Before a single snap of practice, Coach DiDonato gathers the parents of Grove City College football and opens his Bible. Not the playbook. The Bible. This year, I sat in that room for the last time as a parent of an underclassman. My son, Dallas, is a senior now. Coach quoted Joshua chapter 1, verses 1-9, the first time he opened his talk with those verses specifically, though Vision, Process, Love has been his framework since year one.
He told us why. He’s studied Walt Disney. He’s studied great coaches and great leaders across every field. But that’s not the real reason he starts here. “At the end of the day,” he said, “I am very aware of this, that we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” Ten years into leading this program, he’s not coaching for a resume. He’s coaching for an account he’ll give someday. That conviction is what built the three words: Vision. Process. Love.
Vision first. Coach pointed out something easy to miss in Joshua chapter one. God never reminds Joshua of what Joshua has already accomplished. No résumé. No highlight reel. Just this, over and over: “I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). “Get your eyes off of yourself,” Coach told the room, “and onto something else.” That’s vision. Not what you can build for yourself. What God has already promised to build through you.
Process second. Not the process of building your own name. The process of pouring into a relationship with the One who called you. “I want you to meditate on me,” Coach said, echoing the Lord’s charge to Joshua in Joshua 1:8. Invest there, even when you can’t yet see the return. That’s a scary trade for a football coach, or for anyone whose culture keeps score in public. But it’s the only investment that compounds.
Love third. Coach told us about a freshman who called home in tears his first week, homesick and overwhelmed. Instead of asking “how are you feeling,” his parents learned to ask, “what’s one thing you saw today?” Small shift. Huge difference. It moved that young man’s eyes off his own struggle and onto what God was doing around him. Coach said it plainly, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since: “The most miserable I’ve ever been in my life is when I was making it too much about me.”
Joshua 1:9 says it best: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Here’s what struck me freshly in that room, even though I’ve heard it every year since freshman move-in day. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s where the MindWolves Process came from. Four years ago, sitting in this same room as a brand-new football parent, I heard Coach DiDonato lay out Vision, Process, Love, and something in me said: that’s it. That’s the blueprint. I took it home and built it into how I disciple the men I mentor. Vision is the Stretch Dream, God’s Call. Process is the Purpose Statement, God’s Will. Love is the glue that holds the other two together, the Neighborly Love that empowers a man to actually walk it out. Coach DiDonato hasn’t just coached my son for four years. He shaped how I coach other men, too.
Here’s a deeper dive and practical example of how it applies to me, a player-coach.
- God’s Call for you is your Vocation. It is best accomplished by a Stretch Dream, a vision for your work only accomplished with God’s help.
- God’s Will for you is your Purpose. It’s a character purpose, defining who (not what) you want to become. It’s the posture of your heart. Your Purpose Statement should articulate this.
- Neighborly Love holds you and everything together. Without love, you are just a “clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).
For example:
- My Vocation is to serve others as a coach. My stretch dream is to Become the Mister Rogers for Men, teaching and demonstrating what it means to live as a Kingdom Man.
- My Purpose is to Awaken Families to God’s Word. It utilizes my spiritual gifts of encouragement, discernment, and prophecy, while exemplifying Godly leadership for husbands and fathers.
- Being a good Neighbor to others enables and empowers me through the guidance of the Holy Spirit in my daily walk.
Here’s the turn for all of us watching from the stands. Every family faces its own version of Joshua’s territory: a senior year, a job loss, an empty nest, a diagnosis. The question is never whether we’ll feel the fear. It’s which wolf we feed while we’re standing in it. The wolf that fixes on the scoreboard, the bank account, the comparison, or the wolf that fixes its eyes on Christ and keeps walking. Evil Wolf vs. Good Wolf.
I’m grateful beyond words that my son has spent four years under a coach who disciples men toward the Good Wolf. Coach DiDonato, thank you for shaping Dallas and every young man you’ve pointed toward Vision, Process, and Love before you ever pointed him toward a playbook.
If your family needs a process for keeping your eyes on Him, fifteen minutes a day, together, in the Word, that’s exactly what The Family Wins Devotional was built for. It’s yours as a gift from me to you. Click here to claim your copy: TFW Devotional @ MindWolves.
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38).
Feed the Good Wolf. 🐺