Colt McCoy: Beyond Expectations

(Octo­ber 31, 2011)  Cleve­land Browns quar­ter­back Colt McCoy is only in his sec­ond year in the NFL, but he has already sur­prised many crit­ics by his abil­ity to com­pete bet­ter than most peo­ple thought he would.

Colt cred­its his abil­ity to play beyond expec­ta­tions to his upbring­ing. He says his par­ents and his faith have been cru­cial in the devel­op­ment of his drive to be a real leader on the field.

Let’s take a look at the val­ues that have made him who he is.

True Texan?

Although Colt McCoy is con­sid­ered a true Texan, he was actu­ally born in New Mex­ico. His dad was begin­ning a career as a high school coach, and the first job he found was in New Mex­ico. Brad McCoy (Colt’s dad) has repeated claimed that in order to save Colt’s Texas pedi­gree he placed a plate full of Texas soil under the hos­pi­tal bed where his wife gave birth to Colt.

No one knows if this is a true story or just Mr. McCoy telling a Texas long tale, but the fam­ily has strong roots in Texas.

Fam­ily factors

Both Colt’s dad and his mom had been suc­cess­ful ath­letes at Abi­lene Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity in Texas. Once they were mar­ried his mom opted to stay home and ded­i­cate her­self to her hus­band and chil­dren. It was not always easy because it meant less money for the fam­ily, but Colt’s mom loved hav­ing lots of time for her boys and her hus­band. (Brad and Debra McCoy have three chil­dren: all boys.) Although Brad did not pres­sure her to make this option, he was totally sup­port­ive of her choice.

Both Colt’s mom and dad have a strong Chris­t­ian faith. Church activ­i­ties and fam­ily prayer were a big part of Colt’s life as he grew up. One of his favorite activ­i­ties as a boy  was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a church-​​sponsored fam­ily camp each sum­mer. There he made lots of friends and had all sorts of small adventures.

One of his friends from camp later became his top pass receiver at the Uni­ver­sity of Texas: Jor­dan Ship­ley. Jor­dan is now an NFL player for the Cincin­nati Ben­gals. He and Colt are still close friends today.

Colt’s dad believed in mod­el­ing the type of man he wanted his sons to be. He worked hard to be a good provider but also a man who spent a lot of time with his wife and children.

No easy lunch

Colt’s dad also believed that it was good train­ing to allow his sons to face chal­lenges. He says that par­ents should pre­pare chil­dren for the path, not the path for their chil­dren. That included help­ing them learn the value of hard work. He taught the boys how to  help in the fam­ily farm owned by Colt’s grand­fa­ther. Colt spent many week­ends and evenings there doing his part. He actu­ally enjoyed the hard work.

Grow­ing up on sports

As a boy, Colt also spent many after­noons with his dad as his dad coached high school ath­letes. The boy loved to play on the side­lines while the “big guys” prac­ticed.  He also loved to sit in on the dis­cus­sions with the coaches and play­ers about strat­egy for the games.

Once dur­ing an impor­tant foot­ball game the young boy grabbed his dad’s sleeve and begged his dad to run a cer­tain play at a dif­fi­cult moment in the game. His dad con­sulted with the other coaches, and they actu­ally thought the play was a good idea. They called the play. It turned out be a key play in the game.

Bull belt

But not all Colt’s ideas had imme­di­ate suc­cess. When he was six years old he begged his dad to allow him to par­tic­i­pate in a steer rid­ing com­pe­ti­tion for boys his age. It was held at  at the county rodeo. Colt wanted to win a cow­boy belt they were offer­ing as a prize. (Farm­yard note: Steers are bulls that have been cas­trated. Genet­i­cally, they are bulls, but the cas­tra­tion makes them less aggres­sive and less dan­ger­ous than bulls.)

His dad warned him that the steers were very big and that he would get scared. Colt insisted he could do it.

Colt won the first round of the com­pe­ti­tion and advanced to the final, but when he saw the big crowds at the final and saw the falls some other boys his age were tak­ing he became scared and begged his dad to let him withdraw.

His dad had already told Colt that once he entered the com­pe­ti­tion he could not with­draw if he became scared. He insisted that Colt needed to learn to think about his com­mit­ments and keep them once he made them.

The six year old boy cried and begged not to go the final competition.

His mom of course did not want the boy to take part once she say how scared her lit­tle boy was.

