SCORE International partnered with Istrouma Baptist Church and ML Woodruff of the Istrouma Sports Organazation to provide a free coaches clinic in Baton Rouge, LA. Our clinics are designed to encourage coaches to use their platform as coach to better motivate, instruct, and connect with their student athletes. We want to encourage and equip coaches to be more intentional in teaching the biblical life lessons found in sports. Our prayer is that they would focus more on IMPACTING a life, than just coaching a game.
The SCORE staff provided 3 hours of instruction on Friday night and 3 hours on Saturday morning. Former University of Kentucky baseball coach, Keith Madison, spoke on Competition and Christianity. He challenged the coaches in attendance not to shrink from the platform they have as a coach. To understand the impact they have and to choose their words and actions carefully. That as Christians, we are called to compete harder and with a better attitude than other athletes. He also called on them to pray for "wisdom" as we are called to do in James 1:5. SCORE founder Ron Bishop encouraged the coaches to understand that none of us are necessarily "qualified" to serve. That all through the Bible, God chose people that the world would not consider to be equipped to serve. The challenge for us is that although we struggle we must continue to strive, that we may fail but we can never quit, and we will fall but we must get up. He finished by charging the coaches to understand that true success comes when we can identify our role and understand that God has gifted everyone with their own unique skills, talents, and abilities. Executive Director for SCORE, John Zeller, tackled the difficult task of dealing with officials. He encouraged the coaches to give the officials the proper respect due them as authority figures. Although we may not agree with every call they make, how we deal with them is a reflection of our spiritual "wellness" and that our athletes are watching how we handle each situation.
A special thanks to ML Woodruff for promoting this exciting event. Without his hard work and getting the word out in the community this event would not have been a success.
If you are interested in hosting one of our coaches clinics in your area please contact me at:
dconrady @scoreinternational.org
