About the Guest
Chris Softley is the head football coach and athletic director at Lubbock Christian High School in Texas. With a strong background in athletics, he played collegiate football until injuries led him to pivot towards coaching. Known for his leadership, grit, and deep faith, Coach Softley has made a significant impact in the realm of high school sports, molding young athletes into not only talented players but also well-rounded individuals. His approach focuses on leveraging sports as a platform to instill life lessons, emphasizing the importance of identity, resilience, and holistic development both on and off the field.
Episode Summary
In this inspiring episode of Becoming UnDone, host Toby Brooks sits down with Chris Softley, the influential head football coach and athletic director at Lubbock Christian High School. Chris shares his journey from a promising young athlete in Nebraska with dreams of playing for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, to a transformative leader in high school athletics in Texas. Through candid reflections on his own experiences with injury, identity, and unfulfilled dreams, Chris delivers powerful insights about the pathways to personal growth, leadership, and the pursuit of meaningful impact beyond athletic achievements.
Coach Softley discusses the pivotal moments that shaped his career, including the life-changing injury that redirected his path towards coaching. At Lubbock Christian, Chris is celebrated for crafting an unparalleled culture of excellence that extends beyond the weight room and playing field—all rooted in faith, integrity, and authentic relationships. His strategic focus on strength, conditioning, and character building, intertwined with a deep compassion for every student-athlete, underscores his commitment to preparing young individuals for challenges in sports and in life. The conversation highlights the importance of empathy, understanding, and nurturing each person’s unique talents, echoing the sentiment that true success is measured by the lives we positively impact.
Key Takeaways
- Holistic Approach to Leadership: Coach Softley underscores the need for an integrated approach to coaching that nurtures both the athlete and the individual grounded in core values and identity.
- Empathy in Coaching: Softley emphasizes the power of empathy in leadership, advocating for coaches who connect deeply with their players' experiences and challenges.
- Resilience and Identity: The episode highlights the importance of redefining personal success by concentrating on building resilience and maintaining a robust sense of self-identity, independent of athletic accomplishments.
- Legacy Beyond the Game: Through his narrative, Chris demonstrates how to leverage sports as a significant avenue for imparting life skills and enabling personal growth.
- Maximizing Potential: Softley advocates for continuous improvement and maximizing one's talents, whether in athletics, academics, or personal life.
Notable Quotes
- "I felt like I was born to be a quarterback… but apparently not for very long."
- "We want young men and young women to leave here and say, that wasn't ju
Reach out to Becoming UnDone! Text Toby here!
Becoming Undone is a NiTROHype Creative production. Written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at becomingundonepod and follow me at TobyJBrooks. Listen, subscribe, and leave us a review Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.