About two years ago, I shared a life epiphany of sorts here. Looking back, it was a rather muddled attempt to promote certain aspects of my experience. Since then, my focus has shifted. Life and purpose have become much better understood. At least for now.
That voice I referred to remains. Now, I just hear Him better and actually listen to what is being said. And now more importantly, how the message is being shared. I no longer avoid the truth being spoken. Humility is a good thing.
While it turned out to be a very long and scenic way to discern this truth, football has remained instrumental in both finding and better defining my mission. Not so much the pomp and circumstance of the game. But what the game was ultimately all about for me.
Intention.
Selflessness,
Faith.
Fellowship.
Having spent my football “career” on the line of scrimmage, I gained a keen insight into the essence of that role and how it now plays into my game of life.
I may have taken off the pads for the last time forty some years ago, but I remain to this day an O-lineman. It is what I was made to be. One who embraces the weight granted. One who doesn’t desire the spotlight. One who embraces his role. One who paves the way for others to succeed.
That is precisely how I still coach the game of football.
Over time, I have come to a better understanding about this game.
To me, it is a mission that needs to be centered upon developing the individual that resides within the player. One capable of true authenticity and selflessness, girded by a faith in what can ultimately be accomplished together in true fellowship.
The student of life within the athlete.
Only then can all facets of the individual act to positively impact the athlete.
Class is not held solely on the field or the weight room. It is in the right here and now, with each other. Together you get to learn, grow and develop in ways many others cannot or will never be able to in their entire lives.
But by no means does that place you above anyone.
It is purely a gift to be embraced as such, and held with an attitude of gratitude.
Within this gift is the opportunity to create and build something much bigger than yourself.
By yourself, I take that as two iterations. First, you as an individual get to. And then, you together as a team gets to. The makings of a genuine fellowship.
As such, you get to be a part of many, many lives and families, embrace diverse backgrounds and cultures all while building true friendships that can literally last a lifetime.
You get to represent a heralded college and every player that first strapped it on as a Green Knight in 1931 – as well as everyone that ever attended as a student, taught as a professor or administered to the needs of operating a college.
If you can open yourself up fully and honestly to see this as such, that you get to be a part of this, then you will be in a position to fully invest yourself in making the most of it.
All of which is contingent on how much you are willing to open yourself up, draw others in close to one another and then grow together. For some, this will be a task ten-fold more challenging than two-a-days. I get it. But like two-a-days, it is meant to be a test. Determined to reveal something you never thought was in you. I can assure you, from experience, there is strength to be found in vulnerability. And when all is said and done, you will wonder what took you so long to just let it happen.
Some time ago, I happened upon a German adverb that defines this level of connection perfectly.
Ineinander.
Meaning “into each other, into one another. Or, interlocking.” To me, it is choosing to become woven together. Creating something together that has the ability to withstand all of the tension, twists and turns of all adversity while remaining unified, unfrayed and unbreakable.
In preparation for sharing this gift with all of you, I collaborated with a teammate of yours. We talked some and came up with some thoughts and reflections about what we all need to be able to be. What we need to ask of ourselves and each other, in an honest and transparent manner.
I hope I don’t let you down with what is to follow, buddy.
So after some contemplation about what he and I shared and my presence within the game these many years, I arrived at four tenets of development that I believe will serve us all well.
So for our time remaining now, it is going to be more so about opening up and revealing some holes than it is about x’s and o’s.
So take advantage of the opportunities to reflect.
This is just the start in many respects.
I sincerely hope there will be more beginnings than endings as you continue on this journey forward together.
Good evening, I am Mark J. Hahn. I am honored to be here with you tonight.
Just wanted to share a little about me to provide some perspective.
I got to play high school ball.
Then my parents helped me to pick a school where I could play for four more years.
As my kids were growing up, I got to coach them in baseball, soccer, softball and football.
I got to be involved in the community youth football program and coach my sons and many others. Then got the opportunity to coach high school, a year of college ball and then back to high school, where I am coaching today.
Along the way and in between, I created motivational newsletters and social media, spoke at high school team dinners and WFCA conferences.
All told, 32 years – and counting – I got to be involved in the greatest game ever invented.
Maybe you noticed I say “got to” a lot.
It is because these opportunities were given to me.
Gifts.
And for that reason, it is my intention to give them back throughout the time I have remaining.
