Thanks, bro. Hey, good morning men. Good morning. I’m a little slow getting up. We had 54 inches of snow in Washington and being the stud I am, I threw my back out shoveling my driveway. That makes you feel tough, doesn’t it? Yeah. Well, Brit Hume, are y’all aware he spoke up for Christ on TV and I was out in Pasadena with my oldest son for the Alabama, Texas game. I was actually playing golf, just suffered for Jesus. Somebody had to do it. And, Brit called me. I was on the golf course. I didn’t even hear about it. And he said, well, Leachman, I’m the player on the field. You’re the coach. You keep after us all the time. Don’t wimp out. Cowboy up and say the Name. Don’t say the good Lord or the man upstairs. Say Jesus, say Christ. Say it. Be a man. He said, well, I did it. All hell’s breaking loose. What next Coach? (Laughter)

Well, you know, I love being at a men’s gathering. Men just crack me up and they can be such idiots, especially when it comes to women. I was on the plane on the way down here and I, this guy across the aisle from me, this gal came down the aisle and she was a knockout man, built when bricks were cheap, and just gorgeous walking down the aisle, and everybody on that plane was thinking, I wonder where her seat’s gonna be. She sat down by this guy, and I could overhear him. I think he figured she’d be picked. Girls like that don’t last long. He said, so he just cut to it. He says, hey, tell me about your boyfriend. She goes, I don’t have a boyfriend. He goes, really? Well, are you interested in men? She said, oh yeah. She said, well, what kind of men do you like? She said, you know, I just vacillate. Sometimes I think I like American Indians with those square cheekbones and that tall forehead and that noble look. She said, sometimes I think I like Jewish men. They’re all just so smart and so successful. And I gotta confess to you, I actually like rednecks. They’re so unpredictable and they’re just funny. They make you laugh all the time. He said, well, ma’am, I’d like to introduce myself to you. My name is Geronimo Bernstein, but my friends call me Bubba. (Laughter)

Well, I’ve seen good times and bad times. I’ve actually been in the National Football League as a chaplain going back to Joe Gibbs. The first time they had me speak to the team was in ‘92 when we won a Super Bowl. In these last two years, we’ve been about, about as bad as we’ve ever been. So, I’ve been through seven coaches by my reckoning, and I’ve been the coach’s chaplain. We have a coach’s bible study and have traveled with the team. I don’t travel with ’em anymore ’cause our youngest son’s a junior in high school and I wanted my falls free to be at his games. We have a family motto. You can fake caring, but you can’t fake showing up. And I remember Coach Gibbs’ first year when he came back, he was already in the Hall of Fame, three Super Bowls and we only won five games that year. About halfway through the season, he came to me. He said, Jerry, man, I’m in agony. I’ve never had this happen to me before. This is the word he said. My wife Pat told me I was gonna ruin my good name if I came back. Half of it’s already true. He said, looks like we’re only gonna win five games this year. He said, you’re my chaplain, have you got a word for me. And I said, coach, I’ve been waiting for to ask ’cause God gave me a word for you several weeks back. He said, hallelujah. What is it? I said, Coach Gibbs, you need to win more football games. It’s like, oh man, you too.

But let me tell you, people ask me, what is a lot of your ministry with NFL players and coaches? I can tell you in a word. Recently I was asked to fly to Camp Pendleton and speak to 500 Warrior Class Marines about to deploy for Iraq. Before I walked in the auditorium, their battalion commander said, chaplain, I just want you to know something about these Marines. They’re Warrior Class Marines. That ought to tell you something. He said, the other thing I want you to know is they volunteered for the Marines in wartime. That ought to tell you something. He said, now when you look at ’em, you’re gonna be shocked at how young they are. It’s not like the movies. And he said, a lot of the chaplains in the Marine Corps are so pressured from up above, they become politically correct. They won’t talk to the Marines about the Lord anymore. He said, we’re going to war. And you know, and I know some of ’em won’t be here this time next year. So they need to, they need to hear something. You’re a guest speaker. You’re from the NFL so you’ll have their credibility. You could lose it, but you’ll have it to start. And he said, the last thing I want you to know is most of these young boys, men have had scrapes with the law. And I’d say at least half of ’em have horrible relationships with their father. The Marines mean everything to ’em ’cause for a lot of ’em, this is the last chance to get their life turned around.

