Character Coach / Sports Chaplain Blog

I was recently reflecting on the changes I have seen across my twenty-three seasons of serving Saluki Football (collegiate American Football). We have served with five different coaching staffs, some with lots of changes within the tenure of the same head coach. We have seen hundreds of young men cycle through the university in those years, about 25 new players each year, 100+ on each year’s roster. This note will feature the differences in how my service has changed across the years. I hope this allows you some sense that changes can be good, even if clouded by firing, failure, pain, and uncertainty. 1994-1996 – Head Coach Shawn Watson – I owe Shawn more than I could ever express. He invited me into college football and gave me enough room to experiment, to fail, to succeed, to be trusted, and to innovate. I attended practices, led team chapels, served in crises, began to travel with the team, wrote personal notes to players and coaches, and began to write game day devotions for...

A couple of the most effective, but hard to arrange avenues of professional development for sports chaplains are networking and mentoring. Most of us are either too busy, or we don’t prioritize the time to be with our colleagues on a regular basis. Most of us learn best when we simply spend time in conversation with each other, comparing notes, telling stories, and asking questions of each other. The wisest among us make time for such networking, and we seek out mentors to help us develop our ministries. One of the most effective ways we have been doing this recently has been through conference calls on a monthly basis. Starting in August of 2015, I began hosting conference calls, approximately sixty minutes in duration, in which I simply interview one of our respected sports chaplaincy colleagues from around the USA. Several times, we have even connected with people outside the USA by Skype while having my mobile phone on speaker so our international friends could participate. Do...

One of the values I learned from my mentor, Fred Bishop, is to maintain long-term relationships, even across the globe and for decades. He did it by making long trips by car and by writing post cards by hand. He has since graduated to email and social media. I have marveled at the way he was able to stay in touch with people, to pray for them, to encourage them, and to be encouraged by their development as men and women who love Christ Jesus. Below are the ways I have found to do this and the results I receive. I maintain relationships with former players (college football, basketball, baseball, softball, professional baseball) via a number of channels: ·         Email – I have near 900 people on my weekly devotion list and send them out each Monday morning. ·         Text messages – I send a daily verse from the Proverbs to baseball players who have come through our club. ·      ...

A year ago our head football coach was fired and we worked with him, his staff, their families, and support staff to manage the transitions each had to make. A few weeks later, our new head coach was chosen and he began to assemble his staff, to determine the direction of the program, and to outline its values. The new head coach is only 31 years old and that presents him a particular set of challenges. His staff is also rather young, with one exception. He and I talked after recruiting was completed about how I could serve him and we had a tremendous discussion. One of his first thoughts was to have his program defined by the statement, “Be a Man.” Rather than have a long list of rules, he would like the young men in his program to just, “be a man.” I pushed back, saying, “Coach, they don’t know what that is.” Near 80% of our players grew up with no man in the house, and probably a number of the others had poor models for what a man is. I said, “Coach, we have to define terms. Wi...

For most of the coaches with whom I serve, for most of the chaplains with whom I associate, for most of the parents and employers I know, the Millennial generation is an enigma. They are not sure just how to lead them, just what they value, and otherwise just don’t get what they’re doing. At sixty years of age, an acknowledged and unrepentant Baby Boomer, I have experienced my struggles in communicating and in developing leadership among this unique group of people. While researching the characteristics of millennials, I came across this article by a millennial and liked its approach. I have excerpted portions of the article from LinkedIn by Lydia Abbott and have inserted some thoughts re: serving millennial sportspeople. I hope these thoughts are of value to you as you serve them. My contributions will be bold italics . 8 Millennials' Traits You Should Know About Before You Hire Them   Lydia Abbot December 4, 2013 ·           i n e ...

This time of year always brings the resignations, firings, new hirings, and other coaching staff transitions. This is primarily true in college football, but also applies to the high school level, and other fall sports as well. Below is a post from late November, 2007 during the third transition I had experienced with our football staff. I hope its values and insights are of value to you as transitions come your way. At this time of year in college football, there are dozens of changes among head coaching positions, multiplied by their staff’s transitions. This displaces hundreds of coaches and their families each year. We can serve them by understanding the situation and positioning ourselves for effective ministry. Related to the outgoing staff:   · If the staff was fired, understand that this feels like failure and a lot like death to them.  · Help the coaches to see this situation within the sovereignty of God. The Lord is not surprised by this.  · Und...

On Wednesday of this week, we participated in the PowerUp Sports Ministry Conference in the Indianapolis, Indiana area. Bill Houston and his team from Our Daily Bread Ministries (odb.org) hosted and organized this excellent event. The program featured presentations by LaMorris Crawford, chaplain to the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL, Dorothy Caldwell, chaplain to the WNBA Chicago Sky, my son Jason Lipe and I, and a panel discussion facilitated by Tom Rust of Face-2-Face Radio, and populated by Derick Grant, formerly with the Harlem Globetrotters, David Wildman of Fully Packed Adventure Sports Ministries, David Storvick, chaplain to the Indy Racing League, Cameron Mills, former basketball player at Kentucky, and Tom Roy of Unlimited Potential, Inc. LaMorris Crawford delivered two excellent and inspiring talks. Dorothy Caldwell did a very good job of sharing about her service with WNBA players. Jason and I talked about growing up in sports chaplaincy, how we have both learned as ...

One of the more impactful, available, and practical ways we have used to serve the sports chaplaincy community in the United States is the conference call. Just over two years ago, I began an experiment in sport chaplaincy development by hosting a monthly conference call. From August through May we simply interviewed one of our sports chaplaincy colleagues from around the country for anywhere from 35 to 60 minutes. The calls never fail to inform, inspire, encourage, and challenge each one who calls in. Those interviewed have included both men and women, people from collegiate, high school, and professional sports. Many of those interviewed have been volunteers, others have been sports ministry professionals working for FCA or other sports ministries. The conference calls have been promoted via email, via social media, and via text messages. We would invite you to join us. We now have two times slots for these calls. One call is on the first Sunday evening each month at 8:00 pm...

It is amazing to observe the wide variety of styles that we employ in our service of the people of sport. Some of us approach our service like a member of the coaching staff. Others seem more like a pastor who roams the dugouts, sidelines, and locker rooms. Still others are evangelists, without apology, seeking opportunities to share Jesus in any moment. There is certainly room for one to develop his or her personal style of service, but just how “spiritual” or “religious” should our service be? While speaking with our university’s play by play radio announcer earlier this year, he remarked, “I have never heard your work described as religious.” I replied that I was glad, rather than being religious I would prefer to be faithful to my calling from God. I think what he meant was that I don’t communicate in religious clichés, nor do I imply that going to church services with me is the height of Christian devotion. My way of serving people in sport is to speak in the language of thei...

Our friend and colleague, Stuart Weir of Verité Sport , shared this devotional thought earlier today. It is emblematic of what I believe to be a wise, thoughtful, and Biblical view of sport and faith. Please take a moment to read Stuart’s thoughtful reflection from I Timothy 4:8. Important but not All-Important For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 1 Timothy 4:8. Sport is legitimate. It is part of God’s creation and it brings pleasure to many. It is as worthwhile a part of human activity as any other. Through sport people can glorify God and it can provide opportunities to talk about Jesus. However, at the end of the day, sport is transient. It, like all other human activity, is going to pass away. In the light of eternity it is of limited value. While there is a danger of sport becoming an idol if it is put ahead of Christ, sport is important because it is the ar...