Building Warriors for Christ Through Youth Football

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, everybody. I am back with another episode of Demand Excellence.
I've been gone for a long time, but we are talking about something very important
today, and that's youth football.
And I have a special guest with me. His name's Tyler Mixon, and I'm going to
let him introduce himself.
But the reason why he's important is he has two twins, obviously two,

(00:21):
if it is twins, but he's got twins going into third grade.
And we are trying to create the best youth football program for our boys.
And so, Tyler, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I spent eight years in the Marine Corps prior to starting our business now that's
called United Logistics.
We're a family-owned logistics company out of Flyer Branch, just down the street.

(00:46):
And really, the fundamentals that we built our business on also apply a lot
to sports and youth football and really what it takes to not only be successful
on the field, but also in life.
So as we start talking, we're going to talk about youth football and why it's important.
And so really the big thing that we're trying to do at Hebron is we're trying

(01:10):
to create a program where Christ is the center and we're raising young boys
to be men for Jesus Christ.
So the goal of our program is to use the game of football to teach boys how
to be men for Jesus Christ.
And so, you know, really what the call is, is to get dads, Christian men,

(01:33):
to get them involved and get their sons out here so that we can pour into them.
And so one thing that Tyler and I were talking about before we started was,
and I want to start here, is Christian men are dropping the ball and leading
and we're not raising Christian men anymore.

(01:54):
Tyler, what do you see when it comes to that? Because I know you coach baseball,
you're coaching football now. What do you see when it comes to that issue? Sure.
I think that we as a culture or as a really a Christian community,
we've dropped the ball in allowing ourselves to speak up and know that it's
OK to speak up from a business aspect.

(02:14):
Just to speak on that for a second, there's been there's been times that,
you know, our our customers will ask, you know, how how are you able to do this
or how are you able to provide a service or do something that somebody else couldn't?
And yes, that involves hard work, but also I wouldn't be the man I am today without Jesus Christ.
And whenever they ask that question, I'm sitting in front of Fortune 500 CEOs

(02:38):
and presidents asking questions.
There is that initial response inside of like, can I speak on this?
But unapologetically, being able to say, and I did, it's not because of me or
the team that's here with me today.
It's because that God has allowed us to be successful, not because of what we've

(02:58):
done, but because of what he's done through us.
And we're a company that stands firm in our values, which is serving Christ
one load at a time and spreading his footprint through what we do as a business.
And even in our homes, and that's a lot easier to do when you're inside enclosed walls.
And our community here at Hebron does a great job.

(03:21):
But once they step out into that, what gives them the fortitude to speak up
for the values that they believe so strongly in?
Yeah, so absolutely. So what you see in our culture now is it's really hard
to make a stand for Christ because we don't live in a culture where Christ is
important anymore. more.
So how can we use the game of football to build young boys into men for Jesus Christ?

(03:46):
And so Tyler got a few references of what football does from NFL youth football.
And I want to talk about each one of those and why football is important.
And me and Tyler can address each issue.
And we also can bring in what the Bible says about it.
So number one, football instills sportsmanship says this, tackle teaches your

(04:09):
child about what it means to be a good sport, fostering them to become a role
model for what it looks like to celebrate the wins and learn from the losses.
So the biggest thing that kids need to learn is how to handle their emotions, how to handle wins,
how to handle loses, how to handle losses, how to be coached hard,

(04:32):
how to be respectful, how to be thankful, how to be grateful.
That's what sportsmanship is all about. When do you start teaching sportsmanship?
Do you wait until they're 14 or 15?
Or you get them involved in football that's really, really hard.
It's really, really challenging, and they're going to be challenged.
You instill those sportsmanship values starting from an early age.

(04:54):
Tyler, what do you think?
I think that these kids learning how to recover, I think the biggest one here
is learning to recover from the losses.
Once again, we're a culture that we want to wrap our children in bubble wrap,
and I'm just as guilty as wanting to protect them from those failures.
But I think learning how to step back and look at it from a different view,

(05:17):
a different perspective, if we can start that at a young age,
it's only going to foster them as they grow older.
And to be able to look at failure from a different perspective,
Other than I failed, maybe I just fell down and I was able to pick myself right back up.
Yeah. So the next point is going to be one of my points.
It's actually not from NFL youth football, but I was thinking about it.

(05:39):
We have to teach our kids to do hard things.
So how do you teach your kids to do hard things? And I'm going to give an example.
I'm a high school football coach, and I had a kid. He didn't come to workouts,
and he didn't come to workouts. His excuse was, my mom said I couldn't because it's too hot.
I started thinking, if we go back a thousand years years ago,
and they didn't go out to work in the fields and the farm a thousand years ago,

(06:05):
nobody would have eaten. Nobody would have ate.
So we're raising kids to be soft and we're raising kids to be wimps.
And so at what point do you start challenging your boy to do hard things?
What age is that? And Tyler, before this all started, you told me the spiritual
formation, the moral compass in between, I think you said three and seven is formed.

(06:31):
I would imagine their desire and their willingness to work is probably at the
same age. Talk about that a little bit.
Yeah. I mean, there's, it comes a point where I think we all grow as people,
but it really is, man, whenever you realize that the strength inside of you
is very, very minuscule, Whenever the strength that lives in us is in Christ

(06:56):
and we were pulling from something that is way bigger than ourselves.
When you think about the creator of the galaxy, you know, it spoke the stars
into existence just by speaking or, you know, a breath of air.
The galaxies were formed. I mean, that is on a magnitude that we can understand
and we have to tap into that.
We excuse me. We get the ability to tap into that on a daily level.

(07:19):
And it's really easy to sit back and when things
get hard or we know it's going to be a hard day or whatever
you know sportsmanship whenever you drop
a pass that was going to win the game and you feel like it's all on you tap
into it realize that that that failure is not final it's merely an obstacle
and i think that if we can teach our boys to do that we can teach them that

(07:42):
hey you're not you're not drawing strength from when with inside yourself you're
drawing from own, the strength of the heavens.
And when God reaches down and changes that perspective in us, it's a beautiful thing.
Yeah. And realize what we're talking about is we're building the next generation.
So that's why this is important.
So the next thing is, and this is from the NFL, not mine, it teaches teamwork.

(08:05):
So it says this, tackle instills the critical value of teamwork and teaches
your child how to play and interact well with others, no matter what age they enter the sport.
And I think that's absolutely critical because your whole entire life is going
to be working with others, dealing with other people's problems,
helping other people, serving other people.
I think too, when it talks about teamwork, a word that we often use is brotherhood

(08:29):
and developing great friendships.
But what comes from working hard together and fighting together and sweating
together and bleeding together, that's what creates a brotherhood.
You're a Marine, and Marines, they have this code amongst themselves or this
pride amongst themselves because they all know they went through the same thing.

(08:49):
They all went through this very hard thing. and so it's a
special brotherhood and so we're teaching
boys that brotherhood comes
from fighting and sweating and bleeding together
you can't have it unless you do hard
things together which is teamwork 100 i
agree there's a there's a saying that we use the marine corps that the more

(09:11):
you sweat in training the less you bleed in
combat and it's there's a mental aspect to
that as well but you have no doubt in
your mind that when you step in a theater or you
know you take your boots on the ground that the
person left and right of you is going to put rounds down range so that
you are able to go home to your family I mean that's no different than than

(09:32):
here in football you know when the guy that you're doing up downs seven o'clock
at night you're ready to go home when you're hungry and you're tired and all
you want is a sip of water you know the guy next to you just went through everything
that you did and in the fourth quarter in the middle of season and whatever, things get tough,
you can look to your left and your right, and you can know that He's going to
have your back because you went through it together.

(09:54):
So as Tyler was talking, I was sitting there thinking about,
you know, we're raising godly men.
We want to raise men who are going to impact the world for Jesus Christ.
But think about teamwork just amongst the family.
The hardest thing you will ever do is be a man that serves his family well.
That's the number one responsibility that God's given us to love our wives and

(10:17):
to love our children and to raise our children in the fear of the Lord and to lead our families.
That's teamwork, though, creating a great family. And that's that's the principles
that we're teaching, dying to self, serving others, loving others.
That's team. The next thing it says is it generates discipline.
So football generates discipline.
All right. And we're talking tackle football here. Tackle provides a hands-on

(10:39):
approach to teaching your child how to be disciplined while also integrating
useful structure and organization into their lives.
The thing that I love about football is it is all about discipline.
One time I was watching a college football team and I.
They were playing this big rap song before the game, and all the kids were dancing and going crazy.

(11:03):
I'm not going to say the name of the team, but I was like, that team's not going
to last very long, and that coach is not going to last very long. Here's the reason.
Football is not a rap song. In a rap song, I just open up my mouth and start
spewing the most vile and evil things that come to my mind.
Football requires discipline organization

(11:24):
and structure and if you don't
take the right step if you don't if you don't do
do all the little details right you're not going to
have success as a player and if you don't have success as a player you're not
going to have success as a team so that's the thing i love about the discipline
part of it and it also goes back to teamwork and discipline is all 11 guys have

(11:47):
to do what they're supposed to do. They have to do their job.
When one of them tries to do somebody else's job, lack of discipline,
then it screws the whole team up.
So learning to work together in a disciplined environment,
understanding you are one piece out of 11 creates discipline,

(12:08):
it creates the understanding of discipline and the importance of it.
I 100% agree. And as you were talking, I was thinking about all these things build on themselves.
And to go back to the teamwork piece, most of us have had small children and

(12:29):
know that at a very, very, very, it is innate in us to be selfish.
At a very early age, if a child's playing with a toy and you try to take it
from them, what do they say?
Mine, mine, mine, mine. That is a worldly thing that is within us that goes
back to Adam and Eve, that we are born into the world.
We are selfish in nature.