I said, got it Colonel. So, we were walking down the aisle, you know, you kind of give yourself a little pep talk to yourself, you know, and I was thinking, you know, at this stage of my career, I’ve spoken to pro athletes, college athletes, high school teams, junior high teams, business groups, journalist groups, political groups. I mean, what group could intimidate me at this point in my career? Well, I’ll tell you, when I got down there and turned around and faced those guys, I thought, I’m intimidated. You know, in football, it’s a joke that people say football’s like war. It’s not. Our guys, probably the worst that’ll happen to ’em, maybe they’ll blow out a knee or something like that, but they’ll be fine. This is totally different. I remember I said, Good morning, Marines. That’s the other thing that Colonel told me.

He said, at no time during your presentation should you refer to these men as soldiers. It just ticks ’em off. They’re Marines. So, I was all nervous, I might say that. And so, one of them might just take me out. I said, good morning Marines. And, Oorah!!!! You know, my hair just peeled back and hit the wall behind me. You know, the first 10 minutes of my talk, I think I was trying to be drill instructor for Christ number two. And it wasn’t happening. You could get feedback from the audience.

And then I felt like the Lord tapped me on the shoulder and said, would you stop talking to ’em like their drill instructor? They get that every day. Give them the talk their father never gave them. So, I just stopped, and I recalibrated. I said, you know what, I’m gonna give you guys the talk your Daddy probably never gave you. And at that point you could tell from the body language of these Marines, some of them that were there like this, started leaning right into me. I gave them a talk, some of which I’m gonna give you. And at the end when we closed with prayer, that auditorium was silent. And you could hear, you could hear these guys weeping. Now, these weren’t candies. I promise you; they weren’t candies. They could kill you 50 ways. All you do is pick a number, and yet it went right to their heart. You know why? This is the one thing I’ve seen again and again in athletes at a level as high as the National Football League and in the Marines, most of these young men have a void in their life, and that void is their father.

They never got the talk their daddy never gave ’em, they never got coached up by their daddy. And then when I start talking to them about the love of the Lord, they have a really tough time trying to understand that ’cause they never were, they never had a season in their life where they were a beloved son.

One of the most important things I want to want you to walk outta here with men, now, I’m not a theologian, I’m not even a preacher, I’m just a coach and I’m giving you a locker room talk and I want this stuff to burn in your heart. If it doesn’t, you’re a loser and you’re not gonna do anything anyway. You’re gonna sleep-walk through life and you’re not gonna help us win anything. People always ask me, aren’t you afraid of offending people like that? No. If you’re a loser, what the crap are you gonna do to me? You’re a loser. So, get offended. I want you to be winners in the game of life. I want you to have Christ as your coach. Be a man, not be ashamed of Him, and I want you to pass this on down to your families or you will pass your evil and your crap and your sin down to four generations, the Bible says.

We all know everything I’ve said is true. Not ’cause I’ve said it, but because it’s true. One of the most important things that could happen in a man’s life is to become reconciled with his father or reconciled with his son. There may be some of you here who don’t have a father in your life. I didn’t really have one in mine after the age of nine. When I got engaged to my wife Holly, we’ve been married 38 years now, she said, I’m not gonna marry you until you go reconcile and forgive your father, which I did. And we reconciled. I preached at his funeral. He was a war hero, flag-draped coffin, 21-gun salute. But I ended up telling my dad on his deathbed, Pop, we love you, couldn’t think a bad thought about you. I wanted to break a bad chain of evil in my family lineage and start a new chain of Christ and godliness and love in our family chain. And it happened. It’s all about reconciliation. You know, the problem in our country is, in most countries, is that most men, all your life, you’re told, be a man. I always commend books to the people I speak to. I’d like for all of you to get this book. I’ve had my boys read it and I’ve read it. It’s called Season of Life. It’s written by Jeffrey Marx, but it’s about a man named Joe Ehrmann. Joe was an All-American at Syracuse. He was a member of the famous Sack Packs for the Baltimore Colts when they were in Baltimore. And now he has a ministry to boys and their fathers up in Baltimore. We had Joe come and speak to the Redskins a few years ago. Joe says this, “As young boys, we’re told to be men, to act like men. Once you start getting close to adolescence, you get verbalized pretty quickly. The problem is in this society and in most homes, it’s never defined what it means to be a man. We’ve got all these parents saying, be a man to boys that have no concept what that means.”

