My family competed at everything—football, basketball, lacrosse—even dinner as we inhaled our food to finish first. We called my dad Captain Intensity because he did everything at 110 percent. I remember hearing of his lacrosse days at the U.S. Naval Academy, and when he played against Jim Brown (football and lacrosse player at Syracuse and one of the greatest NFL running backs of all time). My dad had a hit on Brown that changed the course of the game. It was a breakthrough play for my dad, who then started every game after that.

Breakthrough is a great word used in sports. Any play that changes the course of a game is usually called a breakthrough play. A breakthrough game changes the course of a team’s season.

Baseball has always been a way of life for Boston Red Sox slugger Adrian Gonzalez. The three-time Gold Glove winner and four-time All-Star has excelled at the game since he first picked up a bat and ball as a young boy in San Diego. But when asked to put his life and nine-year MLB career into perspective, he explains how it has been and always will be about so much more than just the game, “You look at the big picture of life; there’s going to be more time when it’s going to be you and Jesus than in the field.”

There are many things in this life that can poison your heart. In college, it might be alcohol, drugs or toxic relationships. As a professional athlete, those temptations are often in the form of material possessions and money. But when I committed my life to Christ during my playing days at the University of Nebraska, I allowed Him to fill the void in my heart that worldly things could never satisfy. I was finally at peace.

No matter how long you have been serving the Lord, the enemy of your soul is going to tempt you to walk away from the straight and narrow path. Thankfully, when I began playing for the Buffalo Bills, I had a group of like-minded individuals to help me stay the course. I also became actively involved in Bible studies and grew in my knowledge of His Word.

I had many favorite sayings as a coach. Here a some of them:

-- Rule 1: The coach is right.
-- Rule 2: If you think Coach is wrong, see Rule 1.
-- Whether you can or can't, you are right.
-- Don't tell me. Show me.

The last one may have been my favorite. Athletes have a hard time backing up what they say. They talk a good game, but many times today's athlete can't back it up. All in all, talk is cheap.

Chad was the consummate team player, working harder than everyone else. He was humble and unselfish, and never once did I hear him talk trash to an opponent. I knew there was something different about Chad, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

At age 16 I began to search for the purpose of my existence. Sports were gratifying, but I knew they wouldn’t last forever. Around this time, I learned that the difference between Chad and me was that he had a personal relationship with Jesus that influenced his life on and off the field.

Competition is an obvious part of the coaching life, resulting in either winning or losing. But God’s Word reminds us not to get so caught up in the results that we forget to take care of the flock—the athletes—who have been put under our watch.

Of course, we all want to win. Yet if we forget that we’re really working toward an “imperishable crown” (as Paul writes in 1 Co 9:25), we’ve lost perspective of why we’re coaching in the first place. In other words, just as we live our lives to please the Great Shepherd, so, too, do we coach our players with the same goal. In the process, we’ll serve as examples to the sheep.

As a competitor, it is hard to give glory where glory is due, when others deserve it more than we do. Training, discipline, perseverance, and drive are all characteristics that can propel an athlete to the next level, making good athletes into great athletes.

But often after achieving a goal, we feel that it is our hard work that got us to that point. The praise, honor, and glory are focused on us as individual athletes.

Part of FCA’s Competitor’s Creed states:

“I do not trust in myself.

I do not boast in my abilities

or believe in my own strength.

I rely solely on the power of God.

I compete for the pleasure of

my Heavenly Father, the honor of Christ

and the reputation of the Holy Spirit.”

I was watching an interview on ESPNews with Barry Bonds. The topic was steroids. Bonds’s personal trainer was one of four men recently charged in a steroid-distribution ring that allegedly supplied dozens of professional athletes with banned substances.

Athletes at all levels these days are doing all they can to get the edge. Nutritional supplements—some legal and healthy, others not—are widely used to give athletes an extra boost, better workouts and faster strength gain.

But what are the supplements of our spiritual lives? What does the spiritual steroid (without the negative connotation) look like? How do we get a boost?

Sandi could tell you that your balance follows your gaze. He’d stopped his mountain bike just above a trail intersection. I was waiting for him on the trail below him and to his right. Being new to the kind of pedals that held his feet captive in metal clips, he focused on getting his left foot out before he lost all of his forward momentum. Proud of his success, he turned his gaze to the right to meet mine — and his weight followed his eyes. In slow motion he keeled over down the slope toward me, still unable to free his right foot from the pedal. He tumbled unhurt into an avalanche of late-autumn leaves, branches and his own bike.