(12:50):
And as a Christian man and as a Christian father and husband,
has been that servant leadership that I do with inside my family is teamwork.
And that goes to the football field that when things get hard and I need to
carry the load for my team on a specific day or on an assignment that I'm going

(13:11):
to do my part and I'm not going to be worried about the person that failed before
me or so-and-so didn't do their job.
I'm going to pick them up and I'm going to do my job at the best of my ability.
And that takes discipline. That takes discipline to look in the mirror and say, okay, what did I do?
What can I do better? How can I serve my team better? That, you know,
selfish in nature is, I think, something that we all struggle with.

(13:35):
And it takes discipline to take a step back and allow God to examine our hearts
and say, okay, God, how can I serve my team?
I may not be starting this game and not really, you know, that's not something
that I enjoy. but what can I do to be the 12th man on the sidelines to make
sure that I'm doing my part to help the next guy get better.
Very good. The next point, and I love this point because I think this has got

(13:59):
to be taught, builds resilience.
Tackle equips your child with the skills needed to be resilient and learn independently,
to learn independently, to pick themselves up when things get challenging.
And I always think this, you got to teach fight, you got to teach fortitude,
you got to teach You know, just perseverance.

(14:20):
And I like to use my son as an example. And as we talk, like I have no grand
plans that my son's going to the NFL or get a college football scholarship.
Don't really care about that. I love football and I love what it teaches.
I love the game. And that's what I want for him to learn. So building resilience

(14:41):
in him was something that's very important to me.
When he first started tackle football at eight years old, he was scared to death
and he would cry at every practice.
And it was frustrating to me. But honestly, as a dad, when I look back on it,
it is the most rewarding time of my life because he learned how to persevere. He learned how to fight.

(15:07):
Hey, you get knocked down, get back up. Hey, somebody hits you hard, get back up.
Hey, you don't feel like going to practice because you got to put a helmet on
and shoulder pads on and it's 95 degrees, get your tail out to practice.
And so that resilience and that fortitude and that fight that he learned when
he was eight and many battles were fought with me and him and his mom during

(15:31):
those years, but to see what he's become when he's 11.
Now, believe me, he's not the dominant football player that maybe some dad would want.
But for me to see the fight and the fortitude in him is all I really want,
because I know that will lead him to be successful in life.

(15:51):
So what do you think, Tyler? Oh, yeah.
Resilience is, I think, the difference between being good and being great.
You and I have had conversations and we've talked about this piece because it
is so, so, so imperative that we teach our boys.
To be resilient you know there's there's going to be times in our in

(16:14):
our spiritual walk there's going to be times that we fall
down that we fail we are sinners by nature and we're
not going to be with our our boys are going to grow up to be men at some point
that age you know we are not in control of grandfather time i know sometimes
i wish i could press pause but i can't so i have to do everything that i can

(16:36):
to give them the skills and the tools in their toolbox to be successful when they get older,
to be a better father than I am, to be a better husband than I am, to be a better leader,
whether that be in the sport world or whether it be in business, to be resilient.
There's a big, big piece that I think we as a culture are missing because we

(16:57):
don't want to see our kids get hurt or we don't want to see them encounter failure.
But as me as a man, I think, I don't know if you can agree with this,
the times that I've grown the most are And my biggest moments of failure that
I've had to learn to pick myself back up,
you know, our company had started at a failure and I had to rely on God to be

(17:20):
to me everything that he is that I didn't know that he could be.
I just fell at his face and I fell at his feet and I was like,
God, I need you to be to me what I can't be to myself.
And that took a lot of fortitude to not tuck away and hide. I had to face my challenges head on.
And I think it's in Corinthians, 2 Corinthians actually, 4, 8 through 9.

(17:42):
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not in despair.
Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed.
We are victorious no matter what in Christ.
And once again, whenever we teach our boys that it's not a strength that they
pull on internally, it's not their coach's strength, not a teammate's strength.

(18:04):
It's something that they have to pull from, from a godly place.
And if we can, that's something they have to figure out, I think in their own
time, but if we can direct them in that path and just be the guardrails and
let them face that failure and see, see what happens. It builds conversation.
We can, you know, we're able to teach them, Hey, I know you're feeling this,
but God says you're this, you may have failed, but you're still his son.

(18:26):
You're still my son. And I still love you.
Those are conversations that I think that they they'll pull on for many, many years to come.
Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. You know, and here's the deal. We're talking football.
All this comes from the game of football.
The next point is, and it promotes fitness, right?
Tackle encourages physical activity and healthy movement for kids at all levels

(18:46):
of athletic ability, ensuring your child spends quality time away from the screen.
You don't need to be the fastest on the field to be a good player.
Funny story about that is our sixth grade team was practicing last night.
And so I had recruited a kid that's at Hebron, never played football before,
a little bit overweight, so he'd be a kid that's sitting around all day long.
And I was like, man, are you ready? So he's at practice. And I said,

(19:08):
are you enjoying football?
And he said, yes, had a big smile on his face. And, and, and so that's kind
of interesting because he's a lineman and he's just doing lineman drills.
Sometimes that's not fun, but he's, and I said, are you ready to go back to school?
He said, yes, I'm ready to go back to school. I said, you're probably bored,
right? Just sitting around all day. He said, yes.
And he said, I'm sitting around all day, just waiting for football practice.

(19:28):
And, and so the cool thing about that is football is promoting fitness for him.
It's getting him out the door and it's also providing him community that he doesn't have.
I mean, that goes back to the sportsmanship, teamwork, brotherhood stuff we
were talking about earlier.
But that's the beautiful thing about football is it does promote fitness.
Talk a little bit about that, Tyler. Yeah, I think that anytime that we can,

(19:51):
pull our kids away from the TV or the devices, everything nowadays is all electronic.
I know when I was growing up and you're growing up, I was kicked outside and
the door was locked until the sun went down and we just don't have that anymore.
And that's one of the fitness. There's times where it's hard.
There's times in practice where it's going to be hard. And we're talking longevity

(20:12):
of life just from being healthier.
And you never know the disciplines.
There was times that I was in the Marine Corps that I pulled on football practice,
wrestling practice, baseball practice, just moments where it's like,
Hey, I remember what this feels like.
And longevity of life and allowing them because, I mean, let's be honest,
the more that the longer that they're healthy, the longer that they're providing,
they're being a key asset to their community and their homes and their families.

(20:35):
And if it starts here in football and showing how much healthier and how much
better their life can be just by getting out and moving, it shows them that
they're able to do things that they didn't think they were able to.
Amen. You know, an example of that is, you know, Tyler was a Marine,
which was way better than what I was. is I was in the Air Force,

(20:55):
and so there's no comparison.
You were on the Air Force. Yeah, that's right.
But I do remember this, and this might be just how easy the Air Force was.
But in college, back when I played at the Citadel, of course the Citadel was
hard enough, but we played football.
We had two weeks of two-a-days. Can't have two-a-days anymore.
So that's why I think everybody should play football, even if you're scared of it.

(21:18):
We've made it so easy, anybody can play it. But anyways, we had two weeks of
two-a-days. We had full pads in the morning, full pads in the afternoon.
We're in Charleston, South Carolina in August. So I'm sure it's 100 degrees
every single day. It's just a miserable experience.
And I don't know how I did it, and I don't know how my teammates did it, but we did.
And I remember when I got done, I went to officer training school in the Air

(21:41):
Force in San Antonio in August.
And, you know, obviously that sucks. But I remember marching one day and thinking how it sucks.
And I went to this. I'm like, at least I'm not doing two-a-days in Charleston,
hitting Denny Haywood and Travis Stevens,
knocking my head off every single day in inside drill and having to try to block Travis Cunningham.

(22:07):
And so, honestly, when I put it in that perspective, I was glad to be at Air Force training camp.
And so, Tyler, how did you sometimes resort to that in the Marine Corps?
Oh, yeah. There was, you know, I'll use wrestling and football.
We both had two-a-days. And there would be times that it's 5 o'clock in the

(22:30):
morning and you're getting up to go for a run in the Marine Corps.
Sometimes it was 4 a.m., 3, you know, 3.30 in the morning. but it wasn't so foreign to me.
I'd been in those situations before and it didn't feel...
It wasn't new. And thankfully, because of, I think that because of those situations,

(22:50):
I was able to be the honor graduate out of bootcamp and infantry school,
one of 300 in both, because of those experiences in high school that allowed
me at a young age to experience.
Setting an alarm, getting up early, doing something active, taking a shower
or not taking a shower, being stinky in class one or two.
But it wasn't foreign. I had been there, not been there and done that to the

(23:14):
same degree, but I kind of knew what to expect and my body knew how to respond.
And I think that, you know, there were a lot of kids that were in my platoon
or in my unit that had never done anything hard in their life,
that it was evident the ones that sat in front of their, their devices and play
video games because they,

(23:35):
they, their bodies did not know how to react to a 4am wake up call and,
and they suffer the consequences, But you know what they did?
They went out and they got more training at earlier times.
So their life was a lot harder because they didn't start at an earlier age.
And that's one of those things that we're not doing it for our boys.
We're not doing it for them.

