Character Coach / Sports Chaplain Blog

There are a myriad of factors making for effectiveness in sports chaplaincy or character coaching. Among them are one's background, training, personality traits, spiritual giftedness, relationships, emotional intelligence, and more. I believe a short set of character traits are even more essential to effective service than any of the aforementioned qualities. This list is not exhaustive, but I believe these six are most essential: Humility, Patience, Self-awareness, Perspective, Curiosity, and Persistence. Humility  is a quality quite uncommon among sportspeople. They are normally straddling the line between brazen arrogance and strong confidence. In such an environment one can join in the folly of seeking to be seen as first, or one can put himself in rank (the literal meaning of humility) and intentionally take the lower position. Though the supremely confident thumpers of their chests loudly project power and strength, they also respect the humble one who qui...

The eleventh season of my service of a college football team was one I will never forget. It was the fourth season with that particular coaching staff, having been 1 and 10, 2 and 10, and 4 and 8 in the previous seasons. Suddenly in mid-November we were 10 and 0, nationally ranked, and surely headed to the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs for the first time in twenty-one years.   After an exciting, last second, loss on the road, I was in my seat on the bus waiting to go to the airport for the flight home. I sat there stunned, not knowing how to process all this. The head coach looked across the aisle at me and said, “Hey, are you okay?” I said, “Coach, I had forgotten what it feels like to lose.” Ten weeks of winning had erased my memory of years of painful loss. Success has the power to do that.   Winning teams feel like they’re invincible. ·       They tell themselves, “We win even when we don’t play well.” ·       The...

While recently reflecting upon my life’s path across sixty-eight years, I realized most of my growth and development, personal and professional, came as a result of failure and frustration. A few examples follow.   After being laid off from my job as a laborer in a lumber yard at age twenty-four, I found a job in a home center and after four more years, a job with a wholesale building materials distributor, then another retailer, followed by two more sales jobs. Being laid off from a job with a hard ceiling led to new employment with room to grow.   After one year of absolute, total failure in selling garages, I was in position to take a paid role as an administrative assistant to my mentor in ministry (Fred Bishop of No Greater Love Ministries). It took all of that year of horrible failure and financial stress to have my wife and me ready to take a very modest salary. My ambitious nature was energized by the commission sales job, but it’s a stressful existence for t...