But Colt’s dad felt it was impor­tant that Colt learn to keep his com­mit­ments. He lit­er­ally car­ried the cry­ing boy to the pen where the steer was wait­ing and placed him on the large ani­mal (huge by a six year old boy’s stan­dards, but actu­ally pretty small as far as steers go).

Once the gate opened the scared boy man­aged to hold onto the steer long enough to win the com­pe­ti­tion, but he also took a hard bump as he fell off the steer. He cut his lip and the steer stepped on him. He was bruised and cry­ing. Of course his dad imme­di­ately had his lit­tle boy in his arms, but Colt had quite a scare.

Still, he had stayed on the steer longer than any of the other boys, so, in spite of his sore­ness and tears, he had won.

Brad McCoy, Colt’s dad, explains that his wife was so mad at him for putting the boy in harm’s way that she made her hus­band sleep on the couch for about a week.  We don’t know if this is true or another Texas tale Brad invented, but we get the point… Don’t mess with Mom.

Nev­er­the­less, Colt cred­its the expe­ri­ence as one of his barrier-​​breaking moments. He was able to do what he thought was impos­si­ble, and he learned the impor­tance of think­ing out his deci­sions care­fully and fol­low­ing up on them. (Pain can some­times jump-​​start your brain…although not always…)

Prac­tice makes perfect

Colt’s dad would not let his son play com­pet­i­tive foot­ball dur­ing ele­men­tary school, although he did encour­age the boy to take part in other sports. Colt loved the excite­ment of any com­pe­ti­tion. He also enjoyed prac­tic­ing. Dur­ing those ele­men­tary school years he prac­ticed bas­ket­ball and base­ball over and over again in his free time, and he did very well in both sports.

Colt had already decided that when he played foot­ball he wanted to play quar­ter­back. He was always play­ing catch with his friends. As he entered junior high he worked very hard at improv­ing his throw and devel­op­ing other foot­ball skills.

Learn­ing leadership

His skills began to develop. But his dad had always insisted that, win or lose, Colt had to show char­ac­ter and com­pas­sion in every­thing he did. He insisted that real lead­er­ship was about ser­vice, not show­man­ship. He said that Colt had to be a leader in school­work and respect for oth­ers before he could be a leader on the foot­ball field.

Colt tried to work hard on these things. His close rela­tion­ship with his dad and the rest of his fam­ily helped him inter­nal­ize these principles.

A deeper commitment

Colt also felt that he had to grow in his rela­tion­ship with Christ. As he entered his teenage years he asked his par­ents per­mis­sion to make a more pub­lic com­mit­ment to his faith. In his Chris­t­ian church a mem­ber is not bap­tized until he or she has reached the use of rea­son and specif­i­cally asks to be bap­tized.

(Note: As Catholics we are usu­ally bap­tized as infants. The Catholic Church and our par­ents do this in order to give us the gift of a full rela­tion­ship with Christ from the first moments of our lives. But, like every impor­tant value in our lives, we have to recom­mit to this rela­tion­ship as we grow.  Our First Com­mu­nion and our Con­fir­ma­tion are key moments in this growth. Still, we have to work on our rela­tion­ship with God every day of our lives. Weekly Mass, reg­u­lar Con­fes­sion, and daily prayer time also help us in this.)

At the age of 14 Colt was offi­cially bap­tized. He cred­its the moment of his bap­tism as one of the key moments in his growth as a human being and as a Christian.

Skep­ti­cism and success

Colt devel­oped well as a quar­ter­back in junior high and high school, yet some of the big col­lege recruiters were skep­ti­cal. Colt played at a small high school. He did not face the level of com­pe­ti­tion that quar­ter­backs at the big Texas high schools faced. He also was not as phys­i­cally big as they would have liked, even though Colt worked very hard on strength train­ing and weight lifting.

Yet no one could deny that this enthu­si­as­tic small-​​town boy was break­ing records as a quar­ter­back. And those who saw him play in per­son or on film were extremely impressed by the accu­racy of his passes and his lead­er­ship both on and off the field.

Long­horns or bust

Colt began to receive offers from many of the big col­leges around the coun­try, but he had his heart set on the Uni­ver­sity of Texas. When he was offered a schol­ar­ship there he jumped at the chance.

Still, he did not get a chance to play his first year, the 2005-​​2006 sea­son. The star quar­ter­back was Vince Young, who was set­ting all kinds of records as a quar­ter­back. Vince lead the team to the national cham­pi­onship and scored the win­ning touchdown.

Although Colt did not play that sea­son, Vince was very kind to him and made Colt a big part of his life. He told Colt that he would lead the team once he fin­ished at Texas.

