Devotional #3

1 Corinthians 9:24
" Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize"

How to avoid Plateaus

One of the athletic principals we can apply to our spiritual life is that of confusion. Specifically muscle confusion. If we were to run a mile every day for month eventually we would reach a point where our time would stop decreasing and just level out. To make sure this doesn't happen we would need to run more, run faster, or run longer. It is a principal almost every coach at every level knows.

When it comes to our spiritual life however we(or I do) ignore this principal. We do the same thing day in day out. Get up, maybe have a quiet time, throw out some "drive by prayers", pray before meals, and then before bed. We(or I do) plateau spiritually. One of the the things I have been challenged with lately is to change things up. Read books that I may not normally choose, during my quiet time read a commentary to supplement my reading, meet with a mentor, or disciple someone. Often times we use Biblical principles in our athletic lives, now may be the time to incorporate an athletic principal into our Spiritual life.

WANT TO WRITE A DEVOTIONAL? It is easy just pick a verse(or 2) write a few paragraphs on it and email it to me! Would be a great way for us to share our insights and challenge each other. Would love to get perspective from both guys and girls, does not have to be "athletic" focused.

Email me: rob.bronson@athletesinaction.org

Moza Fay

I had the opportunity to have lunch with Moza a few months ago at Panera Bread in Corvallis as he was training in Corvallis with Oregon State and their club team. Great great guy who is wrestling for the Lord!

 From themat.com
By Jackie Branca USA Wrestling
04/13/2012

Come Saturday, April 21, if it seems like the crowd in Carver-Hawkeye Arena is cheering for men’s freestyler Moza Fay, it’s because most of them are. Fay, who grew up less than an hour outside of Iowa City, will be competing in the tough 74 kg/163 lbs. weight class for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.

“I am so excited to go back to Iowa City,” Fay said. “With this Olympic Trials being in Iowa City, I’m going to have so many friends and family and supporting people there. It’s just going to be fun and I can’t wait to go back.”

Fay grew up in Anamosa, Iowa, a town with roughly 5,000 residents, and was an All-American for the University of Northern Iowa. He says a lot of people will be on hand cheering him on. He isn’t worried about the added pressure. Instead, he is excited and thriving on the added support.

“The sports psychologist and coaches tell us to take some time and visualize ourselves at the Trials. Well, I realized I am already doing that without them telling me,” Fay said. “My mind is just off thinking about what it’s going to be like and I can’t wait to get there.”

Although Fay is excited to be going back home to perform in front of a supportive home crowd, he’s not satisfied with just making it this far. Like his fellow wrestlers, Fay is focused on making the Olympic Team bound for London this summer.

With the Olympic Trials only a week away, Fay is confident in his preparation and trusts his abilities that have gotten him this far in his wrestling career.

“At this point right now, all the work is done. I’m in awesome shape, I’ve done so many sprints that I don’t even want to talk about and I know I’ve done everything I needed to do,” Fay said. “I feel I have lived the lifestyle of a wrestler that is going to win the Olympic Trials and so all the work has been put in right now. I just need to dwell on the positive thoughts and be confident in my abilities.”

The 26-year-old’s road to Olympian is not an easy one. Before Fay can realize his dream, he has to make it through the difficult 74 kg weight class challenge tournament, and then wrestle World champion Jordan Burroughs in the best-of-3 finals series. Even then, if Fay wins, he will then go to an international event overseas and must place higher than Burroughs to be on the U.S. Olympic Team.

“It is definitely a steeper mountain to climb at 74 kg and 96 kg because of Burroughs and (Jake) Varner,” Men’s Freestyle National Team Assistant Coach Brandon Slay said. “But I believe Moza has the potential and the ability to beat anybody he sets his heart and mind to. He’s dotted all his ‘I’s and crossed his ‘T’s and trained appropriately so when he goes into the Trials he should be confident that he’s done all he can and be ready to shine.”

Moza attributes a lot of his success to his training partner and good friend, Tyler Caldwell. Fay says Caldwell, who will be among Fay’s competition next week, is a tough competitor and going against him each day makes him better.

“Tyler is a competitive partner and he’s one of my top competitors,” Fay said. “We have an awesome relationship and we really push each other. Competing against each other every day makes for a real competitive environment day to day and to have a training partner like that, it’s really awesome to have a guy like that.”

The Olympic Trials will be a culmination of a whirlwind of the past two years for Fay. In September of 2009 he got married and four months later he and his wife moved out to Colorado Springs so Fay could train at the United States Olympic Training Center and focus on his dream of making it to the Olympics.