Within the framework of the game was an especially compelling element. One that genuinely permeated to my very core:
A passion for what it demanded of and from you, only to return it in a higher form.
True, it did extract from you. Often to the point of emptiness. But at the same token, it replenished you, on a deeply personal, emotional, mental and spiritual level. You see, being on the field gave back ten fold of what it took, in an unparalleled manner.
Yes, it was a game. But it proved to be so much more than that. Each opportunity granted, lesson learned and affirmation supplied possessed a gravity all their own.
Like becoming one who gladly accepts the weight of a moment being granted.
Shunning the spotlight.
Leaving it all out there for those on your left or right.
Embracing your failure in the instant before as impetus for your success in that yet to come.
Valuing a level of perseverance garnered by enduring exhaustingly hard and painful work.
Appreciating your role as one who paves the way so that others might succeed.
As time passed, I became increasingly aware of these and many more of the gifts granted during those precious moments on the field. They became more apparent as they weaved themselves into the fabric of a life away from it. Confirming the veracity of their mass in most substantial and lasting fashions.
Such as accepting and engaging the weight of every responsibility in all manner and form, arriving on their time, yet touching every aspect of your being.
Discovering the value of humility through promoting others.
Freely giving of oneself without any expectation or desire of return.
Knowing that there is much to be learned in defeat – whether personal or professional – and that your response to that event will eventually lead you back to the outcome you desire; victory.
Mustering oneself to embrace personal sacrifice and persevere, regardless of the cost, to improve, grow and become what you are meant to be.
Providing empathy, care, attention and love that will ensure the safety, security and success of those all around.
It has been said that football is the game of life. A statement of fact to which many will attest.
It is taught in numerous, lasting and most compelling fashions – particularly at my spot on the field. Lessons that continue to emerge from that original classroom, bound to its core curriculum, taught on a field that is now being professed in the home, at work, in the community and throughout the surrounding world.
As a passion for what is demanded of and from you, so as to return it in a higher form.
The moment I first met Pastor Freyer totally escapes me. But fortunately, his continuing influence on me for over a decade has not. His presence in my life was at times formative, regenerative and always supportive.
He had this tenacious constancy of intention, purpose and genuine love. A chorus he proclaimed and I was blessed to hear. It was within that refrain that PF’s keen appreciation on how best to conduct ourselves achieved a permanent resonance. It was his fervent desire that all of us address every matter of the moment in that very fashion.
Though he has since passed, it seems as though he remains present in my life. Perhaps that was part of his true vocation and his divine talent. That ability to become such an essential element in my life and many others.
To be that guy you always seemed to know.
To be that servant leader you trust, emulate and follow.
To be that man of integrity and character you have always respected.
To be that father that you will always love. Because he will love you right back, no matter what.
At some point during our wonderful relationship, the appellation “Coach” was conferred to PF. He then bestowed that designation on me. An honor I did not understand, did not feel I deserved and tried to dismiss. A title that has taken me quite a while to get used to.
But under his ever loving guidance and patience, Coach taught me how to wear it. In fact, Coach “coached me up” to embrace it.
His rugged looks aside, appearances were definitely deceiving when it came to Coach Freyer. For he perfected operating in total stealth mode. Offering opportunity by conferring trust in talents he saw others. Things they had yet to even see or genuinely begin to fathom.
Years ago, he simply asked me for my help. To contribute to the motivational game sheets he distributed to the Highlander football players during their weekly team dinners.
Thousands of words later, he told me he cannot wait to read my book.
I wondered what he was trying to tell me. As time passed, he told me that he had to “begin to slow down a bit”. He then asked for my weekly contributions to also be shared via the spoken word as well. And just like that, I started filling in as a guest speaker.
Those were some mighty big shoes to fill. But it became a life changing opportunity. And with his guidance, it went from abject terror to hand shaking, I cannot wait to do this, moments of truly unbridled joy.
You see, Coach always knew that was in me. That I could do it. That I was meant to do it. And by no means did his loving lesson begin and end there. It made me think that perhaps I was cut from some of the same cloth as he. That maybe with some honest intention, I too could see things in others that they hadn’t noticed, overlooked, dismissed or outright ignored.
Probably why he called me “Coach” in the first place.
So today, this remains a part of my current football vocation and standing. But now, it has grown to become central to supporting those in search of their vocation, purpose, independence and a life well lived.
He offered an opportunity by conferring trust in talents he saw in me.
Beyond the gridiron 