By Brenda Cannon Henley
Texans love their football. In fact, some here consider it a religion of sorts. Friday Night Lights started in Odessa. Ted has a cousin and her family who live there and I have verified that the only way residents can buy season’s passes is for someone holding one or more to die and not will the right to purchase their tickets to their children or grandchildren. Business owners, schools, churches, and civic organizations pull down the shades and turn out the light any time there is a football game. The stands are filled to capacity and usually crowds gather outside the gates to cheer the team on to victory.

My family has always loved football and we are first and foremost Georgia Bulldawg fans since we all lived near the University of Georgia located in Athens. We bleed red and black, and even though I love Texas greatly, I will never give up my Dawg gear or stop cheering for these good players. After all, I lived there when the great Hershel Walker broke every record held by the school.

I also had the great privilege of interviewing the famed Bum Phillips, literally a legend in the game both on and off the field. Ted and I drove to Goliad and spent the day on the Phillips’ farm. We enjoyed meeting Debbie and seeing her beautiful horses and listening to hours of Bum’s best stories. He was a famed football coach, honored around the world, but he was also a historian and loved to tell the facts about Texas’ birth and growth. He made us promise to stay an extra day and visit the beautifully redone courthouse in Goliad, tour the site of the mission where so many died, and to visit several other places in the area that he outlined for us. We also talked football and his stories of the players and games were thrilling and funny.

Bum was born right here in Orange, Texas, in a small, white, frame house that no longer stands on the lot. He asked us to see if we could determine when it was demolished and Ted and I did that and reported back to Bum about his home place. In his later years, he was born again, saved, trusted Christ, whatever term you wish to call it, and his life changed in many ways.

He spent hours in prison ministry with Mike White, one of his famous players, and he was especially drawn to the inmates populating the storied Angola Prison in Louisiana. He made friends with many of the inmates, and I was told that when Bum took the microphone to speak, the entire population quieted down and listened intently to what he had to say. He organized football games, helped in the training, and attended the big playoff style games at the prison.

When Bum died, the larger than life coach was buried in a personally designed and hand carved casket made by those same inmate football players. He had made an impact in the prisons just like he did on the football field. But, please believe me, Bum made some hard yards prior to living the good life and prior to having his own heart touched by the Gospel message of a faithful witness.

A friend of mine was watching television here in our home with my family and I and said, “Man, those are some hard yards they are making now.” I thought what a strange term and I vowed to look the words up to see what it meant. Now two days later, I heard the term again, this time used by a TV commentator about a football player in yet another game.

I looked it up today before sitting down to write this article. The best definition I found was “to go through with difficult and demanding work in order to achieve an end.” In the case of the football game, the player had to earn every yard he made for the team by putting forth extra effort and physical strength in the face of steep opposition by the very big players on the other team. He was earning those hard yards.

And as I thought on this subject while watching the Cowboys play Green Bay, I thought God often asks us to go through hard yards while we are trying to reach goals in our life. Some of the most wonderful victories I’ve enjoyed in my life have come to me after going through fierce and demanding battles. There were times that I did not know if I could survive one more play or one more quarter. I wasn’t sure I could make it through to the other side or if I had the strength to execute one more play. Thank God, He never left me to my own devices. He, by way of the Holy Spirit of God, was always in my corner, directing, instructing, pushing, holding, and sending me on to victory.

So many different people read our work in various publications, and I seldom direct any one column to any one person or any group of people, but I feel a constraint today to ask if you might be feeling those “hard yards” in your life today. Perhaps they are coming by way of health issues, financial woes, relationship difficulties, decision making, employment concerns, home choices, and on and on in each life. Please know that God loves you, He knows where you are and what you are facing, and He wants to help. The hard yards are designed for our growth and success, if we can accept them as such.

(This article published 1/12/2015)

Brenda Cannon Henley can be reached at (409) 781-8788, at
[email protected], or by using the contact form below.

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