All
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October 25, 2012
Set:
Every season, coaches and players alike try to figure out the “secret formula” for winning a championship. Throughout my years as a player and coach, I’ve learned that every championship team has one thing in common. That one thing is not talent, it’s not size and it’s not intelligence. Time and time again, the common denominator of a championship team is a servant heart. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to believers. Even Jesus, the King of Kings, spent His entire life serving others. Sometimes He served others by listening to them. Sometimes He encouraged them. Sometimes He washed their feet. Ultimately, He served us all by dying on the cross.
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October 25, 2012
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October 25, 2012
Set:
During the 2012 Summer Olympics, the world watched as US athlete Gabby Douglas claimed gold in the all-around portion of the gymnastics competition after anchoring the team’s run to a gold medal two nights before. When interviewed immediately after the competition, Douglas flashed her trademark smile, then displayed a depth of maturity rarely seen: "I give all the glory to God. It's kind of a win-win situation. The glory goes up to Him, and the blessings fall down on me."
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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!
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October 23, 2012
Set:
The runners slipped past me one by one. When I looked behind me, I didn’t see anyone left. Denial set in. I couldn’t possibly be in last place, could I? It had felt like I was running right on pace!
I cranked my neck around—something our coach had told us never to do—and, in a panic, again, I saw no one. I couldn’t reconcile myself to the thought of finishing in last place. No runner who competes at state their freshman year could possibly finish last at the district meet in their sophomore year.
I knew I had to make the decision whether or not to finish the race. The thought crossed my mind that if I dropped out, I wouldn’t finish last, but something in my heart told me that that’s not what was supposed to happen.
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October 22, 2012
Set:
A wide receiver or running back must make crisp cuts when running a route or hitting the hole. A soccer player needs to make crisp cuts when passing or dribbling. Basketball players must make quick, sure, crisp cuts when running plays or making moves to the hoop.
The word “crisp” has been defined as “notably sharp and clean-cut.” Should these athletes round their cuts, they would lose the ability to apply a successful move on their opponent.
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October 19, 2012
Set:
On a brisk Saturday morning a while ago, I hit the running trail with my FCA Endurance teammates for an 18-mile training run. The trail was desolate, and over time my fatigued mind began to drift back to my warm car waiting in the parking lot. We were more than 15 miles into the run, and the thought of less than a 5K left begged me to push harder and finish strong, but still I just didn’t feel like giving it my all.
It was about that time that I heard a sound—one that meant more to me than it did to my running buddies. It was the sound of an approaching train, and its noise drowned out the heavy breathing of our tiring pack.
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October 18, 2012
Set:
Every day it sits on my desk as a powerful reminder. It tugs on my soul with a convicting message that seems to say, “Be careful. Do not let your life be like this.” The object is a gorgeous leather Bible with all the extras, including gold tipped pages. It’s real nice. But the reason I don’t want my life to be like this Bible is that when you crack open the pages, you discover that the pages are blank. Yup—not a single word or letter. It appears to be the Bible of all Bibles on the outside, but it contains nothing of God’s message on the inside. The fake Bible had actually been a sample sent to me by a publisher so that we could get an idea of a cover we wanted for a future FCA Bible. The sample just needed blank pages to fill the inside.
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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.
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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.
