Interview with Travis Reeve

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned, relevant that God is changing the world through people, and the Lord could have written the gospel message in the sky, You know, God could have put John 3.16 on the leaf of every tree.

He could have done that. But what's so beautiful about Christianity is God takes just ordinary people and, number one, he changes their life and saves their soul, and he fills people with his Spirit. And his Word begins to change our life.

You know, Romans 12, verse 2 says that we bring every thought captive unto the Lordship of Jesus. And then God begins to work through us, and God does things in life that really count fraternity. And so we welcome you to today's edition of TNG Radio, Truth for a New Generation. Alex McFarland here, and as always, I'm on the road traveling around America. And you know, we meet a lot of people, a lot of people that are just very inspiring and unforgettable. And I was here in Cuero, Texas, at the home of some dear friends, the Reece family. And Ray Reece, a dear friend, was telling me about Travis Reeve, R-E-E-V, Travis Reeve, who is at Cuero High School. And he is the head football coach, and he's the athletic director. And he's doing some things that are just inspiring.

And I wanted – we made a couple of phone calls. I said, I've got to have Travis on the radio show. And so, folks, the person you're about to meet is being used by God to touch the lives of young people.

He's being used by God to make a difference in a whole lot of ways. And he's a busy coach and a busy public figure in this town, but he took some time to be with us. And, Travis, I just want to say thanks, man. Thanks for all you do for the kingdom, but thanks also for taking 30 minutes to visit with us today on TNG Radio.

You bet, it's a great honor to be here with you, and, you know, it's – I'm excited about being able to visit with you today. Well, before we talk about football and the small group ministry that you're doing and the leadership that you're imparting to young people, I want to hear a little bit about your story and where you're from and how did God bring you to this part of your journey? I was born in San Antonio, Texas, and lived there until I was in the eighth grade before we moved to Victoria. I was saved at the age of 10 at the end of a revival service and moved to Victoria. My dad was a football coach, and he took the head coaching job at Victoria High School. And so I went to high school in Victoria, graduated from there, and then I actually, in my coaching career, started off with him at Victoria High for a year, went up to Plano West when Plano West opened in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and coached with him a little bit there, coached a little time in San Antonio, rejoined him here in Quaro as the offensive coordinator for six years, left to go to Churchill in San Antonio, and came back as the head coach, and this has been my seventh year as the head coach here in Quaro. Well, it's got to be pretty special. In Quaro, you coached and worked with your dad, and now you're the head coach.

That's got to be pretty meaningful. It is. It's a great place. For those who don't know about Quaro, Quaro is a place that's got great tradition in terms of football and athletics in the state of Texas, and so it's a great honor, number one, to be the coach here, but also just to be a member of this community. This is a community that still honors God, that still allows us to pray before football games, allows me and our coaching staff to talk about Christ with our kids, and that's becoming more and more rare, but that's one of the things that makes this a unique place. Well, you know, it really is, and Travis, it's been my privilege as an evangelist to be in a couple of thousand churches in different cities. I love America, but it's true with all my heart, Quaro is a very special place. For those who may not know your Texas geography, outside of Austin, I guess we're about 90 miles from Austin.

We're near Victoria, Texas, and I've been here, this is my third trip, it is a very wonderful town, and so if life is transferring you somewhere and you find yourself in Texas, this is a good place to be, folks, I assure you. But let me ask you this, you're a coach, you're in academics and athletics, but I see a person like you and you're in the lives of young people. Tell us a little bit about the youth of the 21st century, how things might be different from when you were growing up, Travis. Well, I think, you know, the youth are similar and they're different. I think some of the things that have changed is not necessarily the kids, it's the expectations and what is accepted and not accepted, you know, culturally surrounding those kids, and so they're hearing a lot of different messages now, they're hearing a lot of different mixed messages, and so in athletics, you know, athletics, in my opinion, is a tool to make a difference in kids.

It's a tool of influence, and so, you know, we want to use that influence to teach them, you know, what the truth is and maybe to squash some of those things that they hear that are supposed to be true that necessarily aren't true, and we spend a lot of time doing that. For those just tuning in, we're talking with Travis Reeve at Cuero High School in Texas. This is TNG Radio.

