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Episode Info


Brian Tome is the senior pastor of Crossroads, the fastest growing church in America

He shares an overview of his book, "Five Marks of a Man" with a clear coaching and athletic lens to speak directly to you, our "Coach to Coach" audience.

Topics include:

- How coaching can shape the lives of your players
- One of the main differences between a coach he played for and other successful ones he's observed

And of course, he unpacks the 5 Marks...that men:

Have a vision
Work Hard
Are Team Players
Take a Minority Position
Protect others


Who doesn't want a player who lives those out? Who doesn't want more future community leaders living those out?

Episode Transcript


Nate:
This is the coach to coach podcast, episode number 17 game time. , what's going on guys? Welcome to the coach to coach podcast where we believe every kid deserves a coach that cares and every coach deserves someone in their corner. I'm your host, Nate Sallee with Northern Kentucky FCA and I don't know about you, but I am ready for a great 2019 right in front of us and we're coming out strong with some great interviews coming out in the coming weeks. But this one I'm especially excited about because we are interviewing Brian Tome of Crossroads Church, which used to be just in Cincinnati, but they have aggressively grown into 14 sites and have gone, there has even been some nationwide initiatives and he's actually a former football coach and he's applied some of those principles into leading his organization at this point. He's also written a book called the five marks of a man. And I gotta tell you, this book has impacted me on a personal level and also we've seen it impact teams and coaches and even club female volleyball teams at this point. It's some incredible material. He was so gracious to give us some time and give you a little bit of a glimpse into kind of the heart behind the Five Marks of A Man book and also give you a little bit of overview from a coaching athletic lens. So I don't want to waste any more time. I want to get right into our conversation with Brian Tome. All right guys. We're so pumped to have you hop in on this conversation with pastor Brian Tome. Brian, how you doing today?

Brian:
I'm, wonderful. But don't call me pastor Brian tome. I'm not calling you FCA staff member Nate.

Nate:
That's a, that's a great point. I almost called you BT. I didn't know if we were there yet.

Brian:
We are there. We are there. Absolutely.

Nate:
Oh man. Good stuff. Well, a lot of our audience will have at least heard of crossroads and heard your name a little bit, but could you just give us a brief background on, on Brian and how'd you end up coaching this team called crossroads? Yeah. I moved to Cincinnati in 1995 to start a thing called crossroads, and we've been doing that now for about 22 years. It's grown to 14 sites and moving that sort of going over the country.

Brian:
And I think as it relates to F, I was gonna say football, but really athletics. I said football because that was the, that was my sport of choice growing up, as I always wonder why, why was it that the most excitement, the most enthusiasm, the most testosterone, the most comraderie happened in a locker room at a high school event. That's right. Yeah, that's, that's really, that's great. I love it. I love it. But really the question is why don't we have that kind of enthusiasm in churches and ministries that were enlisted in the greatest struggle the world has ever known, and that is the best piece of coaching I can do. And that's the best piece of leadership I can throw it against. So I try to bring some of the best aspects of athletics to how I run crossroads.

Nate:
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. You do weekly locker room videos that then I'll take in and we kind of got Dawned with a, with a Jersey that I'm in shirts and kind of a lot of the, I've seen you kind of use a lot of the coaching vernacular that's really resonated with us and uh, it kind of makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Good deal. Well, I would love to hear, I know you've referenced a one of your high school football coaches along the way, but who would be one or two coaches that have really left a Mark on your life and why?

Brian:
Well, you know, the first coach that left a Mark on my life was when I was eight years old. I was a quarterback for my eight year old football team. It was called midget football.

Nate:
That was the first time I heard that. It's hilarious.

Brian:
unless you're a small person today that's not hilarious at all. So they changed that. And I remember one from the eighth grade team to the ninth grade team. And then, uh, and then all the way up, I graduated on the program and had my first year in junior high. And I remember that guy, that coach from eight years old, I bumped into him at a watering fountain onsite, the proper, and he said, Hey, we're, we're watching you. We're watching you. We're really shooting, rooting for you. We're watching you. And just the thought of an older gentlemen watching me and noticing me just honestly blew me away. Cause at that point in my life, I never felt noticed at all. So that was, that was certainly one coach that, uh, that impacted me in a big way. I actually had pretty awful experiences with my varsity coaches. Um, I just, I didn't realize how awful it was until I, I went and coached at, another program when in my early twenties.