(23:57):
We're kind of being the guardrails saying, hey, we're going to do this.
It may be hard. and they may get upset at us in the meantime,
and they may not like it, and they may pout about it, but I'm hard-pressed to
believe that at some point they will pull from those moments off us.
Absolutely. And that kind of leads into the last point before we kind of start

(24:19):
talking about how we're going to do youth football here at Hebron and the vision for the future.
Youth football or having your kid play football inspires parent-child bonds.
The NFL says this, tackle generates moments for you and your child to bond over
a shared love of a sport, from playing catch in the backyard to following your
favorite professional teams together.

(24:40):
I think this, and I already touched on it a little bit, football's hard.
I think a lot of times we're scared to death of parents to make our kids do hard things.
Oh, my kid might get hurt. Oh, he doesn't want to do this.
Or whatever it may be.
But like when you make your bonds are created, just like brotherhoods created

(25:00):
through doing hard things.
And so you have the ability to put your kid in an environment that's hard.
He's going to get hit hard. He's going to have to put a helmet on. He's going to sweat.
He's going to do this. It's going to, it's going to be hot and you're going to challenge him.
Hey, push through, push through, push through. Hey, push through a little pain,
get up, keep fighting. And that creates amazing bonds between a dad and a son.

(25:28):
And I realize moms might be listening to this and your son's dad has nothing to do with him.
But like, you know, man, bring your son to play for men that are going to take on that role.
And we will. But when your son is older, when he's 25,

(25:50):
30, 35, he's going to appreciate a dad who made him do hard things and taught him how to be a man.
I don't even know if there probably is a relationship with a son at 25 and a
dad, and there was never a bonding period like that.

(26:10):
What do you think? Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree with that.
Some of my story is I grew up in a home of an alcoholic and an addict,
and that was most of my childhood.
But my mom and her wisdom surrounded men in my life that poured into me that

(26:30):
to this day, there's still lessons that I was taught either from my grandparents
or my grandfathers that, you know, just to share one,
there was a Saturday that I was supposed to cut grass and I chose to go out
with my friends the Friday night before and I didn't show up on Saturday and
cut grass at my grandparents' house.
And I didn't think anything about it. Grandfather didn't call me.

(26:51):
I showed up the next Saturday acting like everything was fine and the grass
was cut. But, and he looked at me and he said, you know, Tyler,
I want you to hear me when I say this.
And I'm only going to tell you once, when you say you're going to be somewhere,
you say you're going to do something that is your bond. Your word is your bond.
And that stuck with me because I knew that for one, I may have not disappointed

(27:12):
him, but it felt like disappointment.
But he took the moment to teach me something that I held on to.
He probably doesn't even remember, but I held on to for my entire life.
And I think that anytime that we can promote those conversations real quick,
there was a, I was, we were at a father son camp last two weekends ago.
Myself and the boys and we're at Auburn and there's this CEO or SEC coach sitting

(27:37):
there talking to me and it's a baseball camp.
And he's talking about resilience and how, you know, teaching our boys how to
be warriors and the conversations that you and I've had for weeks.
And then that conversation, I was like, wow, this is, This is actually a major
shift that has happened that we as Christian men have.
It is our duty to take on this role and our responsibility.

(28:01):
So he's talking and he said, you know, my son's in seventh grade and he's five foot, 70 pounds.
And he was like, Dad, I just want to tell you, I strongly encouraged him to play football.
And he said, you know, he looked at me like I was crazy because he is small
and he loves playing golf.
But it wasn't because I know that he's going to play college one day.

(28:23):
He said, I knew that at some point during that season, he was going to be tired.
He was going to be worn out. He was going to be thirsty. He was going to be hungry.
He was going to be sore and he was going to get his teeth knocked in and he
was going to have to learn how to not, you know, he can't look to the sidelines
and expect me to run on the field or my mom to run on the field.
He's got to learn to put his fingers in the dirt and push himself back up and And to go again.

(28:48):
And that to me, you know, I was one of the smaller kids.
Growing up. And there were times that I had to realize like,
man, if I don't give it my all, this is going to hurt.
But I learned to pick myself up. I learned to not just give 95%.
I learned to give 110%. And it was because the adversity that faced me,

(29:09):
if I didn't, there was, there was a repercussion.
And that was that if I didn't give my all, then somebody might hit me harder
than I was going to hit them. And that's no fun.
But the conversations, you know, back to of the conversations,
there were, there were times that, you know, I would tell my dad,
like, I don't know if I want to go practice today. I'm sore.
I'm hurting. Nope. You're going to go.
And there was, there was those moments of resilience of making me tougher,

(29:33):
you know, promoting fitness of the bonds of the teamwork of the discipline.
It's a, they all encompass each other and they all build on each other.
And I, I don't think there's a parent here that wouldn't, or a parent that's
listening that wouldn't welcome those conversations.
Conversations they're not easy to watch as a parent but
it's it's that's a lot more fun whenever you

(29:54):
get to see them push through that you know that's um that's whenever you know
you lay your head down at night and know that you did right that day that's
right we all we all live for those days so as we move move on in the podcast
we're going to start talking about our vision here at Hebron.
And I would encourage other coaches at other programs to listen and to think

(30:20):
about what we're doing because we really want to start our own league and we
want other schools to join us.
And right now we kind of have a partnership with Prince Avenue,
with our youth football, but we want it to grow.
And so we want you to listen on what our vision is and hopefully it It matches
your vision and what you want to create.
But first and foremost, what we want to do with our youth football program is

(30:44):
we want to use it to build men for Jesus Christ.
And so we want to build warriors for Christ. And I want Tyler to talk about
this because before the podcast, we were talking about two warriors in the Bible.
There was David and there was Joab.
And David was a warrior for Christ. And there was a reason why he was able to be a great leader.

(31:06):
Joab was a great warrior, but there was no Christ.
And I think that's what we're raising right now is we're raising a bunch of
warriors through the game of football, but we're not raising or we're not being
strategic in raising warriors for Christ.
So we're raising Joab's and we're not raising David's. Now, Tyler,

(31:28):
tell us the difference between David and Joab. Oh, man.
Joab was he was fierce. He was strong. He was fast.
He had every single tool to be feared on the battlefield, and we'll call it on the football field.
He had every single tool to be the Brian Urlacher. I mean, you feared him when

(31:50):
you stepped on the field.
Ray Lewis comes to mind just because, you know, if you're a running back and
you see him across the line of scrimmage, you're like, oh man,
I'm, I'm hoping I don't get the ball to his side.
But the difference is David, David had this ability to hold one in the same,

(32:10):
you know, he, he held a both and he was both a warrior, but he also knew how
to act in grace when he needed to.
And to me, that is what being a godly man is about, is I'm saved, I'm not soft.
And I think that we, as a Christian culture, it's become the new norm that we

(32:33):
can't speak up, we can't speak out.
That our boys are to just accept the social norms and move on about their day.
And I think that there's, there needs to be a shift.
And I know inside my home, there is a shift.
And, you know, I teach my boys that, Hey, you can act in a godly way and still be tough.

(32:55):
You don't, you don't have to be soft or, you know, when somebody,
somebody hits you on a football field, you're not going to hit your knees and pray.
You're going to hit them back. And that's okay.
And, but when the game's over with, you're going to go give them a hug and say,
Hey man, great game. And that's the being able to hold both in.
And those are just the, I think the skills that are passed down from how we

(33:17):
coach it's, it's passed down for how we lead.
And if just, I mean, we don't know as coaches, the nuggets that we're able to
give some of these boys to hold on to for generations that could have huge, huge impacts. hacks.
And that's, you know, it's, it's one of those things that if we're,
if we're able to act in our toughness that God designed us to be,

(33:41):
he died, he designed us to be warriors.
You know, when we were all little, we all played cops and robbers.
We all wanted to climb and run and fall down.
And truthfully, moms and dads, it's really, you didn't think you were hurt until
you see mom or dad running after you, like something was actually wrong and
to let them pick themselves back up.
So yeah, I think being a warrior is something that needs to be celebrated and

(34:05):
being able to hold the same place that, hey, you can be a warrior and you can
be strong and you can be brave.
And then you can also be the man that falls on his knees and cries out to God
for help, because that, to me, is what being a man is about.
Amen. So we want to raise Davids. We want to raise warriors for Christ.
And so that would be our number one objective.

(34:26):
So for me, as a high school coach, everybody's goal is to win a championship.
And people say, hey, that's my number one goal to win a championship.
But for me, it's not. It's to make warriors for Jesus Christ.
God made me a competitor. editor. There's never a time I step out on the field
and I'm not trying to win a championship.
Like I'll wake up on January 1st and we're trying to win a championship that year.

(34:46):
I mean, that's just common sense goal, right? So like, that's who we are,
but like our, our biggest battle is raising warriors for Christ.
So, so that's what our football program is all about.
And go ahead. If you also take into consideration that God also,

(35:07):
time and time again, He shows us in the Bible that it is a spirit of excellence
in which we do things. That's right.
That winning is a byproduct of excellence. That's right.
And, I mean, God didn't give us just anybody. He gave us His Son.
And He sacrificed His Son for us.
There's that to me is a spirit of excellence and sacrifice that I could never even comprehend.