Joe told me about a simple exercise he often used directing men’s workshops. He hands out note cards and asks the participants, write a definition of masculinity.

“Most men are absolutely dumbfounded by the question. They can’t write down a definition of what it actually means to be a man. There are three false images of masculinity that dominate in our culture. Number one, the first false image of masculinity is athletic ability. Boy, I’ve coached and chaplained some of the greatest athletes on the planet, but they have no clue what it really means to be a man. I’d say it begins on the playground in elementary school. You walk around the playground, and you want to see what every other boy’s doing. Wrestling, playing some made-up game, competing. Somehow it all ends up that if you can hit a hanging curve ball in baseball or catch a down and out pass in football, you immediately get elevated, and you’re considered a little more masculine. The kids that can’t do those things, they get deflated. An awful lot of boys value and development of his psyche is built around that playground probably more than in the academic classroom. It’s not near as cool to be the A student as it is to be the kid that can score the most points. So, the whole athletic thing becomes a dominant factor for just about any boy.”

Now Joe Iman’s writing this, he went to the Pro Bowl six, six times. He ought to know something about this.

“The second false image of manhood is sexual conquest. You get a little older, the end of junior high and high school and then sex becomes something that validates masculinity. In our high schools today, it seems that boys who can bring girls around them, who can manipulate and use girls for their own egos, for their own gratification, somehow those boys are being pointed out as what it means to be a man. And the third false image, the final component of false masculinity, economic success. Generally, it becomes a factor much later. As an adult, you start measuring your masculinity, your whole value and your worth as a man based on job titles, bank accounts, who you know, what you have, and what you’ve done. We compare, we compete. That’s all we ever do. It leaves most men feeling isolated and alone. It destroys any concept of community. Joe cited a staggering statistic from a study he had once. A typical male over the age of 35 has what psychologists would say, less than one genuine friend, not even one person on average, with whom he can reveal his true self and share his deepest, most intimate thoughts.”

You know, I found that most men at the end of their lives walk away from their father’s funeral service with one question. Who the heck was that? They never really knew their dads. Now I’m gonna tell you dads, I got this teaching from wise men and mentors early and I decided by God’s help my boys were gonna be my inner circle, my best friend, my band of brothers. And that’s happened because I’ve dedicated my life to it. I had the formula.

Now you go through four stages with your sons. Now, I want you to listen to this part ’cause if you get this part, I work with mostly bright people and I find with bright people, if you just give ’em the main idea, they got it, they’ll run with it from there. This’ll help you build a strategy or rebuild a strategy. The first stage you go through with your sons is simply survival. You’re trying to keep ’em from drowning in the bathtub, you know, getting hit by a car on their tricycle, everything else.

The second stage is the on-field coach stage. This is when you gotta coach your sons up. I would say all of you’re in the on-field coach stage. Now this stage usually ends when your kids go off in the military or the college. This is when you put in the offense, the defense, the special teams, the goal line, everything you think your son ought to know. This is when you put it on. You’re an on-field coach. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter six, God exhorts us to be an on-field coach. Listen to this, Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and the judgments, which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you. That you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over, that you may fear the Lord your God. Keep all the statutes and commandments and I command you and your son and your sons.

God is speaking not to the women. Most of the men decided, I’m gonna leave it up to the women to raise my sons. No, God is speaking here to the fathers and grandfathers. He said, I command you, command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear o Israel. And be careful to observe it that you may, it may be well with you, that you may multiply greatly as the Lord of your fathers. And these are the words I command you today shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently — Coach ’em up — to your sons and children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way. And when you lie down. And when you rise up.

