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Football.
A game, a sport.
A small oval ball on a field.
A pastime, a passion.
But could it be more?
Could this game that means so much to so many
be used for something divine?
Maybe, if you have the right coach.
It's time for the best
in NAIA college football,
an inside look at all the action, highlights,
and personalities of the defending national champions,
the Carson-Newman Eagles on the Ken Sparks Show.
You know, everybody keeps saying legendary.
Does that mean I owe a lot of people money?
Or what does that mean exactly?
I know it means you're old and I'm still a nobody,
but I'm still honoring the Lord with what I'm trying to do.
And so I'm excited about all this.
I hope our intentions are always to serve
the great God that is unbelievable.
Undefeated, do you know we serve an undefeated God?
Isn't that something?
And so, if we'll do that, everything will be fine, Stan.
He said, it's more important for us to win
souls for Jesus Christ than it is to win football games.
This generation, coaches are the missionaries.
I'm watching all these guys who were my heroes
on the football playing field, cry and talk about Jesus.
He was a warrior.
That's what he was.
He was a person that talked to talk
and he walked the walk.
He always reminded me that the scoreboard in my heart
is what mattered.
And that my life belonged to Jesus,
and I belonged to Jesus first,
before I was a football player.
He believed in his heart that if he was introducing Christ
spiritually to his players,
that they would become better people.
Who was Ken Sparks?
Ken Sparks was the fifth all-time winningest coach in NCAA,
and he's above Bear Bryant, and he's behind Bobby Bowden;
two icon coaches in football.
But he was also the winningest coach in NCAA Division II.
But Ken Sparks...
He was my coach.
He was THE coach.
And you wonder why this man showed up
in so many people's lives?
And to understand Ken Sparks and who he was and what he did,
you really have to go back.
So, let's just start at the beginning.
He was born in February 25th, 1944.
And his family was very poor.
A typical Appalachian East Tennessee family.
So the Sparks family were rough,
like they were hard drinkers and moonshiners.
He didn't talk a whole lot about his childhood.
Seeing an opportunity to get out of poverty
in the days of prohibition,
Ken's father began selling beer at the last liquor store
before entering a dry county.
Needless to say, he was very successful.
And the Sparks family soon purchased a grocery store
where Ken spent his days working as he grew up.
His dad was a great man.
He worked constantly and hard and instilled in my father
this whole work ethic thing.
You can do anything for try hard enough.
Always working at the family store,
Ken didn't have much time for sports.
And even if he did have a moment,
there was no local field to play on.
When you grow up in the south, football is everything.
Sports are great, but football is king.
Touchdown!
Inspired by the work ethic his father
was instilling in him at the store,
Ken was determined to find a way to play ball.
Driven is an understatement for Ken Sparks.
He was the most driven person I'd ever met.
Bower Field is a park in south Knoxville,
that a lot of people in South Knoxville know all about
'cause everybody's played baseball there.
That park came about because my father,
who was 12-years-old, went to Mr. Bower,
who owned that land and said,
"Mr. Bower, there needs to be a park in South Knoxville."
And Mr. Bower said, "Okay, how do you plan
on making this happen?"
Mr. Bower, and my dad as a 12-year-old, got a plan together.
12-year-old Ken Sparks did that.
Sports came natural to young Ken,
and he found what would be a lifetime passion.
Religion and church, on the other hand, didn't come so easy.
Growing up, he had been to church only once,
and he called it "the most boring hour of my life."
Despite that though, the voice of God was clear to him,
even in his youth.
He remembered walking on the gravel road
outside of his house.
And he said, "I was probably 10-years-old."
And he said, "I had this feeling that God was with me.
And that God had a purpose for me."
Young Ken still had a lot of growing up to do,
not sure who exactly he or God was yet.
As a teen, he found himself joining a local gang
of ruffians called the Jokers.
He got in fights, spent a night in jail,
ran around with girls and drank too much.
But he soon began to learn it was leading him to nowhere.
And heading into a senior year in high school,
something was stirring in young Ken.
A chance invitation from a Christian group
called Young Life, to the beaches of Florida
for a weekend retreat caught his attention.
The promise of fun in the sun
and girls in their bathing suits had him
hook, line and sinker.
So he said, "I'm in, how much did it cost?"
And it was some real high price.
Like it was like 200 bucks or something.
But back then that was an astronomical price.
But once Ken set his mind to something,
it was going to happen.
He crafted a plan.
Ken bought light bulbs at his father's store at cost
and then went door to door, selling them at double markup
to raise money for as he said, "sick children."
It was a brilliant con job, and it worked.
And he says, "So I'm going door to door lying,
telling them what I'm selling this for,
charging 'em double what they can get it for at the store."
And he said, "I raised that $200 to go see these girls
in bathing suits in Florida at this Young Life retreat."
Total wrong motives, the whole thing.
Despite what got him there,
at that retreat, Ken encountered a God who loved him,
forgave him and wanted a relationship with him.
He was forever changed.
He gave his life to Jesus, and he never looked back.
So, he ended up going to UT.
He ended up getting mono, he got sick, his dad got sick,
he had to leave UT and start working for the family store.
And was thinking, where is God in all of this?
He didn't know and didn't understand that God
is working behind the scenes.
I think trials is where God does some of his best works.
By the way, when I read the scripture,
every time there's a storm, Jesus shows up.
It just so happened that a local Little League team
was in need of a coach.
When asked if he would take on the job,
Ken, with nothing else to do, reluctantly agreed.
And these guys won almost every game except one.
He said it was through that,
it was seeing the life change.
He said, seeing these 12-year-old kids that look to me
and we're hearing everything I was saying,
that I realized what Billy Graham later said.
And that the most influential person in a guy's life
next to his parents is his coach.
They're the ones who are on the front lines.
They know more about race relations.
They know more about violence and hatred and prejudice,
'cause every day they deal with it.
They know about the disintegration of families.
They deal with it every day.
And he said, "The lights came on.
Now I realize this is what God wants me to do."
