Deep in the heart of....

The following story was first reported by ESPN’s Rick Reilly on December 23, 2008. Here it is retold by The Truth Project’s Dale Tackett. It represents a national treasure.


As a kid growing up in a small town, I remember the excitement that preceded our high school’s home football games. I recall the sense of “oneness” within our community as all the store owners would display “spirit” banners and posters that said “Go Broncos” or “Beat Bonneville” in their windows urging support for “our team” on Friday night. It seemed the whole town would turn out for the game. I dreamed of what it would be like to be one of the players on the field with the whole town cheering you on. And, I experienced it.
High school football is big in America.

But I suppose there is no place where it is bigger than in Texas. Friday nights there are legend.

The fans scream; the stands are packed; cheerleaders with pom-poms jump and sway to the beat of the school band; parents yell encouragement (mostly); mom’s turn their eyes away when their little boys are crunched by the “bullies on the other team who didn’t really have to hit him that hard, did he?” and everybody joins in the chants and stomps their feet on the metal stands until you are sure they will collapse.
This is the frenzy of Texas high school football.

However, there is a football team in Texas that is a little different. When they play on Friday night, their stands are pretty much empty, no band, no cheerleaders, no mass of parents or townsfolk wearing the school colors and waving banners and flags. They take the field without anyone cheering them on. When they get a first down, there is no deafening surge from the stands. When they score a touchdown, which rarely happens, there is no wild celebration behind them…only the individual shouts of satisfaction that come from the 14 players and their coach and the 20 or so people that are sitting on their side of the field. All of it seems hollow and muffled in contrast to the tidal wave of roars and drums and chants that come from the opposing side.

They are the Tornadoes of the Gainesville State School, a fenced, maximum-security facility of the Texas Youth Commission. The young men who go to Gainesville State are there because they have made some major mistakes in their lives. But the players who are on the team are there because they have worked hard and have disciplined themselves to meet the “criteria” that gives them the privilege to leave the facility and play football on Friday nights—always an away game for them—always a home game for their opponents—and almost always a loss. They don’t have a weight program or training equipment or high-paid coaches and assistants. They don’t have a large pool of players to draw from. The school has 275 boys, but many are too old or too young or can’t or don’t meet the “criteria” to play. And they don’t have the support of a town and a mass of parents and family and reporters and bands and cheerleaders.

That is, until November 7th. Something changed. They played Grapevine Faith Christian School.

The way the Gainesville coach, Mark Williams, recounted it for me, it went something like this: Earlier in the week, he had received a call from Faith Christian coach, Kris Hogan, asking him if it would be okay if Faith formed a “spirit” line for his team when they ran on the field. Mark said, “Sure, that would be a real encouragement to the kids.” He thought that the line would consist of a couple of the JV cheerleaders, but when they took the field, there were a hundred people in it and it stretched to the 40-yard line, filled with Faith parents, fans and varsity cheerleaders, complete with a banner at the end for them to burst through that read “Go Tornadoes!”. And then, those parents and fans sat in the stands behind the Gainesville players and when the Tornadoes broke the huddle and went up to the line they could hear people cheering for them, by name. When they got a first down, “their” fans erupted.

You see, coach Hogan had sent an email out to the Faith Christian family asking them to consider doing something kind for these young men, many who didn’t know what it meant to have a mom and dad who cared, many who felt the world was against them, not for them. Hogan asked that they simply send a message that these boys were “just as valuable as any other person on earth.”

So half of the Faith Christian fans were now sitting on the visitor’s side of the field, cheering for the Gainesville team, and in some cases, against their own sons.
–Cheering for a team decked out in old uniforms and helmets.

–Cheering for boys who wouldn’t go home that night and have a smiling dad slap him on the back and feel his mom put her arms around him and say “I’m so proud of you son!”

–Cheering for the underdog.

Though the score was familiar (down 33-0 at half-time), this was a Friday night like no other for the Tornadoes. In the locker room, the players were confused.