It’s a lifestyle. It’s who you are. Now here’s a coaching point for you. I’m coaching you up now you teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are. You teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are. Now, if some of you’re feeling a little overwhelmed right now, I’ll tell you this, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to do this. John Wesley said, if a man will but catch on fire, other men will gather around just to watch him burn. You know, my number one job in coaching my boys is to be on fire. To be on fire. When my sons get around me, I want ’em to feel the fire. I got a fire. I’m on fire. I’m not confused. I’m not boasting. I just know who I am. I’ve coached kids like that. They may not have the greatest football sense or the greatest ability, but I’m telling you, when their hearts were big as a watermelon and burning on fire, I’d tell my staff, find a place on the field for that kid. You just find somewhere, I want 11 guys on fire on the field.

It’s pathetic. Most dads miss this stage. They’re out trying to be the man, build their career, get enough stuff where people around them will think they’re a man. Let me tell you, the people around you that judge you like that, they’re not your friends and they’re not your legacy, they’re really not. You kill yourself. You waste your life trying to convince everybody else you’re something you’re not. And at the end of the day, they really don’t care anyway. I’ve decided my legacy are my boys and my daughter, and now my grandchildren, I’m all in. Don’t miss this on-field coaching opportunity. Whatever you think your sons need to know, you better do it then.

The third stage is a sideline coach. You move to the sideline. At that point, you’re their biggest encourager and prayer warrior.

Now people ask me, how do you pray for your sons? I’ll tell you this, I pray with my sons on all occasions. They can’t leave the house without a blessing. On the way to games, we pray. When my son’s asleep in his bedroom, I go stand out in the hallway and I raise my hands and I even face it through the wall where I think his bed is and I pray for him. Now we have a tradition. I don’t pray with my hat on. So, during my son’s games, I always get on the sideline. I don’t stand with dads. I don’t like to talk a lot. I like to watch the game ’cause I’m an old coach. I’m always trying to figure out what’s going right and what’s going wrong. But I’ll even pray for my son. I don’t pray for victories. I just pray for my son to be brave, to be valued, to be smart. But I never pray with a hat on. So, I take my hat off. It’s almost comical sometimes. He’ll look over there during the timeout and I’ll have my hat off, do like that. He’s like, thanks. You know.

I want to ask you this. I pray for my sons all day, every day. If you don’t pray, do you, if you don’t pray for your sons, tell me this. Who is? If you don’t coach ’em up, who is? Somebody else will. If you don’t give your sons the attention that they crave, sooner or later, and this is a hundred percent, they will eventually write you off as irrelevant in their life and they’ll find somebody else. Somebody else you don’t know will coach ‘em up. I don’t want that option to happen in my house. What’s my job as an on-field coach?

I jotted them down this morning when I got up. Number one, I want to teach him who God is. Number two, I want to teach him who he is. I try to give my sons a sense of destiny. That God put ’em here for a reason. They have a future. They have a mission. You never go out from the Leachman house. You’re sent out. You don’t go out. You’re sent out because when you’re sent out, it means you’re on a mission. There’s people that care about what you do and you’ve always got a place to come home. When my sons come home, they can expect to hear this question. I get the same question when I come home. Give me your report. I generally stop everything I’m doing when they come up the driveway or in the door and I’ll sit down and say, gimme your report. And they report in. We call our house Fort Leachman.

The third thing is what it means to be a man. I’ll unravel the mystery for you. Jesus Christ said what it means to be a man is we are men built for others. Men are built to get the bad guys. Men are built to be the good shepherd. Men are built to lay their lives down for their flock, protectors, the visionaries, the scout. I also try to teach my boys to live with honor. I’ll tell you two quick areas. Telling the truth is a life of honor. Every time you tell the truth, you align yourself with God. He’s truth. Every time you lie, you align yourself with the devil. Jesus said the devil’s the father of all lies. My son, we were late for school recently. I was in the driveway, and he just kept screwing around in there and wouldn’t get out and get in the car.

