Football Coach Bill Curry: We choose what we worship

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Football Coach Bill Curry: We Choose What We Worship

Man has always worshipped. If we follow the course of history, we see that the objects of man's worship have varied from the ridiculous to God. As I studied history in high school, I felt that many men had been foolish in choosing what they would worship. I decided that my country must be extraordinary in that our people knew who ought to be worshipped, and how to worship Him.

Georgia State University

Bill Curry in 2012.

I actually began to take pride in this knowledge, and to look around myself for the first time. As I looked at the lives of people, I came to the realization that they did not worship God at all, but rather chose objects to worship that were more foolish than any I had read about. I saw boys that actually worshipped automobiles, liquor or the idea of sex. I realized that many men active in my church had placed money first in their lives. I came to know girls that lived only to achieve popularity.

Many may think that men and women could not possibly worship such things, but I think whatever a person places first in his or her life is what he or she worships.

All these thoughts came to me rather suddenly, and it was awhile before I stopped to take a look at myself. What I saw horrified me. For almost twenty years, I had but one god: myself. I saw that almost everything I had ever done had been for number one: Bill Curry. I worked hard in football, basketball and baseball for one reason - to glorify Bill Curry.

I thought that success in sports would ensure success in life, and thought I had arrived when I received a football scholarship to Georgia Tech. After about ten minutes of the first practice at Tech, I knew football was going to be mostly work from then on. I still loved it and do to this day, but I found out the hard way that it was not the way to what man is entitled to in life.

God wants us to worship Him before all other things. If we want to follow God's plan, we will accept the power He offers each of us through Jesus Christ. Without Him, we are powerless, and will always revert to worldly wants. God has shown me a truly wonderful and abundant life through Christ, and I will always be thankful for it and serve Him with all my heart. I say this not in my own strength, but remembering Paul's words in 

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: "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."

Bill Curry, a center for Georgia Tech University football team, is a quiet, soft-spoken gentleman, possessing a winning sense of humor; but on the field he is an aggressive competitor and one of the outstanding linemen of the nation. He writes of his Christian conviction with candor and genuine feeling.

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Billy Curry's words were written 50 years ago, appearing in the April, 1964 issue of The Christian Athlete, then FCA's primary publication. Five decades later, the words ring as true today as they did then. Then a center on Georgia Tech's football team, Curry would go on to play professionally for 10 years, winning Super Bowls with the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Colts, before embarking on a coaching career that would take him from his alma mater, Georgia Tech, to Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia State. He also served as a television color commentator for ESPN. Through it all, Curry has been a loyal spokesman for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

 

[Old school eagle]

We should pay attention to every word Bill Curry says.  He is a gift to the whole world who has a special way of speaking and conveying his thoughts in a manner that always leaves his audience moved and motivated.  He is a very special man.

[Hagar]

Our country, and humanity, could use a lot more Bill Currys.