(35:33):
He gave us his best. And when we give our best and when we demand the best from
our players, and there may be days that they don't think that they have it in
them. It's our job to show them that, Hey, it's still there.
And we're going to teach you how to pull it out and to work with them.
And sometimes that, that doesn't necessarily come with sweat on the field,

(35:54):
but it comes with a side conversation of like, hey, man, what's going on?
And I think that there's times that we notice it in eight-year-olds,
nine-year-olds, 10-year-olds.
And when we're able to pour into them, I guarantee you there's been times that
my boys are going to hear something that you have to say over what I have to say.
And if we can provide a culture that allows boys to be warriors and to not be

(36:18):
yelled at just for the W, but to be celebrated for a loss, but they gain something in that loss.
Nobody, I mean, I'm not saying celebrate losing, but I think that when you're
able to grow from it, that's still a win. That's exactly right.
Well, I think teaching kids how to handle losing appropriately,

(36:39):
like quit moping, get over it, quit blaming other people for the loss,
right? Take ownership in your part of the process.
Well, that's the me, me, me we were talking about. That's right.
The selfish thing that we want them to learn how to sacrifice and to be servant leaders.
You know, you know, a team is successful whenever you're.
Everyone is owning their own piece of it. That's right. And that takes humility.

(37:02):
And we're not a, we are not humble by nature.
That is not our nature. Whether we say it to ourselves or we say it out loud,
internally, we are not humble by nature.
And that only comes through the blood of Jesus that allows us to understand
that we aren't enough on our own.
No. And the stuff that we're talking about is, this is the culture and the environment

(37:22):
that we're trying to create within our youth football program.
And if my son is playing baseball for Tyler or playing football for Tyler,
he's going to listen to Tyler more than he's listening to me.
So our desire is to create a culture and environment and a group of men,
and we're all in alignment, and we're teaching and preaching the same thing.

(37:44):
And what is our guidebook? Well, it's the Bible, right? What's the Bible say?
Where can we learn and where can we grow and all these types of things?
So when you get down to it, like how we're designing this is right now at Hebron,
our design is we have five and six definitely playing flag football.

(38:08):
And then that gives you K-5 first grade. All right. So they're going to be playing flag.
Well, then we have the option for second graders to play tackle or flag.
You know, you got some parents who still want their kids to play flag.
I would challenge you to play tackle, but we're going to give you what you want.
We've got some parents that want their kids to play tackle. We're going to allow that.

(38:31):
And so what we've done is we're taking the second, third, and fourth graders
that want to play tackle, and we're putting the fourth graders in their own
group, and then we're putting the second and third graders in their own group.
And Tyler's got something to say. I want to back up for a second and talk about culture.
Because we're talking about all the things that we want, that the culture is. Thanks for watching.

(38:54):
We have the league. We have every we have all the the framework around it. Right.
So let's for a second, let's spend five minutes and talk about if things stay
where they are, if these if we don't get more schools in,
if we don't change the culture of youth football and in our region,
that is where we're called to disciple within within our communities first.

(39:17):
And this is the piece of doing that and raising godly warriors in it.
So prime example just johnny
menzo yeah and christian mccaffrey you're looking
at two complete opposite ends of the spectrum right if
you know anything about the christian mccaffrey story discipline favor
stands for what he believes in not apologetic in

(39:39):
anything that he does and he's very quiet about it
he doesn't go in you know his workouts are outside
with a dumbbell belt and a tire most times
he doesn't need the the the flash
behind it johnny manziel i saw like flashing money
and probably one of the most i wouldn't dare say one of the best god-given athletes

(40:01):
in college football ever i mean him and michael vitt yes and what happened what
what did Christian McCaffrey have that Johnny Manziel didn't?
Foundation. Yeah. Structure.
Discipline. But the roots, you know, we're talking about between three and seven

(40:21):
years old, where really the adolescent years where they're building that foundation,
I guarantee you if you rewind time back, there was probably a coach that allowed
things with Johnny Manziel that whenever he saw what happened when he entered
the NFL or the end of the years of his college,
you know that coach was sitting back and said, I said, man, I wish I would have said something.

(40:42):
I wish I would have benched in that game whenever I knew I should have instead
of letting it play because I wanted to win.
You know, there was a lot of turning a blind eye that probably allowed him to get to where he is today.
And those of you that don't know, you can research his story,
but he's a hard guy not to like.
You know, he's very charismatic. He knows the game.

(41:02):
But you also know that he was probably playing. The sad thing is he was probably
playing at 80% of his true potential.
That's right. Because when things got hard, he turned to something else.
What if when things got hard, Johnny Manziel turns to God and says,
God, I need you to fix this because I can't. Yeah. Who does he become?
You look at Christian McCaffrey, who unapologetically loves his wife.

(41:24):
He loves the game of football.
He loves and celebrates the fact that he is a warrior. He loves his discipline.
And his story, his dad was extremely hard on him, which is somewhat controversial,
but he wasn't scared to push him.
And I think that I would dare imagine that inside the walls of their home that

(41:45):
he was challenged in a way that on the football field, he was demanded excellence
in everything that he did. Yeah.
Johnny Lenzel obviously wasn't because of his grades. That's right.
You know, and that's just, you know, I think that it's real easy to sit back
and say, oh, that sounds all fine and good, but I'm going to stay where I'm at.
What is the risk of staying where we're at? That's right. As a culture,

(42:07):
as Christian men, standing up for what we believe in and hoping that,
and I doubt, I hope we have a Johnny Menzel come through here. Yeah.
But if we can be the light of Jesus in their life to give them something bigger
and stronger to hold on to when those tough times come.
Well, I think too, as we talk about culture is what people have to understand

(42:32):
is the culture's changing.
So what has been and what was that, that not necessarily is the way to go.
And so that's why we're talking about creating a new league because the culture's
changing and it's becoming godless. Yes.
And so you, you become your culture. And so the Bible says, you know,

(42:52):
Romans 12, one through two, but do not be conformed to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Well, where are you putting your child?
Because your child is going to conform to the pattern of the world.
The world in America, the culture in America is godless.
And so our sports programs, our youth leagues, they're all becoming godless.

(43:12):
And so it's me, me, me, me.
And there's no Christ taught. There's no morals taught. There's none of that.
And so what we're going to do is create an organization where Christ is exalted
and we are, we are going to be transformed by the gospel and that's going to become our culture.
And so we want to raise men who don't bow down to the culture,

(43:39):
but they transform the culture through Jesus Christ working in them.
And so my challenge is the parents out there listening and honestly,
people who have influence in youth organizations, they.
If you're not in the word of God and bringing the gospel into your culture,
you can be for sure that you are conforming to the culture because we're powerless

(44:03):
to do anything about it apart from the Holy Spirit working in us and through us.
So what we're saying is we're boldly and unapologetically bringing Christ into
our culture because it is the only way.
And so we're inviting people to join us in that process. And you got to get rid of this thought.

(44:26):
Well, this is how it's always been.
Well, how it's always been, it isn't that way anymore.
And we were just talking about when we were in school, in public school,
there still was an underlying sense of morality, Christian morality.
Well, you will get fired as a superintendent superintendent,

(44:47):
if you even hint of a Christian morality in your culture anymore.
So it is what it is. Our culture is changing and we got to do something different.
Yeah. And if you look at the time that we were talking about,
we were breaking down the timeframe that we're without our kids throughout the day.
You drop your kids off at school, they go to school till three o'clock.

(45:09):
Then if they're in sports, they're
in sports till six or seven and they go home, they do their homework.
So seven o'clock, you've got maybe three hours with your kid and they're either
doing homework, showering, or, you know, eating dinner.
And that's the time you just lost 11 hours that day.

(45:30):
So look at 11 hours versus the three that you get.
If you look at the bigger picture over the course of a week,
you're getting 21 hours with them while somebody else is getting almost 90 hours.
And you want to talk about influence, time is the ultimate, you know,
the thing that they're going to be surrounded with themselves the most are the

(45:52):
people that unfortunately as they're in their adolescent years,
the people that are outside of your four walls.
And we may not be able to control every conversation that's had.
But what we can do is make sure that the young men that we know and the young
men in our influence that we are doing our job as coaches,
we are responsible for handing them a toolbox to be successful in the real world.

(46:19):
And if you're not doing that, then you shouldn't be coaching these adolescent
kids because they need something bigger than what they're getting right now.
And this is on a tangent, I'm going to go on a tangent right here.
And this podcast can be as long as it needs to be because you can hit pause and listen to it later.
But what you just said, and I think the way of the future is,
you know, you got Christian education versus public education.

(46:40):
And so, you know, when you think, and it's like I said, like,
if you're not being transformed by the gospel, you are conforming to the culture.
And so anybody out there, you're thinking, you know, Christian education,
I want my son to get Christian education, but right now I don't have the money
or right now is not the time.

(47:02):
Just know this, when you put your kid into public school education,
somebody is indoctrinating your kid for eight hours.
Who is that person? What are they teaching my child?
Because your child is learning more from them than they are from you.
And so that's the reason why I'm involved in Christian education and I love

(47:23):
Christian education. I have an 11-year-old boy.
Somebody is in his mind teaching him all day long.
And he's not necessarily telling me what he's learning, but I know he's getting
his education from Christian educators and the gospel is present in his education.

