Fight the good fight: Family Church to host conference featuring athletes, coaches

Sports, both individual and team, have time and again been proven to be beneficial in a variety of ways to those who participate. One 2013 study in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity stated that beyond the physical benefits of playing sports, there also were many psychological and social health benefits, such as improved self-esteem, improved social interaction and fewer depressive symptoms.

What is it about sports that causes these positive outcomes? If you’ve played sports, the answer might seem pretty obvious.

“People who don’t play sports may think it’s just physical,” said Troy Schmidt, Emmy-nominated producer, author, television writer, pastor and director of communications at Family Church. “But if you’re an athlete or talk to an athlete, you’ll know that, yes, it’s physical, and athletes need to be in great shape. But it’s a lot more mental than you’d see at the surface. Athletes need to make sure that they’re focused. They need to understand how to set goals and be disciplined about the things they have to do to achieve those goals. They have to have the self-awareness to know their limit, know their strengths and weaknesses. They have to have the willpower to persevere through adversity and to keep fighting when things aren’t going their way — like when they’re feeling their worst but still manage to push themselves to compete at their best.”

Simply put, sports are one of the most effective avenues in which discipline, self-esteem, teamwork, perseverance and many more character traits are developed. Schmidt not only recognizes how impactful sports can be, but also he sees how the characteristics that are developed from sports align with the teachings of Christianity. That connection is why he decided Family Church’s third annual “Ten ComMANdments” men’s conference would be focused on teaching life lessons through the lens of sports.

“We started this event around the time COVID-19 was happening,” Schmidt said. “For some reason, when I looked at the words the Ten Commandments, I kept seeing the word ‘man’ and I just thought, ‘Hey, this is an opportunity to speak to men about these life rules or life lessons that anyone can benefit from.’ Because everything was so upside down during COVID, I felt like the men in our community could really use this sort of event. It was really successful the first time we did it, so since then, we’ve been trying to find different angles to approach that conversation, and this one focusing on athletes and sports in general just came to mind. 

“We know that sports require certain skills and constantly push athletes to be their best in competition and there are so many metaphors there for men who are facing the struggles of life today,” he said. “So I felt that if I could find Christian athletes or coaches who’ve learned life lessons from sports and who have applied them to living a Christian life, this would be a great way to help men — believers or not — learn and grow as people.”

What to expect

Although this conference is based in the Christian faith, Schmidt believes the lessons those in attendance will learn are universal to any man living in today’s society. 

“What people will be taking away from this conference are 10 principles to help them live life to its best,” Schmidt said. “The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Fight the Good Fight,’ which is obviously a scriptural reference, but I think that it’s pretty universal because we all are fighting our own sort of fight, whether it’s at work, it’s at school, families, there’s always a struggle we deal with. What we want men to get out of this conference is that they have the tools to fight those fights. … And what’s really cool about this conference is that we have 10 speakers. In the past, we’ve gotten feedback that there’s usually one or two that have connected with a specific individual. And so with this year’s lineup, we tried to be as diverse as we can to make sure that everyone from middle-schoolers to older folks like me can find a couple of speakers (who) connect with them and speak their language. 

“That’s another reason why we have a wide variety of speakers from different sports,” he said. “I have a professional waterskier, a golfer, there are four football people — players and coaches — two people with basketball backgrounds, there’s a baseball player. All of these sports require different temperaments and skills that … will help us connect on some level with a wider audience. 

“Peter Fleck, for example, is a world champion barefoot waterskier who has won at an age when he should not have won,” he said. “People like me, who are 60 years old and may feel like we’ve aged out, are going to be able to connect with him in a much deeper way when he talks about his mentality. ... Younger men, who maybe don’t have a mentor or somebody who’s teaching them these kinds of life skills, will have a few youth coaches and current athletes they can connect to. We’re hoping that there is at least one person every man who comes will be able to learn and connect from.”

Among the diverse sea of 10 guest speakers delivering 18-minute TED Talk-like messages Schmidt has compiled for this conference  is local high school boys basketball coach Tarrik Mabon, who’s in the middle of his first season at The First Academy. 

Mabon, one of two local high school coaches speaking at the event, plans to share his testimony and the lessons after stepping away from the corporate world and dedicating his life to coaching full-time.

“I want to express to the audience how much my life changed over the last five years, after working every day to completely depend on God,” he said. “That very small but difficult decision changed everything for me, my wife, our family and those close to me. … When I decided to step away from the corporate world and coach full time, it changed everything for me. My life now consists of pouring into our youth daily, on and off the court.  However, I couldn’t have predicted the impact they would have on my life.”

Since Mabon made this life change, the biggest lesson he learned and hopes to convey to those in attendance at the March 1 conference is one he preaches to his players constantly. 

“Experience is the greatest teacher,” he said. “There are no shortcuts and you can’t have peak performance without proper preparation and proper faith.”