Vince fin­ished at Texas sooner than Colt was expect­ing. Even though Vince was a junior, after the cham­pi­onship game in Jan­u­ary 2006 he announced that he was enter­ing the NFL draft. Colt would get his chance the very next season.

Prov­ing

Still, there was another chal­lenge. The Uni­ver­sity of Texas had recruited another star quar­ter­back that sea­son. His name was Jason Snead. Jason had set all kinds of records in high school, and was favored by many sports experts to take the start­ing posi­tion at Texas.

Colt worked very hard in the off-​​season, both in per­sonal train­ing and in help­ing his team­mates train. The coaches watched care­fully as spring train­ing and sum­mer train­ing devel­oped. They chose Colt as the start­ing quar­ter­back. Colt did not let them down.

In his four years as the start­ing quar­ter­back for Texas Colt broke the NCAA record for the most wins ever by a col­lege quar­ter­back. Although he never won the national cham­pi­onship as a starter, he lead his team to very close to the top every year, and was in the run­ning for the Heis­man Tro­phy sev­eral times.

The big­ger game

But col­lege is not just about foot­ball, even if you are a star quar­ter­back. Col­lege is a time when we face new chal­lenges in a new atmos­phere, so let’s rewind a moment to what Colt expe­ri­enced as he began college.

Colt had come from a very close-​​knit and Chris­t­ian fam­ily. The Uni­ver­sity of Texas was a famous party school, not always con­duce to Chris­t­ian val­ues. Many sit­u­a­tions on cam­pus were extremely chal­leng­ing for Colt’s faith and values.

Among those chal­lenges were the easy rela­tion­ships that girls on cam­pus offered him. Colt often found that a large num­ber of girls were very inter­ested in a rela­tion­ship with the foot­ball play­ers. All the stu­dents on cam­pus had access to his dorm. The girls were often quite aggres­sive, leav­ing notes and knock­ing on his door as he was try­ing to sleep.

The notes were very sug­ges­tive, and it was hard for Colt to say no. He had to dig deep in his soul if he wanted to stay true to his deci­sion to wait until marriage.

He would often call his fam­ily late at night in order to get their help and emo­tional sup­port in his effort to live up to his commitment.

He also tried to sur­round him­self with friends on cam­pus who sup­ported his lifestyle. Among the orga­ni­za­tions he joined, he espe­cially cred­its the Fel­low­ship of Chris­t­ian Ath­letes as a key source of friend­ship and sup­port for him.

Still, it was very dif­fi­cult. After a year of con­stant late-​​night knocks and notes, he and his dad con­vinced his coach to let him live off campus.

Even­tu­ally they found a fam­ily near cam­pus that had a small apart­ment over their garage. They were will­ing to let Colt and his buddy Jor­dan Ship­ley live there. It turned out that the fam­ily was very sup­port­ive of Colt’s val­ues and faith, and the McCoy fam­ily and the host fam­ily became very close friends.

Romance 

Still, Colt was look­ing for the girl he wanted to marry. One day at prac­tice when he was get­ting ready to begin his junior year in col­lege a very attrac­tive, college-​​age reporter took part in the after-​​practice inter­views. He had given many inter­views, but this girl caught his eye.

He began to dis­creetly ask about her.

She went to another school: Bay­lor Uni­ver­sity, and was doing an intern­ship as a sports reporter. Her good looks were also com­pli­mented by a kind, car­ing per­son­al­ity. But Colt could not ask her out in front of other reporters. Things would get pub­lic too quickly.

Even­tu­ally, Colt was able to find her on Face­book. He got up his nerve to ask for her phone num­ber. She was very cau­tious, but allowed him to have her number.

When Colt called to ask for a date, again she was very cau­tious. She agreed only on the con­di­tion that a friend of hers come along. Colt agreed. At least it was a date.

As they got to know each other bet­ter over the next months, Colt fell deeply in love with this girl. Her name was Rachel Glan­dorf. Besides being strik­ingly beau­ti­ful she was also very com­mit­ted to her Chris­t­ian faith and to fam­ily values.

Colt knew this was the girl for him.

DTR time 

(DTR: Define The Relationship)

As things started to get more seri­ous, Colt and Rachel had an hon­est and hum­ble con­ver­sa­tion about their bud­ding rela­tion­ship. Colt asked her for help in wait­ing until mar­riage before they became phys­i­cally inti­mate. (For those of you who are slow on the uptake, that means sex.)

