The Lessons of Warren Sapp
May 1, 2012
Last month Warren Sapp, a former professional football player, filed for bankruptcy. I thought this called for a post becuase Sapp was one of my heros growing up. I was a HUGE Buccaneer fan. At first I wondered what does this mean for my child hood and all the times I wanted to be like Sapp on the field? But then I pulled back said what can I learn from this?
- The decisions we make always affect more than just the moment we are in. Our decisions also effect our future, our family, our finances, and maybe even someone who looks up to us.
- There are consequences to our actions. Sometimes they are painful, public, and embarrassing.
- We can come back. Things are not looking good for Sapp who may be sued for defamation by another football player in the future. I believe Sapp may be down but he is not out. We can always chose to look for the best in people and root for them. I wish Sapp the best.
Nothing Last Forever
December 9, 2010
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.
Catching a Lion by it’s Mane
August 12, 2009
During practice today we discussed the story of David in the bible. Most people are familiar with the story how David, a small shepard boy, strikes down Goliath. It’s an incredible story of having confidence in God. But David’s confidence did not come out of nowhere. David is explaining to King Saul why he is ready to go fight Goiliath.
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised
Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. – I Samuel 17 34-36
David was ready to fight because he had confidence in God and spent time preparing by taking of sheep. I can image having to chase a lion down and beating it until it released it’s prey from it’s mouth. Even after that if the lion attacked David he would beat it to death. So you can imagine fighting another human…or giant was not a big deal for him. I encouraged the boys to enjoy this time as we prepared for our games. It is hard, and we will push but our hope is that our preparation will allow us to have Godly confidence once games roll around.
Plus most of practice was rained (well lightning) out but I feel we made adequate use of our time with a good look at our play book and some weight lifting. Unfortunately though my windows were cracked…
David Donnan 