(47:44):
So his mind is being transformed by the gospel.
And so Tyler, you were talking a little bit about that because you brought your
your kids over. Talk a little bit about that. Oh, man.
Not to throw shade at public school system because that's not at all what Coach
Guest and I are trying to do. It's just facts.

(48:08):
It's facts of the realities of what we face day to day.
As parents, it's really easy to turn our head, but you can only turn your head for so long.
Our kids were at a public school, and there are certain values that we want to raise our kids.
And there are certain conversations that at kindergarten, first grade,

(48:29):
their minds just can't comprehend having.
They see something's different, but they don't understand. So I picked the kids
up from school. I think it was a Friday.
And originally, we had talked about coming to Hebron in middle school.
And then I started doing the research about the younger adolescent years.
But our kids get in the car and my daughter, she looked at me and she was like,

(48:54):
dad, there was a girl that delivered a package today while we were at recess,
but they had a really, really deep voice. How does that happen?
And not there's, you know, everybody can have their own views,
but in our home, there is man or woman.
And that is how God created us, man or woman.
Now, I want you guys to think about, thankfully, my daughter felt safe enough

(49:18):
and is confident enough in herself and aware enough to understand there's something
different versus asking a teacher
and getting a completely different answer. Because that was a fear.
And that was the first question, what did your teacher say? She was like,
I didn't say it, I'm just asking you.
I was like, okay. That was my first thought was thank God. God,
thank you for protecting her in that moment so that I could be the one to have this conversation.

(49:43):
And it was something that she didn't understand. But my wife and I,
we were talking that night and I was like, what if she wouldn't have asked me that question?
What if a teacher would have said, oh, well, that's somebody that believes that
they're a different gender than what they are. And that's okay. And that's acceptable.
And we as a culture are going to allow that. And not only that,

(50:04):
we're going to celebrate that for them.
And then we're going to do everything to accommodate the opposite of what God's word says.
And then to take it a step further now
i'm contradicting everything that i'm teaching inside
my home and then i'm going to leave it up to a seven-year-old to determine what's

(50:25):
right and what's wrong based off what i'm being taught in church what i'm being
taught inside my home but what my teacher who i'm with every single day is telling
me and that was not a risk that we were willing to take.
So we brought them here and the difference in their mindset,

(50:45):
the difference in just their spirit.
And I mean, whenever they're coming home and they're talking about scripture
and they're asking questions, when I'm having to ask questions about,
hey dad, what does the scripture mean versus, hey dad, what is this about?
A cultural thing that i wasn't she was not ready to have
that conversation and i think that they're

(51:06):
being exposed to things at such a young age now that growing up
that wasn't normal now it's the normal and we get
to thankfully you know we're we're able to have them here and we were allowed
we were accepted to come here and their their walk when god is so unbelievable
you know they're asking questions like hey that they see somebody on the side

(51:29):
of the road dad can we pray for them Like as a dad,
I might get jumped up, but that is something that we are so blessed to have.
And that, thank God that that situation happened, that I wasn't happy about
when it did happen, but I'm thankful that it did because it allowed us to be here.
And that's one of the things that I think we as parents, it's our responsibility

(51:51):
to, you know, we talk about allowing them to fail.
There's a big difference in allowing them to fail in that aspect.
Right. And then allowing them to fail in the mental of something being hard.
You know, I think God calls us to make sure that we are providing them a community to lean on.
And it's the same, you know, they're going to get the same answer from me as

(52:12):
they're going to get from you or their teachers in their classroom or the principal
or whoever steps foot here at Hebron.
And there's a piece that comes along with that. And there's a growth that,
you know, there's a reason why kids that are firm in their faith always come back to their faith.
They may, you know, we were all on college at one point. They may drift off,

(52:35):
but they have no doubt who their father is.
No, we were talking about that. I think that's important. And I always think
about this, what is the number one investment that I have? That's my child.
It's the only thing that matters. And ultimately, and honestly,
too, when you really get down to it, you're talking about eternity.

(52:57):
You're talking about heaven and hell.
Am I raising my son or daughter to be in heaven with me one day and to raise
them in the fear of the Lord, or do I just not care? Or are you just dad?
That's how you're always going to think and not have a community to re-instill.

(53:20):
That's the beautiful thing about this league is that you get to put your child
in a league and surrounded by people with like-minded values that lead to the cross.
And that man they're like you don't know all of our kids listen to us because they have to right,

(53:42):
so they say but when there's a
coach who they respect and admire or a parent or you know they're going to make
friends on the field if if my kid goes over to play with so and so i want them
to walk i want to be at peace to know what what they're being taught inside
their home when you're in a league that unapologetically professes christ and
everything they do and not just by saying hey hey, we're a Christian league,

(54:03):
but we're going to allow rap music.
We're going to allow coaches to cuss. We're going to allow referees to do what they want to do.
No, this is a culture that celebrates the love of Jesus Christ in everything
that we do through action, not just words.
And as kids, they're able to not hear the talk. They're able to see the walk.
That's right. And I think that's so, so important that –.

(54:25):
You know, Christianity, if we're being, if we're being honest,
has a, has a, a bad rap for, for men or women or whoever that professing to
be Christian to still do the same things as the secular world.
That's right. Okay. Are they right?
Yeah. To some degree. Yeah. Some degree, but we get to be the difference maker.

(54:47):
That's right. And that's when you're able to teach your kid that,
Hey, I'm not just going to tell you about this. I'm not just going to tell you
this is what you're supposed to do.
Now here's a community and this is how they're different because I'm telling
you, it's not just words.
It's something that when you step into, you know, when you step on the property
at Hebron, there's a peace and a joy that's associated with being here.

(55:08):
And the kids feel that, you know, they, they, they feel that. And they,
if we can take that into maybe, you know, other organizations that maybe it
is a public school, maybe it is a travel team that decides to play with us,
whatever the The case is they're able to see how we're different.
I think that praying before and after games is so, so, so important.

(55:30):
And as a coach, sometimes that's hard to pray with another team that just kicked your tail.
But at the end of the day, we have to sit back and realize, okay,
you know what these boys are seeing right now?
It's that even though we just lost, even though we just lost and we might have
got our tails kicked in, there's one constant.

(55:50):
There's one thing that never changes, and that's that we are going to pray for
the other team, that we're going to love on the other team the game's over with,
and that we still love Jesus.
That, I mean, that's something that I think that's.
It's special to me because it's hard, you know, being up there and putting a
smile on my face and knowing that at the end of the day, Jesus still bowed the

(56:12):
cross for my sins and professing that to another team.
Yeah, it's huge. And so I'm going to keep reiterating this because there's people
out there and you're like, man, you like everything that we're saying,
but you're scared to death to leave what you know.
Because this is what's always been. This is what I know.
And you think this and you think that. But at the end of the day,

(56:34):
the most important thing that you could possibly do is get your son involved
in a program where the culture is aligned with your Christian values.
And I want to, like for any coach out there and other coaches,
I'll give you an example of how leading for Christ can lead people to Christ.

(56:55):
And believe me, I'm a sinner. The chief of sinners, like Paul said,
like I screw up all the time. but at the end of the day, my heartbeat is Christ,
and I always want to model Christ and represent Christ, so in 2010, we have this big game.
We're number two in the state playing Clinch County. They're number one in the state.
Long story short is we got beat in the last minute and a half by Clinch County.

(57:18):
They scored to beat us, and they ended up beating us by four points, so crushing loss for me.
Great victory for Coach Dickerson, and Coach Dickerson, you might be listening
to to this, and I do owe you a phone call.
Again, he is now the head coach at Clinch County.
But the cool thing is, Coach Dickerson, if you're listening to this and other

(57:38):
people who are listening to this, it is 2024, and Clinch County had called Coach
Dickerson to be the head coach again.
He had won three state championships there. He's kind of a legend down there.
Well, Coach Dickerson called me because after that game in 2010,
it hurt. It was painful. We lost. It sucked.

(57:58):
I get my team and we go over and I say, Coach Dickerson, can we pray with you?
And so we prayed with Coach Dickerson and it was a great experience.
And from that point on, Coach Dickerson and I became friends.
And Coach Dickerson called me in 2024 and he told me he's going to go back and
take the job at Clinch County and he's going to do it different this time.

(58:19):
He's going to lead for christ he's going
to lead as a christian man and and so that is so awesome to know that coach
diggerson i think you did it already while you were there coach diggerson but
like that he's leading now for christ that's how you change the culture that's
how you change lives you change you change the culture by changing lives right and so.

(58:44):
Tyler, what is your vision? I mean, talk about it. Your son's going into third grade.
What do you want to see in this league, specifically Hebron football, as we move forward?
I'm going to use a business reference, which applies.
You know, we do transportation and logistics, but I tell our guys all the time

(59:04):
that we do transportation and logistics, but that's not who we are.
We are a company that expands God's footprint one load at a time.
And we help people by what God has done through our company.
And there may be moments where the things that we do, they don't even understand,

(59:25):
but we were able to do them and show the love of Jesus through our company.
And that is not because of what I've done or what they've done.
One, every single day I surrender logistics to Jesus.
I say, God, this is your company, not mine, period. It's yours, not mine.
I just manage it. I'm not the only one. I just manage it.