Nate:
I didn't realize you had some that experience.

Brian:
Yeah, I did, uh, North Allegheny high school, which was always a state contender. And I watched how, wow. The coach actually talks to the players. I had a high school coach that would never talk to us. Uh, he wouldn't tell us stories. He wouldn't gather us around in a circle and just connect with us verbally and relationally. And I never knew anybody did that. And when I sat and I saw how some of these world-leading coaches did that, it just really, it really blew my mind. Like, no wonder, first of all, our high school team was so awful. There was no connection to the coach. There was no inspiration on football, athletics, church. There has to be inspiration. Our world beats us. Everything our world takes, takes, takes, takes our money, takes our heart, takes our fears, takes our peace, takes, takes, takes. So if you want to enlist people in something, you've got to inspire them some way, shape or form. And I learned that from coach, Jim Rankin at North Allegheny football in 1980 something or other.

Nate:
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think, why do you think your varsity coach led that way? Do you feel like it was a need to have control or do you feel like it was just the way that he was coached that kind of led that? Or, I mean, I know we're speculating here, but why do you, why do you think a coach might default to kind of this leading with this, this fear and then this lack of connection?

Brian:
Well, I think it was probably modeled to him. This is the guy who was drafted by the Kansas city chiefs. So he'd been at all different levels of football, but maybe when he went through the football that was just sort of the way it was, a sense of stoicism. I think also that he had to have some bruises and his life.
Nate: Sure.

Brian:
That we, we can't really open up our hearts and inspire others and let people in unless we're dealing with our own demons. Unless we've dealt with our own dysfunctions. Cause it's, it's much easier just tell somebody, look, right, nine 22 dive. Okay, that's what we're going to do. Anyone can bark out plays, anyone can say, let's go, let's do some Alabamas. But to sit there and allow people to see your heart and to hear how you're processing that, that's a kind of vulnerability that takes a lot more strength and calm place. And I think he was, I think he was a very bruised individual.

Nate:
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, unfortunately there's, yeah, there's a big mix of, of the great experience you've had and then the not so great experience as well and that's, I really appreciate you sharing that cause we're trying to kind of turn the tide and have much more of those positive experiences as well.

Brian:
Cause he did have great locker room talks at halftime. I'll tell you that he and before the game. Great Greg. Oh yeah. I've used some of them. They were really good. He had it going on.

Nate:
That's awesome. Excellent. Well to give you guys a little bit of context, Brian's had some material out for for some years now, but it's just been new released a new edition of the book called five marks of a man as FCA. We've already used it and have been blessed by it in a profound way. Coaches have gone through it, several different teams, even a girl's volleyball program has brought us in to deliver it. We've just seen the impact that it's, it's very simple. It's memorable, it's biblical. It's just been transformational and it's several different areas. So I would love to just touch on the five marks kind of with that coaching/athletic mindset with the first one being a man has a vision, he say, and a boy lives day to day. So how might that play out for a coach or an athlete?

Brian:
Yeah, so an athlete lives day to day, he just wants to get through practice, just survive. He wants to get through it as pain free as possible. He just wants to, he just wants to make it. But one, an athlete who has a vision, wants to win that year. He wants to win, he wants to go through the pain. We used to have guys who I played football with who seemed like they were always bucking for ice bag duty. They always had an ice bag on their shoulder, on their elbow. They were, they were just excited to be around people. And have an ice bag on them. Weird. You know, if you're, if you're going to be engaged in wanting to win something, it's going to be painful. It's going to be painful. If you're going to be a coach and you want to win, it's going to be painful. You're going to have to have assistant coaches leave because they're not doing a good job going. You're going to have to sit kids down who you personally like, but are not the best for the team. It's going to be painful. You're going to have to sit down kids who are the best athletes, but they broke curfew or they broke rules. It's going to be, vision always, always means today is going to be more difficult, but hopefully there's a tomorrow that's going to be rewarding, so I would just say that to all of our coaches and players do not be fearful or neglectful of difficulty. In fact, we have to embrace it and run into it if we want to actually win.

