Todd Gerelds - Always Fall Forward: Life Lessons Ill Never Forget from The Coach

Visit Tyndale online at tyndale.com.

Visit Tyndale Momentum online at tyndalemomentum.com.

Visit Todd Gerelds online at www.toddgerelds.com.

Tyndale, Tyndale Momentum, and Tyndales quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. The Tyndale Momentum logo is a trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Tyndale Momentum is the nonfiction imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois.

Always Fall Forward: Life Lessons Ill Never Forget from The Coach

Copyright 2018 by Thomas Todd Gerelds. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of stadium copyright Dmytro Aksonov/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

Cover photograph of leather texture copyright RedDaxLuma/Deposit Photos. All rights reserved.

Interior photographs copyright Todd Kwarcinski/TKphotography. All rights reserved, and used with permission.

Designed by Ron C. Kaufmann

Edited by Sarah Rubio

Published in association with the literary agency WTA Services, LLC, Franklin, TN.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NIrV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Readers Version, NIrV. Copyright 1995, 1996, 1998, 2014 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at , or call 1-855-277-9400.

ISBN 978-1-4964-2480-8

ISBN 978-1-4964-2483-9 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4964-2482-2 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4964-2484-6 (Apple)

Build: 2021-08-27 11:56:16 EPUB 3.0

To two men God used to save my dads life

Wales Goebel, for sharing the truth of the gospel, the power of God for salvation.

Julius Clark, for loving my dad, being a friend to him, and loving his neighbor when it wasnt necessarily the popular thing to do.

Football is a great game, but its a lousy god. I grew up the son of a coach, just like Todd Gerelds, and like him I had to learn this valuable lesson. Its true that anything we love more, serve more, fear more, or value more than God Almighty is an idol. However, this game can really teach us some life lessons that are of great value.

I have always considered football to be the greatest sport ever invented, because it teaches lessons that other sports just dont teach. Like many of you who are reading this devotional, I often go back to the lessons I learned from not only playing football but also having football as the family business throughout my childhood and young adult life. I love this devotional that Todd has put together because it uses football to teach biblical and life truths that are much more important than the sport itself. God has really pressed upon me a passion to see men come to know Christ and impact their families, their churches, and their society by truly understanding why God made them men in the first place. This devotional can be a great resource for men to be discipled and then be equipped to disciple other men.

Many men have been told over and over that they need to be the spiritual leaders of their homes but have no idea what that looks like in their daily lives. This devotional takes the cue from Jesus Himself by using parables that relate to football terminology to drive home a much bigger and more important biblical truth.

Do you have to play football to be a real man? Of course not some of the most devout followers of Christ I have ever known have never played football but you can still learn many great principles from the sport. The bottom line is that true biblical masculinity is found in the example of the new Adam, Jesus Christ. So I encourage you to consume this devotional with one goal in mind: to become a disciple of Christ who advances the kingdom of God. I dont know of any man who would go onto the gridiron and never desire to be put in the game. You have been in the stands long enough time to get on the field of battle.

Rick Burgess

Cohost of The Rick and Bubba Show ; coauthor of How to Be a Man: Pursuing Christ-Centered Masculinity

My dad, Tandy Gerelds, was a football coach. He began his coaching career at Woodlawn High School in 1965. He actually graduated from Woodlawn just four years prior to coming on staff as an assistant coach. During those four years, he attended Auburn University, where he walked on and became a leader for the 1963 Southeastern Conference Championship baseball team. Dad was an assistant football coach at Woodlawn until 1971, when thenhead coach Bill Burgess decided to take a job as head coach at Oxford High School in Northeast Alabama. So in 1971, Dad became the head football coach at one of the largest, most prestigious schools in the state of Alabama. He was twenty-nine years old and doing what he loved.

Dads first year as head coach coincided with the federal governments decision to begin busing African American students from all-black high schools to predominantly white high schools in inner-city Birmingham, Alabama. To truly understand what a chaotic, yet significant, time this was, one would need to have a better understanding of the years preceding this decision.

Every bad thing youve ever heard or seen regarding the South, and Alabama in particular, was on full display in the decade before Dad became head coach at Woodlawn High School police dogs, fire hoses, bombings, Martin Luther King Jr. being put in a Birmingham jail cell. Black kids had no reason to believe that anything good could come from being forced to go to school with white kids. Everything they had ever seen regarding white folks came from television. And none of it was good.

After a rough two years, in August of 1973, Dad decided to have his first camp. This was his term for his team practicing two to three times a day and eating and sleeping in the Woodlawn gym. He thought that having the team all eat, sleep, practice, and literally live together might bring about some much-needed team unity. It was at this time that an evangelist named Wales Goebel requested permission to share the gospel with the football team. Dad initially declined his request. At the time, Dad believed that faith in Christ would make you soft. He was sure that if his players placed their faith in Jesus, they wouldnt be tough enough to be good football players. Dads conversion was well documented in my book Woodlawn and the subsequent movie by the same name. The Woodlawn story details how a cynical young coach was overwhelmed by the supernatural love that transformed his football team. He came to recognize that his earlier assumptions about toughness were completely incorrect.

My dad began to realize that putting others before self was the true mark of a man. He also knew that no one did that perfectly except Jesus Christ. Gods Word teaches us that there is no greater love than to lay down ones life for ones friends (John 15:13). And that rather than making us weak, Gods Spirit does the opposite: God gave us his Spirit. And the Spirit doesnt make us weak and fearful. Instead, the Spirit gives us power and love. He helps us control ourselves (2 Timothy 1:7, NI r V ).