CHARGER NATION: STATE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Charger
Nation,
Our opponent, Aquinas, is a great football team and they are similar to
us. They have had great success the past 7-8 years and in been a title
contender since 2011. They have great players just like us. They
are a great football team. My confidence in tomorrow does not come
because I watch film and think we can beat Aquinas. My confidence is in
the boys I coach at ELCA. I believe in them.
As we ended our last practice of 2015 last night I ended the night by telling
the team thankyou. It has been an absolute blessing to coach these
boys. Of course there is always drama here and there, but these boys have
been very focused all year long and they wanted to work to get better.
Through every challenge, whether a loss or me getting on to them, they
responded in the right way. It has been a fun year to coach. My
wife even told me last week that I had been better at home this year. I
bet that is because life with the boys was good.
What I am very proud of is the group so seniors we have. I don’t want to
name seniors specifically but they are the anchor of this football
team. They lead more with their actions than their
mouth. Well some like to talk but they all back it up with hard
work. We have a crazy group of sophomores who I love but they are still
crazy. It’s a group of kids that want to be great but can’t focus very
long (but that is how sophomores are). They are workers though and they
will mature from a leadership standpoint as they grow up. There has been
nothing better for those boys than the leadership that has come from the
seniors. I could always see the sophomores challenging and bucking the
senior’s leadership, and even mine, but they always got in line. It was
really neat to sit back and watch. Like I said, this year has been a
blessing.
So as head into the state championship game there are three things running
through my mind:
1.) Our football team represents something
so much bigger than itself Saturday. We are representing a great
school and the great people at our school. We are representing great
families at ELCA! Most importantly, we represent Jesus Christ. Most
kids I coach have not surrendered their life to Christ (I did not say all
so if your son is the next Billy Graham please do not take offense). I’m
sure with Uriah in high school we will work through his lostness and preach
Christ to him daily. These boys believe just as I did at that age but
they have not surrendered. So I hate to say that they are representing
Christ Saturday. That is a hard challenge to put on a young mischievous
high school boy. But what they do represent is a group of parents (you!)
and a school who are committed to raising their children up in the fear of the
Lord. You parents have sacrificed a great deal that your son may be
challenged academically, spiritually and physically everyday and our boys are
representing that Saturday. I know they have been challenged by me
everyday in what I believe is the ultimate standard of excellence: Jesus Christ.
God called me into coaching for that specific purpose. Our school and our
football team exists to raise young boys and girls to men and women for Jesus
Christ. My prayer is that the Lord will go with us and we will represent
him in a magnificent way.
2.) Griffin Alexander told me the other
day that I am not an emotional person. Maybe it comes across as I am not
emotional but I have all kinds of emotions running through me.
Whenever I feel too much emotion one way or the other I just start praying for
control. But the emotions are there. But I am very emotional and
proud of how hard these boys have worked this year. One thing I hope to
teach these boys is how to work hard. When I went to the Citadel and had
to go to class, go to football practice, go study and do all the crazy military
stuff they make you do I realized I could do so much more than I ever
thought. My next thought was why didn’t somebody make me learn this when
I was 12? I want your boys to know they can work their tails off through
coming in early for film study or weight training, go to school all day, go to
practice, go to more film study and then still go home and study and do well in
school. It’s not that you can’t do it—it’s you can do it and you have to
figure out how. NO EXCUSES! I want them to get into their job one
day and think their day is easy compared to a Monday and Tuesday at ELCA during
football season. These boys bought into all of that and excelled.
That makes me emotional. It makes me so proud of the boys I coached this
year. More than any win we had, I am so proud of the Win the Day
attitude these boys came with each day!
3.) I know I already talked about Jesus
Christ but I have to again. The second thing I care about teaching at
ELCA (and its really the first) is Jesus Christ. I always believed in
Jesus but it was not until 23 that I surrendered all to Christ and accepted him
as Lord and Savior of my life. Before that I was the guy who talked about
God and Jesus but my actions were far from following Christ. Soon after I
surrendered all to Christ, God called me into coaching. So God
called me to go back to the very age of kids where I was at my dumbest and use
the game of football to build men for Jesus Christ. A great football season
will not change your sons life. A state championship will not change your
son life. You giving your child his biggest desire will not change his
life. Only Jesus Christ will change your son’s life. I can’t give
your son a state championship or a great football season (but we can work real
hard for it!). But what I can offer him is the good news of the One who
has died for our sins. The One who releases us from the bondage of
sin. The One who provides us access to God and is our advocate to God.
Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the greatest gift and He transforms lives.
This I offer to your son daily.
--Proverbs 21:31
