Friday night at a high school football game, I saw something that doesn’t happen very often: an offense had a first-and-goal opportunity at the one-yard line and they failed to score. The opposing defense came up big and made a huge stand to prevent the touchdown that probably would have lost them the game.

In life, how often do we feel like we're down-and-out, like Satan and his team have marched the ball straight down the field until they're standing with first-and-goal on our one-yard line just about ready to punch it in and score? Often, when we're at our weakest, winning seems impossible. The devil attacks hoping for the easy kill.

Coach Buckley’s football practices were brutal. I was only 11, but I still remember them to be grueling, agonizing and dreadful. The trademarked practices had tons of running and repetitive drills, all without scrimmaging! Many players wouldn’t make it through the practices without losing their lunch, and many of them quit. Even my best friend had his parents pull him from the team. But, even though the sacrifice was great, the return that season was sweet. We earned a perfect record and no team even scored on us! Our team, the Braddock Road Sharks, brought fear to all 11-year-olds who dared to play football.