“Why are they cheerin’ for us, coach?”

“Because, men, they want to encourage you. They want you to know that they care about you…that you have value.”

Coach Williams said the boys were stunned. For many of these kids, it may have been the first time that anyone had shown them, so visibly, unconditional love.
Williams then encouraged them to set a goal for the second half: to score a touchdown. And when they took the field again, with their fans cheering them on, they did. Williams said, “Everything started to click in the second half. Our passes started to click. Our sweeps and counters started to click.” And they did score. Two touchdowns.

And the fans went wild.

I asked Coach Williams what the bus ride was like on the way home and he laughed and told me that they were all asleep—their bellies were full. After the game, the parents brought a whole bunch of food over to the guys: hamburgers, fries, candy, sodas…and included in the meal sack was a Bible and a letter of encouragement from a Faith Christian player. But then, he said, they formed a line for us out to the bus. And the parents patted them on the back and said, “Nice game” and “Look forward to seeing you guys next time.”

The phone went dead at this point. I think Coach Williams was choking back some tears. And so was I.

I asked him one final question: “If you could tell other people one thing about your kids, what would it be?” He said, “Don’t be scared of them. Treat them with respect. Yes, they’ve made some mistakes, but they are trying their best to turn their life around. Give ‘em a shot at it.”

As they left the field that night, Coach Williams grabbed Coach Hogan and said to him: “You’ll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You’ll never, ever know.”

When the world looks at a Christian, the number one thing they should see is what was shown on a high school football field last fall in Texas.
Jesus said: “Let your light shine among men is such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Let us do so.

And I must mention (because it is the mission of this column to point these things out) that Gainesville State plays public schools, too. Please notice what kind of school took the lead in this heart-warming experience. We have those kinds of schools here in Tucson, too.

Who should be expelled?

Last night I revisited the Ben Stein documentary, Expelled. I had seen a pre-release back when it first came out so I could write a review for it on another blog: http://www.wittenberghall.com/holytrinityclassical/

For those unfamiliar with the film, the basic premise is that American academics who question doctrinaire Darwinism in any form are being systematically shoved out of the academic world. Institutions which have expelled scientists who point out that the emperor of natural section is embarrassingly naked (devoid of evidence) include George Mason University, Baylor University, Iowa State University, and the Smithsonian Institute. When confronted by Ben Stein as to their attack on academic freedom, they consistently denied (in the face of facts), trivialized, dissimulated, or dodged the issue. In other words, they all lied. An effective way that this was illustrated in the film was that after each interviewee denied anyone was expelled from their institution for not believing in Darwinism, Stein flashed on the screen the actual documenting letter received by each of the expelled scientists confirming that it was their failure to support evolution (as taught by current popular standards) which had been the cause of their dismissal.

This lack of integrity on the part of the administrations of these institutions would be alarming enough, but what I am really intrigued by was the interview with a scientist in Poland near the end of the film. Stein asked if he had ever been required to teach Darwinian evolution in the university in Poland, and he quickly replied, “NO!” He went on the comment that this is a uniquely American problem, because American academics have to be “politically correct” (his actual words).

I want you to pause a moment to let this sink in. A man who taught for dozens of years during an oppressive communist dictatorship was more academically free to explore both sides of an issue than a scientist in America, because we are more censorial and heavy-handed in demanding everyone think exactly the same way, than their communist society. Is this the America you have always been told you live in? Yet we have socialized (government subsidized, and therefore government-controlled) education in the “land of the free,” and only 13 per cent of the school age population have escaped from it (through homeschooling or private schools).

I say it’s time to expel…the students! Set them free! (Have I made anybody mad yet? I’m sure trying hard…).

Charmed Evening #2

Props to Lamad Preparatory Academy for providing the community with a delightful dinner concert at Tucson High on Saturday, May 30. The delicious dinner was catered by A-Z Eatery (compliments to Chef John) and served by delightful young people from Living Water Ministry, the sponsoring church for Lamad Prep. The dinner speaker was the Honorable Ronald A. Wilson. Judge Wilson spoke of his own private Christian school education, and gave an impassioned advocacy for this unique urban school opportunity in Tucson.

