Sports: A Final Frontier?
Interview with a Head Football Coach On Raising Boys
I came into the living room last night and my son was watching the movie, “Rudy”. It’s one of the great sports movies of all time with Sean Austin playing the title role. Along with playing Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this makes Austin the poster boy for the Hero’s journey.
Sports may be the final frontier for boys in our culture to become men; at least in the sense of traditional manhood as we discuss in our book, “Boys Have a Dam Problem: Examining the Faults That Put Our Boys in Crisis.”
It is, perhaps, the most consistently available structure through which boys can be guided into their manhood, especially given the changing nature of our military. It’s a viable structure for some of the markers to exist in a boy’s life: camaraderie, the company of men, team/tribe building, participation in an event that brings entire communities together, carrying a responsibility to represent something greater than yourself, etc.
One of our founders in Treign Up, Sam Rogers, is the coach of the local high school football team. Sam does a most exemplary job of creating cultures and environments that promote biblical manhood through his program. I spoke with Sam and asked him to share some of the ways he is intentional about raising MORE than good football players.
J: Do you see organized sports at the high school level as a way to guide boys on the path to manhood?
S: Our mission is to use football to build better fathers and husbands who show up, love, and don’t quit. I believe that there is no greater sport than football to teach qualities necessary to achieve this goal. It is a full contact-team sport each and every play. You have to sacrifice your body throughout an entire game for the sake of others. It’s not hard to make the transition from this idea to being a husband first and then a father. Marriage is hard. You have to work at it and you have to show up for it every day mentally, spiritually and physically. You have to learn to love in a way that’s sacrificial. It’s the kind of love that says “I’m the first one in the cave” or “I’m the first one into the battle.” We don’t throw in the towel when it gets hard. We don’t quit. This is the type of love associated with biblical manhood. The world lies to our kids by saying masculinity is too soft or too hard. Mostly, masculinity is sacrificial. It’s strong and it perseveres.
J: I know that building a team culture is very important to you. It contributes to your success as a team and in building future husbands and fathers. Can you talk about some of the character attributes you insist upon?
S: Every kid in our program can tell you what character attributes are part of our culture. We have an acronym called CHIP. It stands for:
Communication
Honor
Integrity
Perseverance
These are our core values as a team and they readily translate into the real world after our kids leave our program.
-Communication. This a key component of ALL relationships, but none more so than marriage. Like all of life, football works on many different levels and many different relationships. One-on-one; small group; team; peer-to-peer; player-to-coach; underclassmen to upperclassmen. There are many spheres and dynamics involved.
-Honor. This is a big one. It obviously includes the notion of respect. However, the Hebrew word for honor is also connected to the word ‘precious’ or can relate to the nature of a valuable treasure. It can almost be ascribed as worth. In the sense of sacrifice, we want boys to value their teammates in such a way that their worth is precious AND valuable. In raising men, we want to relate this idea of honor to the biblical concept of cherish and how we are called to sacrificially love our spouses.
-Integrity. Do what you say you are going to do. Take responsibility. When you don’t do it, own up to it and determine what you need to do the next time. We have our athletes sign a contract that relates to their responsibilities. We hold them accountable to carry out their part of the agreement as we, the coaching staff, do the same on our end. We hold ourselves to this same standard. Lack of purpose and irresponsibility have become part of the DNA in a lost boy. Being part of a team can reignite this purpose and teach responsibility. We hold people accountable to do what they say they will do.
-Perseverance. Teamwork is hard. Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. Life is hard. You can not quit. Learning this early and often will help you persevere when things get tough. What better metaphor for life is there than getting put on the ground every play and having to get back up to get hit again and again and again. Don’t quite when things get hard.
(I have to refer you back to the montage of scenes from “Rudy”, when Rudy makes the practice squad and gets hit again and again by guys twice his size, but keeps getting back up.)
S: With these core values in mind, we also promote 9 inequalities that we embrace:
-You are greater than me.