I knew we’d be late. By the time he got in, we got to school about 12 minutes late and we were driving up to the front door. He said, well what are we gonna tell him? You know, I almost made up an excuse and I thought, wait a minute, if I do that, I’m teaching my son to lie. I’ll tell you this. You go ahead and tell lies with and in the presence of your sons, you’re teaching them to lie. And if you teach ’em to lie, if they lie to somebody else, guess what? They’ll lie to you. You call fire in on your own position. When you teach your sons to lie, it took more energy and guts to take a stand. I looked at him like, what do you mean? What are we gonna tell him? Tell him you were screwing around in the house, and you got late. He said, I might get detention. I said, fine, you’ll probably live. You’ll probably be okay.

I have to teach my sons to tell the truth. Second thing, we never sit until their mother sits at the table. That’s if we’re in a restaurant or anywhere we go. My boys and I stand until their mother sits. After she sits, we wait and we have a prayer and then we wait again. We don’t take a bite till she takes a bite. How do you think that makes Holly feel? Like a million dollars? How do you think that? What do you think that teaches my son how to treat a woman? What’s your best guess how they’re gonna treat their wife? Same way. A life of honor. And then I like to fuel my son’s passion as long as it’s a noble cause.

It’s been proven again and again a man that’s passionate about his family can actually do better in his work because the passion carries over. Boys that have a passion and I find their passion. My son doesn’t play football, he does play football, but his real sport is lacrosse and I fan that. I want him to learn how to live with passion. It’ll carry over to his walk with the Lord and his walk with his family. This is treasure to me. He said, dad, thank you so much for my lacrosse equipment. It’s a note he gave me recently. I’m glad that you care about my passion to be a great lacrosse player. Then he gave me a little message. He’s coaching me as well. Cling to the father in His Holy Name and don’t go riding on that long black train. That’s a pretty good word right there, isn’t it?

Sideline coach. And then the dream is when they’re growing your best friends and mutual mentors. Well, I wanna show you a, a clip right now. I’m gonna give you a handout when you leave of the five essentials to become a franchise father or son. I accept you the way you are. Loving can cost a lot, but not loving will cost you more. I desire what’s best for you. Have the same heart for your son and boys, have the same heart for your father that God has for them. Your father needs you to minister to him as well. Keep him accountable. Keep him in check when you hear him telling a lie, disrespecting your mother. My sons have broken up more fights between me and Holly. And the third one’s, I erase all offense. Don’t hold grudges. Don’t hold, pull past things out of the closet. When it’s forgiven, it’s forgiven. I care when you hurt. Here’s the rule. Don’t ever allow any of your people to hurt alone. Never. Now, this one’s hard for men because we’re problem solvers. Sometimes you can’t solve the problem. You enter into their suffering with ’em. If you’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it together.

I have a beautiful example about this, about Derrick Redmond from the ‘92 Barcelona Olympics. He was a Gold Medal favorite for the 400. He was lightning fast when the race started. He was running. He said he was running so easily, so fast he couldn’t believe it. On the back stretch, his hamstring popped in two. You can imagine the excruciating pain. By the time he could get up, the other runners were across the finish line. His father, who runs a machine shop in Great Britain, miraculously made his way through the Olympic security, came out on the field, picked his boy up, and he says, Derrick, what do you want to do? He said, pop, I wanna finish my race. He said, son, you don’t have to do this. He said, pop, I wanna finish my race. He said, then we’re gonna do it together. This is one of the best examples of not letting your son or your father hurt alone. They crossed the finish line together. Let’s go to the video tapes. (audio in background from video playing)

How’d you like that, boys? What do you think about this father and son? What’s your best guess about their relationship? Let me hear from some of you.

Looked tight.

He looked tight. You think this father was there was an on-field coach in Derrick’s life? You know he was. Now you see how thick that guy was when the Olympic guys tried to come up and say, please don’t do this. I think he could have kicked their butts so hard they’d grow a third cheek down there. Alright, now, who else? What’d you like about this scene with this father and son? What’s it revealed to you? Let me have one more. What?

Let him finish his dream. I love that one.

Listen guys, I don’t have time to give you every principle about being a father. Good father, good son. There’s a lot of material.