Alex McFarland here. We're going to take a brief break, and when we come back, we're going to hear about some exciting stuff God has done in the sports program here through Coach Reeve, but something that can be replicated anywhere that is really a ministry, a small group ministry, and I'll let him explain it, but stay tuned. You don't want to miss this. If you care about the future of the country and you care about young people, as we do, you don't want to miss the next few minutes of TNG Radio. Stay tuned. We're back after this.

TNG Radio. From I Am a Watchman Ministries, here's today's I Am a Watchman Minute. Tennyson wrote, More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. One of the most familiar prayers in the Bible is the Lord's Prayer. The prayer begins with the words, Our Father. Aren't you glad Jesus said we could pray, Our Father? He didn't say, My Father, as if God would only listen to him. And he didn't say, Pray to a Father, as if God was one of many. Jesus didn't say, Pray, The Father, as if God existed but had no interest in having a relationship with the common man. No, Jesus directs us to pray, Our Father. We can pray to the one who loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. Prayer matters. Through a live chat service and prayer request portal, the I Am a Watchman ministry stands ready to answer questions and pray for you. Be bold, be faithful, be a watchman.

I am a watchman dot com. If you're a Christian parent, you of course want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages 5 to 12, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

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For apologetics resources, books by Alex McFarland, and to find out where Alex is speaking, visit truthforanewgeneration.com. Welcome back to TNG Radio. Alex McFarland here. We're going to continue our conversation with Travis Reeve here in Quero, Texas, but I want to remind you folks, coming up soon is the Summer Youth Worldview Camp that we do every year. TNG Camp is coming up, and last year we had 50-14s from nine states. This year, I know it's late, but you've still got time, July 29th through August 2nd. We're going to be down on the coast of North Carolina at Camp Cale.

It's beautiful. And we're going to do all the fun camp stuff, zip lines and kayaking and all that kind of good stuff. But we'll have 15 sessions on the Gospel, on discipleship, leadership, world view. And let me challenge you to invest a week that will count for eternity. There are going to be great speakers, nationally known youth speaker Andy Lawrence, Will and Miki Addison from the American Family Radio Network and the Urban Family Talk Network.

It's going to be amazing. Great food, great fun, great memories, but great change of life as we talk to your youth about their walk and their witness for Christ. You can go to truthforanewgeneration.com. That's truth, F-O-R, truthforanewgeneration.com, or my own website, alexmcfarland.com.

Either one will get you to the same place. But listen, if like ourselves, you care about God and country, you care about the future of America, maybe consider the youth camp in the summer that's a little different, where we equip young people to know what they believe, why they believe it, and they can go back to school standing strong for their faith. And so go to truthforanewgeneration.com to learn more. Well, somebody who I just have a great respect for, who God is using to train young people. And I'm talking with Travis Reeve.

I'm hearing about their journey. And when I meet people that God is using in a great way, like Travis Reeve, I'm just inspired. I hope this inspiration will touch your life as well, because what he's doing, God wants to do through you, my friends. You can make a difference.

And so we're going to resume our conversation. Travis, before we go too much farther, there might be people listening, and they say, yeah, I know God is using a Travis Reeve, but he's a superstar, and I'm just an ordinary person. And I wish in our community things like this could happen, but God uses somebody else, not necessarily me. What do you say to the person who's wondering if the Lord could actually use their life?

You know, I think if you make yourself willing to the Lord, he's going to use you. And in my profession as a coach, a lot of times it's all about wins, wins, wins, right? How much you win, you know, championships and things like that.

And I can tell you, you know, the way that the Lord has used or began to use me is about three years ago, we were 13-1 and were quarterfinalists and had a great season by most measures. But as I was traveling to Colorado with my family, I just felt like, what did we really accomplish besides, you know, winning a bunch of games? What's not going to matter to the kids that we work with when they graduate? And God was just kind of talking to me at that time, and I thought about, you know, what is it that – why is it that I coach?

Why is it that we work with young kids? And the answer is to make a difference, you know, to make a positive change in their life or to make a positive impact. And so as I thought about what impact are we making, I thought about, well, I hope that we made this impact. I hope we made that impact. But then God kind of revealed to me, like, you know, He said, well, do they know how to run the inside zone, which is one of our offensive plays?