Nate:
I've heard recently too, you don't need easy. You just need worth it.

Brian:
Yeah.

Nate:
You've been aggressive in a number of different things. Obviously Crossroads, very aggressive, and it takes vision to go after and you go after big God-sized stuff and you're going to have some resistance and to have a big enough vision to push through, that's important.

Brian:
Well, there's a verse in the Bible that we all know, but yeah, we don't know. Uh, you know the book of first Corinthians, it says, don't you know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize run in such a way as to win? I don't know why it is. We're afraid of winning. You know what was being said? There is win! Only one wins. You should be the one! Win. Now, to be clear, I'm not competing against you to see who gets closer to God. It's not that. It's not that kind of thing. Churches not trying to compete against other churches, but it is churches and people and ministries and individuals who have a specific thing that God wants them to win and we have to want to win. We're so afraid of winning. It's like, no, are we all winners? No, we're not all winners. No, we're not on the does it, doesn't everybody get a trophy? No, we should not all get a trophy. And vision is about you wanting to win. And I just feel that it's unfortunate that in the Christian world, winning is almost a dirty word. You should just be happy with what you have. You should just be content with what you have. You shouldn't want any more. You shouldn't want any accolades. You should just want to like stay right where you are. I believe in contentment and also believe that the Bible is true and it tells me I should win. And so for us to win, it's going to mean we're going to have to go through pain and difficulty or we're not going to win.

Nate:
That's right. Well and, and you've, you've cleared out something just in recent months of godly ambition versus just selfish ambition. That's an ambition by itself isn't a bad thing. It's just where your, where's your heart, where's your motive? And, and to be okay with, with going after wins and being ambitious about that, it's, it's been for me. So that's awesome. So man has a vision. The next one would be a man works hard, but a boy always wants to play. So can you unpack that a little bit for us?

Brian:
Yeah. I didn't do very well in school at all growing up. Two reasons. One, I didn't have a vision. That school meant that I could earn money later on and two school was difficult. I didn't see school is work. It's actually work. Boys don't want to work. They want to play, and a man understands that today I got to do things that are going to be a little difficult. I've got to earn money for my family. I've got to, I've got to add value to the world that's going to football practice, right? Practice is work. We do so much on the on the baseball diamond, on the football field, on the basketball court. That just isn't fun. It's just just plain work. That's right. You know, there's a paycheck that will come, hopefully, but there's a heck of a lot more work than there's actually paychecks. If you look at the percentage of time towards work versus paycheck, it's an enormous amount of time and in athletics. That's exactly the way it is as well.

Nate:
Yeah, you gotta put that in there. And I remember I played basketball up until my freshman or sophomore year. Baseball was not my true love. I ended up getting to be able to play couple of years in college, but I absolutely in my immature days would just hate basketball practice because I knew the whole time my mind was only thinking how many suicides are we running at the end of this thing? So I'll be checked out mentally on the plays or whatever's going on just because I didn't want to work. I didn't want to put the time in on the conditioning side, which was something I needed because I was always I wore Husky jeans growing up. So I was always a bigger guy, you know? But there is incredible value in it. And I heard a football coach say recently that right now for a football team, their spring is championship season. Like this is where they make the investments now and it's going to pay off in the fall. So they're looking weeks and months out. But he was trying to inspire them, Hey, we're going to work now because the real seasons coming This is championship season. This is going to be, this is going to be the difference, right?
Brian:
You're going to have game week go really, really well, but if you haven't been in the weight room the year before, you know the plays, but you are not going to be pushing anybody around.

Nate:
Yeah. Time will either promote you or expose you whether you're working out or not. That's good. A man's a team player and a boy just wants to be an MVP. That's a really easy kind of segue for coaches and athletes. But yeah, kind of what's on your mind on that Mark?