The God he encountered as a child on the dirt road
was ensuring him once again that he had a purpose
for his life.
And one Sunday morning, filled with certainty,
Ken walked down the aisle of his church
and knelt at the altar,
devoting his life to coaching for God's glory.
It was during this time that Ken met the woman
that he would marry.
When I met him, he was a new Christian.
I was like 17.
We got married and I was 18 and a half.
So it was a year and a half of dating.
The two young newly weds started a family.
And now with mouths to feed,
Ken's drive to coach only doubled.
He knew that I've gotta be the best coach
I can possibly be.
If God wants me to do this,
then I'm not gonna do it halfway.
He decided to get his Master's degree at Tennessee Tech.
He got a great exposure to the real world of football,
college football at Tennessee Tech, because it was godless.
He said, "You know, there was an assistant coach."
And he said, "This guy was a jerk.
He was terrible, he would brag about how many girls
he could get to have sex with."
And he said, "And so I'm around this environment,
and it was all about winning all the time
and they couldn't even win."
He said, "That's the thing."
He said, "And I started realizing that it's not about...
When you make the main thing, that winning's the main thing
and that's your God, you don't get that or anything else."
He said, "But if you make God your God, then you get that,
and God sometimes throws in the other."
It was this epiphany that would go on to shape
every aspect of Ken's coaching throughout his career.
Put God first, and the rest will fall into place.
Leave God out, and you lose,
even if you do manage to win once in a while.
And then, God opened a door.
Without much experience, he landed a job
as an assistant football coach at the prestigious
Christian college, Carson-Newman College.
And he's got these goals,
he's got these visions in his mind.
And how is he gonna flesh this out?
And so, Coach Sparks got involved with FCA.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes
is an international sports ministry that's been transforming
the lives of coaches and athletes for more than six decades.
It was this kind of mission that excited Ken
more than a career opportunity.
FCA happened at our house.
It was so normal for me to have never know who I was gonna
be fixing dinner for or breakfast for that matter.
And I used to tease Ken that we just need to install
a revolving door because you know,
there's no point to have a door knob or anything, just...
I remember just being fascinated by the amount of students
that would pile into the room.
FCA and coaches taught me that you can reach kids
without all the structure on the outside.
It was about a relationship with Christ.
And that was probably the greatest thing about it.
Some of the relationships that I think about now.
Guys that I witnessed that got saved,
that changed their lives.
And it was through that program, it was through Ken Sparks.
♪ For you anywhere I can ♪
As young men, there's a lot of different things
that are going on.
There's a lot of things that you're into.
Coach Sparks wanted to help you understand what it meant
to be a good man.
What it meant to be a Christian.
My dad was so involved in the student life there.
Ken was determined to share with his players
the salvation and transformation
that he experienced himself.
♪ It all started with a spark ♪
He was fervently devoted to their wellbeing so much
that it even cost him his job.
It's not well known,
but Coach Sparks was fired by Carson-Newman.
And so there was this struggle with, between Wyche,
the new head coach and probably my dad,
who was a little bit of big for his britches at that point.
I remember this moment that happened.
A player had had a knee injury
and Wyche wanted him to go in the ball game.
Well, Wyche's up in the press box.
Well, dad's telling him on phone,
"Hey, we're not putting him in."
Well, Wyche takes the mics off and quit listening to him,
and told him, "I want him in."
I'll never forget the moment when my dad turned around
and yelled from the field.
He got motivated and he said,
"Let me tell you something, Wyche!
You're not gonna put that kid in
because he is gonna be hurt!"
I mean, he just basically yelled at him
that over his dead body was that kid going in
'cause he cared about the kid.
Well, Wyche's sitting here thinking we gotta get
some more points on the board.
And he cares about the kid.
And that was the end.
He became the track coach.
It was a terrible blow.
Could he have failed at his mission already?
Sometimes it's really hard to believe in an invisible God.
Sometimes it feels like the heavens are brash and closed.
And sometimes you feel like God doesn't hear you or see you.
But I think it's in those moments to where we go back
to those days where the Lord has really been faithful to us.
Disheartened, but not defeated,
Ken decided to give track all he had and to do it for God.
And true to form, he went all the way in.
We would drive down to Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi,
down to the deep south,
and go to these schools in the deep south.
And he would go to the principal of the school and say,
"Hey, I'm from Carson-Newman College.
We're a college up in Tennessee.
Could I get all the males in this school
out on the football field?
I just wanna see who's got some speed.
And somehow get the principal to go along with that,
and they would line up.
I'm not kidding you,
every kid in that school on a goal line.
I can remember going to those places with him,
and watching these barefoot kids in these rural schools run.
And some of those guys,
they're still like on the Wall of Fame at Carson-Newman
of breaking records, being All Americans,
still sometimes hold records today.
An opportunity to coach high school football
at a small country school for a team with an average record
might not have been glamorous.
But when Ken was offered the job,
he saw only potential and jumped at the chance.
He was soon the football coach at Farragut High School,
a job that would end up changing his life forever.
And back then, Farragut was farmers.
And that was the nickname, Farragut farmers.
And that football field was just,
I mean, it was like a cow pasture.
And just like he did at 12-years-old with Bower Field,
Ken set his sights not on what wasn't,
but instead on what could be.
I can remember being out there on that field with my dad
and him saying, "Son, lemme tell you what's gonna happen.
We're gonna have a new field,
and it's gonna be sitting right over there.
God's gonna really do a great work here.
And there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna come
to him and we've gotta hope and pray
that that's gonna happen."
I wanted to be a professional football player.
I was on track, going that way.
When I was 11, I ended up being in a neighborhood
that there was a guy there that sexually abused me.
It took me off track and it played a part in my life,
and how I thought about myself,
but I continued to play football.
I think it was a way to get out.
So the first time I met Ken Sparks,
we had been assembled in the gymnasium.
And this young coach comes out and said,
"Things are gonna change around here."
And with what felt like a blank slate,
Ken was suddenly free to coach however he felt led to.
Then we would do hand-to-hand combat.