The concert was held in the charming old Tucson High auditorium. Originally built in the 1930's, the auditorium and stage underwent a major restoration effort in 2004. Now it serves as a nostalgic-looking, but technologically well-equipped venue for performing arts. The Voices of Triumph, Dansiea Jones, and Tyrone Williams performed expertly (and inspiredly) to an enthusiastic, highly participatory audience. The artists generously donated their talents free of charge for this benefit concert, but their CD tables were well-patronized by the appreciative attendees after the concert was completed.

An unexpected treat for the audience was a live presentation by the students of Lamad Prepatory, entitled "The True Story of the Big Bad Wolf." Led by their school Director, Mrs. Carolym Anderson, and their teacher, Mrs. Glenda Tigney, the students simulated a mock trial format to review several legendary stories about wolves in children's literature, giving special attention to scrptural principles revealed in these stories, as well as (you haven't heard this before!) the wolf's point of view. Many in attendance commented afterwards how impressed they were with these well-trained young people.

Lamad Preparatory Academy is located at Living Water Ministry, 4343 E. 22nd Street, and serves grades one through three. Living Water is led by Apostle Warren Anderson, Jr. The school may be contacted at 745-5859.

Where's the outrage?

I am determined to keep writing until I make somebody mad. I honestly think that when it comes to the atrocities of modern education, we have been anesthetized or fed “happy” pills that blind us from the foolishness all around us.

Last Friday’s front page story in the Arizona Daily Star was a whiny, hand-wringing, “woe is me” announcement that there will be three large classes held in Centennial Hall this fall. The story went into long digressions about large lecture classes at other universities, what it will cost to outfit the room with wi-fi, how daytime classes might or might not inconvenience the artists’ series there, and the economic woes which necessitate large lecture classes. There were, of course, disclamatory remarks by U of A officials saying (in essence) “it’s really not that bad” and the (scandalaous?) revelation that an administrator who was partly responsible for the decision is on the way out (non-renewal of contract). He was quoted as saying that it’s probably not a good idea after all.

Innocuously buried in a sidebar was information about the three courses that are scheduled for Centennial Hall. Now, our first guess would be “large lecture classes” of a required nature, right? For anyone who matriculated before the twenty-first century, we would expect old standby’s like Western Civ 101, Psych 101, maybe a humanities class, or the like. Take a gander at two of the three course titles being offered there.

Seven hundred students (mostly freshmen) will study “Human and Animal Interrelationships from Domestication to the present … (which) examines the relationship humans have had with animals from evolution to domestication.”

Twelve hundred students will cram the auditorium for “Eroticism and Love in the Middle Ages… (which) examines how courtly love was portrayed in literature, the arts, philosophy and religion during the Middle Ages.”

O, tempore! O, mores!

In order to command these large audiences, these are courses which satisfy core requirements in the social and natural sciences. I’m trying to imagine what possible content the “animals” class can have that is not (1) based entirely on supposition; (2) horribly denigrating toward humans, and (therefore) politically correct; (3) a poor excuse for hard science.
The Middle Ages course is just Freudian, not history. There just isn’t enough sex on television, I guess. The university needs to prove that it’s “cool,” too.

Before you start feeling smug that you got your education “back when,” or feeling thankful that you don’t have a student going to U of A this fall, can you please remember that you are a taxpayer, and this is a government-supported school? Can you remember that this is the education of the future leaders of the state and nation? Does anybody care that the emperor of higher education is stark, raving, streaking, naked? Huh?

Are you ready for the kicker?

There are fifty-three reader comments to the online version of the story: lots of comments on class sizes, economics of higher education, etc. There is no mention of the course descriptions (except one alum who wishes the erotic course had been offered when he was an undergrad).