-Love is greater than fear.
-Victor is greater than victim
-Passion is greater than passivity
-Process is greater than results
-Growth is greater than comfort.
-Gratitude is greater than grumbling.
-Toughness is greater than talent
-Conviction is greater than emotion.
J: In the world of Critical Theory where there must be an oppressor and consequently a victim of that oppression; a world that promotes equal outcomes over equality; and cheers individual freedoms over personal responsibility, we want to train our boys to rise above the din and noise of the crowds and focus on the character attributes that will help them take their place in their homes, churches, and communities as good husbands, fathers and leaders. Sam’s model of training boys through a sports model is working and his nine ‘inequalities’ provide a powerful framework to build a winning culture.
J: We talk about the role of ritual or ceremony to mark a boy’s progress in his journey towards manhood in Treign Up. Do you have any such experiences in your football program that would support this idea of ‘rites of passage’ ?
S: Our program runs almost all year long. Individual strength training starts in January when members of the team get up early every day to work out. This goes on throughout the school year until our summer camp fires up. This camp is a rugged-man experience at a remote location. During this intense week of training, we ‘initiate’ new members into the program and work them into our team culture; not to mention the three times a day the athletes work out on the field, in the heat of the day. During the course of the season, we will invite fathers into the process on special occasions. On a celebration day, we will go to a local farm and have the boys lead their dads in work outs. We also celebrate the achievements of our seniors through special recognition. On one occasion, the fathers of every senior will take a moment to bless and affirm their son, in the presence of the team. That’s a powerful moment for not only building the team, but casting vision for their future roles as fathers. During Senior Week, we will have each graduating senior stand before the group and have teammates and coaches speak words of affirmation and blessing over these athletes. Obviously, there are special recognitions on senior night in front of the home crowd and I always write a personal letter to each senior and present it to them on that night.
J: I’m sure you’ve seen, like I’ve seen at our rites of passage ceremonies, how locked in and attentive the other boys are when these young men are being recognized, encouraged and blessed by OTHER MEN. This company of men is the thing we talk about in Treign Up, that is so valuable to them. When I watch these ceremonies at Treign Up events, I am always aware that the younger boys in the group realize that something bigger than themselves is happening in these moments and I believe they all are drawn towards these types of experiences because they are life-giving to a boy on his journey to manhood.
Sam also runs a Bible study for his team members on Monday nights. Currently, he has about 15 students that attend. Imagine forging the truth of God’s Word with the things they are learning as an athlete on the football field. Time spent together in the work out rooms, team meetings, practices, and games can now be combined with life lessons and spiritual truths from the Bible in a perfectly-suited type of spiritual laboratory experience. I’ve always said that ministry is relationships, relationships, relationships. Sam’s influence on the lives of boys who are ‘playing on the football team’ will last many years longer than the four or five years they were in his program. THIS is ministry. And this is how to use organized sports to train and educate boys to become competent men of Christ-like character.
If you’re a parent who is concerned about the journey your son is on towards biblical manhood, a local sports program like Sam’s is the best you can hope for. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. The church should be doing a better job with this issue, but they are not.
This article talked about sports as one of the final frontiers our culture allows where boys can be guided into manhood under the watch and direction of a company of men. In our book, “Boys Have a Dam Problem”, we discuss some of the groups and organizations that provide specific guidance on a boy’s hero’s journey and these rites of passage. Eventually, we hope that Treign Up has its own program for fathers to use from ages 5-18, that when combined with a group of men, will help fill this very important need that our culture has abandoned.
In closing, I am reminded of a line from the movie where Father Cavanaugh tries to encourage Rudy as the window for his dream is closing:
Father Cavanaugh: Well, you did a hell of a job kid, chasing down your dream.
Rudy: I don’t care what kind of job I did. If it doesn’t produce results, it doesn’t mean anything.
Father Cavanaugh: I think you’ll discover that it will.
I do believe it will.