Brian:
Well, again, I apologize to all of our athletics who are here, who are not football fans. That was my sport of choice in high school, so and well, not today so much. I don't even watch football that much other than college, but nonetheless, most of my thinking about athletics is through the football lens. You know, one of the things that was interesting about those kids that we used to make fun of with the ice pack, why didn't they just quit? They didn't quit because there was a team environment that they wanted to be around with. Being a man is about being a teammate. Why is it that men are increasingly holding off marriage increasingly not wanting to get married? It's because men don't see marriage as the greatest team that you'll ever be on. We don't understand team. A boy doesn't want to get married. A boy just wants to have sex with men. Girls as possible. A boy just wants to have as much accolades come his way as possible from the opposite sex. Going into marriage. It is a team it is high intensity team, so when we coach, we're actually calling people into a, Oh, what's the preseason? Basically athletics is a preseason for teams that really, really matter. Yeah, I love, I wish our, my high school teams would have won more games, but the games I'm winning right now are in large part due to the lessons I learned in those venues. We need to be on teams and we need other people in our lives.

Nate:
Yeah, that's great. And it does, it does translate later on. I mean, a lot of our language I use with it, with my family is we're Team Sallee and everybody has a role. Everybody's valuable and we can go, I mean that, that sort of analogy can go really, really far when you think about a father and a coach and how it's the same exact skill to build an incredible football program as it does to have a really faithful, successful family. And we can kind of miss that if we don't have the lens to be thinking team wherever we're at. Yes. Yeah. And it's, it's tough to not have it modeled always as well too, when, when dad was, either maybe not around. We see that a lot and are increasingly the fatherlessness here in our region and even across cultures. I was down in the, DR is a couple of weeks ago and the single mom rate is just, is just skyrocketing and there's this incredible void for faithful male leadership. One of the football teams in Northern Kentucky would talk about, you know, Hey, you know, you're not even going to pick it up. You're not going really hard and practice today like what's going on? And well, it's like, well, you know, dad left six months ago and mom's in jail and you know, I haven't eaten in two days. So it's like, okay, well we need to have a different starting point. Yeah. I kind of have a little more context now, but uh, just to see that need and yeah, your ice pack guys, they were drawn to what I would say family too as well. Like there's just that team concept where there's people that have a common vision, they're going after it and there's just something valuable just by being on the roster almost.

Brian:
Yeah. I, as much as I thought that my high school coach had some real weaknesses, the truth of the matter is, he was a father figure for me. I had a good dad. He was present, but he also wasn't a great communicator. My dad is not a good communicator at all. He's, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. But my high school coach actually did talk to me at least a few times and there was a, there was this strange power that he had for me now that was me who had a good family and a dad. So the coaches today, you got to recognize you're a father figure. You, you may be the only father figure that your players have. You have, you have a place of power in their lives that you cannot underestimate. They look at you and they will think about you and they will think about the things that you say and do literally for decades.

Nate:
Yeah. Well, the story you shared was however many years ago, I noticed you were watching it. Yeah. And I've thought about that.

Brian:
Yeah, that was a shoot. That was where I was. What was the different coach? Right, exactly. That was, that was a long time ago. And I just would say to their coaches that we have here right now, listen, you, you do the same thing with your coaches. I'm right for you, Nate?

Nate:
I mean, I can think, yeah. 10 20 years ago, I mean exact phrases I could, my mind could take me right back to a sentence that a coach said and it still stays with me today.

Brian:
Yup. Yeah, that's a, that's a great calling that God has given the coaches that are on this podcast. The power not just to win games, which I hope you do win, but the power to truly shape a life and to enable a life to win, who is going to win even if you don't know that they're winning cause it's going to be happening by the time you're dead. I was just listening. Some people might be listening to. , this book or the book by David Goggins we've been into that.

Nate:
I saw you quoted earlier, but I haven't.

Brian:
He's a, he's a, he's a former Navy seal army ranger.

Nate:
It's, it's really an extreme ownership?

