Beyond the Facemask - Have a plan

I can remember growing up and religiously attending church.  It was spoken into my life, at an early age, that God had a calling and an anointing on my life.  I wanted to go to college, study psychology and play college football.  There were people in the church that laughed at the notion.  With an ultimate goal of playing professional football, I did not get a scholarship out of high school.  It was not that I was not good enough.  It was because I depended on man and did not have a plan.  I had an average GPA (2.4) and had not taken the ACT or SAT.

Once I graduated from high school, I was still impregnated with the dream and desire to play college football, eventually professionally.  After graduation is when I realized I did not have a plan and I needed one.  You have to understand...  I was raised with the belief that to graduate from high school was the ultimate achievement.  However, I had aspirations and dreams to do more.

After my high school graduation, I continued to work as a bag boy at a local grocery store.  My plan was to go to the local community college (no football team) and then transfer to a four year college or university.  I worked with one of my high school teammates, Jim, at the store.  One day we were filling the ice cooler with bags and he told me he was going into the U.S. Army.  I replied, "You are crazy"!  He said, "No, they are going to enroll me in the G.I. Bill that will help pay for my college once I am discharged."  He went on to say, "You should go in, too"  I said no thanks.  Next thing I knew I was sitting in front of an Army recruiter.  I decided I could go into the military and then to college to play football.  I was only 17 at the time.  At that moment my plan changed but I felt it was a solid plan.  So I joined the the U.S. Army for three years.

During my time in the Army I kept my faith and focus on the plan even through having a son at 19, a failed marriage and fighting in a war.  I continued to workout and do my research.  I was determined to play college football.  I was deployed to Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia for five months and seventeen days.  Even during that time I would run and catch footballs whenever I had a break.  Needless to say, my army buddies thought I was crazy.  They would say things like, "You are not going to college" or "You are not going to play college football."  I knew what my plan was even though I had never been to college and no one in my family had ever graduated college.  I was not even sure I would make it back to the United States but I kept the faith.

I did make it back to the states in April 1991, thank God. I had seven months left of my three year commitment.  It seemed to get tougher with the the negative and fearful comments of my army buddies.  They continued to say that I could not go to college or questioned why I would want to leave the comfort zone of the army life.  "Three hots and a cot!"  (Breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a free place to live.)  There were even family members that questioned why I would leave the army but I sustained my faith and focus.

I was stationed in Fort Sill, Oklahoma just outside Lawton.  Lawton is home to Cameron University where I would go with a friend to workout and catch balls on the football field. One day I was approached by one of the football coaches on staff at Cameron, Coach Faulkner.  He asked my name and what I was doing.  I told him that I was in the Army but my plan was to go play college football back home at the University of Florida.  He said I have been watching you and we will give you a scholarship to play here.  I was floored!  My eyes were set on playing Division I not Division II but we have to recognize blessings.  So I said, "Really? Okay."  Why go to a place where you are going to have to pay for school, when you can get help paying for school?  Several months later Cameron dropped football as a sport due to Title IX rules.  At that point I felt that it had been too good to be true.  However, I enrolled at Cameron that spring semester anyway.

Several months later my phone rang and the voice on the other end was Coach Faulkner, the same coach from Cameron.  He said to me "Hi, Corey.  This is Coach Faulkner.  Listen, I am in New Mexico at a school called Western New Mexico University with a staff I worked with at Peru State in Nebraska.  I told them about you but the Head Coach would need to see you workout."  He went on to say, "Now, New Mexico is different but if you are willing to come out here and workout, we have a scholarship available if the coaches like what they see."  On March 12, 1993, I drove to Silver City, NM.

I had no clue where this place was or how to get there other than on a map.  It was in the middle of nowhere.  I arrived and worked out for the coaches and they offered me a scholarship on the spot.  I enrolled in school at WNMU in August 1993 and played my first season of college football.  I would go on to become a four-year starter, team captain, student government Senator, social work club Vice President and earned a Bachelors Degree in Social Work with a Minor in Sociology.  Today, I have my masters in Athletic Administration.  I met and married my amazing and beautiful wife in Silver City, her hometown.  I believe it was because of having a plan, not making excuses and my unwavering faith to do something I could not see nor was something anyone in my family had ever done.  God blessed me incredibly.

There are a few lessons in this:

• Do not make excuses
• God is faithful even when we do not deserve it
• With God all things are possible
• Do not put your trust in man
• You can have a calling and an anointing on your life but you need to take academics serious and have a plan
• It does not matter what people around you say or the environment you live in, you can achieve
• Stay focused even when things look rough
• Do not let man steal the dream God has birthed inside of you
• Faith is believing in what you cannot see.  
• You can still win!

Do YOU have a plan?