On Last Chance U, one of the coaches sits in front of the camera midway through the season and says he’s trying to do better with his faith. Fewer outbursts. More patience with the officials. A few episodes later, he’s back on the sideline cursing at his players and cursing at the refs like nothing ever changed.
Maybe that’s just good television. But I’ve sat in enough coaches’ meetings and small groups to know it’s not just television. That’s where a lot of us actually live. We want to be better. We say it out loud, sometimes even mean it. And then the scoreboard tightens up, and the worst version of us shows back up like it never left.
Yesterday I got handed the reason why, and it had nothing to do with willpower.
The 50 Percent Deal
Our head basketball coach, who also serves as our Director of Faith Formation, spoke to our students at chapel and asked one question, then let it sit in the room a long time.
How can we expect to grow in our faith when the only day we give to God is Sunday?
He made it personal before he made it theological. Picture a kid walking into my math class and telling me, “Coach, I’m shooting for 50 percent this year. You’ve got 50 percent of my effort every single day.” Or picture that same kid walking up to his head coach and saying it out loud: “You can count on me for 50 percent effort. Every day.”
Nobody does that. That’s playing time suicide. Any coach would bench that kid before the sentence finished.
And yet that’s exactly the deal a lot of us cut with God. One hour on Sunday, everything else on autopilot, and we call it a relationship. We wouldn’t accept that from a freshman shortstop. Faith works the same way strength does: you don’t get stronger because you want to; you get stronger because you show up to the work on the days you don’t feel like it. A once-a-week faith produces exactly what a once-a-week workout produces: nothing you can count on when it actually matters. And it always ends up mattering in the fifth inning, or the parking lot after a loss, or the moment a camera happens to be rolling.
What the Other 50 Percent Buys You
My coaches’ small group has been sitting with the word “joy” lately, specifically where it actually comes from in the middle of a long season. Somebody brought up servant leadership, finding ways to serve the people around you instead of waiting to be served. Another lady took it a step further: fill your own cup first. Get in the Word, get quiet, get honest with God on your own time. The overflow, the part that spills out past the rim, is what other people are actually able to grab onto when they need it. I used to think pouring into my guys meant running myself empty for them. It doesn’t. It means filling up somewhere they can’t see, so what they get from me isn’t the last drop I was scraping together.
Here’s what that overflow actually looks like when somebody lives it instead of just believing it. Same choice, three different volumes.
Small stage first. Our small group leader told us about a coach he used to work alongside who had one habit that never changed. Every time they went out to eat, he’d ask the server the same question: Is there anything I can pray for you about? Not once in a while. Every single time. And every single time, the server had an answer. I’m not sure I’ve got the nerve to do that every time out yet. But am I going to try it this year? Absolutely. There’s a version of me that walks past that moment because it’s uncomfortable, and there’s a version of me that asks the question anyway.
Same choice, bigger stage. Two Division I coaches he knows called each other every Friday morning during the season and prayed together before their weekend series, without fail. One year their schedules put them on the same field in a non-conference game. At the plate meeting, they looked at each other and realized neither of them had made the call that morning. So they prayed right there, with the umpires, both teams watching, and a full crowd behind the fence. Grown men, head coaches, bold enough to let their faith show in front of everybody, with nothing to gain competitively and no reason to do it except that it was true for them.
Same choice, permanent record. I did my own version of this when I wrote my book. It’s a leadership book built on baseball, and I put a call to salvation at the very end of it. That wasn’t the safe move. Some readers picked it up expecting a coaching book and nothing else. But maybe one of them got to the last page not realizing it was a Christian book at all, and by then they had questions worth asking.
A server, a rival coach’s plate meeting, the last page of a book. Different rooms, same decision: the moment you could stay quiet and cost yourself nothing, and you don’t. That’s not a personality trait some guys have, and some guys don’t. It’s the overflow showing up, and it only shows up in someone whose cup actually got filled first.
Jesus said it plainly:
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
John 7:38, ESV
That’s not a trickle. That’s not 50 percent. That’s overflow, and none of the three men in those stories got there by accident.
This Week
Pick one thing. Not five, one.
Put an actual time on your calendar this week, the same way you’d block off a lift or a film session, and spend it in the Word. Treat it like a rep you can’t skip, not a feeling you wait around for. That’s the cup getting filled.
Or skip straight to the overflow. The next time you’re out to eat, ask your server if there’s something you could pray for them about. You don’t need a script. You just need to ask.
Either one moves you off 50 percent. Neither one is comfortable the first time. Do it anyway.
Let’s Pray
God, I’m so thankful for the platform to spread information to coaches when they need it. I know each of us is on a different path in our journey, but never let us forget that You are the One in control. You are for us, so no one can be against us. Whatever we have on our hearts, let us lay that at Your feet. Trust in You and lean into the men and women You’ve put in our lives. I’m grateful for every day. Amen.
Greater Together
Leave a Reply