Kramer Soderberg
Episode 72
15 JUNE 2020
An assistant coach for the men’s basketball team at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. Previously he had been in the same role at NCAA Division II Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. He played basketball collegiately at both the University of Miami-Ohio and at Lindenwood and at the latter he has been inducted into their Athletics Hall of Fame. Two months ago his book came out, titled, “Fill Your Cup for Christ: A Spiritual Journey Sown & Grown Through Sports.”
Notable guest quotes:
“In my profession I deal with 18-21 year old kids for my livelihood, but you see the temptations and all that is pushing them in one direction and it’s hard to hone off all that stuff that the peer pressure is telling you to do and stick to your faith.”
“For all of us, we have so many different journeys, so many different paths… We all are kind of different. Some seeds will sprout up really quickly. And for some people their faith life explodes when they’re in grade school or high school. Other people it takes a little bit longer for that seed to germinate and then begin to produce fruit.”
“Although I wasn’t always sure of why my dad was going to Adoration, why he was going to daily Mass, it was always an example. So, when you do get older and you start to say, ‘Hm, maybe my faith life is important,’ you fall back on the example that you saw your parents do.”
“I… fully surrendered the future to Christ and said… ‘Lord, I give this to you. If you want me to get a job, I’m going to get it. If you don’t, I’m not.’ And that… really, really honed me in to this dependence and trust and love for the Lord.”
“I try to live out my faith through my example so that when my players see me hopefully on a daily basis giving joy and being excited and filled with exuberance and all that stuff, I hope that they will see that example and kind of relay that to my faith life.”
“Winning and losing used to be the most important thing. But, you lose a game and then you look across the stands and there’s your three little ones smiling at ya’. They don’t care about wins and losses and it makes you not care about it either, as long as you get a big hug afterwards.”
“In the midst of all that’s going on in this world, all your pursuits – trying to be a good parent, a good husband or wife, a good professional, grow in your career – we can do all these things while at the same time giving it to the glory of God.”
“Just doing your faith on Sundays isn’t what God’s asking us to do. He’s asking us to pray without ceasing and that means all the time being involved in our faith, all the time thinking of Him.”
“As a coach you tend to be a voice that’s always, always up front. And Joseph, for me, was such a servant of God. A man who surrendered his life completely to the Lord, trusted completely, but did his work in a quiet way with really no recognition… he has no words in the Bible. So that side of Joseph really hit me that sometimes it’s better to be quiet. It’s better to be away from the limelight.”
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