Think about a team—maybe a school team or one’s family as a team. How many people are on a team? Are they all the same? Do they look alike? act alike? think alike? Probably not, but they are still a cohesive unit of one. On a team, what are the roles of each person and position? In football, what if everyone were the quarterback? What would get accomplished? In soccer, what if everyone were the goalie? How would that play out?

We coach human beings, not robots. Each player has needs and hurts that must be met and healed. When players know we care about them as people rather than simply players who perform for us, they will respond positively.

Head coaches, though, sometimes find it difficult to get close to players. We must be “the heavy” in many situations, and not every player will like our decisions, even when we are confident our choice is the best thing. One way to smooth over this type of pressure is to encourage assistants to be involved as well; athletes need to know there is someone they can go to when the head coach is not their first choice. It’s our job as coaches to care for our players, regardless of how they’ve performed.

The atmosphere was filled with tension. Players from both teams had been encouraged to protest the game. An outside source was trying to convince players that they were being exploited by big-time college sports. Everyone—including the 74,000 fans watching—was anticipating a conflict, but what people didn’t expect was some risky prayer.

In the game of baseball, pitcher Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees is the King of the Hill. He is the sport’s all-time greatest closer with over 600 saves. When Mariano comes out of the bullpen, the game is over. Mariano is a picture of power from the pitcher’s mound.

Having the power to perform well in sports is one thing. Having power for life is something else entirely. In life we have three opponents – the lie of the devil, the lure of our flesh, and the love of the world. (1 John 2:15-17)

In Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, he talks about the character quality of fight, which is a determined effort. He calls it “intensity under control.” A player with fight has a  contained fire burning in his or her belly, which ought to emerge as focused passion.

My very first day of coaching high school girls’ tennis fell on a hot August afternoon. As our practice was about to end, the only thing left was the distance run. I had my stopwatch ready to call out the time of each player as she finished. I knew this was going to be tough that first day; nobody was in great shape at the end of the summer after too many afternoons spent lying on the couch in air-conditioning.

After our fastest runner crossed the finish line, she immediately turned around to see how far back the other players were and saw one young player far behind everyone else. Without hesitating she sprinted back to that last runner and began to run alongside her for the last leg. Our fastest runner did not want anyone to have to finish last or alone.

During times of trial, a standing joke with my family and myself has been, “Please don’t mention Moses. It seems as if this man had an incredibly long and tiring road with ungrateful people and fair-weather fans (sound familiar?). As if this was not enough, Moses and his clan finally reached the edge of the Promised Land and wandered for forty years, not being allowed to enter. Is this the most encouraging devotional you have ever read?

Ever since I was a little kid, I always wondered what it takes to be an Olympian. What type of characteristics does it take? What kind of person do you have to be? Now that I am one, I’m very humbled because it’s not like I feel like I’m so great or that I’ve done anything that special to deserve to get to the Olympics. I feel like the thing I’ve done best is I’ve just gotten back up from all of the lickings I’ve taken, both physically and spiritually. I’m a pretty black-and-white person. I’ll try to live the best I can, then I’ll mess up and fall, and I’ll get all down and upset with myself.