An unlikely success: Part 1

According to U.S. News and World Report's, America's Best Colleges Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas is one of the finest private colleges in the nation. I have to laugh at the irony. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that I would be on the staff of such a prestigious school? I'm not a professor, or even a teacher per se', but I do hold a position where I teach. I'm a football coach. Because we're such a small school you probably never heard of us before, but if you have, it’s probably because of the football team. We were featured on ESPN thanks to a miraculous play that helped us net an unlikely come-from-behind win at Milsaps College this year. The video is posted. Take a look if you haven't seen it. The play was an amazing moment that not many coaches will ever get to experience. Why God smiled on me for a moment like that, I'll never know--but as always--I accept his blessings like I accepted salvation: With gratitude, and thanks. But really, football is NOT what I wanted to write about.


I only highlight that game, as an illustration to the thing I do want to write about: the many unlikely blessings that a common man like me has enjoyed by the grace of God, through the work of his people. My journey is as unlikely a success story as you'll ever hear--kind of like the miracle play in Mississippi.

Despite that great win, we lost two weeks later in the play offs. Like many coaches after a loss, I couldn't sleep so I got out of bed, turned on the television and found a documentary about a high school football team on the south side of Manhattan. The title bar across the top of the screen said

"The Pleges of Stuyvesant High"

I read that, and thought "They misspelled it”! “How embarrassing for this nationally recognized educational channel".I thought they meant pledges (with a D) as if to describe these boys trying to make it on a football team at Stuyvesant high, the way college boys pledge to join fraternities. I watched for a long time before I figured out that it was me who was wrong--I was misreading the title of the show.

The word was "Peglegs", as in "Old Peg Leg Pete" (Pieter Stuyvesant), one of the last Directors General of the colony of New Netherland. He later became a major figure in the early history of New York City, and for that reason, he is the namesake of Stuyvesant high, Stuyvesant Avenue in Harlem, and other landmarks in New York City.

More next time...