He got Football players to do ballet.
It had never been done before.
Besides that, he ignited something in a lot of people.
You could tell that it wasn't necessarily about football.
It was about us.
He always realized that each one of those players
were young men who were going to be one day,
most likely husbands, they were gonna be fathers.
They were going to be...
And his prayer would be they would be men of God.
Because if you don't care about what happens
to that kid off the field,
then you don't know what he is gonna deal with,
and what he brings to practice
is what he deals with off the field.
We would play racquetball.
We would talk about life.
Coach Sparks, always, anytime I saw him,
"How's your heart?"
He always wanted to know how your heart was
and what you were doing and what was going on in your life.
So I was third string and our star quarterback
went down with a knee injury.
And Ken Sparks decided to put me in at first string.
He knew that I was a broken guy.
And he was going to mold me with confidence.
Why me?
It's amazing where God will step in to do His will.
And He's using a game called football
to change people's lives.
Ken Sparks stepped in, became a spiritual father.
The most important word spoken in the average school
today is "Coach says."
I don't remember who taught me freshman English.
I don't remember who taught me history.
I do remember what my coach taught me.
And what he taught us was God's gonna get the glory
and the score will take care of itself.
Ken's new methods in philosophy
soon began to prove themselves.
And the perennial losing team became an outstanding winner.
We were the District Champs, the Regional Champs.
We broke all the school records,
and lost only three games in three years.
While also fostering future NFL star Bill Bates,
who would then go on to play for the Dallas Cowboys
for 15 years.
Things had changed for the better at Farragut High School.
The worn down football field had been replaced by a new one,
and seeds for a great future for the whole community
were planted in Ken's wake.
He attempted great things for God,
but he always expected great things from God in the mix.
Suddenly, everyone was aware of this young coach
who was doing the impossible.
And job offers started rolling in.
And 'cause he had no money and he had no scholarships,
and he won with kids that nobody else wanted.
And just like that, Carson-Newman College
saw what they were missing and wanted him back.
They offered him the job, not only as Head Football Coach,
but his Athletic Director as well.
He was only 36-years-old at the time.
So coming to Carson-Newman was a huge deal.
It was an epic point of arrival for Ken,
and his striving for excellence was a mile high.
He would be the best coach.
They would win.
And more importantly, he would minister to his players.
I'd been through the recruiting thing,
I'd been everywhere and it's not very often
a 6'6" 300-pound lineman comes walking in your door,
so all the coaches got up.
I think Coach Sparks came out and he wanted me to go
to his office and talk.
And so I went to his office,
and Coach Sparks and I started talking,
and we never really talked about football.
We didn't talk about how fast you ran the 40
or how much you bench press.
And didn't talk about any of those things.
We talked about life and then he stops
right in the middle of the conversation.
And he said, "I sense that you are a Christian."
And he said, "Are you a Christian?"
And I just broke down on the spot,
I was so broken at that time.
I said, "Yes, sir, I am.
I am a Christian."
And I was struggling,
and I think he sensed that I was struggling.
So we spent the next hour or so just talking about
our relationships with Christ.
A long story short, I ended up signing
with Carson-Newman that day.
And I didn't know anything about Carson-Newman.
I drove back home, I picked up my clothes,
told my parents and I was in school the next day
at Carson-Newman.
When I walked in the door, to my surprise,
Coach Ken Sparks is sitting there with my mom and dad
at my dinner table.
I sat down at the table, he introduces himself.
The first thing he does with me is he passes
a car bumper sticker across the table to me;
orange and blue had a big eagle head on it,
had this statement, "Athletics with a purpose."
He said, "You know, at Carson-Newman,
we're about developing young men just like you
to be better fathers, husbands, coaches, businessmen."
Ken Sparks was at Carson-Newman, I talked to him,
why wouldn't I want to play for Coach Sparks?
I would do anything for Coach Sparks.
All of a sudden we got a nice house,
and we've got two cars, things are cool, you know?
And my dad's getting a lot of...
He's a little bit of a local star,
you know, it feels like to me.
But the demands of the job
were more than the family had anticipated.
Coaches have a tough life; they're fathers,
they're teachers, they're coaches, they're mentors,
and sometimes their families suffer.
It was typical during football season
that the kids never saw him through the week.
There were recruitment travels
and there were coaches conferences,
and there was always something.
I just remember him being gone a lot.
It was his time was always very limited.
He's the Athletic Director, too.
And so he's gotta be at most of the basketball games.
And so, his life is consumed.
That football field is just immaculate.
Our house is like...
You know, our yard is like up to here.
If I can't get a mowed, it doesn't happen.
He gave everything he had to the game,
to the players, and it came at a cost.
Early on, he was inflicted with what a lot of men are,
and that is just workaholism.
And it had good motivations, you know,
it was all about Christ.
But he tended to leave my mom out.
I had experienced a lot of loneliness.
And we were just kind of out like this.
And I think that's where it starts.
Kids were starting to be teenagers,
and there was a lot going on.
I was teaching full time,
and I felt like I had it all on me.
I went to a Christian marriage counselor.
He made a statement that's been with me from then on.
He said, "Bless your heart.
You're just starved for love."
That was true.
But there was an answer to that because God
never starves us for love and I was His.
Those were the days when "I'm woman, hear me roar."
And people are still saying things like that.
Just listen to any advertisement.
And just all these enticements to get you
focused on yourself.
I started listening to the world
instead of what I knew to be true.
I remember getting pictures made before the season,
that goes into all the programs
and all the handbook and stuff.
And we looked like the perfect family.
And I know in my heart that something's big time wrong.
I knew that mom was unhappy.
I knew that she was sad and I would come home from school
sometimes and she would be emotional.
I had thought about suicide.
You know, I can go away and nobody will ever know
anything bad and the kids'll be okay.
And all the things you tell yourself.
Ken's devotion to his job
and determination to meet its demands,
blinded him to what was happening in his marriage.
I told him one time, one of our last conversations,
I said, "Coach, you've got the ball.
