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A successful gymnast has rhythm, confidence, and a strong body—but most vitally, power and control. With power, a gymnast can whip her body around a bar to gain momentum for a dismount. She can vault herself high enough over an apparatus to flip and twist her body in the air. She can leap off the ground and complete numerous harrowing tumbling passes during a floor routine. Power is important to these young athletes.
I love college football and everything about it. I love watching a good offense, but there is nothing like a strong front line on the defensive side. There is nothing more intimidating to me than having a great front four that doesn’t let anyone advance down the field. They are the rock of their defense — a mighty fortress, so to speak. Nothing can penetrate them when the offense tries to advance. They stand firm. What an awesome sight it is to see nothing cross the line of defense.
The 1996–97 season was both victorious and sorrowful for the Detroit Red Wings hockey team. In this triumphant year, the team had won hockey’s greatest prize—the Stanley Cup. But joy quickly turned into tragedy as a car accident claimed the career of a leading player on their team.
Questions to Ask When Attempting to Respond to People and Circumstances God’s Way… A resource from Ed Gomes
Questions to Ask When Attempting to Respond to People and Circumstances God’s Way…
God, what are you trying to teach me through the situation?
God, what are you trying to teach me about me through the situation?
It's an ordinary Wednesday afternoon at Miami's Ghoulds Park where, under the watchful eye of FCA's Noah Wilbanks, a group of street-savvy football prospects race through a series of drills hoping to catch the eyes of college football coaches from across the nation.
These aren't your typical blue-chippers. Some are teenagers, others are in their mid-20's, but all are pushing themselves through the oppressive South Florida heat alongside campmates of different ethnicities and from others parts of town.
How does strength and flexibility training improve one’s game? In what ways is a team better because of that training?
Hebrews 12:12-13 states, “strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but healed instead.”
Certainly each player is able to compete at a higher level when he or she is stronger and more able to withstand injury. Thus, we hear the admonition to strengthen our “tired hands” and “weakened knees.”
Coaches want to tell their athletes exactly what needs to be dsone and have confidence they’ll do it. Athletes want coaches to be direct. They want to know exactly what play to run. They don’t want surprises. Knowing exactly what is expected is how athletes focus on what they have to do.
David gave Solomon this kind of direction in 1 Kings. David knew his time on earth was almost up. He knew Solomon would need to focus in order to prepare for what was coming. David gave Solomon very direct expectations for his life.
We can take these same directions and apply them to our lives today. When we take “Coach” David’s to-do list and apply it to our lives, we will have the focus we need to succeed in the game of life.
My dad loved to engage God daily and passionately challenged others to do so as well. It had not always been that way. Eighteen years ago he was an overcommitted businessman who would squeeze in a two-minute devotion in his car before running into his office. That changed when Brad Curl saw that my dad, who was on many ministry boards, was skimming with his devotions. To get his attention, Brad grabbed my dad and said, “Ed, stop playing with God. You are a Christian leader. Start diving into God’s Word and get serious! No more giving God leftovers!” That day marked my dad. No more two-minute devos! My dad’s life transformed as he feasted on God’s Word first thing every morning.
Hockey Chat: Good hockey teams win as a team and lose as a team. They are protective of each other on the ice, sometimes getting in scuffles that they never started. They celebrate together after a goal, whoever scored it. It’s that comradely that keeps the team strong.
"However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.’” – 1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)
After wrapping up her college volleyball career at Michigan State University, Jen Jones assumed coaching would be a natural career choice. Instead, she followed God’s leading into the weight room and up to the training table. Now an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Texas A&M, Jones is focused on building athletes who are strong in both body and spirit.
I once heard of a pitcher who was nervous about starting a play-off game. The position players were steering clear of him, and the pitching coach was at his wits end over the pitcher’s behavior. The head coach finally got wind of what was going on and marched down to the clubhouse to talk to the pitcher. He looked the pitcher in the eye and said, “Son, either change your behavior, or change out of your uniform!”