Well, of course they know how to run the inside zone because we spend a lot of time teaching them that. Well, then why don't you feel like – why aren't you as certain that you've made an impact? And so it was really an aha moment for me. And I came back to our staff after that Christmas break, and I asked them the same question.

They had the same answer. Well, I hope we made this impact while we made that impact. And the answer for us was is that we had to begin to be intentional about making an impact. And if we were going to make an impact, we need to plan for it. We needed to devote time to it. It needed to become our number one priority. And so from that time on within our program, it became less about the wins and the losses and it became more about how are we making an impact today.

And I don't think that it has to be in the realm of sports to do that. I think no matter what walk of life that you're in, what's your number one priority? And if your number one priority is to make a difference for Christ, He will find a way to use you.

And if you get caught up in all the other pressures and stresses of life and you're worried more about those things, you may tend to them well, but you may miss the boat on what God really has intended for your life. And so since then, we've instituted a program where we devote a tremendous amount of time and energy to trying to make a difference in our kids' lives. And we've seen a lot of really positive results from it. God's really used that time to bless not only us, but our kids.

Darrell Bock Amen. Well, and that's true. You know, in the course of investing in people, we get the blessing, don't we? But you've got a small group ministry or leadership training model. Tell me about that. Mark Bailey Well, what we've done is we started with a mission statement and we came up with a mission statement and basically that we want to make a difference in kids.

Through their experience in athletics. But you've got to have a plan to do that. And so what we started doing was we started with Tony Dungy's Uncommon Manhood book.

And so that's got like 33 chapters. And we started that spring semester and we said, Lord, we're going to do this as we go. Wherever we need to change, you change it, but we're going to get started. And so that's kind of what we did. And we started with the book Uncommon Manhood and each one of our coaches, you know, took that and we did a lesson or two a week. And so we would do that on Mondays and Tuesdays. On Wednesdays, we would split up into what we call family groups. And so each one of our coaches has got about 12 kids. And that's just a time where we can follow up on the lesson, but we pour ourselves into them.

And we would bring in speakers to come and talk not about football, but just about their success in life, their faith, whatever the case may be. And then we added a community service component to it as well, where we go out in the community and we take our kids to a lot of different places. And so we've built on that.

We've expanded that since the start of that about three years ago, but that's kind of the basis. And so our mantra that we've kind of taken on is uncommon men win. And we want our kids and our coaches to do things in an uncommon way, whether it's on the field, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in the community, whether it's with our walk with Christ.

We want to do things that are uncommon in our society today, because really that's what you got to do if you want to be successful. And so that's kind of what we've started here. You're listening to TNG Radio, Travis Reeve, and we're going to come right back. We've got one more segment. Folks, you don't want to miss this as we conclude our time talking about imparting truth, love, leadership and the gospel to young people. Stay tuned.

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Alex McFarland here back with TNG Radio. We're talking with Coach Reeve here at Cuero High School in Texas. And before we go too much farther, I want you to give the website because you've got a unique URL for your website. So tell us what that is. That's gobbler sports dot com and gobbler sports like a turkey dot com. And what is that in reference to? Well, Cuero is the turkey capital of the world now Worthington, Minnesota, might beg to differ.

And that's a whole nother story. But but we are we are the Cuero Gobblers and there's a rich history of gobbler farms and industry here. And so that's where we get our mascot from.

Well, that's very cool. And you and I were talking before the show and you mentioned Proverbs 23 seven as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And that's a great verse. What does that verse say to you as a leader, Travis?

Well, I think it says a lot. You know, it's the way that you see yourself is going to determine, you know, the way that you live your life. And so, you know, we're talking earlier about making an impact. We talk to our kids about if you see yourself as a as a good player, you're going to work like you're a good player. If you see yourself as a successful person, you're going to make successful choices. And but if you see yourself as being inadequate, as something less than what God created you to be, that's when you begin to make bad choices.

That's when you begin to get corners. And I think a lot of times that's what keeps us from making a difference in people's lives. No matter what walk of life we come from is that we think, oh, well, I can't make a difference.