And if you drop it, it's done."
Gail's loneliness had become too much to bear
and a relationship between she and a man in the church choir
began to take hold.
You don't wanna be telling your problems to anyone,
especially not a man.
It just leaves a door open that shouldn't be opened.
When Ken discovered the truth about the other man,
it was too much to bear.
The relationship was beyond repair,
and they decided to end the marriage.
But I remember when dad sat us down and told us
that he and mom were gonna get a divorce.
And remember asking my dad, "Do you love mom?"
And he said, "Yes, son, I do.
I love your mom."
And I said, "Well, mom, do you love dad?"
And she said, "Well, son, it's not that easy."
The world will tell you you've been abandoned.
This person doesn't have any time for you.
You're always last.
All of those typical human weaknesses.
And if you agree with that and act on that,
it's not gonna go well.
If Satan can get our children,
if he can get in between husband and wife,
if he can bust up families, it's one of his finest hours.
Emotionally unstable and suffering,
Gail moved out and the children stayed with Ken.
His number one concern was Chad and Chanda.
For years, I would tell him "Happy Mother's Day."
And you know, because for years,
it was such a combo job that he was trying to do.
You know, dad really was pretty strong at the time to say,
"There's nothing that's gonna make sense in the world,
except for God and what God has for us."
Ken was suddenly alone, heartbroken,
riddled with guilt for the mistakes he'd made.
And with two confused and hurt teenagers to look after.
How could this have happened?
It was the hardest thing that he had ever gone through.
I've seen him lose a lot of great big games.
I've seen him be fine.
But nothing crushed him like that.
And it didn't just happen,
and a crushing happened for a week.
It crushed him for months and years.
But I thought he's not gonna be able to do this.
And he did.
And he did it great.
My sister and I would get angry and we would say,
"Well, she's so dumb.
Where is she, why did she do this?"
And just be blaming her.
And my dad would stop us and say,
"You're not to talk bad about your mom.
You're not gonna talk bad about your mom.
You're gonna pray for her."
And he would start to cry.
"We're gonna love her and we're gonna pray for her,
and you're never gonna say anything negative
about your mom."
And he wouldn't.
And you would go, wow, this guy is like sharing
in the sufferings of Christ here, you know?
And it was like, we're not gonna take it that direction.
You know, we're not gonna be bitter.
Ken was well aware of how his neglect
played into the destruction of his marriage.
Never forget one night, I said,
"The question is not what you ought to do.
The question is will you ever forgive yourself?"
I said, "I need to have a long explanation with you
about what grace really is.
You carrying all his guilt around about what you've done.
You've been set free from that."
God takes things we do and bad decisions that we make
and restores, he forgives.
He restores, and he redeems.
And that's what happened.
In his darkest hours, Ken found strength,
forgiveness, and hope in God.
Never again would he let his work get in the way
of his duty to his family.
But he still had a job to do.
With renewed vigor, he returned to the football field.
You knew if something ever defeated coach,
then he was gonna come back and find a way to win.
Ken Sparks was always this guy who seemed to be able
to rise above the storm.
Ken set his sights on
the 1983 National Championship.
But like himself, the team was facing major setbacks.
You know, we had a great football team,
but we had some battles, we had some struggles.
And there were some times where many of us were wondering
are we gonna make it?
Starting out the season, we were ranked in the top five,
and we lose the first game.
We lose the second game.
And then we go through the rest of the season
and we lose the last game of the season.
There had never been a team with three losses
that's ever been to the playoffs.
But Coach Sparks was always one of those guys
who knew how to rally a team
and help you to believe in yourself.
He challenged us to be faithful,
just as he was being faithful.
I mean, anybody can celebrate
when you're on the mountaintop,
but Coach Sparks had this ability to get us
to rally together and believe in ourselves,
and believe in the program, and believe in the team,
even when we were in dark days.
I do remember it was keeping the faith.
It was keeping the faith.
He wanted us to stay faithful.
And you think probably was saying that to himself.
Despite all the odds stacked against us,
the Carson-Newman Eagles made it
to the National Championship.
Live football, championship football
for the second year.
Jeff Joslin is our quarterback, I'm the tight end.
Carson-Newman really has to be
credited this afternoon.
They haven't committed nearly as many turnovers.
I remember one time that I got hit,
I had to be taken out the game.
One of the players from Carson-Newman
is still down.
I'm going to guess it's probably Jeff Joslin,
the quarterback. It is Jeff Joslin.
Let's see if they can get him to his feet.
More than likely, we were gonna get stuffed
'cause they had a new quarterback in there.
50 yard line, tied at seven.
Again, everybody up on the line of scrimmage for Mesa.
And they give through- They got exploded.
The middle to Larry Smith.
Good night, he is gone.
Inside the 20, touchdown Carson-Newman.
And it took the wind outta that team.
First down, 20 seconds left in the game.
The other team had never threw an interception
for the whole season.
He's under some pressure,
rolling to his right.
Now letting go, looking for Keith Howard.
Intercepted, and that's the ball game.
The football game is over.
It is Christmas in Colorado.
The Eagles are the 1983 N.A.I.A
National College Football Champions.
When we won, I just hit my knees.
And I just gave the glory to God.
And we were just praying and thanking
of this victory within that we had.
Whatever he went through, he had overcome.
And he was back better than before.
We actually talked some many years after that.
And I said, "The best thing that ever happened to you
was me leaving," as far as football was concerned.
He had learned a lot from his divorce
and it infused his coaching with profound wisdom.
Well, I think, Stan, you've gotta stay away
from the emotional highs and lows.
If we live life and play a football game,
which is the same thing,
if we do that based on feelings,
then we've got a lot of problems.
Now I'm not saying there's something wrong with feelings,
but when we start making decisions based on feelings,
and when we start dictating our commitment to each other,
to anything based on feelings,
then we're in trouble because feelings are dumb, you know?
I mean, mine change every day.
And that fact is, they change me many times during the day.
And so, feelings have a second grade education.
So we have to base our commitment to the ball game
on what is right, on truth.
