There was a powerful calm in the air as Barton College Head Coach Ron Lievense prepared for the start of the 2007-08 men’s basketball season.

Alone in the Bulldogs’ locker room in rural Wilson, N.C., Lievense moved quietly from locker to locker, praying. He prayed not for a return of the international fame that accompanied Barton’s national championship victory a season ago, but for each of his players, that they would look to the Lord for guidance and give Him the glory in all things.

For more than 30 years, women’s basketball coaches have stood on the shoulders of Kay Yow. An undeniable legend in the sport, her bio reads like an excerpt from “College Basketball’s Most Desirable Accomplishments.” But when thumbing through the pages of that biography, note that Yow’s fiercest competitor hasn’t been on the court.

Three times the North Carolina State head coach has been diagnosed with breast cancer, most recently stage IV in November 2006. But likened to any other rival, she has shown up for cancer’s game, determined to fight.

If you are not eating breakfast, you are missing the most important meal of the day! When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He said, “Come and have breakfast.” It was a time of nourishment—physical,  relational and spiritual. Too bad most of us just rush into the day, undernourished physically and unprepared spiritually.

Breakfast is essential for consistent energy, focus and concentration, easier weight loss and more consistent moods. But just eating breakfast isn’t necessarily going to get you started on the right foot.

For a time, Iver McDonald was superhuman. Well, not really. But at least she felt that way. That’s what can happen when you’re young and brash and enter high school as an elite softball player good enough to make the varsity as a freshman.
 
“I had this horrible attitude,” she said. “I thought I was the stuff in softball—like I walked on water. I thought I was invincible, that nothing could touch me.”

But things weren’t going so well in her personal life.

It was a first for the two brothers, playing on the same Major League field.

Graduating from the childhood batting cages of their backyard, life had come full circle for Matt and Jonny Diaz. Their parents smiled from the stands; they couldn’t have been more proud. Each young man had followed his own individual calling, but this Saturday night they both found themselves delivering for Braves’ fans at Turner Field—one with a bat, the other with a guitar.

Sheltered from the stark contrast separating the world’s “haves” and “have-nots,” FCA Colombia Director James Oilar was living the good life as a sports club manager in Chicago.

But when a friend asked Oilar a simple question, it took him on a journey that eventually landed him in Bogotá, Colombia, to help lead FCA’s first international Huddle.

The question? “James, what has to happen in your life so you don’t consider it a failure?”

To this day, Leah O’Brien-Amico remembers the phone call. It came a decade ago, but it seems like yesterday. It was in the morning. O’Brien-Amico, who was at the time still in the process of building her softball-legend status as part of the U.S. National Team, was standing in the lobby of a hotel chatting with some teammates.

She was in a good mood; it was a joyful time. An Olympic gold medal-winning athlete, O’Brien-Amico had just wrapped up her final season at the University of Arizona, where her team had won the College World Series about a month earlier. It was the third national title Arizona had won while she was there.

One of the reasons Olympic athletes are so successful is that they are constantly training for an event. They spend most of their lives training for future competition. In fact, most athletes spend more than 90 percent of their time training for competition and less than 10 percent actually competing.

They train with tremendous focus and purpose because every day is important. Missed workouts are not an option. They have a goal in sight, which serves as a motivator and constant reminder that they need to stay on track if they are going to have future success.

Try for a second to imagine not being able to publicly praise your Holy Father in Heaven.

Imagine being so on fire for Jesus Christ and His amazing sacrifice on the cross and wanting to tell every person you met but, because of fear of persecution or deportation, you couldn’t open your lips.
 
Imagine that governmental supervision was required when assembling in large groups to discuss all Christ has done, all the grace He showers upon us.

Tucked neatly between peaks of California’s San Bernardino Mountains is the quiet reservoir town of Big Bear Lake, population 5,500. It is a cozy ski resort town full of log-cabin charm, the kind of place that begs visitors to forget that the turbulence of Hollywood sits at its feet only 100 miles away.

It was in this quiet town that an Olympic quest began. U.S. marathon runner Ryan Hall was only 14 years old when he stared out at the lake through his parents’ car window and was filled with a vision — a vision to run.

Randy Swearengin was a rookie FCA area representative, newly hired to a full-time position in Mississippi, when he entered a coach’s office in his district one morning armed with a box of Bibles and a heart determined to impact local coaches and athletes for Christ.

He had recently purchased the box of FCA Coach’s Bibles with his own money and was planning to hand-deliver them to every local coach as way of introducing himself. This particular coach, however, known for being tough and hard-nosed on and off the field, would have nothing of it.