(59:47):
And I think that when we're able to surrender our sons and daughters to Jesus and say,
and it's a hard thing to do, but to say, God, thank you for allowing me the
opportunity and trusting me enough to give me these three blessings,
and to allow me to pour into them to know you more.
That to me is like, they're his. And I pray for my kids all the time and I surrender

(01:00:13):
them to God that they're able to provide.
We were all put on this world for a direct and absolute purpose.
There's no doubt in my mind about that.
My job as their parent is to make sure that they uncover what God's purpose
is for their life and that there's no doubt that they wake up every day,

(01:00:33):
they put their feet on the ground, and they know they're walking in that purpose.
As a league, if we're able to show these boys that their purpose is greater
than scoring touchdowns, catching passes,
making interceptions, making tackles, and show them that who they are is greater
than what they ever understood.

(01:00:55):
By the first down of the first game to
the last down of the last game in that time frame
if they are able to be more confident in
who they are as young men who they are in Christ and that they know that they
were created for something great that's a win and being able to do that can't
do that in any other league you know that's that's the other coach coming over

(01:01:18):
and tapping them on the helmet and said, hey, man, great job.
I see the work that you put in.
The culture, I think, builds, and what the boys become as a byproduct of the
culture is the most important thing.
We can talk about flag versus tackle.
We can talk about six on six versus 11 on 11, but in all reality,

(01:01:42):
it's what happened inside each individual player from the first play of the
first down the last play the last down that makes a difference.
So that's that's very good you know and that's i always say like how we're going
to play what are we going to do all that kind of stuff to me it's like man let's
get an organization going where,

(01:02:03):
the right people are pouring into our boys right so so kind of just kind of
want to answer some questions and this is kind of specific to the hebron community
but but obviously we're challenging some other organizations to kind of join in with us.
But kind of the model that we have right now is we got a group of second and

(01:02:23):
third graders that are going to play together, and there's 16 of them.
And if you're listening and you want to be involved, you can definitely still sign up.
And then we got a group of fourth graders, and there's 14 of them.
And then we also have Prince Avenue, who has a third and fourth grade league,
and they have 11-man football.

(01:02:43):
And so what we're going to do is we're going to separate our 16 second and third
graders, our 16 fourth graders into two separate groups.
And then we're going to divide them in two and we're going to have lion ball.
And so lion balls, it's what you could call it Wolverine ball.
If you're Prince Avenue, you can call it whatever you want, but we're the lion.

(01:03:05):
So we call it lion ball and it's different.
And so what it is, is six on six. and so
what we do is we shrink the field down
to where it's about 23 yards wide and it's
40 yards long and we use seven on seven rules
you know you got you have three downs to get 15 yards to get a first down and
then you got three downs to get 15 more yards to get a first down and then from

(01:03:27):
the 10 you got three downs to score and so what we're doing is you got one lineman
versus one defensive lineman you know this year we're going to move to where
last year we didn't have center quarterback exchange. This year we are.
But the whole purpose is to spread the game out and to create situations when
they're first beginning football where defenses can't just blitz out of control.

(01:03:49):
But we want our kids to learn how to throw a pass.
We want our kids to learn how to catch a ball. We want our kids to learn how to tackle in space.
And so what we don't want is It's just a jumbled mess of 11 guys and hand it
to the fastest kid and maybe he'll get around the edge and score a touchdown.
It's not football. It's not football.

(01:04:10):
So, Tyler, what is appealing to you as two third-grade boys about Lion Ball and six-on-six?
I think it slows the game down.
You're shrinking the field. You're slowing the game down.
And there's always, you know, kids' first couple years playing,
There's always two or three kids on the team that know where to be, right?

(01:04:33):
You can't hide in line ball or six versus six. You've got to know where to be.
And so it exposes inefficiencies with their football IQ that allows us as coaches
to be like, okay, this is one thing we have to work on. We know tackling is
going to be one of those things.
So you're able to slow the game down. You're able to focus on,

(01:04:53):
hey, this is how tackling form should be.
So then when you think about the long-term, and we'll talk about a couple things,
and the long-term goals with them, the long-term goal with that is, as a varsity coach,
I wouldn't dare say, I don't know how many, the percentage of injuries that come from tackling.

(01:05:13):
Incorrectly. Not just tackling, but tackling incorrectly. You've got shoulder
injuries, you've got head injuries, and it's not the way that it's designed to be.
You shouldn't be getting hurt. But kids who grew up playing 11-on-11 that were
just told to go hit somebody,
now have developed these bad habits for the last four or five years that we're
able to take away those habits early on so that when they get to the varsity level,

(01:05:37):
you've got your 11 guys you're going to put on the field and you know they're
going to be healthy and you know you're not not having to break down fundamentals
of middle school. Right.
And that's, so some of the things that Tyler wrote down that's instrumental with six on six.
All right. So our model would be this year, we're going to go six on six.
We're going to start when school starts, which is August 12th.

(01:05:59):
So that week we'll start practice.
All right. And so six on six is really kind of just like scrimmaging.
Yes. And so we do a high school drill that is very similar to what six on six
looks And then so you're going to do that at Labor Day after Labor Day is when
we're going to come together and develop our 11 man team where we would go and
play Prince Avenue and hopefully recruit some other teams that want to join this organization.

(01:06:24):
But here are some benefits of slowing it down, shrinking the field,
spreading it out, and breaking the game down segmentally in six-on-six.
So number one is there's more one-on-one time with coaches to teach fundamentals.
How do I tackle correctly?
How do I keep my head out of it? How do I block correctly? How do I catch? How do I throw?

(01:06:46):
These things that we're not teaching in youth football, we're not teaching kids
how to catch. I mean, you've got one coach per four players.
That's right. Where else can you do that? That is huge.
And not just like, oh, there's 17 coaches on the sidelines. Like,
no, these are coaches in practice, running stations, making sure that each individual

(01:07:11):
kid knows how to do it correctly.
And that, to me, as kids, it's their first year playing tackle.
Man, that's huge. huge you know I know
that when they step on the field and that first snap happens
they they're going to know what to do right and not only that you've
got kids that because they know what to do they're going to be confident what does
confidence bring on the football field aggressiveness more aggressive the less

(01:07:35):
likely for injuries and this is like the whole thing with parents not wanting
to play tackle I think we're missing the mark of yes it's tackled so like when
you know how to do it correctly,
you're probably going to have less injuries than flag football because you're
not running full speed. They know where to be in space.

(01:07:56):
And that is such a big thing with being able to break down the game when they're older.
And like you and I were talking about this week, we're able to implement some
of the high school plays here at Hebron on a much scaled down version.
But by the time they get to you, their timing is Johnny on the spot and you guys can worry

(01:08:17):
about winning championships rather than how to tackle correct yeah that
would be good because we're still learning that so the
next point is six on six is only is is only designed
to be a stepping stone from flag football into the world of 11 verse 11 tackle
and and i don't understand why i can't get people to understand this but like
you're involved in youth baseball i'm involved in youth baseball and so your

(01:08:41):
kids are playing eight you this year my son was nine you my son was playing 11U.
But if you go watch baseball, they start off in T-ball. It's this tiny little field.
And then you move up to 9U, it gets a little bit bigger.
And then you get up to 11U, it gets a little bit bigger. And then by the time
you get to high school, you're on the full field.

(01:09:02):
Not only that, I mean, you're looking at coming from the stretch,
you got pickoffs, you got leadoffs.
Every age group up until around 9U is when real baseball starts.
That's right. But up until that point.
T-ball, coach pitch. So you got T-ball off a tee. You got coach pitch.
Then you got kid pitch. Then you can't steal if there's a pass ball.

(01:09:24):
And then you can steal only if there's a pass ball, but you can't steal home.
There's constantly a moving target for what the expectation is for that age group. Yeah.
So it's crazy. If you think about football, we always say football is mass chaos.
And so you're talking about the most violent game, the most chaotic game,
because there's so many moving parts and so many different things that you can do.

(01:09:44):
And then you take baseball. Baseball is very complicated, hand-eye coordination.
So the details of it's complicated, but like overall, it's not as complicated
as football and it's definitely not as violent.
So why would you start off in baby steps in baseball, but not football?
I mean, I'll bring it to the Marine Corps, for example.
When you're talking about mass chaos and moving under fire, you're shooting

(01:10:06):
and moving at the same time.
You're going to do that typically as a squad or a platoon or on a company level,
but you know where you start? literally you're starting with your four man team. Yeah. Four man team.
And there's one leader and there's three guys. Everybody knows their job.
And there's a, anytime that you have a deployment, there's a,

(01:10:28):
what they call a ramp up, right? You break everything down.
And for a year, you start with your four man team.
A month later, you're going to go to your squad, which is now 12.
Then a month later, you're going to go to your platoon. Then you're going to
go to your company Before you know it, you've got a battalion,
which is thousands of Marines working in unison together that started with Borgos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:10:52):
And so like that model, it makes complete sense to me.
Okay, five and six, let's play flag. Let's learn how to at least somewhat work together.
And because flag is crazy.
And, you know, you think you're going to do some amazing things and then it's just chaos.
But so the boys get older. older so i

(01:11:12):
mean you could say hey let's do flag in second grade i think
second graders are ready for for tackle football if you
could get it and of course like we said we're going to split but then
let's just use the example advocate to you know and everybody's going to have
their own program but you know you and i've talked about whenever we move to
11 on 11 the guys playing flag finish their year on at least their practices

(01:11:34):
or with pads yeah just to just the experience so So just putting the helmet
on, just putting the helmet on. Yes.
You know, I was at the sixth grade practice the other day and I had to help a kid.
He had his shoulder pads on backwards, you know, his first year playing.
But so, so yeah, so you go, you go flag and then boom, okay, let's go six on six.