It was a miraculous win on so many levels,
and we just kept winning.
So Coach Sparks was quickly becoming a living legend.
All that's coming up next as the Ken Sparks Show continues
in just a moment.
Ken did not let all the wins and accolades
go to his head.
He stayed true to his mission and purpose.
The only thing that I worry about is for us
to take the good things that happened for us,
you know, the trophies and the rings,
and the honors and the glories, and all of that and say,
"Look at me."
You know, because if we do,
then we've run for the wrong crown
because that crown is gonna tarnish,
those trophies, those rings are gonna tarnish.
They may even get stolen.
They're not gonna have any lasting effect.
The only thing that's lasting is when we are doing
what we're created to do and that's to serve the God
who created us and has a great plan for us.
I really begun to understand he really believed this.
I'd been hand selected that year to be one of 16
college students across the state of Tennessee
to spend the whole summer on a little bitty island
called Parintins in the middle of the Amazon River
in Brazil on mission with him.
I really believe that this is what God wanted me to do,
but I wasn't certain that Coach Sparks would let me go.
So I set up an appointment with Coach Sparks,
went into his office, kind of nervous,
shared this story with him.
And so he turns to me and he says,
"Scott, do you remember the conversation that you and I had
at your dinner table two years ago?
I really meant that.
I think you should go."
This was the moment where I understood Ken Sparks
really meant what he said.
It really was athletics with the purpose.
He really was investing in my life.
He really did care more about the kingdom
than he did winning football games.
It changed me dramatically forever.
While I was there on the island,
I had a deep encounter with God, like never before.
This is the time and the place where God called me
in the full-time ministry.
And then, 18 years ago, the Lord led me to plant
this church called Northstar.
And now, here we are, multiple campuses,
thousands of people coming,
partners with ministries around the globe.
None of this would've ever happened had I not had
this encounter with Ken Sparks in his office that day.
I missed a game winner.
And so, it was my senior year.
I'll never forget it.
I mean, there was two seconds left on the clock.
I think we were behind one and I ended up hooking it left.
Probably one of my worst memories from a game.
You know, going into the locker room,
the first people around me was my teammates at the locker
and Coach Sparks calling me out in front of everyone
and saying, "Hey, this is not all your fault."
It was some my fault, and he made that clear as well,
but the lights were gonna turn off
in the stadium that night,
but the sun was gonna come up the next morning.
And he said to me, "His mercies are new every morning."
And that next day walked into practice,
and you better believe that the first thing we were doing
is lining up on the left hash on the 34 yard line
to kick that field goal again.
Back in those days, I was a very small guy.
'Cause when you're a little guy, well you're picked on.
I hung out a lot with the football players.
They were just my friends.
And one day, Coach Sparks asked me to come down
to his office.
So I went down to his office thinking I'm in trouble.
And he sat me down across from him and he looked at me
and he said, "I've noticed that you hang out
with all the football players."
I said, "Yeah, yes, sir, I do."
He says, "Well, I've noticed that you're kind of a leader."
And I kind of scooted in my chair and said, "You think so?"
And he goes, "Yeah, I watched the way you interact
with people and people gravitate to you,
and we need leaders on our team.
Have you ever thought about being on the football team?"
And of course I looked at him like,
what are you talking about? I go, "I can't play football."
And he says, "I didn't say that I wanted you
to play football."
He said, "I wanna know if you wanna be a leader
on this team."
"Well," he said, "we need a trainer on our team.
We don't have a trainer."
He says, "And I think I need you on this team."
And I think I grew six inches sitting in that chair
because he basically believed in me.
And I became a football member that next weekend.
It was just a moment in time that he spoke power into me
in such a way that it influenced my whole life.
He spoke enough into me to make me believe in myself
in a whole different way.
He was with me, by my side,
when I went through the most difficult time in my life.
I was being recruited as a football player
and had this dream of playing college football.
And that dream ended rather quickly
after a couple of knee injuries that he walked me through.
And I remember when it went out and I went down on the turf,
I screamed out two words, "Coach Sparks."
And now, he was the coach and I was a player,
and that I was through playing.
He could have said, "Okay, well you're done."
And that would be it with me,
but he became more influential in my life, not less.
He became more active with me, not less.
And he started talking to me about,
"Okay, well, what's next for you then?
If it's not going to be maybe as
a college football player,
what other things can you get involved in?"
And he's the one really, one of the ones at least,
that kinda nudged me toward broadcasting,
which I'm still in today.
Even though it was very traumatic for me,
he was able to say, "Look, it's not who you are.
You're a child of God,
and he's gonna take care of you regardless of whether
you have good knees or bad knees."
I really began to see the things that he talked about,
that life was more important than just playing football
and the score after a game.
Life was more about our relationship with God
and our eternity.
The souls of the players
were always Ken's priority.
But that didn't mean he didn't work us
to the bone at practice.
The Carson-Newman football team
was a two-time National Championship winner now,
and it had a reputation to uphold.
Ken set the bar high.
Let me tell you somethin'.
I've seen some tough coaches.
Ken Sparks was tough.
Ken was pretty stern in his rules and didn't bend much.
It was 99 degrees, 99% humidity.
And I can remember going to bed and hurting so bad
after all the contact and all the stuff.
I was wanting to cry.
I was hurting so bad I wanted to cry.
And my lump started rising in my throat,
and I'm thinking, I'm about to cry.
I gotta hold this back 'cause I didn't want my roommate
on the other side of the room to hear me
when we're trying to go to sleep.
And then I heard him crying.
And I thought, okay, so it's fine.
And I started crying and then we just let it go.
So both of us are crying, you know?
But that's just stuff that we all share.
Like, Carson-Newman football was such a serious endeavor.
It was so hard.
I mean, we had guys that had been through bootcamp
and military that dropped out of the team
because they couldn't take it.
It was too hard.
You know, Coach Sparks was not a big guy.
He was a little guy, but he intimidated a lot of people.
