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This is a space for coaches, trainers, and leaders who love the game — but don’t want the game to cost them their family, their integrity, or their soul.
Here, we talk about leadership, pressure, culture, identity, and the quiet tensions no one prepares you for when you step into coaching.
This isn’t about chasing wins at all costs.
It’s about restoring what the game was meant to form in us — and in the players we lead.
This podcast is presented by the Beloved Coaches Collective, a community committed to coaching from identity, not insecurity.
I’m Coach Sanders.
Let’s redeem the game — one coach at a time.
In this episode of Redeeming the Game
today, we'll go back to the beginning.
We explore, we're gonna explore the
original vision behind the game of
basketball and contrast it with three
forces that quietly shape most of
modern sports: fear, guilt, and shame.
See, fear tells us our
value depends on winning.
Guilt convinces us that we
have failed beyond repair.
And shame whispers that
we are our mistakes.
Wow.
But the gospel tells us
a different story, right?
Through Jesus Christ, we are beloved
sons and daughters made righteous by
grace, not by our own performance.
Whether you're a coach or athlete, pa-
a parent or trainer, this episode will
challenge you to examine the culture
you're creating and the message you're
reinforcing every time you step into the
gym, because every team is living a story.
Every person is living the story.
The question is, is the story of
fear, or is the story of redemption?
Let's get to the podcast
welcome back to the Redeeming the
Game podcast, everybody, and today
I want to start with a question.
What story is your team leading?
If you're a, a professional and you're
in leadership, this speaks to you, too.
If you're a parent of a large
family, this speaks to you, too.
I- what is the story
your family is living?
What story, a- as a, as a leader,
as a coach, as a athletic director,
what story is your team leadâ¦
living, not leading, but living?
Every practice, every halftime,
every film session, every locker
room, every moment in a, a
conference room is telling a story.
The question is whether the sho-
the story we're telling is shaping
our players' lives or is it not?
The, the question isn't what we're
n- not shaping them into, but
what are we shaping them into.
So today I want to contrast
two big-time stories.
One is the original vision
behind the game of basketball.
We have unpacked this
for weeks on the podcast.
And the other is the real story.
See, the real story about this world is
that when Adam and Eve, uh, sinned in the
garden, sin came into the world, and we
know that sin is, at its core, defined
as us acting and living and behaving
outsi- outside of our original design.
So here's what I mean by that.
In the beginning, God created man
and woman, male and female, in
His own image, and when they chose
themself, that image was marred.
And so that is what sin is.
And I believe that almost every
coach, including myself, has wrestled
with that type of misidentification.
See, basketball wasn't simply created
to entertain, although we think it
is because we watch the NBA and we
watch the World Cup even in soccer.
We, we watch these things
and it's full entertainment.
It's, it's making tons and tons of money.
But it wasn't created to
merely produce championships.
It wasn't created to, well,
always live by the scoreboard.
Dr.
Naismith believed that basketball
could develop people's character.
It was meant to be enjoyed.
I say this all the time.
It was meant to push you to be
greater, m- m- to live in a world
where you are greater than you
even believe about yourself.
That's, that's the character development.
See, he, as we've said, he saw the gym
as a place where lives could be reshaped
or shaped, not just skill developed for
the game and for the, the scoreboard.
In many ways, that's exactly
how God works in our lives.
Think about that.
And I, I believe that the gym can
be worked how God works in us.
Uh, as my, as my dad always says,
"God works in us," this is in
the scripture, "both the will
and the do of His good pleasure."
God is working in our lives always.
He uses ordinary places like a gym
to accomplish extraordinary purposes.
Think about how powerful that is.
And I believe the gym can still be a
place that we encounter truth, where
we become transformational specialists
as coaches So let's put some scripture
context on top of what I just said.
Colossians 3:17 says, "Whatever you do, do
everything in the name of the Lord Jesus."
Think about that.
Every practice, every locker room
session, as I just said, think about how
important it is that all of those things
are done in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Pray, teach, lead in the
name of the Lord Jesus.
That's powerful, right?
