Coach Sleepy Thompson was one of those coaches that everyone wanted to play for. He not only knew how to win football games, but also how to develop young men. As my high school football coach, I remember him as an encourager—a coach that instilled life into his players. We walked a little taller as a result of his living out one of his favorite sayings, “Accentuate the positive.” A day would not go by without Coach Thompson reminding us of that principle. It was short and sweet and yielded powerful results. He stressed accentuating the positive at every practice and made it an essential characteristic of our team. He focused on the good in players instead of the bad; the future instead of the past. His words gave us purpose and meaning.

In working with a college Huddle, I hear many struggles and things that the athletes are going through. The pressures of athletic competition are tough, and many athletes turn to the wrong things. They hide their struggles in various places--the internet, a bottle or other things much worse. But they need to know that there is hope!

Coaches like having things done their way. They will let their assistants teach some, but with the important things, the head coach will usually take the lead. Coaches teach young athletes and pound their game plan into their heads over and over again until it becomes second nature. It’s just what they do.

As coaches and athletes, when it comes to sharing Christ with our team, why do we leave it up to the youth pastor or chaplain or someone else? Moses was given a game plan by the Lord to teach the Israelites. The Lord told Moses, “I am giving you the words to teach them.” It was on the shoulders of Moses to pass God’s Word on to generations to come. Moses knew he had to succeed for the Lord.

There’s something about purpose, something about buying into the concept of destiny that inherently evens the odds.

Nowhere will you find more examples of this principle than in the Bible, where unlikely heroes saved entire nations. Moses was a self-conscious exile with a speech problem, yet God used him to free the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. David was an undersized shepherd boy living under the shadow of his strong, able-bodied older brothers; still he was empowered to kill the mammoth Philistine warrior Goliath and rescue his people from certain defeat. Mary was a teenage girl from a nondescript lineage, but God called her to be the mother of Jesus, the Savior of the world.

Imagine running a race with your jeans hanging low or while wearing bagging sweat pants. You'll either wind up tripping or waddling like a penguin. Regardless, you are sure to lose the race. However, if you are serious about winning, you will do all that you can to keep yourself from tripping or being slowed down.

Second Timothy 2:4 says, “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” The Greek word “empleko” refers to a person who is tangled up in his or her garments or caught in some type of vine. This word was used to describe someone who was running and got his clothes entangled in his legs.

The time-out. What a great tool! When you realize that your athletes are becoming unnerved, out of breath and in need of a break, a time-out is a great way to stop, reenergize, refocus, reward and reassure them. Something as simple as a water break time-out to reenergize your team is all it takes to get them going again. In the same way, our “thirst” for God requires that we take time-outs in our lives in order to be reenergized by our Coach, Jesus Christ.

By most accounts, Kay Yow shouldn’t be one of the greatest women’s basketball coaches of all time. History alone presents many reasons why her rise to legendary status was improbable at best.

When sports fans think about hockey—and in particular the NHL—there’s no telling what imagery might come to mind.

For some, hockey is all about the pinpoint passing skills. For others, it’s the forceful nature of the slap shot. Some might even reference the catlike prowess of the ever-alert goalkeepers, and their distinctive protective gear and colorful masks. Of course, most can’t talk about hockey without mentioning the bone-crushing cross-checks into the boards or those legendary (if not mandatory) nightly brawls.

Mixing faith and athletics has always been a tricky proposition. Some believe the two are inseparable, while others don’t think God has—or even cares to have—a place in the sports world.

In 2001, the folks at Catholic Supply decided to throw their opinion into the public arena by releasing a series of statuettes that depict Jesus playing various sports (baseball, golf, tennis, hockey, and so forth) with adolescents. These figurines quickly became a big hit but also took plenty of shots from the media and the entertainment world—in particular from Conan O’Brien, who regularly included them in innocuous comedy bits on his late-night talk show.