Wrapping up our fall camp,
just a couple of weeks before our opening game,
we're having our orange and blue inner-squad scrimmage
down on the practice field.
This was the first time I saw him
absolutely lose his cool.
Ken watched on as one of the linebackers
kicked a fellow teammate while he was down.
And all of a sudden I saw him run towards a player.
And he literally makes one of the most beautiful
form tackles I've ever seen on an athlete.
And grab his helmet and he was shaking him.
He was screaming.
And I couldn't really understand what he was saying,
but I just remember thinking, "Oh my gosh!"
It scared me to death 'cause I just,
I'd never seen that side of him before.
You could have heard a pin drop out on the football field.
There was 100 players out there
and nobody was saying a word.
And then all of a sudden he got off of him.
Picks him up and says, "Hey, let me help you understand
why this is so important.
What we're doing here, what we're trying to accomplish."
And he said, "I'm not gonna allow that on my team."
That was an eye opener for me.
I remember that being the first time that I thought,
"Oh my goodness, he's gonna have people do the right thing
and he's gonna correct 'em
if they don't do the right thing."
Ken's coaching legacy was well underway.
He set a new standard,
and the success of his technique was undeniable.
Apart from all the wins, one thing was sure,
he was sharing the love of Christ with countless young men
who would leave Carson-Newman University
and take the spark he lit in them out to the world.
There was one thing though that Ken had failed at,
but it turns out God had a plan for that, too.
People had said to me and I think they said to him too,
that we would be a good fit, 'cause we both loved the Lord,
and we both had gone through divorces
that we had not chosen to have happen.
Ken met Carol after he recruited her son
to play at Carson-Newman University.
Intrigued by her and encouraged by friends,
he gave her a call.
Ken's version of this conversation is that I gave one word
answers to everything and he hung up and said,
"I will never call her again."
God had a different plan though.
I'll never forget having discussion with him.
I said, "Ken, do you know that God's given
you a second chance?"
I was walking into church and Ken drives up.
And he didn't plan it, I didn't plan it, but there we were.
He said, "Can we sit together in church?"
And that was in July of '93.
And in December of '93 is when we got married.
She's the one who brought balance to Ken's life
for the first real time.
And she didn't care whether he won ball games or not.
She just loved him, and she supported him.
It was a second chance for them both.
Ken found the marriage that he had always hoped for
and believed in.
He was determined to be the husband she needed
and that he knew God wanted him to be.
And he was inspired to help other coaches to do the same.
He created a clinic for coaches and their wives;
learning from his past mistakes and using them for good.
So I know he wound up going through a divorce,
but I know there are a bunch of marriages that's been saved
because of Coach Sparks and that clinic.
It was something that coaches were looking for.
It was something that they needed.
I don't understand how those guys do it.
Only the Lord can keep those marriages strong
and only the Lord can keep those relationships strong
because of the time constraints and the pressures
that are put on college coaches now.
And you know with this issue now,
all of us are going through basically the same things.
We're all having to deal with trying to coach kids
and trying to keep our families together,
and trying to be a husband, trying to be a father.
And he felt like it was important for coaches
to understand that yes, their job is demanding,
but their wife needs to have them spend time at home.
Just like he felt called into coaching,
he felt called to do that clinic.
He could con every named coach to come in to speak.
I'd be on a program with Dungy and and Bobby Bowden,
and it's crazy the people that Sparks go to come
because they love Ken Sparks.
All the things that God has allowed to happen in my life,
through high school and through college,
through my career with the Raiders,
Super Bowls and all those things,
those were all well and good.
And I appreciate those things,
but those things don't prepare.
And I think he always knew that in order
the way for us to function is if he could create
that spark in your heart spiritually,
to help pump the spiritual blood through our veins
and through our bodies.
And we connect with Christ and it's gonna help us
be more able to connect with our wives.
There was a point that me and my wife were really...
We had a kid and like life is different.
And we were having some hard times and trying to figure out
how to balance that out.
And I just remember sitting on that couch
and talking to coach and you know,
I'd say it had a very critical point in saving my marriage.
I continued to go to the coaching clinic
even after I left Carson-Newman.
It had a huge impact on our life.
He didn't just talk to the coaches.
He's like, I wanna talk to your wife.
Makes sure you understand this is not a coaches clinic.
This is a coaches and wives clinic, and this is your clinic.
And if at anytime that you don't feel like
you're the most important person here,
you raise your hand and we'll get that changed.
You know, just to hear him and see him interact
and talk to the wives about,
"Hey, I don't know who's right and who's wrong.
I'm not that interested in that.
But like, where is Christ in this?"
And so, once we meet at Christ,
regardless of what's going on,
we'll be able to repair all the broken pieces.
Ken and Carol continued to lead
the coaches and wives clinic as an integral part
of the Sparks football ministry.
As the years passed and the wins continued to accumulate,
under Ken's leadership,
Carson-Newman football soared to new heights.
The Eagles have a new nest to protect.
11 months after ending their last campaign,
Carson-Newman is debuting Burke-Tarr Stadium.
Eagles know they have more room to grow.
It was yet another stadium come to life
under Ken's influence.
It debuted to a sell out crowd of over 5,000 football fans
as Ken neared 250 wins in his coaching career.
Ken was inducted into the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
Hall of Champions.
And was immortalized at Carson-Newman University
with the title of the Ken Sparks Complex,
a complex which housed new locker rooms, weight rooms,
new offices, and more.
And watched over the football field where his legacy
at Carson-Newman University began so many years before.
Life changes and kids change and society changes.
Our cultural influences are constantly trying to cause us
to be something that probably that we don't need to be.
But the thing that doesn't change,
blocking is still blocking and tackling is still tackling,
and truth doesn't change, Adam.
You know, God's got his word that he honors
in those of us who believe it and operate on truth,
and do what's right and try to keep from doing what's wrong.
And I think he's involved in that.
And so, those principles never change.
You know, Ken, wasn't a complainer,
but he'd been saying things to me like, "I don't feel good.
I'm tired."
And this had gone on for a while.
