This week Urban Meyer the University of Florida head football coach resigned at the age of 46-years-old. It came unexpected but not necessarily surprising as he contemplated retiring after last season. He has talked about wanting to spend more time with his family and has some personal health concerns.

This is a great opportunity to talk about sustainability. Obviously you can reach a point where it is not possible to keep moving forward at the same speed you are going. Whether it’s in football, education, or ministry we have to keep in mind the race (see Hebrews 12:1) set out before us.

We have to decide what direction and speed is best to manage. We have to
makesure we don’t set the cruise control to high or we will be prone to accidents like forgetting to call a family member back or miss an opportunity to impact someone outside of your “work life”. We can’t go to slow because we only have 1 shot at this life and don’t want to waste it playing video games. We have to find our speed and set it.

Also this week Keith Fitzhugh an undrafted professional rookie football player who is not on a team and is working as a train conductor turned down a chance to play football again. The New York Jets, a team some think may make the Super Bowl, offered him a chance to be on the practice squad. Fitzhugh turned them down. When I first heard this I thought it was crazy. I figured he had probably seem that Denzel Washington movie about trains (Denzel does make everything look cool) and wanted to do that. It turns out Fitzhugh loves his job and said this according to the New York Post, “I wanted job security,” he said. “There was the chance to get a Super Bowl ring, but I just didn’t want to go up there and be a body. I’m thinking long term.”

Sounds to me like he was going for something more sustainable.