It wasn’t easy for Colt to talk about these things with such a pretty girl, but he wanted the romance to get off on the right foot. He admit­ted that he was very attracted to her, but that he would need her help in avoid­ing sit­u­a­tions in which they could go too far.

Rachel also felt the same way, and Colt’s hon­esty about his own val­ues, cou­pled with the respect for her that he showed, made her fall even more in love with him.

Love and commitment

Soon the Uni­ver­sity of Texas news was abuzz about this pretty girl who was sit­ting next to Colt’s par­ents at the games. It quickly became know that she was Colt’s girlfriend.

Colt pro­posed to her shortly after fin­ish­ing his senior sea­son. That’s a cool story in itself, but for the sake of brevity we will skip it here.

Rachel and Colt were mar­ried that sum­mer after he grad­u­ated. They had a short but beau­ti­ful hon­ey­moon in the Bahamas (short because Colt had to report for NFL train­ing camp) and now live in Cleve­land dur­ing the foot­ball sea­son, where Colt plays for the Browns.

With the Browns

Colt has done well as quar­ter­back for the Browns. He and the team have man­aged to pull off a num­ber of upsets over teams that were ranked higher than them. Although the Browns are not yet a win­ning team, by most NFL stan­dards Colt is play­ing extremely well.

The skep­ti­cism that Colt faced when enter­ing the NFL had to do with his size. He is slightly shorter than many suc­cess­ful NFL quar­ter­backs, but he has proven that he can play with the best of them.

More than football

Still, Colt knows that life is more than foot­ball. Both in col­lege and as a pro he has ded­i­cated quite a bit of time to vol­un­teer work. At the Uni­ver­sity of Texas he reg­u­larly vis­ited chil­dren in can­cer wards and even­tu­ally con­vinced many of his team­mates to join him in this work. Also in col­lege he ded­i­cated his last two spring breaks to mis­sion­ary trips in the Ama­zon where he worked with chil­dren who lived in extreme poverty. Back in Texas he was also very active as a vol­un­teer speaker at youth groups through­out his col­lege career. He has stepped up his char­i­ta­ble work even more as a pro­fes­sional athlete.

Char­ac­ter

Colt has also had to face dis­ap­point­ment in his foot­ball career.

One of those dis­ap­point­ments was the BCS cham­pi­onship game in Jan­u­ary 2010. Colt had led the Uni­ver­sity of Texas team suc­cess­fully to an unde­feated sea­son. The  BCS cham­pi­onship game was against num­ber one rated Alabama.

Colt was injured early in the game and could not play the rest of it.

It was a tremen­dous dis­ap­point­ment to him and the team.

Texas lost in a close game.

As Colt was leav­ing the field at the end of the game a reporter stopped Colt and asked him a tough ques­tion: “.…Colt, what was it like for you to watch this game - the last game in (a col­lege) uni­form - from the sideline.”

Colt had been fight­ing back tears of dis­ap­point­ment the whole game. The reporter’s ques­tion jump-​​started all sorts of con­flict­ing emo­tions within his heart. But he knew he had to answer the question.

He started to answer twice, stam­mer­ing “I..I..” before stop­ping to com­pose him­self. He said a quick prayer. Then he took another long moment to gather him­self before he answered. Here’s what he said:

“I…I love this game. I have a pas­sion for this game. I’ve done every­thing I can to con­tribute to my team, and we made it this far. It’s unfor­tu­nate that I didn’t get to play. I would have given every­thing I had to be out there with my team. … I always give God the glory. I never ques­tion why things hap­pen the way they do. God is in con­trol of my life, and I know that if noth­ing else, I am stand­ing on the Rock.”

To accept loss with gra­cious­ness is not easy. It is a sign of hav­ing the right pri­or­i­ties. But it is never easy. That sort of inner strength is only built up through a per­sonal search for a deeper mean­ing in life.

In spite of hav­ing tremen­dous suc­cess in foot­ball Colt McCoy has been able to find that deeper mean­ing in life. Colt has found it in his rela­tion­ship with Christ and in the val­ues his fam­ily has tried to offer him. This is some­thing that lasts well beyond the adren­a­line rush of an excit­ing game. It is some­thing that can weather even the tough­est storms.

Let’s pray that Colt con­tin­ues to show us that strength. It strength­ens all of us.

(Note: Much infor­ma­tion for this story is drawn from the book Grow­ing Up Colt : A Father, a Son, a Life in Foot­ball by Colt and Brad McCoy, Bar­bour Pub­lish­ers, 2011)