And one morning, he made a comment like that.
And I said, "Are you gonna call the doctor or am I?"
Ken was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer.
We kinda all saw him as Superman.
And so, initially when you first found out,
you got that first assumption like,
"Oh, well, it ain't that big a deal.
Everything's gonna be okay.
It beats everybody else, but coach'll make it.
He'll find a way to win it."
It was almost like it was no big deal.
He really did not talk much about it or say a lot about it.
You know, I was out here one day and Coach Sparks
was out on the field and stuff
and I could tell he was tired.
And so, I went and got a golf cart and brought a golf cart.
Well, Coach Sparks was, you know,
he didn't want a golf cart.
Now, I won't say he's stubborn,
but sometimes he had a mind in his own.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Poor in spirit simply means I'm gonna trust God with this.
I always tell people,
two questions you gotta answer every day:
Is God God, or are you God?
If God's God, then you don't have to fight this by yourself.
And I think Ken was going through that struggle.
Ken was such an optimist, such a fighter.
You know, Ken was just faithful to the Lord
through it all.
Never blamed God for like, why do I have cancer?
Or, you know, this is, why me, Lord?
And then I said, "Dad, I'm just,
I'm struggling with this."
He said, "Hey, man, hey," and I'm crying.
He said, "Hey, man, hey, hey, everybody gets to die."
Just like that.
"Everybody gets to die."
And I was just blown away by this guy
that is looking forward to doing the thing
that ultimately we all, in his words, "get to do."
And that is to finish this life and finish this race
and to get the prize and to be with Jesus.
Ken's spiritual fortitude carried him
and those closest to him
through his intense battle with cancer.
And although he was struggling,
it only deepened his sense of purpose
with his players on the field.
And his coaching record reflected that.
Touchdown Carson-Newman!
Sparks moved into a tie for fifth place
on the all time wins list with legendary Alabama coach,
Bear Bryant, with the victory.
The good book reminds us that we should
let another praise us and not the words of our own mouth.
There's another coach that has now won 300 football games.
Since the 1800s, there have only been a handful
of football coaches to achieve 300 wins like Ken.
It was an honor that could have easily gone to his head,
but it didn't.
You mentioned this a lot before,
it's not always about Xs and Os,
but it's about changing lives,
and not just about winning and losing.
And that's happened a lot in your 33 years here.
Well, you know, it's amazing how so many guys have come.
Some of 'em with brokenness in their life,
and many of 'em that didn't have a clue
about how they were gonna make it in life.
And to see how the Lord has used people, used Carson-Newman.
It goes to show you that the Lord can do...
With a silly game like football,
the Lord can do some miraculous things with it.
In a world of athletics where it's all about achievement
and prestige and size and weight and speed,
my dad was this opposite to all those things.
A pro football player or some hot shot media guy
or some hot shot pro coach,
dad was around those guys all the time,
rubbing elbows with 'em.
They really didn't impress him that much,
but he would treat the janitor or the waitress
or the person that nobody else was paying attention to
with the most incredible amount of dignity and love.
And I've learned that that's what a real man is about.
It was this spirit and perspective
that made Ken different.
And was what earned him the first ever Uncommon Award,
given to him by famed NFL coach, Tony Dungy.
I met Ken Sparks in 1990
at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp
in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
He was my huddle leader.
I was a young assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers
and I watched Coach Sparks for a week.
And I saw that you could be successful
and care about your players,
care about your relationship with the Lord.
And that wins and losses were important,
but they were secondary in that relationship with the Lord.
And he inspired me.
He gave me that role model of how to coach.
So, a tremendous leader of men,
and one of the best coaches I know.
I said, if I can impact men like Ken Sparks has,
it'll be a successful career.
In the midst of it all,
he continued to win football games.
His battle with cancer, on the other hand,
wasn't going so well.
He just kept fighting, kept fighting.
You have to experience that time in your life
where you say you can't fix this.
And Ken was going through that struggle.
You can't fix this, Ken.
It'll be fixed eventually,
but probably not the way you want it to.
Ken's doctors tried all they could,
but his health was declining.
He was going through chemotherapy while still coaching
and giving it everything he had.
He laughed at me one day, but he said,
"I hadn't made any funeral arrangements,
but what I'm hoping is I'll die here on the field.
And just roll me over in that kudzu and I'll...
And I just stay right here on the hill."
And that's who he was.
And his faith did that for him.
He wasn't some great hero.
His faith was real to him.
Sometimes people try to look at the negative
and sometimes they won't to say,
"Well, why this and why that?"
And I always say it like this,
that Satan means things for harm,
but the Lord means 'em for good.
And if we just trust him and keep our eyes on him,
then good things are gonna happen
regardless of the circumstances.
He says, "Son, I have tried to teach you
how to live for Christ,
but now I wanna teach you how to die with Christ."
And man, he did.
It was amazing to me.
Sometimes I would just kind of think,
okay, you should know this man by now,
but he would be there getting his chemo,
and he was trying to encourage everybody in the room.
And yet he was getting chemo, too.
If I would say, "Dad, turn your phone off."
'Cause people called him all the time,
and he'd always take the call.
And he would answer the phone and it'd be some player
from 20 years ago.
"Hey, tell me about how you are spiritually.
How's your heart?"
You know, there goes the question.
And that never stopped.
I would call him to cheer him up.
Now, he would always cheer me up.
He would be totally composed.
And when it got where I was crying so much, I just hung up.
'Cause I cried a lot more than he did it.
It wasn't bothering him as much as it was bothering me.
"Don't worry about me.
How's your heart?
How's your life?
But don't worry about me, I'm gonna be fine.
I know where I'm gonna be at."
He taught me that as a follower of Jesus Christ,
that you can go through some of the darkest,
deepest valleys, but still have a deep faith
and a joy in the Lord as you do it.
Ken had to accept that his time on earth
was coming to a close.
And although it pained him terribly,
that meant he did not have the physical ability
to coach as he once did.
One ball game, and I remember getting the car
and bringing it around to pick him up.