Brian:
a bunch of those guys are coming out of EX seals, Rorke Denver and the guy from extreme ownership and this is, this is the latest one. If you want something for physical motivation like physical, it's good to be very warned. It is very raw. This guy is a, you know, military and F bombs galore. Um, I'm almost done. Listening to it is authentic to him. For him. It doesn't bother me, but I just want to make sure if someone else listens to it, that they're not bothered by it. But this guy has done crazy, crazy, crazy. It really is a crazy, when you listen to, he got beaten, he got beaten as a child by his dad over and over and over and over and over again. And he leaves and he has problem after problem in his life. Just crazy. But here, there's thing I want to say about that. People are listening to his book and they're going, Oh my gosh, the things he has about how to control your mind and the things that he has about, you know, how to, how to be the best version of you. And there are interesting things there. But, um, one chapter done and all he's done so far is talk about physical difficulty, physical training, iron mans, ultra marathons, buds, basic training. It's all physical. And I'm listening. I'm going, dude. The reason people don't see you. I see you though. This is veneer. You are on the veneer cause you're not willing to deal with your literal demons. You're not willing to deal with the sexual abuse, the physical abuse. You're not, you're going, you're going through two marriages, at least two as of the book right now you haven't built a business and you've got a motivational thing you have going on here, which is great, but you're, you're not able to give me anything about how to motivate people, how to inspire people have how to lay your life down for people. You got a lot of platitudes and when it comes to doing more pull ups than anybody in the world, he can do that. He's done it. That's cool. But there's a whole level of reality for you. And during your not getting into see coaches, we've got to be able to understand that we have to develop, our kids for their future. Because no matter how much David Goggins makes in book sales, no matter how much he makes in speaking fees, no matter how much, how much at all, the guy who's got a couple of kids and is eeking by minimum wage will have a greater legacy than him because when he dies, just as David Goggins dies, his life will continue in those kids. And that's the way it is with coaching our life or you're replicating your life. It's pretty powerful.

Nate:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, one of our, one of our favorite quotes in FCA is Billy Graham was kind of coined as saying, one coach will impact more people in one year than the average person will in a lifetime. And I think that's, it's definitely has some truth to it, especially with the quantity of time coaches have. If you think about it, I mean, just the hours per week that they log, uh, it can be pretty incredible. So be it being intentional with that team aspect. And, uh, and leaning into that and realizing that you, you have this influence,

Brian:
And I'm not trying to say the coaches, so therefore put five more hours a week in each student or no, I'm not, I'm not saying that at all. I think the only thing I would ask is just be aware and a little bit of encouragement is going to go a long way. I wouldn't say adjust your, don't adjust your schedule. You've already already tapped out. You're tapped out. You're given so much. It's great just just to have an awareness of the weight of your words. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ream somebody up and down, up one side and down the other. I think that's one of the things that I wish more young people had was somebody yelling at them. I do. I seriously, I think we need people young. Maybe that's part of why depression and anxiety is so high. People don't have coaches toughening toughening us up to help us later on in life. So along with the discipline and the pushing, we just have to recognize that out words of affirmation, encouragement are going to elevate a life.

Nate:
Well, I know we both appreciate this. When when Jesus was describing John when he was full of grace and truth, you got to have both and yes, too much grace. Everyone's going to be happy. What? We're going to lose a ton if you only have challenge and truth where you know you, we might be performing well, but we're gonna. You know that relationships are going to be terrible, but to have that balance and that kind of like what you were saying, just just the how, like how you coach doesn't mean you have to add all this stuff, but the same talk you might give if you tweak the words and the intentions behind it, that can have a really massive impact and be like you said, it'd be remembered decades later. Yes. That's one of my, one of my favorites is a man. A man takes a minority position and a boy always follows the crowd. In fact, that a little bit for us?

Brian:
Yeah. When you're, when you're a kid, you want to make sure that you, your clothes don't look stupid because you wanted to fit in. You want to make sure that if, uh, if everybody's talking about the football game, you know, you can talk about the football game cause you, you saw Monday night football, you know, way back when in high school when I used to do student ministry getting either had a lot of kids go to camp or very few kids go to camp because the first thing you do, Hey, you want to go to camp? Well, who's going, who else is going? And once you get to a tipping point of people are going to, Oh no, then I'm going to come and all of a sudden your, your, your, your signups spike. So this is the way it is. The boys, everything, their sexual choices, their moral choices, they always want to be in the majority. If you take a look at how we view sex in our country, it is, it is flipped almost overnight, seemingly, to Hey, it's awesome to save yourself for sex when you're married. Not that everyone did it, obviously, but that was a common cultural value to now, Oh, you're not even true to yourself. You're hurting yourself if you're not falling prey to whatever your sexual temptation is. And science hasn't changed, right? The Bible hasn't changed. The only thing that's changed is majority opinion. That's the only thing that's changed on that. Men not just in the area of sex, but in every area will be in the minority. You if you're, if you're not going to run up credit card debt, you'll be in the minority. Um, and so I think it has, as we coach and as we inspire, we've gotta ask ourselves, am I doing this because it seems the common wisdom that everybody else does or is there a better way that other people aren't willing to do? And I'm going to take the minority position on that.