And I can tell you from my experience
as a coach that when we took Christ off
the sign and put Him on the floor with
us, when we took the name Jesus just off
of some scripture that we, we prop our,
our, uh, institutions up by, or even
our own n- our teams by, that we're not
just some kind of scripture quote on the
back of the T-shirt, but we actually, we
take Jesus on the court with us and into
the locker room and on the buses, there
is major transformation that happens.
And I think that we have to understand
what is keeping us from that, and I know
that what I'm about to unpack with you is
going to really, really resonate with you.
I was at a, um, I was at a
convention in Jackson, Tennessee
with a good friend of mine.
And, uh, we're, we're listening to
this, uh, pastor theologian talk,
and he said these words, and I have
not been able, and my, my, myâ¦
actually the, all the Basketball
Missionaries on the road, we've not
been able to get rid of this phrase.
He said that there's two trinities in
the world, and especially in sports.
One is the, the Holy Trinity with
the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The other one is the Unholy Trinity,
and that is fear, guilt, and shame,
or fear, guilt, and I'm not good
enough, and, and a- all of the, the,
the doubts that come from shame.
That's the Unholy Trinity.
And we somewhere along the way
have allowed that worship of that
trinity to permeate our lives,
and it becomes a motivator.
And let me just tell you from personal
experience, when you're motivated by g-
fear, guilt, and shame, or fear, guilt,
and doubt, in any of those three, any
of those words, if they motivate you
and you're fighting against them, the
letdown in the end is unimaginable.
I am beyond certain, and I've shared
this on the podcast transparently,
that when I had the, quote-unquote,
"nervous breakdown" when I lost my job
back in 2000 and, I think, 13 or 14,
I, I, I was, I was abs- a- actively
in my mind worshiping, usingâ¦
And when I say worship, I'm thinking about
the fear, the guilt, and the shame of
how much of a bad person I am, and using
that to motivate, and then in the end,
you treat yourself and people so poorly.
And then when the rug gets
pulled out from under you, you're
empty, and that's, that was me.
See, what, what, what they say,
fear says, "I don't perform,
so therefore I lose my place."
Guilt says, "I failed."
Think about that.
I'm guilty of not ⦠That
means you failed at something.
But here's the kicker, and
this one, it goes deep.
This is where doubt, the, the, uh, the
shame and the doubt are hand-in-hand here.
Shame goes even deeper.
It says, "I'm a failure-
I'm a failure.
And I can't tell you how many
times as a coach that I felt that.
If you're listening to this as a
leader and as a coach, think about
how much of your life you have been
motivated by fear, guilt, and shame.
Fear will make you do all kind of
wild things that are just outside
of your normal, normal design as
a coach and as a leader, so will
guilt and shame, and mostly shame.
Shame will make you do crazy things.
It will make you say the wildest things.
And I have said, I, I'm sure, Coach,
you, you might resonate with this, I
have said in locker room settings, "I'm
ashamed of how you guys played today."
What?
Like, what?
I ⦠Looking back on that, I wish I
could go back in those locker rooms
and, and delete that conversation
and start over because can you
imagine inflicting that kind of, um,
that kind of emotion on those kids?
Instead of, "I'm proud of how
you gave the effort today.
We got a lot to get better at, but we
lost," or, "We got our butts kicked,"
or, "We lost, we lost in a close game."
Think about, think about what we're doing.
Think about it in practice.
If you have said those words, "I'm
ashamed of how you played," you're, you
are exposing that you have shame, and now
you're projecting on ⦠I have s- I can't
tell you how many times I've said it.
And Iâ¦
Or, or more importantly,
"I'm disappointed inâ¦"
Those two things go hand-in-hand.
They are killers.
They will destroy your program,
and they will destroy the heart of
those kids that you are been given
by God to transform their lives.
Come on, Coach, that's good right there.
Hear that, that that's the goal,
is to transform lives, not to
guilt them or shame them or fear
them into being something thatâ¦
Y- your job is to call out the good
parts of them, not the bad parts.
The critiques are easy.
You already know that.
But calling out the great
parts of them is so important.
I know that I, and, and maybe, maybe
this is a, a great way to say it,
I, I unknowingly built my programs
around it because I was built around
fear, guilt, shame, and doubt.
