Right before the big homecoming football game, a high school football coach in Utah suspended almost the entire team.

• Why do you think a coach would treat a team this way? (Answers will vary: students may guess at what the players did wrong, or they may comment that the coach was mean or unreasonable.)

• If you were one of the players looking forward to homecoming, how might you respond to the suspension? (Complain, say it is not fair, ask parents to talk to the principal, get angry at the coach, etc.)

Share the following video [2:29]:
H.S. football coach suspends almost entire team for bad behavior

• What do you think of the way this coach handled the players who had skipped class, received poor grades, or cyberbullied a fellow student? (Answers will vary. Students may agree that correction was necessary but that suspending the team, especially before a big game, was harsh. Some might accept the discipline; others might argue against it.)

• What words and actions in the way the coach communicated to the team expressed his care for the players? (He referred to the players as “gentlemen,” “football brothers,” and “family.” He cared more about their character than about winning a game. At the end, he spoke positively about how wonderful it was to see the young men respond to the challenge and to learn lifelong lessons.)

• Most of the players earned their way back on the team through service projects—working outdoors and spending time with older adults—and spending time in study hall. Why do you think that even though it was clear what it took to get back on the team, some players did not earn their jerseys back in time for the homecoming game? (They may have been angry at the coach; they may have refused to accept the correction, they may not have taken responsibility for their actions, they may not have been sorry for what they did, etc.)

• How do you think their negative attitudes or refusal to accept correction might have affected the team as a whole? (Without certain players, the team may not have been able to play as well; their absence may have put extra work on the others; it might have created conflict between those who accepted the correction and those who did not.)

• When has your response to correction kept you from something good or led to even more correction? (Answers will vary.)

• Why is it sometimes hard to have a good attitude when corrected? (Answers will vary.) 

Even when the person correcting us cares about us—like the coach cared about his players—our first response to correction may be defensive. Let’s find out how someone responded to God’s correction and what that outcome tells us about the benefits of finding the right attitude when we are corrected.