With the time I have left, I want to coach you up. Why don’t you get a fire in your heart? Why don’t you coach him up? Why don’t you make your time with your son a masterpiece? Your legacy. What little money you can round up in this life is not gonna be your legacy and it’s not gonna make you a man. Christ said, we’re men built for others. Now, this is my vision for my boys. I want my boys to stand around our grave and say, our pop loved us and we knew it. Our pop was there. You can fake caring, but you can’t fake showing up. That’s one of our family mottos and we knew it. He coached us up. Now we’re gonna coach our boys up. I want this more than anything. I’ve counseled a lot of men that are not only millionaires, but multi hundred millionaires who don’t even speak to their sons. And that’s a tragedy. I want you to get a vision, a dream.

I read a story about these two best friends. They were World War I soldiers. They grew up together hunting in the fields in the deep south. They joined the army together and they trained together. They were over there in Germany, trench warfare. One of ’em was out on a reconnaissance mission beyond a couple of strands of barbed wire. And he got shot and his dear friend could see it. He told the sergeant, he says, I’m gonna go after my friend. He says, no you’re not. I command you not to. You’re gonna get killed as well. When the sergeant turned his back, he went over out on the trench, and he went out there to get his buddy. They have a saying in the military, men don’t die for the country. You know who they die for? Their brothers. He went out there and got his friend. When he got back in the ditch with his friend, he too was shot and dying. And by then, his friend had already died, and the sergeant said, what a waste. What a waste. You gave your life for nothing. He said, Sarge, I didn’t. He said, when I got there, my friend, he was still alive. And with his dying breath, he said to me, I knew you’d come.

Can you feel something in me? Then you’re deaf and dumb. I burn with a fire for Christ and what he did for me. I burn with a fire for my boys. There’s a lot I could teach ‘em, but I’ll tell you one thing I want ’em to know, if they’re out there dying, I want to have this thought, pop’s on the way. Pop’s coming, he’s there.

Are you there for your boys? Do they know that? Do they feel this in? Get a vision tonight. Get in touch with what your real legacy is. Are you guys understanding what I’m telling you today in the locker room here?

Nod Yeah if you get what I’m telling you, feel it in your soul.

Now I want to close. I want you to have a prayer for your boys. We’re gonna have handouts for you when you leave. I want you all to stand and if you have a son now, if there’s anybody here without a dad, somebody just deputize them. I want you to stand up as we dismiss right now. Please stand.

Now, if you have a son with you, if there are any boys here, your dad’s not with you, somebody else just adopt them real quick. I want you to turn to ’em and put your hand on their shoulder and have a have a look at ’em. You guys face each other there where I can see you. I want you to repeat after me. Dad, this is gonna be a prayer for your son. If your son’s not here, I want you to pray it for him in your heart anyway. All right.

Dear Lord,
Dear Lord,
Give my son wisdom,
Give my son wisdom,
May he treat each person he meets with love and grace.
May he treat each person he meets with love and grace.
May the work of his hands produce prosperity for many,
May the work of his hands produce prosperity for many,
Protect him from greed,
Protect him from greed,
May this son of mine defend the weak.
May this son of mine defend the weak.
May he defend the poor,
May he defend the poor.

May he defend the powerless,
May he defend the powerless,
Give him the power to fight and overcome evil.
Give him the power to fight and overcome evil.
May his presence be welcomed and sought after, like rain in the desert
May his presence be welcomed and sought after, like rain in the desert
Give him influence in this world power to affect change far and wide
Give him influence in this world power to affect change far and wide
May he possess many true friends who respect and honor him and his family.
May he possess many true friends who respect and honor him and his family.
Let him help the helpless and befriend those in need.
Let him help the helpless and befriend those in need.
And lastly, Lord, bring honor to his name,
And lastly, Lord, bring honor to his name,
May he be found, a true friend of the everlasting God,
May he be found, a true friend of the everlasting God,
In Christ’s name, amen.
In Christ’s name, amen.

Men, as you leave, I’m gonna give you an outline of some notes and a handout for these prayers. God bless you. Give ’em Heaven.