Nate:
Yeah, I've seen that a lot. Even on teams that I've been a part of or have served or worked with in different capacities. Negativity is just the default, like grumbling and complaining is, is almost automatic and it really takes, takes some guts to stick out. Not even just to say, Hey, I'm a believer in Jesus. We're a follower of Jesus. But even if you just take the stance of, Hey, I'm not going to gossip. I'm not going to complain. I'm going to stay positive. Like you'll get squelched out pretty quickly if you don't have to have the courage to continue to fight that battle. Because like you said, if that, if he has some influencers that set that tone and that culture, it's really tough to, to go against that. And it could, it can be a real challenge, especially when you have, if you, if it's a team full of boys that are willing to kind of go against the grain on that.

Nate:
Yes. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Brian:
I know you've referenced the August land master picture. I've used that before too, with the guy that was refused to salute hitler..yes. And in a sea full of people that were, and he just knew something wasn't right and right. He has a jewish wife, is that correct?

Brian:
Yeah, he had a Jewish wife. He was, um, he was the only person in this crowd that was not given the Heil Hitler salute. And, um, we don't know what happened to him and everyone pretty much knows you had to been arrested. And shortly thereafter because he had a Jewish wife and he wasn't going to be excited about the plans of the third Reich. And the point I make in that book is we all know, we all know that the third Reich was wrong. We all know that Germany, all the, all the, all the mindless, stupid German civilians that went along, that we, they were all wrong. All of them, the majority was dead wrong. It was a minority like him that we all know now that, all right. So just because the majority and our culture believes certain values does certain things doesn't mean it's true. That's right. We need to play for the long, the long haul, and for what is right, not play for what's most convenient right now. And what's always most convenient is to be a boy and just jump on the public bandwagon about what is right and what is wrong.

Nate:
Yep. That's good. And strong leadership isn't going to be, you're going to have to be taken a little bit different path. And, and Jesus even talks about like the, it's very wide, the path to destruction and hard stuff, but it's, you know, they're very narrow gate to, to eternal life. And, uh, you can just, you can just see that there's a very easy, easily definable default mode that everybody has to have something that you're rooted in enough to be able to take that minority position is what that's been the only thing I've been able to put my foot down on is spiritual truth that I've become my core beliefs. But if they weren't deeply in me, then I'll definitely be swayed by everybody else that's going on.

Brian:
Well, Jesus the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father, but through him, that's a minority position. That's right. He said something that was in the minority and to this day, that's, that's, that's still true. And to believe that and preach that in the appropriate culturally sensitive way. It takes a lot of wisdom and a lot of boldness.

Nate:
Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Uh, final one, a man as a protector. A boy is a predator. So how do you see that play out kind of in today's culture? Or how might, how might that inform kind of some coaching?

Brian:
Well, the obvious places playing out in culture is with the "me too" movement. "Me too" movement there because we've got a bunch of boys who were predators. Yeah. And what's really disheartening is so many of these figures in Hollywood or wherever they are, have these long histories and years of taking advantage of women and all the men around them after it comes out go, well, I never knew. I never saw. I never, wow, I'm, Oh police. Yes you did. Yes, you new. You might have not have seen the deal going down on the couch, but you know how this guy talked about women, you, you, you, you, you knew there was something off with them. You can't tell me every single person didn't see it. Right. I know we can hide our problems. I understand that. But it's because we're, it's hard to be a protector again, when you're a protector, you're in the minority.

Nate:
That's true.

Brian:
And it's not just sexually protecting people. It's also we need to have a level of savings so that we can protect people when they're down and out financially. We can help them financially when we're coaching. We can, we need to protect people on our team. I, one of my worst spots coaching, I was coaching a, Oh it was awful. I'm still, I've actually tried to track the kid down. I can't find him. You think I would be able to in the age of social media. His name was up Putman and it was Putman and had, my first coaching gig was junior high kids at a public school and he just was a kid who just wasn't as athletically gifted as other people. He wasn't a very big kid. He wasn't very fast kid. You know, I was a young testosterone laden, you know, 23 year old or something like that, watching this and it just looked like me. He was dogging and he just wasn't taking things seriously. Two years I coached him in seventh grade and eighth grade. He showed up for practice two years at the end of the last game with him, he was an eighth grader. He came up to me crying and he said, coach, I never got in for a single play.