I was ⦠That was me.
I was totally that person.
And I ⦠If you hear this
and, and you want to hear
stories, you need to email me.
And so let's, let's, let's
pause right here and say this.
For all you guys who listen and
watch and, and, and, uh, and, and,
uh, share and, and like, thank you.
But if you haven't done
that, I need you to do that.
Hey, friends, before we continue,
I wanna take a break and
share something from my heart.
I'm not making any money off the podcast.
In fact, Redeeming the Game is a part
of my basketball missionary life.
My passion, as you know if you've been
following, is to help coaches and players
discover that their identity is Christ.
It's not in wins or losses
or how they perform.
This ministry is supported entirely
by people who believe in that
mission, who've come alongside me
and choose to partner financially.
So if you would like to continue to help
me create this content, mentor coaches,
and share the gospel of Jesus strife
through the g- Jesus Christ through the
game, you'll find a giving lim- link in
the description and in the show notes.
Thank you for your support
and your encouragement.
Hope this blesses you
And then if you, if you're
hearing this and this is really
resonating, I want to hear from you.
Please email me at matt@redeemthegame.com.
I want to talk to you.
I got a great, as I said on the last
podcast, I got a great email from a coach,
uh, up north the other day who was saying
that the podcast has really spoken to him.
Coach, thank you.
Thank you.
I need more coaches to say that.
That is what my missionary status is.
I am here to share my stories with you
so that you will be motivated to redeem
the game in the way it was designed to be
done, not through fear, fear, guilt, and
shame, but by the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, who say you are righteous and
redeemed, that Jesus died for you so that
you can call out the good things in those
players, and that you make such an eternal
impact in them that they are never the
same when they're done with your program.
Okay Let's get back to it.
As we start to land the plane, I, I want
to, I want to show you how we, the two
contrasts of those things, and how we
can make them better, and we can, we can
move away from the unholy trinity, but
into the trinity of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, who love us unconditionally.
How do we do that?
The gospel itself of Jesus
Christ doesn't ignore failure.
It answers it.
Come on.
Jesus didn't come to
make better performers.
He came to make us new.
I think it's 1 Corinthians
5:12 says that we are, we are
all new creations in Christ.
We are, we've been made new.
You have been given a new genetic
code when you say yes to Jesus.
It's called regened.
That's, that's so powerful.
Listen to what the gospel, the,
that word gospel means good news.
Here's the good news.
It doesn't, it doesn't ignore the failure.
It answers it.
Jesus came to make you new,
a new and better coach.
Before Jesus even performed a miracle,
before he preached a sermon, before
he healed anybody, the Father declared
to him, "You are my beloved son,
and with you I am well pleased."
That is the basis for beloved identity,
and the Father said that over Jesus.
Jesus died for you, and now
they say that over all of us.
When you say yes, you receive the
sacrifice of Jesus in your heart.
He makes you a beloved,
righteous, redeemed coach.
He did it for me five years ago.
Again, I want you to call
me, text me, email me.
I want to hear from you on this, 'cause it
was life-changing for me, life-altering,
coach- coaching career altering.
Again, second, it's 2
Corinthians, not first.
2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that
we have been made righteous byâ¦
made the righteousness of God in Christ.
That's what, that's what it says.
We don't coach for approval.
We've said this over and over.
We don'tâ¦
We, we coach from acceptance.
We don't compete to earn love.
We compete because we know
how much we are loved.
No matter how many times you've failed,
if you live in the guilt, shame, fear
world, or, or the doubt, you are never
gonna feel like you're good enough.
You're never gonna feel
like you measure up.
And God says, "I died for that, so you
can teach those kids to play from that."
That's the whole point
of what we do as coaches.
That's the whole point.
The whole point of this pro- bo-
podcast is to say to you, "There is a
way to coach this game that a- doesn't
always, uh, point to the scoreboard."
That it, it, uh, it brings the
kids and your, your team together
in a place in which they become
free from, "I've got to perform."
And I'm gonna keep saying this.
May- and maybe, maybe this is
a, a sermon series for somebody,
but I want you to hear this.
