All In by Gene Chizik & David Thomas

Author:Gene Chizik & David Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Religious, SPORTS & RECREATION / Football
ISBN: 9781414365640
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

Dear Gene,

It was really great to see you last Saturday. I appreciated being able to sit with you. I know that I’ve told you this before, but your dad would be real proud. He would never brag or boast, but I know that he would be proud. He would just sit there and tilt his head to the side and say, “He’s pretty good, ain’t he?”

9

Our Football Family

Faith is not the only area of my life I have learned to blend with football. I’ve done the same with family.

We make it a priority to foster a family environment within our program, not only allowing coaches’ families to attend practices and hang around with our players, but also making our families an intentional part of the program. As a result, our football team has become an extended family of sorts.

But before I talk to you about our Tigers family, I want to tell you about my family. This is outside the norm for me because I try to keep my family out of the spotlight as much as possible. I think it’s important to keep a barrier in place around my kids, so I rarely talk to the media about my personal life.

College football brings deep-seated passion out of fans. When that passion is channeled in the proper manner, it’s a wonderful thing. The pageantry of game day on a college campus is something no other level of football and no other sport can match. You can’t imagine what it’s like to do a Tiger Walk, where thousands of fans pat us on the back and cheer us on as we pass by. Then to go inside the stadium and hear the almost-deafening roar of eighty-eight thousand fans cheering for us as we take the field for the game . . . it’s an incredibly emotional experience.

Even going on the road and playing in front of a stadium full of fans rooting against us is a welcome feeling in a curious sort of way. I don’t think anyone honestly prefers being jeered over being cheered, but there’s something about going into an opponent’s stadium where the fans are booing you and hoping to see you fail that brings you closer as a team.

The fans’ game day passion, whether for you or against you, drives you during the week. Playing to win for your fans falls into that category of getting outside yourself and realizing that you are playing and coaching for a much larger group. At the end of the game, both teams and the entire stadium can look up at the big scoreboard and see who won that day. Sometimes the outcome matches your performance; sometimes it doesn’t. But either way, the final score is what you’re judged by.

And that’s where the flip side of passion can come in. While the energy from fans can be motivating, it can also be misdirected. That’s why Jonna and I believe it’s so important to try to protect our children.

I am a college football coach.

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