Nate:
Wow.

Brian:
Two years, a single play. I thought I was, I didn't think of him that much, really. If I did think about him, I thought he was loafing a dog in it and he wasn't. I didn't, I didn't protect him on it, but he just like, I have positive ideas about other coaches. He's got some negative, he has to have some negative thoughts about me. There's scars I had to put on him. I didn't protect him. I could've should've protected him. Every life that God gives us is a gift and a we have. We have to make a deposit in those lives and that's what it means. It means to protect somebody. Yeah.

Nate:
I've seen kind of a through line with the predator protector conversation has been, a lot of it comes down to, if you're a protector, that's a very selfless mode to be in. You know, you're not about yourself, but if you're a predator, it's all about your desires, your temptations, you know, w whatever you want that's just going to like tickle your fancy kind of deal. And it could be, it could be a tough thing. And I go back to the story you talk about, I can't remember which Ivy league school it was, but you were like, we essentially have three guys in the scene that are all 21 college age, like very similar age, but you got two men and one boy and uh, the one guy was kind of forced himself on her.

Brian:
Oh yeah. That story. That was in the Stanford Stanford swimmer who, um, it was well known publicized case who took advantage of a woman who was passed out, behind a dumpster. That woman to this day has a picture a hand drawn picture on her wall and she goes to bed of two guys who we. re driving by on bicycles and came off and pulled the guy off of her. They were her protectors. These weren't, um, you know, Harley big burly guys. They were on bicycles. Right. But they stepped out and they stepped in for her. That's a, that's an example of being a protector.

Nate:
Yeah, that's a protector move and I, it's, it's interesting and you said it too, you can be a 15 year old man or a 45 year old boy and that was just, I was always a very clear like this is apples to apples and we're talking, you know, three 21 year olds, two of them were being men and one of them was being a boy where it's age doesn't necessarily define this, this description of man 

Brian:
not only does age not define manhood, but even our cultural understandings of what should happen in, during, during various ages is dead wrong.

Nate:
The idea of adolescents then up until 26 or something now right?

Brian:
The word adolescence, I don't think it was like 1940 or something like that. Didn't even exist. Didn't even exist. The thought that you would have, you know, from the age 13 to 20 to be an idiot. Oh, you adolescents, Oh, hormones are raging. Oh, maybe I was at, I was just kind of give people a pass today and all over all history and every culture. As soon as you can have an erection and as soon as you could have an ejaculation, okay, you're a man, you're held to that standard because you could, you can create children. We're not holding people to a high enough standard right now we're saying, Oh, I don't expect you to show up at practice on time. I don't really expect you to give to know your adolescent well. I don't want to spend no people rise to the level of our expectations and our culture expects young males to act like idiots and guess what? They're acting like idiots. And once you've been acting like an idiot from the age 13 on who's the say you're going to stop acting like an idiot when you're 30 when you're 40 you've been, you've been training for years now to think about yourself.

Nate:
Even the college years, you're thinking, Oh it's just time to go figure yourself out a little bit. There's this still very like undefined experimental kind of stage. Even in your college years, it's, yes,

Brian:
yes. Four years of partying or four years of not quote unquote not real life. You hear college students say that they don't want to get in the real world and I get the real world. That's the real world where you talking about you're in your, in your world right now. That's the real world now. There's never going to be another four years like this ever again. But every four years I have, there's never going to be another four year, four years like it again. Never. But we use that as an excuse that you know, I can do stupid things here right now and I can just be a bit frivolous with my time. Not true.

Nate:
Absolutely. Well thank you so much for kind of touching in on on the book, again, it's five marks of a man. You can get it on Amazon, all sorts of different places. I know there's just five marks of a man.com. I think even as as the website or Brian tome.com Briantome.com is good.

Brian:
It's very good by the way, very good Briantome.com very good. Oh, it's wonderful. I hadn't even been there for a while. I hope it's still up and it's still going.

