Most people don’t expect somebody over 60 to be given a big opportunity for a career change.  Don’t tell that to Tevester Anderson.  He was 62 when he became head basketball coach at Murray State.  This year his team really did well.  They won the Ohio Valley Conference and competed in the NCAA tournament.  What a rookie!

Tevester never applied for a head coaching job in his life.  He says, “Now that I’m here, it feels better having happened the way it did.  God just had a different kind of blueprint for me, I guess.”

People around here should recognize his name.  He was an assistant coach at Auburn under Sonny Smith.  He was an assistant at Murray State under Mark Gottfried, when Gottfried left to take the Alabama job last year.  Several of his players are from Montgomery.

His philosophy on coaching is that you have an opportunity to shape the lives of young people.  He sees building lives as a much bigger priority than winning ballgames.  He said, “I learned you can save as many lives as a coach and a teacher as you can as a doctor.”

He doesn’t act old.  He works out on a stair stepper for an hour every day.  A 16-hour workday is pretty much the norm for him.

When the new team uniforms were ordered for this year, some of his players secretly added three inches of material to the cuffs of their shorts.  They wanted to really be ultra-hip.  When the uniforms arrived, they were the normal lengths.  Somehow the “old coach” had intercepted the order and was still one step ahead of his young players!

You are never too old for God to use you for something significant.  Could you just be the rookie of the year at your church this year?

Join me in the “rookie” lifestyle!

(From Extra Effort)