And he was laying out on the field.
Laying.
He was faced with the day
he thought would never come.
It was not death that frightened Ken,
but leaving the football field.
But the inevitable was upon him
and God was calling him onward.
Now I'm gonna talk to you for a minute.
After 37 years as head coach
at Carson-Newman University, Ken retired.
I wanted to make the announcement
that I won't be coaching...
After 47 years, it's hard.
But the mission hasn't changed, guys.
I want y'all to understand that.
My mission hadn't changed.
And what is my mission?
Now, it should be all of our missions.
And that is to honor and glorify the God who's created us
and got big plans for us and is trying to do
some unbelievable things through us.
And that's what I want to continue to do.
That's what, I won't have a whistle around my neck.
Carol will have a rope around my neck.
And but, we'll it's just...
Last week after missing three days of practice,
been in the hospital four straight days, I said,
"I'm not a very good football coach.
And these guys deserve a better coach."
And so, that's how the decision came about.
And I wanted to, my goal was,
and you've heard me say this before.
My goal was to die on a practice field,
and have 'em roll me over in kudzu.
And Carol wouldn't have to worry about
funeral arrangements and all that, but we're going to...
We're going to see what the Lord has for us.
On March 29th, 2017, four months after Ken retired,
he went to be with the God he devoted his life to serving.
This one particular place we went
and stayed at this very wealthy guy's lake house.
And they had a caretaker, a groundskeeper.
I mean, he's just a really, really poor down and out guy,
older fella.
My dad made that guy his mission that week.
He just, he became like the most important human being
because he was the only one there that wasn't in the family.
And he said, "I don't believe he knows Jesus."
And he would say, "Hey, Ed, I wanna tell you something.
You're doing an incredible job. I want you to look at it.
Son, did you see how great this place looks?
I bet Ed, Ed, you did this, didn't you?"
And he'd just build the guy up like he's the king of earth,
all so that he could love him and share Jesus with him.
And this is what it was like to live with Ken Sparks
everywhere you went.
You went in the gas station,
he's gonna tell the guy about Jesus.
He's going honor him, he's gonna love him.
You're here for how long?
And then you have to step over into eternity.
What you do in the huddle didn't make any difference.
It's what you do when the play's called
and you go to line of scrimmage that makes the difference.
So that means what you do in the world makes the difference.
You know, the gospel transforms lives across the
street and around the world.
And that guy, Ken Sparks, modeled that.
There are thousands and thousands of guys
all across the world, just like me,
who are directly impacted by Ken Sparks,
who are still carrying out the mission and the vision
of athletics with a purpose.
It'll always be a great joy for me
to call Ken Sparks my coach.
You knew that Coach cared about you.
That's the difference.
And that's the spark that happened in my life.
That spark, it wasn't Coach Sparks.
It was a person, Jesus Christ,
that came into his life and it had to come out.
Once one little candle's lit, the darkness is
dispelled. The light shines in the darkness and it's Christ in us.
And he is, what Ken would tell you, made all the difference.
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪
If one man could do so much,
change so many lives for all eternity with just a game,
it makes you wonder: What could I do?
Or better yet, what could God do with me?
Because it only takes a spark.
♪ It only takes a pigskin and a couple of guys ♪
♪ In a big ole field ♪
♪ To have a good time ♪
♪ It ain't no fun playing by yourself ♪
♪ Throwing and catching was made ♪
♪ For doing with somebody else ♪
♪ And if you find you need some help ♪
♪ Then one more comes along ♪
♪ To point you in the right direction ♪
♪ And to keep you from doing it wrong ♪
♪ It just takes a little light for us to see ♪
♪ Wonder what the whole wide world could be ♪
♪ If that holy flame got lit ♪
♪ Well it might be the very thing that we all need ♪
♪ It doesn't really matter how high the flame ♪
♪ Long as it burns everyday ♪
♪ We need every part to brighten up the dark ♪
♪ But it only takes a spark ♪
♪ Takes a little love ♪
♪ A little time ♪
♪ Just listening can make a big difference ♪
♪ In somebody's life ♪
♪ It just takes one word ♪
♪ From somebody wise ♪
♪ To keep you from making mistakes ♪
♪ And taking the same road twice ♪
♪ You might be that person ♪
♪ Might be that helping hand ♪
♪ So don't keep 'em hiding down in your pockets ♪
♪ Reach on out to anybody you can ♪
♪ But it takes a little light for us to see ♪
♪ Wonder what the whole wide world could be ♪
♪ If that Holy flame got lit ♪
♪ Well, it might be the very thing that we all need ♪
♪ It doesn't really matter how high the flame ♪
♪ As long as it burns every day ♪
♪ We need every part to brighten up the dark ♪
♪ Well, it only takes a spark ♪
♪ Just one candle can light a whole room ♪
♪ And it don't take too much for the darkness to move ♪
♪ There's a whole lot of power in some wax and a wick ♪
♪ And the whole world is waiting for yours to be lit ♪
♪ It takes a little light for us to see ♪
♪ Wonder what the whole wide world could be ♪
♪ If that Holy flame got lit ♪
♪ Well, it might be the very thing that we all need ♪
♪ It just takes a little light for us to see ♪
♪ Wonder what the whole wide world could be ♪
♪ If that Holy flame got lit ♪
♪ Well, it might be the very thing that we all need ♪
♪ But it doesn't really matter how high the flame ♪
♪ As long as it burns every day ♪
♪ We need every part ♪
♪ To brighten up the dark ♪
♪ Well, we need every part ♪
♪ To brighten up the dark ♪
♪ Well, we need every part ♪
♪ To brighten up the dark ♪
♪ Well, it only takes a spark ♪
♪ Said, it only takes a spark ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ I said, this little light of mine ♪
♪ Oh, I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ Yeah, I said, this little light of mine ♪
♪ Oh, I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ Oh, I said, this little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪
♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪
♪ Oh, let it shine ♪
♪ I said, let it shine, let it shine ♪
♪ Let it shine ♪
♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