{"id":1119,"date":"2011-07-29T16:00:23","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T20:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/?p=1119"},"modified":"2011-07-29T22:28:30","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T02:28:30","slug":"a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with your friends!<\/strong><\/p>\n

No one had Auburn on top of the 2010 preseason college football rankings. But by the end of the season, everyone did.<\/p>\n

For head coach Gene Chizik, it was an incredible year that saw his program come under fire from both media members looking to cast doubt on quarterback Cam Newton\u2019s eligibility status (Newton was ultimately exonerated of any wrongdoing) and a brutal Southeastern Conference (SEC) schedule that included slugfests against Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, LSU and South Carolina, and culminated in a 22-19 victory against Oregon in the BCS National Championship Game.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Chizik writes about the 14-0 season in his new book All In<\/em>. He also talks about the tough times he faced while coaching at Iowa State and how those challenges strengthened his faith in God. Inspiring Athletes caught up with Chizik by phone recently and in part one of that conversation he talks about Auburn\u2019s incredible championship run, how faith impacts his coaching and his admiration for Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton:<\/p>\n

Bonham: Was this book directly inspired by the 2010 season or were there some things you had on your heart that you wanted to get out eventually and this just happened to be the right timing?<\/p>\n

Chizik: I thought it was a good time. It\u2019s a book about football, family and faith and obviously the journey we had with our football season, it\u2019s got some interesting behind-the-scenes looks at things with our team last year. It talks about the family part of it, the team-building part, which is extremely important to us, and some things we did behind the scenes there. And then it talks about our faith as well, which is extremely important. Those are the three most important things in my life because I do them all every day. I just thought it would a story that you don\u2019t have to be a football fan to read. There are a lot of other lessons in there with the universal message of hope and encouragement for your own 5-19 season of life.<\/p>\n

Bonham: When you were hoisting the BCS Championship Trophy, were you thinking about the distractions you faced during the season and the detractors who said you didn\u2019t belong there or do you even remember?<\/p>\n

Chizik: No, I remember. As I was getting ready to lift it up, I was thinking how special it was for the Auburn fans who had waited 53 years for that moment and the so many dedicated members of the Auburn family and how the players and coaches worked so hard and how much they\u2019d overcome. I was thinking what a great moment it was for everybody.<\/p>\n

Bonham: It seems like Christians in the sports world are beginning to deal with some backlash that comes from being outspoken about their faith. Do you feel any of that and how does any potential criticism impact you when those opportunities come your way?<\/p>\n

Chizik: You know, everybody\u2019s got their own opinion and everybody\u2019s got their own things that they\u2019re interested in. I\u2019m not afraid to express the importance of the faith in my life. It\u2019s just that simple. Some people may like it. Some people may not. And I understand that. It\u2019s just like a football game. Some people may like the result of it and some people may not, even if you win. But again, I\u2019m not afraid to say the things that are important in my life, and that\u2019s one of them.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How do you personally handle those opportunities to talk about your faith in the public arena?<\/p>\n

Chizik: When I start thanking God, I\u2019m thanking Him for the platform He\u2019s given me to lead, the platform He\u2019s given me to be in situations where I have been able to overcome insurmountable odds and where I\u2019ve been able to express to a team the importance of faith and believing in each other. God doesn\u2019t have any favorites. I said that in the book. He doesn\u2019t care whether anybody wins or loses. When I say that, I\u2019m coming from the standpoint of how blessed I feel for having that particular venue or platform to be able to be a part of something so deep.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What\u2019s a specific example of how your faith impacts the way that you coach?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Coach Gene Chizik during spring football (Photo by Todd Van Emst\/Courtesy Auburn Media Relations)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chizik: I don\u2019t know that I have specific examples but it dictates the way we treat the players. It dictates the way we mold these young guys in terms of teaching them the dos and the don’ts and the rights and the wrongs. It\u2019s so important for these young guys to learn that in order to help them as they leave four years later so they can understand the how to be successful down the road. So it\u2019s just something that we try to do to the best of our ability and live out on a daily basis and impart to our players on a daily basis. It\u2019s not anything where we\u2019re trying to push any type of faith situation on them, but we\u2019re just teaching them what it looks like to live a good life\u2014the kind of life that\u2019s going to give them the opportunity to be successful.<\/p>\n

