I grew up in Thermopolis, Wyoming and graduated from Hot Springs High School in 1975. I went on to attend Black Hills State University where I attended a couple of FCA huddle meetings as a student. I also met my wife Cindy there, and we were married in 1978. I was in and out of college, managing several family business ventures, and finally earned my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wyoming in 1988. Between 1988 and 2003 I served as a teacher, athletic director, principal and girls and boys track coach, girls and boys basketball coach and assistant boys football coach at Dubois High School.
In 2001 I was a basketball clinician at the Northern Rockies Sports Camp in Powell, Wyoming. It was in the men's coaches' Bible Study at this camp that God began to aggressively change my heart. I had never been in a men's group, let alone a group of Christian coaches and I was like a sponge soaking up the fellowship of Christian men. I had not realized how spiritually dry and empty I was. It was in one of those sessions that a football coach from Sioux Falls named Bob Young told our group, "Gentlemen, coaching is a ministry and we are called by God to serve Him as a coach." I had never heard that before and it was a concept I would not fully understand until the following summer. During the team chapel meeting at the 2002 Sports Camp, I experienced Godly sorrow for the first time in my life. Camp speaker Neal Jeffrey was speaking on the day's theme, commitment, and asked all of the campers and staff to write down the three things, in priority order, that we were most committed to in our life. My answer, without hesitation, was: coaching, family,God. Not only had coaching become my God buy my family was second behind my profession. The Holy Spirit convicted me on the spot. I got bac k to my dorm room and wept bitterly (2 Cor. 7:10). I asked God to forgive me for my sins and sincerely invited Jesus into my heart for the first time in my life. I asked Him to not only be my Savior but to be the Lord of my life. I was "born again" on that summer night in a dorm room at an FCA sports camp in Powell, Wyoming. I also made a commitment that night to be the kind of coach that God wanted me to be when He called me to coach in 1988. I would be to coach for Him, not me. In 2003 I came onto staff with Wyoming FCA and currently serve as Coaches Ministry Director for the state of Wyoming. I want to minister to coaches and to coach coaches how to coach Biblically for God's Kingdom and not for the pride of life.
I have returned to my hometown of Thermopolis, where I have my FCA home office headquarters. I continue to serve in the ministry of coaching as well, as boy's varsity head basketball coach and middle school track coach. Cindy and I have two grown and married children, Cassie and Eric, as well as three grandchildren.