The Battle Within

There has been so much on my soul the last few years and God has been molding me.  In his molding of me, I have found myself resisting the call to lean on him.  I go to him when I need him, but rarely am I just going to him like before.  The life we lead has many people crossing our paths and a lot of times we get so busy, we fail to realize how much of their spiritual baggage we carry with them.  I miss my times with Christ when it was just us and he could love on me and I could deal with the issues I felt were burdening me.  However, Jesus has placed me in a place of leadership and guidance.  He directs me to stand for what I believe in and then pour that into the people who are in my crown of life.  I was very worried because recently I have used some foul language, but in my frustration I realized God knows my heart and knows my battle.  I wasn’t going to let something like that turn me away from the people, especially the young men, He has placed in my path.  One of the other things I have realized is God is busting down the doors in the South Florida Amateur Wrestling World.  He is allowing these young men and women to hear about who He is and what He has done for us.

Now don’t get me wrong, we work and grind to compete for championships, but more importantly we need to focus on these kids becoming adults with integrity.  People who say what they do and do what they say.  The desire to build a strong family environment, where they can feel safe and at the same time turn the Animal on when it is time to compete.  The battle for me is to not take control, learning that I do not have to do everything.  The wisdom of knowing God has got me is an amazing feeling.  It is one I need to hold onto more and GRAB onto it.  When those temptations come in life or those whispers, those inner demons start chattering, I need to remember the battle is no more when I surrender it to Christ.  I love being a Coach because the Ultimate Coach and the Ultimate Champion is Jesus and there truly is no better way to grind.  Sacrifice and Grace… Giving up things we know take away from our grind and Grace knowing God didn’t have to but still did give us the freedom to compete and grow and become the Champions He designed us to be.

We all have a battle within, but with Christ you feel the comfort of your savior and redeemer.  He lays His hands upon you and whispers ever so quietly in your ear,  YOU ARE MY BELOVED AND WITH YOU I AM WELL PLEASED!!  I pray for a healthy season for my team and all the teams around me.  I pray for a great season for all the wrestlers in the country and pray God grows me closer to Him and guides me to be the man of God He wants me to be for those people in my path.

One Love, One King, All Christ!

Why I Coach!!

There are so many reasons to list like winning championships and wearing rings but there is so much more.  Now it would be easy to say I can make that point because I don’t have any state championships or rings so I am trying to make an excuse.  However, I think the men who win those championships realize after a while those will all be meaningless in the end.  The treasure of coaching is watching boys because young men.  The battle they have with the evil influences in life.  We all have battled those influences and many of us have fallen to it, but it has been the coaches who have given us those multiple chances at making it right that have allowed many of us to become coaches and not statistics in jail or dead.  I was definitely on the track on the latter but a coach saved me.  I believe Jesus placed a heaviness on my moms heart to have her go to my coach for help.  It was a feeling she had and she was right.

This coach came and asked me to start being a part of what he was doing.  I should have been away in college playing football and doing school and instead I was living the Miami life ( If you are from down south you know what that means!)  It was through coaching and watching men coach that I saw the impact coaches truly have on their athletes.  I wanted that because I felt like I missed out on that as a player, especially in high school.  It was God who opened up the doors for me to start coaching and he closed the doors for me to play college football.  I have been coaching since I was 20 years old and I am now 41.  I meet so many kids, who are now men, that I have coached and they tell me the impact I made on them.  God is constantly reminding me the lives that I have impacted because of the path he set me on.

I coach to develop these athletes into strong competitors but mostly for them to become men of integrity so that their word means something.  So many people we encounter today have no integrity they are simply for them self and that’s it.  Now it doesn’t mean you cant have success and be this type of coach as well.  I coach in an area where I am surrounded by Championship programs and wrestlers and it keeps me on my feet to want to be the best.  There is a love your guys have to have for you. It is not how much wrestling you know, but how WILLING are your athletes ready to run through a wall for you.  When it comes down to that deep down fight, how much does their love for you, their teammates and their team matter.  That’s why I coach, these kids I have now WANT to be Champions and honestly they all are.  The rings and championships may come but they are all champions by committing and sacrificing  to work to be the best.  Dealing with the off the mat issues brings the father figure out in all coaches.  We have to deal with what the outcome of some bad choices can be and then guide them in a way where they learn to make the right choices.  I am Happy and Solid to know my calling and it is in the trenches of this evil world where we as coaches reign.  Be a light in the darkness of most of these kids lives.  The relationships created through coaching become, for the most part, life long friendships with the athletes and their families.  I am excited to extend my crown of life and pray that Christ will shine through me,

One Love, One King, All Christ

Live Like You Are Loved

Coach= Jesus

Well this is my first year back coaching after a two year hiatus. Though my language use was challenged a lot and I am not proud of the words used at several different points of the season, I see a similarity in coaching much to that of my Savior minus the cuss words!! You see Jesus was everything to his followers and this is what we are to our athletes. There are so many young men today who have become my friend… After the grind and tough physically and mental workouts I put them through. So here I am, now a head coach… I do not answer to anyone and these are my kids. When you stop and think … We are their coach , mentor, discipliner, nurturer, friend, counselor, pastor and more. A good coach puts this effort into each athlete that crosses his path or at least attempts to. Jesus gave his followers chance after chance to get it right and so do we. If coaches would have given up on me when I was younger I would be in Jail or dead. It was coaches who showed me giving back what I had been given by them is what mattered.

I would say most of my 20 plus years of coaching I’ve gotten it. I wanted to see these young boys become young men. Yes, I strive and want to be number 1 and win a State Championship… But ultimately I know that comes when every thing falls into place. Now back to the title Coach= Jesus.. We have SO much influence over each of our kids, I mean every kid we talk to and touch we can impact their very lives. I wonder how many coaches put that first over winning. I see coaches of all abilities struggle with their purpose, their identity is tangled in their profession. Its as a coach the kids see the sacrifice you make for them not to win but for THEM to win. My hope is to cuss a lot less, but really quick!!! I cuss because I get so mad that they don’t perform the way I know they can. They fall short of their greatness and it hurts…. It truly does physically and emotionally. In the end they know my heart is theirs and I would do anything for them and until the day I get married and have children of my own, these young men will be my family I raise in a Village of people willing to work together , but in the end I have to remember how much I need to pour into each of them and that in itself is amazing. I will finish with a letter I received from a teacher who said a student turned this essay in as their assignment. The letter wrote that No one had ever believed in him until he met me.. The hardest thing for him was to trust anyone but here we are and it changed his life literally because I believed in him!!

One Love, One King, All Christ!