An imprint is permanent mark. It means to engrave, etch, impress or inscribe. I remember as an eight-year-old, I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ride my older brother's motorcycle. I wanted to show him how "big" I was, so I took off with reckless abandonment! Around 100 yards down the dirt road, my front tire hit a hole that I never saw. As I flew through the air, my life passed before my eyes. I landed in a ditch, and the motorcycle landed on my back! Ouch! Thankfully, as a result of being in the ditch, the only part of the motorcycle that was touching my back was the muffler. As the muffler burned through my shirt and my flesh, I experienced a world of hurt. My brother rescued me and I was forbidden to ride his bike again.
I’ll admit it . . . I love to watch NASCAR. I am fascinated by the speed of the cars and the drivers who work all week to prepare for a race every Sunday. What would happen if they just came to the track on Sunday without doing anything to their cars all week? Or what if they let some other carmaker try to use outside parts on their car? They would do poorly and probably wouldn’t finish the race. These cars are high-maintenance, bought and conditioned as finely-tuned machines to perform at peak abilities when it is time to go.
A special tree grows each year in every sport. It’s called the coaching tree. Throughout the history of sports, wesee a list of coaches who have been trained by other great coaches, who, in turn, continue the legacy to form an incredible tree. Bob Knight, Pat Summitt, Knute Rockne, Tommy Lasorda—all have great coaching trees because at one time or another, they committed themselves to being taught and they gained the knowledge they needed to pass along to others. Basketball coach Dean Smith is an example. His coaching had many branches that stemmed out to high school, college, and professional ranks and included coaches who had been and still are following in his footsteps.
Every competitive athlete is looking for an edge: a way to get faster—shave seconds off his/her time, get stronger, or jump higher. We know our performance depends on it.
In training, athletes often wear a weighted vest as they go through their drills, helping them push beyond their normal limits. The additional stress to their body in a controlled environment prepares them for the intense demands of competition. When the vest comes off, these athletes feel invincible. They are faster, stronger, and more agile. It is like a prisoner has been freed.
Anthony Henry remembers the 1.5-hour walks well.
Who knows how much of his childhood was spent accompanying his mother, Mae Robinson, on her treks to work? Sure, she could’ve tried the car; but it broke down all the time, so why bother? Besides, many weeks, this was the only significant time Anthony and Mae got to spend together, considering the long hours and multiple jobs she had to work to keep the creditors at bay.
The walks were good for reflecting, at least for Mae. There was plenty to think about: life as a single parent, the surrounding crime that threatened to snatch her youngest boy, and her older children who had already been ensnared.
Wisdom for a Young Head Coach
Week 1
Read the text aloud.
Discussion Questions:
“This is the end of me.”
That was the only thought that raced through the mind of Middle Tennessee State University jumper Sarah Nambawa when, on Dec. 31, 2009, she tore her posterior cruciate ligament while training for an upcoming meet.
I was blessed with an incredible childhood. My parents loved my siblings Amy and Bryan and me, and they devoted time to us and provided us with everything we needed. We grew up either playing in the creek behind our house in Santa Rosa, Calif., or walking across the street to the nearby state park’s swimming lagoon. I can still picture us carrying our giant inflatable animal rafts on our heads as we headed out for a swim.
Every summer at FCA Camp, Marla Williams prays that God will reveal to her one or two Huddle Leaders He wants her to invest in during the week — athletes for whom she can be that sharpening iron of the Lord. This summer, her pre-camp prayers were answered with stunning clarity.
In the first staff meeting at FCA’s Black Mountain camp in North Carolina, Williams, an FCA staff member in Alabama, felt almost an immediate calling to two young women from the U.S. Naval Academy: Ali Currier, captain of the Navy’s basketball team, and Aubrey Manes, an outside hitter for the volleyball team.
On August 30, 2006, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to experience a day with FCA’s rapidly expanding inner-city ministry there. The ministry, spearheaded by FCA Area Representative David Kiehn, seeks to bring restoration and prosperity to the city by touching the lives of athletes and coaches in some of D.C.’s roughest areas. During my visit I met with football coaches at Dunbar High School and Anacostia High School. What I found was that change within D.C.’s inner-city doesn’t occur overnight by passing a bill or amending a law, but by reaching the hearts of its youth with the gospel.
Ron interviews Cam Cameron and Tom Osborn. Herschel Walker talks about his days at Georgia. Les talks about Christ.
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