I'm not in a position to make a difference. You know, the thing that started this whole thing within our program didn't start necessarily with me. It started with with an assistant coach, a first year assistant coach named Wes Condra. Very strong Christian. He's actually gotten out of coaching to be in seminary now.

He's going into the ministry. But this movement started with him. And so it didn't start with a head coach.

It didn't start with somebody that was in a lot of authority. It just started with somebody who lived out his faith boldly. And that's that's a that's an awesome message for all of us. You know, when I look at you, I think about Matthew six thirty three. Now, folks, let me explain. If you could see the office, the outer office, the inner office, there's more trophies here than at Canton, Ohio or Cooperstown put together. I mean, really. But you know, the thing I appreciate about you is that you put Christ first.

Now, Matthew six thirty three says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added. Every coach would love to see the hallway of trophies that God has given you. I know you just won the four a Division two state championship in Texas. I'm guessing that's a pretty big deal. It's a huge deal.

It's been it's been a great year. Absolutely. God bless us. I think God's given you all of the success because like Matthew six thirty three, you did put Jesus first. Sports success came, but and I know you're, you know, a valued part of this community. But I believe God's blessed you with all of this because you put him first. Absolutely.

You know, we've had we've had a lot of success and especially here recently. But before that, you know, the this is my seventh year as the head coach. My first three or four years as a head coach, I spent more time worrying about, are we going to win enough games?

Were we going to, you know, all the all the pressures of that the world puts on you. And I it even though I knew that God had put me here for a purpose of making a difference in kids. I was putting that on the back burner because I wasn't trusting him with letting him take care of those things, me worry about serving him first. And it wasn't me once he began to transform my heart and remind me that he's here with me and in that don't worry about all that other stuff.

You just worry about serving me. All of a sudden, things begin to fall into place. Doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win a state championship year every year or things of that nature. But you are going to begin to realize the purpose that he has for your life. And you know, God has worked in in unbelievable ways, much far beyond football, within our staff, within our kids, and it comes from, you know, what he wants to do, but you got to be you got to put him first, before he can really work in the way that he wants you to wants to work in your life. And it's just been a blessing to see what he's done, not only in my life, but in the lives of all those that are involved within our program and within our community, I would say one of the thing our community is, like I said before, is a unique community in that we still pray before football games, you know, it's okay to talk about God in school.

That's very rare in today's time. But I can't help but think that the reason one of the reasons why this is a blessed community and there's been such success here in a lot of areas, not just in athletics, is because God has blessed a community that is willing to put him first and willing to honor him. And that's been a blessing of being a part of this community. Whether it's sports, life, our family, our career, or certainly our walk with the Lord. Talk to me, what are the character traits that separate adequate to excellent?

Which the audience you've got right now in their own life moving from the nominal to the exceptional. Well, we've tried to boil that down into four things, and I told you that our program's mantra is uncommon men win or uncommon people win when you begin to look at the boys and the girls side of it, and it's from doing things in an uncommon way. And there's really four things, and there are four core values, relentless effort, and so God calls us to give everything we've got no matter what we do. And so giving everything you have and whatever it is that you're doing in life. Number one, true toughness.

That's not necessarily the physical toughness of football, but that's being able to withstand the trials of life and being able to stand tall or get up off the mat when you've been knocked down. And God's here to help us do that. We don't have to do it in our own power. And being committed to preparing yourself for when that opportunity comes. In our Christian walk, being committed to spending time with God on a daily basis through prayer and through Bible study, being plugged in to Him. And then the last thing is power of the family, and loving each other, caring about each other, putting others first, being difference makers. When you do those things, God's going to bless you for it. He's going to bless those around you.

And in our Christian walk, God gives us the church, and the church being the people and fellow believers to support us when we need support and to encourage others when they need encouragement. And so I think if you live by those four things, you're going to be successful. Indeed.

I'm inspired. Hey, we're about out of time, but Coach Reeve, I want to say thanks for being with us on TNG Radio. Thank you for what you're doing for our country, for young people, and especially for Christ our Lord. Well, thank you. It's been an honor to be here with you today, and thank you for what you do as well. God bless you folks.

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