(01:11:56):
And so now, you know, it's just like baseball.
And then you go from six on six and then you go to 11 on 11.
And so my, I'm going to eventually make this work.
I might be 70. I can't get other schools to buy into the six-on-six concept.
Everybody just wants to play 11-man football, but it's just kind of like, why?

(01:12:19):
Let's slow it down. I think that the problem that we're facing is not – I mean,
it's something that we've talked about as coaches on the youth level is we're
all competitive, right?
We all want to see the W on the scoring board.
So does it make sense to hand the fastest kid the ball and let him score? Yes.

(01:12:40):
But, once again, you talk about the Christ-centered piece of it.
We've got to take the humility of what's best for the boys out.
There shouldn't even really be a scoreboard and six-on-six tackle,
in my opinion, because how – and we talked about this – how it should be designed
or how we should be doing it, how it looks, is that you kind of know,

(01:13:02):
based off how a kid's built, if they're going to play line or not, for instance.
My boys aren't very big. They're not going to play line. So why would I teach
them a three-point stance and how to get, you know, they learn how to get off
a block, but maybe as a corner or wide receiver, not as a lineman.
So why would I put them on the line just to make them blunts?
That is a teaching that we're not helping them.

(01:13:24):
So then when they get to real 11 on 11 and they get out on corner and they're
trying to corner contain, they don't know how to contain because they can just
learn how to block for two years.
And I think that we have to take away, as coaches, we have to take away the,
hey, I want our team to win a championship.
Championship from what six on six no one cares about that yeah

(01:13:45):
you know no what to me a win
as a coach the championship in my mind as a
coach is if i know that these are going to be probably
my skill players when they get in high school if they know how
to play wide receiver they know how to play slot they
know how to play corner safety maybe outside linebacker
quarterback or running back they know

(01:14:06):
all the skill positions and what what that job is
any given point that's gonna going to take all season to get there that's right
but that's that's the championship and then
my line guys know how to get a proper three-point stance they know
how to you know push off a block they know how to shove they know how to do
all the things that is that is going to be required of them as they get older
so that way whenever they're learning their steps in high school that's second

(01:14:28):
nature that's right how to do all those things that's right and because it is
second nature now they're faster that's right that's what that's how you win
games being fast off the line.
Well, it goes back into process driven versus results driven, right?
So if I'm results driven person, all right, we're going to win a championship.
We're going to win a championship. We're going to win a championship.
Well, when I do that, I neglect the things that we talked about,

(01:14:50):
sportsmanship, teamwork, discipline, resilience.
I'm now just coaching scheme. I'm coaching to win a championship.
And so what we're saying is slow down.
Let's build Build the man. That's right. Like, let's build the culture.
I think that's the build the man.
Like, that should be the number.

(01:15:11):
Like, build the man. I'm talking like even on a, yes, on a spiritual aspect,
but also a physical aspect.
If I've got a kid who's in third grade that's 150 pounds and 5'5",
he's not going to play wide receiver.
That's just not going to be his position. Yeah. He's going to play line.
So how did I, how I look at it is, and I think that, you know,

(01:15:34):
we as coaches, this has to be the mindset is whenever Johnny is a senior in high school,
Is he going to look back and say, man, I'm thankful for that year?
Or is he going to look back and say, what was the point of that?
How did I help him as a senior? How did I help him as a junior?
How did he help his team as a junior or as a senior?

(01:15:56):
Hopefully because of the skills that I was able to give him.
We were talking the other day that whenever I played AU, it was 11-on-11 tackle,
but it was broken down so simple.
We had red and black wristbands. and this coach didn't have a solid team didn't
have a grand solid team he just
coached because he loved football that's right he was 70 years old and

(01:16:18):
he yeah he was but I'll never he would talk and he'd phone with the mouth when
he was talking but he loved the game and he broke it down so simple that we
understood it yeah you know it wasn't a gap it was,
red wristband one gap and that was where the ball was going to go yeah and I
think that we forget as coaches,

(01:16:38):
how much we know versus how much we knew then
we didn't know anything we know how to hold the ball correctly we
didn't know you know how to even step block
we didn't know how to contain and that i
think that's why whenever they're juniors and seniors in high school they don't
even still don't know how to do those things that's right because we didn't
make it important when they were kids yeah the foundation that we build on the

(01:17:01):
spiritual aspect three to seven adolescent years how's any different than what
we teach them in football.
It's no different. It has to be on the same page. You talk about build a man.
We start with the end in mind. Hey, this kid's 5, 6, 7, 8.
What do we want him to look like when he's a senior? I'm going to give you an example.

(01:17:23):
I saw this on Twitter probably in January or February.
Some big-time Georgia recruit signs with Georgia. We know he's getting NIL money, so he's getting money.
He signs Well, I see that he's having a...
Event where he'll sign autographs for the community, but you got to pay $10 to get the autograph.

(01:17:44):
So he talked about building the man. So what we want to do is build a man who
might get that offer to Georgia and he goes back and gives back to the community,
not take from the community, right?
So God's giving you this talent and he's giving you this ability and then he's
blessed you with a scholarship to the University of Georgia and you're going
to go ask for the community per kid to give you $10 so you can make more money

(01:18:08):
instead of, oh my gosh, God has given me so much.
How do I go and give back for free to my community?
And that's like talking about building the man. That's what we want our kids to look like, right?
And what they talk about selfish and the knee-knee-knee mindset,
you know he's not thinking about the mom who's got a little boy that that's

(01:18:30):
his hero, and she'll give the money she was going to use for dinner.
That's right. That kid's not going to eat because he wants that autograph more
than that. And that is building the man.
That's, you know, when you're able to step back and see things from that perspective,
that's a real life, real world perspective.
And if we can build men that see that versus, oh man, I'm about to make a bag

(01:18:53):
because of this. Like, no, no, you're not.
No, you're not. Why don't you give that back? Instead of you taking from her,
why don't you go buy her that?
That's right. Right. That's that's that's where, you know, you talk about men
being men in our community.
We we have forgotten how to not sit back and take to give. That's right. To give.

(01:19:13):
That is, you know, our heart as Christians and and as men should be not.
What can I what can my brother do for me? But what can I do for him? That's right.
Well, you know, the thing is aggravating. You talk about building the man like
like this kid's getting everything.
Everything, but he's a product of his culture. That's right.
The culture is you go and get everything.

(01:19:37):
To me, that's a boy culture. We live in a boy culture. It's like you just go
and you get yours and you spend everything on you and dah, dah, dah, dah.
I'm going to get mine. I'm going to get mine and I'm going to try to get more.
And so that's boy, that's selfish, and that's our culture. And that's what our
kids are getting raised up in.
And so if we don't do something different, then our kids are being raised like

(01:19:59):
that because our kids are eventually
going to get on social media and our kids are going to see that.
And if we're not teaching them that that's wrong and that there's a better way,
a Christ-like way, they're going to be like that.
There was a coach at Auburn camp, again, to bring that up.

(01:20:20):
He made something very, man, I had never thought about this,
but he talked about, we all see parents carrying helmet and shoulder pads for
their kids. We all see that, right?
He gave a different perspective about parents carrying bat bags for their kids.
And he was like, you know, the mom who just worked three jobs to pay for the

(01:20:41):
travel baseball team that her son's playing on now carries the bat of the son
to the car whenever that's his mom.
Where are the men stepping up saying, no, son, that's your mother.
You should be not only carrying your stuff, but opening the door for her whenever
she gets there. Not as being a godly man.
That's building a man. And, you know, if you look at any of the youth,

(01:21:04):
let's say nationally ranked team, and you watch any of the YouTube videos,
some of the things those coaches are saying, man, they are, and these kids are
broad eyed and bushy tailed.
That is like, they make that man happy because they did a good job.
All of a sudden, everything's great. And what's he saying? Go get yours.
Knock their heads off. Make sure you get yours. Make sure you do this.

(01:21:25):
And he's cussing and he's doing all the things opposite of what you want your son to be one day.
And you can be tough without any of those things.
It actually takes more toughness after you've just played an entire game and
you're tired. You may not want to carry your stuff.
To pick up your own stuff and carry it and then carry your mom's bags too.
That's where the resilience comes in. But who's going to teach them?

(01:21:47):
That's right. Who's going to teach them? Because we're not.
That's right. We don't live in a culture that celebrates that.
And that's what has to change. Whenever the coach that is seeing their players leave, that snap.
I mean, there was a kid in the spring last year that we had practice,

(01:22:08):
and I see his mom go grab his bag, and he's sitting back there sipping a Gatorade.
I took the Gatorade from him, and I said, no, why is your mom?
She just worked all day. Yeah.
You sat in class, and you hit a little bit? Go get your bag right now.
That's good. But that, and not to say that, you know, I catch that all the time
or that's the right way to do it, but to stand up and say, Hey,

(01:22:30):
Hey, there's, you're expected. You're not, that's not okay.
Yeah. Because that's going to be the same model that we're saying,
Hey, whenever you get older and you get married and you get home,
just go ahead and go home, sit in your lazy boy and prop up your feet and expect
your wife to bring everything to you.
Yeah. It's not, you're not serving your family at that point. That's right. Right.
And those are the, I think those are the values that we're missing out on that we have to change.

