Cancer, FSU Football, Excuses & Coach Bowden

Last week we were all surprised when Coach Bobby Bowden revealed he had been fighting a private battle with prostate cancer in 2007. As an FSU alum and devoted Seminole Football fan, I’ve always had a great admiration and respect for Coach Bowden. As a Christian and pastor I love the fact that Coach Bowden oozes character and is an incredible ambassador for Jesus here on earth.

I know he would never remember but I’ve run into him a few times over the years along with his wife Ann and they have always been very kind, courteous and genuine. No one would argue, even a die hard Gator or Hurricane fan that Coach Bowden is a great man whether or not you agree with his faith in Christ or not. 

If you follow FSU Football at all, the last decade was not on par with the previous decade and up to FSU standards. I was struck the most after hearing Coach Bowden share about his bout with cancer was that it happened in 07. 2007 was a tough year for FSU. We went 7-6, 0-6 according to the NCAA because we had to “vacate wins”…….ridiculous.

Anyways, Coach Bowden never once mentioned, as he was getting lampooned by sports analyst talking heads, catching heat from Boosters, about his cancer. He could have easily pulled the cancer card and shut up the mouths of the haters and lowered the heat level on him and his job. 

My question is what are you using to make excuses for you? Inevitably all of us are feeling some pressure in one area of our lives. Do we make excuses for it, or keep our mouths shut and handle it with integrity like Coach Bowden?

Leadership Challenges

One of my most frustrating challenges as a leader is being misunderstood. Now I know that is part of life and leadership but it doesn’t change the fact that it still grinds on me big time.

The biggest reason I hate being misunderstood is because for me I feel like it is attacking one of the most important things in my life, my character & integrity, in other words, my motives. It is very important to me to always make sure that I am doing things out of a pure heart and pure motives. I’m by no means perfect but I feel like I generally do a good job aiming to please the only one that matters, Christ.

As a leader you will always be misunderstood at some level because people on the outside never really understand the fullness of every situation and decision you have to make as a leader.

I’ve definitely learned in moderating and participating in several incredibly heated arguments over the years that there are two sides to every story. There is always another perspective to think about. Bad leaders listen to one side, make assumptions and then execute judgements. Good leaders listen to both sides, get all the pertinent information available and then work out the best solution for both parties involved.

Unfortunately, I feel many times basic scriptural principles are ignored when conflict arises. In scripture it is very clear that when we have an issue with our brother we should go talk to them. We should not go talk to someone else about them. (Matthew 18) 

Reality is many of us as Christians intellectually understand this simple truth, the problem is, we just do not practice it. We are educated beyond our level of obedience. I have never once in my life seen a situation get resolved by talking to someone else first and gossiping rather than the person you are offended with.

Unfortunately, I have seen countless “mature” Christians rip churches and relationships apart because of their inability to deal with issues in a biblical way. I am not perfect at this, but I want to get it right so bad and more than anything, I want this to be as deep as possible in the DNA of SouthCoast Church. I will viscously protect the unity of our church and be absolutely militant about people handling conflict in a biblical way.

If there is anything you need to get off your chest, than do it, have a hard conversation now, get it out there and deal with your issues, I promise you’ll feel better when its over. 

Leadership Lessons From Bobby Bowden (6 of 6)

I’ll finish this by a question I heard that a reporter asked Coach Jimbo Fisher, the new Head Coach of the Florida State Football team. They asked him what was one of the things that he learned from Coach Bowden in his few years here under him at FSU as his Offensive Coordinator. He said, “I just realized that when things go bad, the sky isn’t falling.”

This may seem like nothing uber profound, but I don’t think we generally live our lives with this truth in our hearts. We react like the sky is falling when our kid does something disobedient, when something goes wrong at work, when we lose a job, etc. Coach Bowden was always incredibly composed, even when our football program started to struggle in the last few years and he was under major heat from the media, boosters and fans. Sometimes people would interpret it as him not caring. I don’t think that was it at all. I just think he had a better perspective and he realized it was not the end of the world.

Lesson # 6 – God is in control, we’re not, don’t worry, trust in him.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve confessed that verse to myself when times are tough. No matter what obstacle I have in front of me, God is in control and Jesus is still sitting on the throne.

Leadership Lessons From Bobby Bowden (5 of 6)

Coach Bowden used his job and his platform for a greater purpose. He was always traveling around speaking for other organizations. He spoke all the time for FCA and was always preaching the gospel at his different speaking engagements. He was completely unashamed about his faith, his beliefs and convictions.

As a pastor, he would be my dream person in my congregation. Not because I’m sure he writes a very sizable check every month, but because he is out there, doing ministry. He’s doing what Ephesians 4 tells us to do, works of service, ministry. He was excellent in his job and it gave him a huge platform to do the work of the Kingdom. Who knows how many people he has impacted that never wore a jersey for him? ESPN will tell a few stories of his character, but they will talk about his records, stats and domination for so long in the college football world. But I think God cares about how he stewarded his platform.

