51 Years of High School Football
“Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.”
Psalm 127:1 (NIV)
Friday night was the fifth Annual Moms’ Night at Vestavia Hills High School (VHHS), the school where my husband Bruce taught and coached as an assistant football coach for 31 years and where our oldest son Robert is now the head coach. Each year Robert asks me to speak to the players’ moms and offer a brief word of encouragement for the upcoming season.
“You have a unique perspective, Mom. You were a high school coach’s wife for 38 years; you had two sons that played high school football; and now you’re the head coach’s mom. You’ve experienced it from all sides.”
Indeed, I have! The first time VHHS football impacted my life was in 1975 when Bruce and I had to change our wedding date so he wouldn’t miss coaching his first game!
Honestly, I thought high school football was behind me when my husband retired in 2013. I had no way of knowing that our son would eventually come back home. Since his hire in 2022, Robert’s mantra for our players, parents, staff, and community has been “Build with the end in mind.” “BUILD It” signs are often seen in players’ front yards.
The Bible has a lot to say about building. The word “build” is used over 300 times in scripture. Noah built an ark; Solomon built a temple; Nehemiah built walls and Christ builds his Church. Proverbs 14:1 instructs us to build saying: “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears hers down with her own hands.”
As parents the critical question we must ask ourselves every day is: “Am I building or am I tearing down?” All of us build or tear down with our actions, attitudes, or our words. As a mom, I could work for three weeks to build something positive into my teenager’s life and tear it all down in 15 seconds with a rotten or careless word (Ephesians 4:29).
Many changes have occurred over the last fifty years within both the sport of football and our culture. Cell phones, social media, NIL, and the transfer portal are just a few of those changes, but the essentials for building relationships and community remain the same. We build relationships with acceptance, affirmation, affection, availability, and accessibility. Tearing something or someone down is a lot easier than building them up.
All building projects encounter some sort of discouragement or adversity. It’s easy to become discouraged when the road is too long; the work is too hard; the odds seem impossible; and the disappointments pile up. Elijah certainly faced discouragement after his great victory on Mount Carmel resulted in a death threat from Queen Jezebel. 1 Kings 19 identifies the five triggers of discouragement as:
Fear
Fatigue
Failure
Frustration
Loss of Focus
In athletics emotions are often a roller coaster. The highs are so high, and the lows are so low. Identifying the root cause for a player’s discouragement is crucial to dealing with it. That’s also true for us as well.
Athletics provides an opportunity for learning many valuable life lessons. Hard work, setting goals, persevering, teamwork, dealing with disappointment, and overcoming adversity are just a few of the many rewards. By far, however, the most important aspect for most players and coaches are not the wins and losses, but the relationships that are formed and forged in the fire of building. That principle is also true for families that are built to last.
Three weeks ago, my husband received an unexpected phone call. “Coach, this is “Joe.” I’m getting married in September and I want you to be there!” That call may not seem unusual, but this former player was on a 1980 state championship team and is now in his mid-sixties!
Over the last 51 years God has used high school athletics to give our family many opportunities for community, hospitality, discipleship, impact, and evangelism. Coaching hasn’t just been a career; it’s been a calling, not just for the men who coach, but for our entire family. Even the babies go!
This year’s Moms’ talk didn’t include PowerPoint slides with text. Instead, at Robert’s request, I shared football photos from the last 51 years. It has indeed been a building project. God has been faithful every step of the way.
Great is His faithfulness! (Lamentations 3:23)