(01:22:54):
Yeah. Because that's not, God didn't create us to be that. That's right. He didn't create that.
Well, and I think this is like, so what we're trying to do is,
you know, there's coaches out there independently that are doing that.
But they're involved in these organizations who, that's not what their organization is doing.
So what we're challenging everybody is like, let's create a league,

(01:23:16):
let's create an organization where we're all on the same page and we're all
after what we've been talking about.
Like we're all after building the man, you know, not building the boy.
And it doesn't matter if they go from, you know, if they're playing third and
fourth grade or seven and eight.
Seven, eight-year-olds to middle school, they're still taught the same.

(01:23:40):
That's a continuum spectrum.
It's not, oh, well, this is what this one coach said. I just didn't like him,
so I don't have to do that anymore because now my coach is telling me I can
do whatever I want to do and it's okay. That's right.
It doesn't change the man. It doesn't build the man.
What you're doing is giving him a nugget that he might one day hold on to.
If not, did we really do any good because it just got reversed? That's right. Right.

(01:24:03):
You know, so that honestly, and you can think about if we missed anything because
there has been questions swirling around,
but that's kind of our model, you know, like our third and fourth graders have
moved into 11-man football in the months of September and October.
And then, you know, we have a fifth grade team that's playing in a league.
We have a sixth grade team that's playing in a league. My challenge to all those

(01:24:25):
teams in that league is we need to We need to create a league for five to fourth grade.
And then, of course, we have our middle school team and then JV in high school.
So what are some things you're thinking we missed?
I think that one of the things that we didn't talk about was the second graders
that are playing up with third grade. Well, they're playing six on six.
Second and third grade, not a big body composition difference.

(01:24:50):
They're around the same level. Second and fourth grade is a little bit different.
So that was one of the questions that one of the parents had asked me.
And I said, listen, we're still going to be, when we move to 1111,
we're going to be practicing. Right.
The, whenever we go play Prince Avenue, they're primarily a fourth grade team
or they're playing most fourth graders.
Is your second grader going to play most again if, if he's able to,

(01:25:11):
and he's the best to be at that position?
Yeah. Yeah. But is he going to go get somebody that's twice his size?
No. Right. You know, that's the hope is that it's no different than when you
play middle school, seventh and eighth grade, who's primarily playing your eighth
graders just because that's the nature of it.
It's no different than, you know, whenever my boys go into fourth grade next
Next year, now they'll be the oldest and they'll be the ones playing more.

(01:25:33):
But if not, they're still watching. They're still learning. They're still absorbing.
They're still practicing.
And I think that that was just one of the questions was, hey,
the second graders, are they going to be playing tackle with fourth graders?
I mean, if you get a stud second grader, he might be.
But I wouldn't be concerned with that because he's the best.
And there's going to be the kid that's, hey, he's really small,
but he wants to play tackle.
So, no, he may not get a lot of playing time. But ideally, we set up a fifth quarter.

(01:25:57):
So you know if that's what we want to call it but a
fifth quarter with prince avenue with their younger kids just
to get some reps in that's right on the game level yeah
those are things that you know as we develop this perfection
is always always the goal but it's always also changing that's right so it's
it's a moving target and and we'll get there but it may take some coaches or

(01:26:21):
some organization saying hey this all sounds great but have you thought about
this right and And whatever we can do to make it better for the boys so that they can be better men,
that's right. I think we're all on board with that.
And I think, too, to other organizations out there, what we're trying to create
is, for example, George Walton or some of the other schools that are in that

(01:26:47):
fifth and sixth grade league.
We're not we're not stovepiping a school into
saying all your kids have to be at hebron or
all your kids have to be at prince avenue or all your kids have
to be at george walton like you're you're your
own league like we would we want you to reach out to people in the community
who might not be a part of your program because like at the end of the day we're

(01:27:11):
in it to build men you're bringing kids from a different community to know jesus
that's right so like Like we're not stovepiping people into that.
And like, we all know if there's going to be some rogue guy out there trying
to build a championship team by just these crazy, but like, man,
we want the outreach, you know, we want to reach other people.
And the other thing too, is it's like, so you have flexibility.

(01:27:33):
It could be one of those situations where ideally in an ideal world,
we develop this and we have a, we have second grade, we have third grade,
we have fourth grade, and they all have their own little, their own little teams.
But man, we might have a tiny third grader that needs to play second grade football.
We might have a second grader that needs to play third grade football.
And so like that's to each,

(01:27:55):
Each team or each organization, like us at Hebron, that's for us to figure out. That's right.
That's one of those things that you really police your own type thing. That's right.
We're not going to have a fifth grader playing down in third just to win a game.
We're building them in. What is that teaching them?
I think that the bigger picture is if we can get all the coaches to step out

(01:28:19):
of the weeds, to see the finish line, and say, hey, this is where we're going.
And just because you want more wins and losses at eight, you,
I'm sorry, but that doesn't help them be a better man.
That's right. And ideally helps them pull, put tools in their toolbox so that
when they are juniors and seniors, they start making decisions that are life changing.
When they're at parties or whenever their friends are making bad decisions,

(01:28:42):
that you're building things that helps them create a better culture internally
for your own individual school system or, you know, school program,
whatever the case may be. Yeah.
So, you know, it's like build the man versus build the team.
Well, if your focus is on building the man, you know, you'll do what's, you'll do what's right.
And, and then, I mean, if you're doing, if you're doing right,

(01:29:05):
the wins are a byproduct of that. That's right.
That's right. And I think that, you know, if you look at any,
any successful program in the nation, as far as it could be baseball, football, anybody,
what they do is they have a culture that starts at a young age and that they're,

(01:29:27):
they have teammates that are bought into it, that they believe in it,
that they, they've also had coaches that have invested time and effort and energy
into making sure that they were the best versions of themselves.
And we as coaches, it's volunteer coaches or paid coaches, might as well be
the same thing because it's not a whole lot of money. Right.
So in doing it for wins and losses, if that's why you're doing it, then that's not a coach.

(01:29:53):
We are not just coaching them in the game, we're coaching them in life. That's right.
So as we end, can you think of anything else that we need to address?
Somebody could have a question on. Being open to change.
Yeah. I think that that's – everybody thinks 11-on-11 is the only way that they're
going to learn the real game of football, and I beg to differ.

(01:30:15):
You know, you may be moving your line. If you've got more line guys and skill
guys on your team, you might be moving them in and out a lot,
but they're still getting their reps in, and I promise you.
I promise you that because it is a slowed-down version, you won't see it that first year.
You probably won't even see it the second year, but by the time they're in middle

(01:30:36):
school, you're going to be able to know, Hey, that guy had a lot of work on his fundamentals.
And it was because the six on six tackle or the slow down version,
the coaches were able to spend the time to doing it the right way.
And I think that that's, that's, that's going to be the biggest difference to
make here. That's right.
And the final piece for me is, is just, it's like, like we said,

(01:30:57):
like your son will become the environment you put him in, you know?
So the culture is critical. and so
our invitation is is come and and be part of a culture that's christ-centered
and like building men for jesus christ and honestly you other other uh schools
out there or maybe other organization and that appeals to you let's let's build a league for sure and i i.

(01:31:24):
Dare say because let's see they're i think they're uh graduating class is 2020
or uh 2032 i think I think, coaches, if you're listening,
you don't want to miss the mark because by 2032, this program is going to be
so perfected that you may try and integrate it, but then you're going to have
another, what, eight years to determine, oh, that does work. Yeah.

(01:31:48):
They're going to miss the mark and you're going to get left behind because I
promise you that by 2032, you guys can put it down.
This will be a state finals team, an organization, hopefully before then.
But I'm here to tell you, the kids that are in this age group that we're starting
this, that we're able to work on those fundamentals, there's going to be more
success in this age group than
I think there's ever been in the history of human football. No, no doubt.

(01:32:11):
No doubt. And because it begins when they're young. That's right.
Well, cool. I'm going to pray this out and we'll be done. Lord,
we're coming for you today. I just want to praise and thank you for loving us.
And Lord, always praise and thank you for dying on the cross for our sins.
Lord, we just pray that you would be with us. Lord, it's actually in our culture,
it's actually hard to lead for Jesus Christ.

(01:32:33):
You'll get mocked, you'll get made fun of, people will think you're weak.
But actually, the truth is that men of Jesus Christ are strong.
And so, Lord, what I pray for is that we would be bold and unashamed in our
proclamation of the gospel, in our desire to create a league,
a football program that honors and glorifies you.

(01:32:54):
You, Lord, because truly a true man is a man of Jesus Christ because you've
created us and you create us in your image for your glory. We screwed it all.
But Lord, you redeemed us through the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross,
and we can become the men that you want us to be through the power of the Holy Spirit that works in us.

(01:33:15):
So help us create a culture and an environment environment where we are building
men for Jesus Christ, Lord.
And also, I pray that you bring other organizations that want what we're describing
here in this podcast today.
Lord, we love you. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Cool.

(01:33:35):
That is good.

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