Lesson #5 – Be excellent and use whatever platform you have, no matter how big or small not for yourself, but for the Kingdom of God.

Leadership Lessons From Bobby Bowden (4 of 6)

I brought up the famous interview with a reporter asking about Peter Warrick’s “discount” in yesterday’s post. Well here is the argument. Coach Bowden came under fire for sometimes giving guys too many chances as if he never dismissed anyone from the team (He kicked off Randy Moss from our team after one offense, before he ever played a game; untrue accusation of Coach Bowden). Guys would get in trouble with the law and he would discipline them and reinstate them if he felt it was appropriate.

Isn’t giving someone a second chance the most godly, merciful thing to do. After all, the Bible does say that God delights in showing mercy to us, I would bet that he delights in us showing mercy to others. While I’m sure every person has their own line of what is appropriate, I completely trust Coach Bowden’s judgement in what he thinks is appropriate, especially since he is a believer. Anybody can be an armchair QB. Many times in sports its like Biblical standards about not judging just don’t apply any more. Funny thing huh? There are two sides to every story and we always know about 25% of every story in my opinion, if that.

Lesson # 4 - Show mercy and love people when they least deserve it. After all that’s what God did for us. You never know what that can unlock in someone’s heart.

Leadership Lessons From Bobby Bowden (3 of 6)

Coach Bowden said a very memorable thing at one of his press conferences when reporters asked him about his star Wide Receiver Peter Warrick and his “heavy discount” that he got at the Tallahassee Mall Dillard’s. He said, “I want to know how he got that good of a discount!” While Coach Bowden came under fire sometimes for this type of coment, I’ll defend it in my next post tomorrow, so before you light me up with your snarky comments, hear me out.

An easily overlooked aspect of leadership is having a good sense of humor. I think its vitally important in leadership to be able to laugh at yourself and just have fun in life. Coach Bowden was always laughing at himself.

Lesson #3 – Don’t take yourself to seriously.

You’re probably a little to self conscious and prideful if you can’t laugh at yourself or a situation where you may have messed up. Life will be so lame and boring if you have no fun. Have fun, enjoy life. Coach Bowden always seemed to do this.

Leadership Lessons From Bobby Bowden (2 of 6)

So many former players were interviewed commenting on how much Coach Bowden had an impact on their lives. I heard multiple guys say that he was like a father to them and that FSU was a home away from home because of him. This is one of the most important things that Coach Bowden could have done in his career. Over 300 Seminole players came on their own dime to the Gator Bowl for Coach Bowden’s last game. That itself is an amazing testament to his influence and role in their lives.

He was there for them, he lived it, he was a family man, he has 6 children. Many guys needed a role model like this in their lives. I heard a few guys say that he turned men into boys, and while it may be a cliche saying, you cannot overestimate the importance of what he did for young men in some of their most formative years. They needed that fatherly figure, and he was there for many young men when they needed it the most.

Lesson #2 - Who am I fathering? We live in a broken culture where divorce runs rampant and half of our kids grow up with no dad in the home and the half that do are lucky if they actually have a dad that fathers them. They estimated that he coached over 3300 players. Thats amazing, to have that much influence over the years in that many people’s lives.

I would consider it one of the greatest privilege’s of my life to have that kind of lasting impact when I go home.

Leadership Lessons From Bobby Bowden (1 of 6)

Such a bittersweet time for us as FSU fans. Coach Bowden, one of, if not the most legendary coach in the history of college football is stepping down from his post as the head coach of FSU. Thankfully Coach Bowden got to go out on top against a school he used to be the head coach of, West Virginia University.

As we saw all the interviews from former players and TV analysts a few things really stuck out to me. All these people that had encounters & stories of meeting him over the years. I can’t imagine the hundreds and thousands of press conferences and interviews he has done and every single person talked about how nice he was, how he made them feel so cared about an important.

Lesson # 1 – Simply care about people, love them and add value to their life even if its an inconvenience for you. It could be easy to not pay attention to a young reporter, college student, or someone who may not have a platform if you are a big time college football coach, but one day they may and you may come up. I would hope that I would be spoken of as well as Coach Bowden at the end of my life as people talk about me.

My prayer is that I would love people and care for them behind the scenes when no one is looking, not doing anything out of selfish ambition but considering others better than me.

Leadership vs. Loving God

I know the two are not mutually exclusive. But here is my thought.

I would rather be an average leader who is completely fascinated and in love with the person of Jesus Christ than a great leader who is  average in his relationship with God.

The Blinding Light Of Positivity

I am a cup is half full kind of guy which many people would regard as a good thing. By nature I’m not a pessimist or a skeptic, I generally believe people and take them for their word.

Over the years I’ve realized you can’t always do that. One thing I’ve seen and witnessed time and time again in the media, in business, in church, in any organization, is that positivity can be a blinding force that actually keeps us from the truth.

I’ve been asking myself, are there any areas where I need to take that blinding light and point it in the other direction so that I can better deal with reality?

I’m not saying become a negative, pessimistic, skeptic. I’m just saying lower your lumens so you can see reality.