Nate:
Yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll link everything up in the, in the description. We're buying a case of them and we're playing to get more. Uh, if you want to go through a person who, as a coach, we would love to come behind you and facilitate that. We also have volunteers that are ready to come and be a character coach for your team and deliver this content. Uh, it's, we haven't done it where it hasn't been impactful and kids' lives. So Brian, I really appreciate you just allowing God to speak through you and give you this tool and it's helped me. It's helped the people we influence. Man camp has been a big part of my journey as well. I showed up to my very first man camp and it was the one that was in Maysville you may remember Heartbreak Hill and my, my prayer, my wife's prayer for that whole time was that I would leave was just a very visceral like affirmation of being a man because my personality is a little more reserved introvert. But she's like, and I just want you to leave feeling like just it just like a man and I'll never forget, I randomly entered the arm wrestling competition and by some crazy God thing and I'm in the, I'm in the final two with this guy who is a former D-end for the Vikings. Otis Grigsby but he the dude six five I shook his hand, it was like a catcher's Mitt and I got in there and it was, they David Valentine was, it was pumping everybody up. They had the Eminem song. It was going nuts and I'm like, dude, this is like, this is like this crazy moment we line up and like boom, like half second. I just get crushed. But the cool thing was the referee, the guy that made the table for the armrest and Danny, he said, stand up on this table. That was awesome. I'm like, dude, what do you mean? I just, I just lost it. This guy, like he just, he just creamed me. He's like, dude, 1200 guys in here, you know, you're a freaking BA man. Step up on there. You're awesome. And it was just, it was in that moment. It was just like, it was that affirmation that, that I needed to, to go back and lead strong and, and not kind of own or we just kind of the um, the, the week, the week kind of perception I've had before. And so many, I've been back several times. I've done mash, I've done trip captain. Uh, we, we would love to take more coaches to man camp and to just have the entire groups of coaches come experience man camp. Cause there's just been some of the best 48 hours you can spend. I feel like, I know you feel the same.

Brian:
Well, one of my dreams too is what it'd be like to get high school coaches and their teammates all at a camping experience and design it for that for your teams. Oh man. All teams together. Like even like teams compete against each other for things. And I mean I, I leave a big tug. Tug of war is already and you can imagine if you got some teams together for that. Yeah, that'd be great fun. So I'm thankful for FCA and I just love the ministry you guys are doing and I'm honored to be a part of it. You've, you've, you're impacting a lot of lives. Yeah. Thank you so much. And we'll talk to you soon. Yeah, my pleasure brother. Excellent.

Nate:
well there you have it guys. Our conversation with Brian Tome, Hey listen, we don't recommend books or material lightly. Make sure that we consume it personally and have seen the impact and testing it. I'll tell you the book of five marks of a man is on the short list and we're just so grateful that Brian took some time to dive into that with us. Hey, if you're interested in the book, you can go to Amazon, different websites. If you go to the publisher's website, you can get 40% off if you buy 20 books or more. And I'm so grateful for our board members and our donors who make FCA as a whole possible. We've also had some incredible donors come on and say, Hey, if it's coaches or teams want to go through this, we will help flip the bill for the books if they have somebody guiding them. So do not let that be the reason you don't engage in this material. I also wanna invite you to crossroads on Superbowl weekend. They'll have several different service times, but they have this super bowl of preaching and I'll tell ya, it used to be one of the least attended church services throughout the year. Now it's one of the most attended and I've been, my family has been the last three or four years. It is a ton of fun. It'll get fun worship. They have a halftime show. I can't even get into all of it, but you don't want to miss it. Super bowl weekend and go to crossroads.net for the different service times there. And I want to leave you with a question. What if, what if we raised an entire generation of boys coming into manhood that lived out these five marks? What would our schools look like? What would our communities look like? What will our, our companies and our workplaces and our police forces and all across the board, what kind of impact would that have? And that is part of what drives our ministry. And we're so grateful for all of you that are praying for us, that are encouraging us. And for those out on the front lines that are coaching, that are volunteering and make an impact one life at a time. And we would love to be a part of that journey with you. So remember, every kid deserves a coach that cares and every coach deserves someone in their corner. Just signing off for now. Keep changing lives on your team and in your home.


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