gains. San Francisco’s strategy earned them five Super Bowl titles between 1982 and 1995.
May 13, 2010
Set:
I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t breathe. It was the final moments of a close game and all of a sudden I began to hyperventilate. Many thoughts ran through my mind. One was of getting a bag and breathing into it; but how would
it look if the head coach were catching his breath with a bag around his head while the team tried to finish well. Finally our linebacker intercepted a pass and when he did, my breathing returned. It’s interesting that my panic subsided once I knew the outcome of the game.
June 21, 2010
Set:
I had to laugh when I realized what I did. Thankfully nobody was around to see my boneheaded move. As a frequent traveler, I am in out of airports and hotels all the time, which means I’m also in and out of a ton of different restrooms. I began to run out of patience as I kept waving my hands back and forth to trigger the motion detector that should have turned on the water. After about 30 seconds of this, I thought the sink was broken. When I started to move to the next sink, though, I noticed a strange looking thing called a handle on top of the faucet. I was busted. With a simple turn of the handle, I had my water.
April 25, 2008
Set:
As of last Thursday, I only had three 10-mile tempo runs left before my upcoming marathon. Being a Christian competitor, God is why I run, so I was completely convinced that the He would want to bless me with great weather for each of my remaining tempo runs. Would God not want me to make the most of the time I had left? Surely He would! Imagine, then, my surprise when the clouds started to billow two hours before I was scheduled to hit the road.
December 01, 2008
Set:
Depending on to whom you’re talking at the time, conversations about the King will likely invoke numerous topics. When it comes to rock and roll, there’s no doubt that immortalized crooner Elvis Presley fits the bill. Then you have the King of Pop, a nickname commonly given to iconic entertainer Michael Jackson.
History has also provided us with numerous real-life kings, including such notable biblical leaders as King David and King Solomon and such well-known English rulers as King James I (known for his commissioning of the King James Version of the Bible) and King Henry VIII (infamously known for his many wives).
But within the world of sports, only one image comes to mind when that nickname is uttered: NASCAR legend Richard Petty.
October 07, 2005
Set:
What does it take to win the game? The answer to this question often dictates the primary philosophy that coaches use as the basis of their decisions. Under ever-increasing pressure to win, every coach and player has been encouraged to bend or break the rules. In the world of sports, why is it so difficult to discern what constitutes cheating?