That I hearâ¦
I, I, I actually, I just played
golf with a guy the other day, and
he used this phrase with me, "Well,
I didn't perform very well today."
And I was like, "Pew, mind blown."
I'm like, "Ho- hold on a minute.
We, we weren't out here
playing for a scoreboard.
I, I play golf to beat the course.
If my score's better than
yours, okay, fine, I beat you.
But I'm not trying to beat you,
I'm trying to beat the course."
And he used that word perform,
and I want you to hear this.
You look it up for yourself, but when you
use the word perform inside your program,
"You guys didn't perform well today,"
and I did it, too, so hand high here.
When you say that, you are projecting on
them that they are nothing but actors.
That means that when they go
on the court, they are acting
out something that they're not.
So, when you project fear, guilt,
and shame from your life onto them,
and you're, and you feel like you're
performing for that scoreboard so that
everybody will accept you and say you're
a really good coach and you have a really
good team, when you don't do that, the
other end of that is absolutely empty.
It's awful, to be real.
And it's awfully difficult to navigate.
And so I just want to say to you that
that is y- when you learn that you're
loved by God and that that scoreboard
means nothing but how to keep score
of the game and use it to compete and
not as motivation to live and to play,
man, it's a, it's a game changer.
That is such a game changer.
So, what stories are your play-
players hearing every day?
I've already said this.
What, what, what is, what is, what is,
when they leave practice, when they leave,
uh, the game, what, what do they know?
What have you challenged them with?
What, what part of life have you
challenged them with that's not built
around fear, guilt, and shame, and doubt?
See, the, the excellences that you
want from them are, come from grace.
See, excellence and grace aren't enemies.
In Christ, they are together.
God calls us to live and work
in excellence as unto the Lord.
It actually demands it.
So that doesn't mean you're not
trying to win a championship,
you're not every single day
trying to be incredibly excellent.
What it's saying is that grace, which
says you, you get things that you don't
deserve because of Jesus' sacrifice, that
doesn't mean you keep doing things that
are outside of how God designed you, sin,
so that you can keep getting more grace.
That grace and excellence come together,
and they produce a product that
everybody in the world will want to see.
When they come in the gym, they see what's
written on the back of this T-shirt, that
we win men for the master Jesus in this
building by how we play, how we love each
other, and how we know how loved we are
Maybe, maybe Redeeming the Game doesn't
start with new offense or new defense, or
a new way to do, um, out of bounds plays.
That, that's not what this is about.
That's not what this podcast is about.
This, this podcast is designed to bring in
a, a new way to see the story of the game.
That's the kind of culture we wanna build.
See, winning isn't everything.
Correction isn't wrong.
But if it's driven by, uh, gear, f-
fear, guilt, and shame, it's, it,
it, it is, it actually will produce
something you don't want to deal with.
And I hope that you are willing to build
this with me, with Redeeming the Game.
So as, as we, as we land the plane, I, I,
I wanna, I wanna stop and say thank you.
Thank you so much for diving in with me.
Thank you so much for listening and,
and this, this, uh, this new journey
that I'm on, uh, sitting behind
this camera a- and sharing each week
my stories and being transparent.
And I said this, uh, a couple of
podcasts ago, uh, transparency
and vulnerability are superpowers.
One, they're freeing for you, and
two, they're freeing for the people
who you're w- willing to listen to.
Because perfect love casts out all
fear, and when you can share things
that you have dealt with and you're
dealing with transparently, and you
got somebody that's willing to love
you through them, man, it's so freeing.
So, in this episode, obviously we
unpacked a ton of things, and I think
that one of the best resources that
I have for you is the 10 Things I
Wish I Knew as a Young Head Coach.
Go in the show notes,
grab it, download it.
It will be fantastic.
And then as I said, I said midway through
the podcast today, please re- please
email me at matt@redeemingthegame.com.
I would love to talk with you.
Again, thank you so much, and as we
say every single week, the goal of
this podcast is to reach every single
coach and family that we possibly
can, redeeming this game one family,
one coach, and one player at a time.
I hope this blesses you.
See you next time.