As a coach, my faith was wavering. I watched my unpredictable punter jog onto the field, doubt washed over me with every step. I never knew what to expect. It might go 40 yards in a tight spiral, or it could be a 10-yard shank off the side of his foot. Every kick was an unpredictable adventure.

It was late in the game and field position was critical as my team lined up in punt formation. As the punter waited for the snap from center, the unexpected happened. The gentle breeze that had been blowing all night suddenly transformed into a stiff wind. My punter handled the snap cleanly, took two steps and kicked the ball high into the air.

This year, my son Caleb is playing freshman football at his school, and as he’s discovered, being one of 70 players is tough. He loves the game and enjoys certain drills in practice, but lately his teammates have been the bigger challenge for him. Two of the guys he considered to be his best friends have been verbally mocking him and putting him down. As a teenager, he expects that from some of the guys on the team but not his closest friends. All he wants to do is be his best and help his team in any way he can.

As a child, I dealt with the embarrassment of having to wear glasses and braces. And to make matters worse, I had problems with my hearing which required me to wear a hearing aid and affected my speech. You can imagine the name-calling that ensued. I remember one day on the way home from school, I was so frustrated that I took off my hearing aid and threw it into a ditch. Needless to say, my parents weren’t too happy about that.

As March Madness winds down, we can clearly see the parity that exists at the highest level of college basketball. It’s been excited to watch the thrilling overtime victories and the games that have been decided by three points or less. Teams have matched up toe-to-toe, scraped, hustled and competed to extend their seasons for one more game. At the end of every game, one team has been left celebrating while the other has left empty-handed, perhaps stunned, that the game got away in the final ticks of the clock.

I was approached the other day and asked if I was fat. Well, as a former athlete and coach who has put on a few since his glory days, I was taken aback. "I may be fat, but you're ugly," I kidded him. He laughed and responded, "Not that kind of fat!" I was interested to see how he was going to get out of this one.

He went on to tell me that the "fat" he had been talking about stood for Faithful, Available and Teachable. He told me that we need FAT people involved in the ministry. What a great thought! We most certainly do need FAT people in every area of life. Athletes need to be FAT. Coaches need to be FAT. Pastors need to be FAT. And the list goes on and on. The question now is ... Are you FAT?