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PLACENTIA, Calif. — Every Sunday and Monday—and the occasional Thursday—of the fall season NFL team leaders across the country meet at the 50-yard-line and flip a coin. The resulting coin toss determines who will receive the ball to start the game. While a big factor of game momentum, the biggest single influencer of the game is usually the coach, who equips his players with the physical tools and mental mindset to win.
“There are two kinds of coaches: those who have been fired and those who are going to be,” said Nelson Cook, citing a common sports phrase.
As founder of Coaches of Influence, or COIN, Cook is using his own experience and personality to make a spiritual imprint on coaches who desire to use their Christian faith to inspire athletes to develop strong character traits that last well beyond the game clock.
“I was a coach, I worked with coaches,” Cook said. “They have a tremendous amount of influence.”
According to Dr. Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary, the reach of coaches is staggering.
“The average coach can impact about 25,000 young people in a career,” he has said.
And as recent headlines have indicated, that influence is not always for the good. Coaching scandals at Penn State and Syracuse University have uncovered allegations of sexual abuse against young boys and subsequent charges of cover-ups in an effort to protect their sports programs.
Although Cook believes the universities went too far in firing the coaches outright before all the facts were known and that suspensions would have been more fair until the full truth emerged, he said the allegations highlight the growing darkness in society. Sports, he said, are not immune.
“You see the negative power that a coach has,” the former coach said. “That’s the negative power doing wrong. It’s very bad. It gets back to our sin nature.
“We are tearing down all of the supports we’ve had in the past,” he said, citing the lack of prayer in schools and other challenges to religious freedoms.
“We are seeing a society, especially in sports, that is so drunk with winning at all costs. We are seeing character coaches getting fired right and left because they didn’t win. The system is broken. Coaches have tremendous pressure on them to win.”
To counterbalance that pressure to win above all else, Cook launched the Placentia-based COIN, a Christian ministry modeled on four key pillars found in Acts 2:42: prayer support, coaches’ fellowships, mission outreaches and special events, including clinics, banquets, retreats and training seminars. The ministry is open to all coaches at all levels for all sports.
“We offer them support, accountability and prayer so they can concentrate on developing winning kids, not just winning games,” the ministry leader said. “It’s about building character and values that are biblically based.”
The pillars
The prayer support includes a regular e-prayer alert, intercessors and a coach adoption project where someone commits to offer prayers and encouragement on a weekly basis. The fellowships, currently numbering about 20, meet either every week or bi-weekly, usually for breakfast or lunch. The fellowships serve to build relationships and networking support.
“That is no small thing,” Cook said. “There is no other place where they can share what they share. If someone doesn’t understand, they aren’t able to bear the burden at the same level.”
All of the effort, he said, is to underscore the concept that the men are Christians who happen to be coaches, not coaches who happen to be Christian.
“With (the second) one you will compromise to make the other fit,” he said. “In first scenario, our relationship with Christ is the determining factor for everything you say and do.”
Serving each other becomes tantamount and is manifested in a variety of ways. One collegiate coach, unable to attend his daughters’ sporting events because of his schedule, was blessed by one of his peers who showed up to as many of the girls’ games as he could, praying for them on the sidelines while their father worked a different field.
“We need to provide applications so we become fruitful doers,” Cook said.
Another coach, angry about a referee’s call that cost his school the championship title, was briskly walking across the field to chew out the official when he turned around and noticed his assistant coaches were in quick pursuit behind him, followed by his athletes. Realizing the impact of his soon-to-be actions, he stopped in his tracks and told his staff and team they were just going to let it go.
Later that night the losing coach received a call from a parent on the winning team. He thanked the coach for his integrity despite being wronged. He also went on to apologize for the ostentatious celebrating by the winning team, including his own son, and coaches.
“He told the coach that the win or loss is shortly forgotten, but not the character that he was building among his players,” Cook said.
Being accountable
While fellowship is an integral part of the ministry, it’s not all fun and games. Cook said a strong element of the ministry is building accountability among one another. Scripture is the core of that discipline.
“Getting into the Word is when you read it,” he said. “The Word getting into you is when you meditate on it. The Word getting out of you is when you do something with it.”
Helping to give coaches a platform to do something with it, COIN offers a variety of events, from character banquets to retreats and leadership training.
“God doesn’t always use the big-name individual,” he said. “A lot of times we are looking at it from the world’s perspective instead of God’s perspective.”
But high-profile athletes can be polarizing even without intention, he said, citing Denver Broncos’ quarterback Tim Tebow. Many people have been critical of his open faith, saying sports is not the proper platform to display personal faith.
“It’s amazing the great divide between those who love him and those who hate him,” Cook said. “There is no middle road. It’s a good indication of where our society is.”
Life interrupting sports
Cook’s heart for ministry developed several decades ago while serving as a coach and teacher in North Dallas. He was involved in the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the same time legendary Dallas Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry was serving as its board chairman.
“He was a wise, very committed Christian,” Cook said. “We would do a lot of ministry to (teens). We did a lot of programs with Coach Landry.”
Eventually Cook moved his wife and three daughters to Southern California where he was asked to serve as California state director for FCA.
But in the mid ’90s he resigned his position after losing his wife to brain cancer. God, he said, provided him with furlough time to help concentrate on the needs of his girls, ages 9 to 12. Family friends and church members helped him fill the vacuum of his wife’s death.
“I didn’t know beans about raising girls,” he said. “When I washed their clothes they always came out smaller. I just saw the importance of the body of Christ coming around me and supporting me.”
Although he was offered another coaching job back in Dallas, he decided to stay put at the request of his daughters, who didn’t want to lose the relationships they made through school and church. He also wasn’t prepared to spend huge chunks of time away from his daughters.
“I didn’t want to coach other people’s kids and leave my own girls at home,” he said.
During the extended furlough time—as he recognized how much community support meant to his own family—Cook began to envision a ministry to coaches. Although he enjoyed his work with FCA, their focus was on the student athletes. Cook wanted to focus on the kingmakers.
He is now working with several FCA chapters interested in expanding their focus to include more services for coaches.
“God gave me a plan,” he said. “There wasn’t anyone else doing it. We were kind of making our own path. We are a drop in the ocean, but you never know where the ripple will go.”
For more information on COIN, visit www.coachesofinfluence.com.
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