When Minnesota’s Becker High School football team charges onto the field for its opening game on Thursday night against Orono High, the Bulldogs will be led by Coach Dwight Lundeen – the same man who’s been guiding the squad for the last 57 years.
The 79-year-old Lundeen recently announced this season will be his last – the end of an era for a local legend who says, “My filter is ‘Christ-centered’ and faith is the most important thing in my life.”
Coach Lundeen has led his team to more than 400 wins and four state championships, but that’s not what has motivated him all these years.
“My purpose is to use football as a life-lesson setting so that we can draw kids to Christ by modeling the things we should model – and by inviting them to FCA.”
FCA is the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, an international sports ministry that was born out of an observation from a basketball coach named Don McClanen. As a student at then-Oklahoma A&M – now Oklahoma State University – Don noted that athletes often leveraged their celebrity to sell commercial products but rarely used that influence to share their Christian faith
“If athletes can endorse shaving cream, razor blades and cigarettes, surely they can endorse the Lord,” McClanen told Dr. Louis H. Evans, Sr., the well-known pastor of Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Dr. Evans encouraged him to write to Christian athletes and invite them to publicly share their testimony. FCA was born.
Back in the late 1960s, Coach Lundeen’s team was composed of just 20 players. He’s now coached more than 4,000 young men. Each year, he says his goal has been to “impact young people in a positive way through the coaching doors the Lord has opened up for me.”
Over a million young men in America will be playing football this fall, and millions more boys and girls will be engaging in various other sports. All of them will be influenced by a coach and often more than one.
Discussions and debates about American education understandably revolve around teachers in the classroom and the curriculum students are being taught. These two factors have an inordinate influence on young people, especially as they develop their critical thinking skills and form their worldview.
But who is coaching young people after school is also a critically important matter and one that’s often overlooked. In many cases, small schools scramble to find individuals who are qualified. At times, some may just get hired because of their availability rather than their coaching ability.
It’s been said that when the famed General George C. Marshall was recruiting during World War II, he told his colleague, “I want an officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want a West Point football player.” He wasn’t just saying he wanted someone proficient on the gridiron, but someone who had been well-coached, too.
Mitch Lyons, who went on to play in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and who is now a successful financial planner, credits his high-school coach David Sukup’s FCA Bible study with sowing the seeds for his eventual conversion during his NFL career.
“Those nights at Coach Sukup’s house turned out to be the stepping stones in my faith journey,” he has shared. “He helped me find my faith. And for that I am eternally thankful.”
Ahmed Hassanein, who currently plays for the Detroit Lions, has expressed appreciation to Boise State coach Spencer Danielson for introducing him to Christianity. “Coach D, you changed my life,” he said. “I did not know God until I got to Boise State.”
An FCA representative recently asked Becker High School’s Coach Lundeen what Scripture best guides the way he coaches. He cited two.
1 Peter 5:7: “Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you.”
“Whatever’s going to happen the next day, we’ll be able to deal with it,” Coach Lundeen explained. “I don’t need to hang on and worry about things.”
He then cited Philippians 4:6: “Don’t worry about anything, instead, pray about everything.”
“Those verses define my faith and my coaching. I really feel the Lord will get me through whatever is coming up the next day.”
Coaches who possess God’s Word in their hearts also help their players recognize that the Lord will help get them through any trouble and challenge both on and off the field.
The post Don’t Underestimate the Oversized Role of Christian Coaches in America appeared first on Daily Citizen.
Daily Citizen