In addition to his wrestling duties, Fay is in the process of obtaining his MBA through DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management. He spends the majority of his free time in-between practice sessions in the Athlete Service Center lounge doing homework. And to top it all off, Fay and his wife have a three-week-old daughter.

With all that on his plate, Fay is able to stay focused and be a leader on the wrestling team.

“Moza is a fabulous leader, he does what he says, has an extreme work ethic and is a man of integrity,” Slay said. “He’s a great example, not just for the older guys, but for our developmental guys, our junior level guys who are 18 or 19 years old and we have about nine of those guys. So, it’s really important if you have nine 18- or 19-year-olds that you have some real solid leaders that are 25, 26, and 27 years old and Moza is that guy for us.”

Fay has a wealth of opportunities to succeed in wrestling, including setting his sights on competing for the 2016 Olympics and entertaining some coaching proposals. However, Moza would first like to add 2012 Olympic Team member to his list of most memorable moments, which includes wrestling 2008 Olympian Ben Askren on top of the USS Intrepid and competing in Cuba.

For a kid whose wrestling career began when he was five years old rough housing with his brother in the living room, he will have the opportunity to wrestle in the same arena in which he used to be a spectator as young boy.

“It’s obviously a dream come true just to make it to London,” Fay said. “I wouldn’t move half-way across the country to Colorado Springs to not make that spot. It’s very exciting just to have the opportunity to compete for that but it would be a dream come true to make the Olympic Team.”

Follow Moza Fay on his quest to become an Olympic Team member on Twitter and Facebook

Devotional #2

2008 Olympian Doug Schwab

Endure hardness as a Good Soldier of Jesus Christ

II Timothy 2:3-5

"Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴ No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. ⁵ Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules"



My name is Todd Tiffin and Rob asked me to write a devotional for his blog. I live in Tecumseh OK and have been involved with athletics all my life. I wrestled in High School and was an amateur boxer for awhile and coached my sons, one thing I learned competing and coaching was that in order to be prepared for success there were some difficult things that I had to train myself to endure. Competing in physical contests require a certain amount of skill and physical stamina if you want to be victorious. These things are cultivated by training.
     Often training is simply doing the thing you will compete at over and over again, even to the point of exhaustion. Eventually your level of fatigue will decrease as your strength and cardiovascular system grow accustomed to the activity. Though this process your body resists the difficulty you are forcing it to engage in and your mind will try to cause you to stop or take it easy. Elite athletes train themselves to overcome these impulses and press through the pain in order to achieve a higher level of proficiency.
     In life there are many opportunities, many choices that are set before us. Sometimes these choices are easy to make and other times they seem difficult or dangerous. Occasionally situations require us to sacrifice things we enjoy, to do what we believe is the right thing to do. The line between what is right or best, and what is wrong or less than best is not always easy to distinguish. Often there seems to be a reward or advantage if we choose to compromise in what we believe to be the right action to take, or the right choice to make.
     Paul writing to his young protégé knew the common struggle that all men face. He knew that the inner man is trained much like the body. The compromises we fall to, do something to us inside, weaken our resolve, make it easier to fail again. He reminds Timothy to resist the impulse to be “entangled with the affairs of this life”. In order to become the man that God wants us to be you and I must train ourselves to resist becoming tangled up in sinful choices that “war against our soul”. They weaken us, sap our strength, causing us to be dull and easily overcome.
     Mastering ourselves is a lifelong pursuit. Striving for mastery over the temptations to take the shortcuts or compromise the truth calls for deep character inside. Requires us to choose to walk the ancient path, believing that God is leading us to the destination, the destiny, we were made to reach.
Press on.

Chase Pami - US Olympic Wrestling

Watch a great video of Chase Pami as he talks about the upcoming Olympic Trials and his training. Chase is part of the Bible Study at the Olympic Training Center!!

Devotional #1

Thought it would be fun to start an online devotional as part of our blog. It is great way for people to share their insights and learn more about God's word. Here is an example....

James 4:17 "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

I have had the pleasure to meet with a man, Ross from our church, each week for breakfast to learn from him and go through the book The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith. One of the many pieces of wisdom I have picked up from this time with Ross is the phrase "Do what is right and let God take care of the rest!"

This phrase has changed the way I look at everything from life, marriage, even to wrestling. All I am asked to do is what God is calling me to do....the right thing! Such as: Should I make this or that purchase? As a coach and competitor am I  doing what is ethical and right? How should I treat this or that person? How should I handle a situation? All of these can be answered by doing what is right, they may not have the most positive "worldly" outcome, but God is in charge and the world is under his control. He will work things out for us!