“I pray every night for our football team. I pray every night for my family. That’s because I’m not in control of the football team or my family. Somebody else is.”
At church – Byrnes head coach Bobby Bentley, second from left, poses with his family and members of the football team prior to attending Tucapau Baptist Church in Startex.That’s the sentiment of Byrnes High School head football coach Bobby Bentley, who brought the message on a recent Sunday morning at Tucapau Baptist Church in Startex.
For the past three years, Bentley has not only taken his squad of football players to Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia en route to winning three state football titles – he has also been taking them to church.
Like any coach who enjoys tremendous success on the gridiron, those who compete against him – as well as some who don’t know the person at all – may believe a successful coach has a huge ego. But Bentley doesn’t take credit for any of his success. In fact, he points back to the 1995 and 1996 seasons – the first two years he served as head coach of the Rebels.
“At that point in my life, I was going through a divorce and God wasn’t a priority,” he explains.
The football program was also suffering one of its worst stretches in school history, winning only three games, while losing 19.
Contrast that to today’s Rebels, who are ranked among the nation’s top 10 in several polls and rode a 26-game winning streak into the championship game. The team had also won 59 out of their past 61 games in claiming four state titles.
Who does Bentley credit for the major turnaround? Many – but first and foremost God, and only after he made God his priority.
Although he began making changes to his lifestyle back in the late 1990s, it seems a bit ironic that for the three years he’s been encouraging his players to attend church together, the team has gone on to win the state championship.
But even there, Bentley shuns credit for the idea.
“Different people in the community started asking us to bring our players to their church,” he said, as he and his wife Paulette, their five children, and about 30 football players began climbing the front steps of Tucapau Baptist Church to enter the sanctuary. It marked the fifth straight Sunday that Bentley missed attending morning worship services at his home church – Lyman First Baptist – because the team tries to visit a different church each week during the season.
“I’ve begun to cut back on the number of visits lately because I was missing my own church too much,” he adds.
Shortly after his twin toddlers settled into the church’s nursery, Bentley took to the podium and shared that football at Byrnes is a yearlong commitment – from speed and strength training, to summer camps, academics, team building exercises, studying other football programs, and much more.
He also shared about his team’s four primary “wheels”: academics, social, athletics and spiritual.
“It’s much like a car – all four wheels have to be balanced,” Bentley said.
Likewise, he said being a Christian is a yearlong commitment. While speaking, he read from passages of scripture such as James 1:19-25; and quoted the Bible’s assurances to “cast all your anxieties on God, because he cares for you.”