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  Do Not Fear, God is Near Fear is one of the biggest enemies we face daily and it can overwhelm you really fast.  Fear is defined as a feeling of an impending danger, anxiety and worry about a perceived threat to our physical, mental or spiritual well being.  Fear is a weapon that the Devil uses against humans to cast doubt, anxiety and worry in our lives.  Fear can come on really quick or begin slowly and build up to eventually overcome us emotionally.  I can think of many times when fear struck me in my life.  I once had to go to the 30th floor of a building and put furniture on a tiny little deck about six feet wide and that scared me to death.   I am not a fan of heights and have a philosophy of why leave a good solid piece of ground.  Many of you have been to a haunted house and remember how that sudden fear of someone jumping out at you, grabbing you in the dark or just scaring the “you know what” out of someone happens.  You know it is going to happen and just anticipate it and

  My Football and Faith Beginning I grew up in the sport of football, my dad, uncles, brothers and cousins all played football.  We played on Sunday afternoon at my grandma’s house and boy, those were some rough games.  We tackled, blocked and played just like we had pads on.  Football was a tradition in my extended family.  On top of that, my brothers and uncles coached me in little league. As I got older and made it to high school all of them were there on Fridays watching the games.  So Sunday after church, I got coached up, told what I did and didn’t do and how to get better.  It's not easy being coached by your relatives and critiqued.  However, looking back I certainly appreciate it now. It was life lessons I needed and something I take with me to this day.  I always wanted to be a professional football player from the time I was seven years old playing little league.  I worked so hard for many years trying to be the absolute best I could.  I lifted weights, ran laps, ran up

  An Attitude of Gratitude Gratitude is a word used to express how thankful we are for the actions of others and the blessings in our lives.  Our attitude is a choice that we make on a daily basis.  As humans we often fall short of having a good attitude and being grateful for the many blessings we have been given by God, family  and friends.  One thing is for sure and that is we cannot control the random things that happen to us (other people, flat tires, unexpected expenses, sudden emergencies, deaths, etc).  What we can control is how we react to these life events and how we carry ourselves during and after these events. The bible tells us that God is in control of all things earthly and in heaven.  He has a plan for us and wants us to be grateful for his countless blessings.  Even when suffering we can choose to have a positive attitude and be grateful for God’s blessings.  When we wake up to tough times, pray for God to give you the strength to go forward in your life with a const

  Winning in Life and With God Do you have a winning attitude about life? What is your definition of winning?  That all depends on your personal views, background and experience with winning and losing. As a long time career football, wrestling and softball coach I have had to look at winning from two perspectives.  One of those being actual W's and L's.  How is my football team competing or how are my individual wrestlers doing? Are they beating people on the field or the mat. That is a statistical way to view winning and many coaches only view it that way.  I know Hall of Fame coaches that have win totals I would love to attain.  They are well known for those stats during their career. The other way to look at winning is "winning in life" and life after death.  As a coach it is my job to mentor my students/athletes to be active, hardworking and goal oriented adults.  Adults that learned through competition, winning and losing to overcome and push forward. I love se

    Spiders vs. Me, Bathroom Battles and Facing Fear Today I am writing about an experience I had this morning in the bathroom as I was preparing for work.  I assume that your bathrooms are equipped like ours with nothing to kill a spider with other than toilet paper.  We don't have a fly swatter, shoes, sticks, etc. to face those mean little creepy crawly critters.  The standoff with these little mean monsters began after I had entered the bathroom to get ready to shower.  As I am getting ready to step into the shower, a mean looking spider about the size of a dime decides to walk across my foot.  Once I realize what it is I panic and about fall over dead right there in the bathroom.  Sorry for the visual but I am in my birthday suit preparing to bath and in no way prepared to face down a spider attack.  So I feel the little monster on my foot and kick as hard as I can, well that worked to get him off my foot, but didn't work so well as my foot bounced off the toilet bowl (ouc

  Talk Is Cheap, Action Speaks During my coaching career I have heard many inspirational sayings from coaches before games, during meetings and at coaching clinics.  A few of my favorites that stuck with me are “Don’t talk about it, be about it”, “Talks cheap, action speaks” and “Don’t tell me, show me”.  I have said these many times to my football players, wrestlers and team members.  We say these things to our athletes to inspire them to be more than talk, to be more than they currently are.  We want to challenge them to become bigger, stronger and faster and tougher.  We want to show the opponent through our play that we are tough, will battle and fight to the last whistle. In today's world of social media many athletes like to talk trash.  They post  about who is going to to win, lose and all that hype.  It isn’t a bad thing and is designed to encourage competition.  However, when the whistle blows, many of these tough talkers falter and fall short of their own expectations.  T