Bonham: You seemed to go out of your way to defend the Cam Newton\u2019s character. What was it that you saw in him that maybe the fans and the media didn\u2019t get to see?<\/p>\n

Chizik: He was a great young man and I was around him day in and day out for a long period of time. I saw everything that he stood for and the way that he carried himself. He was a great teammate. He wasn\u2019t afraid to express himself. With everything he\u2019s been given, he believed that it was given to him (by God) and that he was blessed. He wasn\u2019t afraid to say that. So just day in and day out, people didn\u2019t get to see the same side that I did. And what you see is what you get from him\u2014that big smile, that entertaining personality. That\u2019s who he was.<\/p>\n

Click HERE<\/a> for part two of the Inspiring Athletes interview with Gene Chizik.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with your friends! No one had Auburn on top of the 2010 preseason college football rankings. But by the end of the season, everyone did. For head coach Gene Chizik, it was an incredible year that saw his program come under fire from both media members looking to cast doubt…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,384,382,5],"tags":[549,557,556,548,550,350,554,558,553,552,555],"class_list":["post-1119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-athletes","category-football","category-qa","category-sports-features","tag-2011-bcs-championship","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-arkansas-razorbacks","tag-auburn","tag-cam-newton","tag-gene-chizik","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-sec-football","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks"],"yoast_head":"\nA conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1) - Inspiring Athletes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1) - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Click “Like” to share this with your friends! No one had Auburn on top of the 2010 preseason college football rankings. But by the end of the season, everyone did. For head coach Gene Chizik, it was an incredible year that saw his program come under fire from both media members looking to cast doubt…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-29T20:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-30T02:28:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2011\/07\/GeneChizik_book-199x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chad Bonham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1) - Inspiring Athletes","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1) - Inspiring Athletes","og_description":"Click “Like” to share this with your friends! No one had Auburn on top of the 2010 preseason college football rankings. But by the end of the season, everyone did. For head coach Gene Chizik, it was an incredible year that saw his program come under fire from both media members looking to cast doubt…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html","og_site_name":"Inspiring Athletes","article_published_time":"2011-07-29T20:00:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-30T02:28:30+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2011\/07\/GeneChizik_book-199x300.jpg"}],"author":"Chad Bonham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html","name":"A conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1) - Inspiring Athletes","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2011\/07\/GeneChizik_book-199x300.jpg","datePublished":"2011-07-29T20:00:23+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-30T02:28:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#\/schema\/person\/95c3e9443bb9bfa81645d8daef1193c1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2011\/07\/GeneChizik_book-199x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2011\/07\/GeneChizik_book-199x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2011\/07\/a-conversation-with-auburn-national-championship-football-coach-gene-chizik-part-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A conversation with Auburn national championship football coach Gene Chizik (Part 1)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/","name":"Inspiring Athletes","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Chad Bonham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#\/schema\/person\/95c3e9443bb9bfa81645d8daef1193c1","name":"Chad Bonham","description":"Chad has been working in mass media for over 20 years. Chad\u2019s professional journey began at the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1993) while working extensively in athletic media relations and serving as a sports editor for The Collegian. Since then, he has written extensively for such publications as Relevant, CCM, Christian Retailing, New Man, Charisma, Today\u2019s Christian, Ministries Today, Breakaway, Brio, Sports Spectrum, Christian Single, Faith & Friends, Sharing the Victory and Gospel Today. He has authored, co-authored or ghost written and edited 13 books including Life in the Fairway (New Leaf Press), Glory of the Games (Cross Training), Wrestling with God (River Oak), Spiritual Journeys (Relevant) and the four-part Fellowship of Christian Athletes Core Value Series; Excellence, Teamwork, Serving and Integrity (Regal Books). Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1137,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions\/1137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}