CUP: A Higher Calling - Joe Gibbs Winning More Than Races

Sprint Cup

CUP: A Higher Calling - Joe Gibbs Winning More Than Races

Team owner Joe Gibbs is making an impact through his “Game Plan For Life” ministry...

SceneDaily.com | Posted December 30, 2010 Charlotte, NC

Team owner Joe Gibbs speaks on stage at the Republican National Convention in September 2008. (Photo: Getty Images)

Article by Kris Johnson, SceneDaily.com

Every year, NASCAR Illustrated presents its Person of the Year award to the individual in the sport who has had the greatest positive impact on or off the track.

This year’s winner, Joe Gibbs, has succeeded on both fronts.

On the track, Joe Gibbs Racing, which began competing in 1992, made a serious run for its fourth Cup championship, with Denny Hamlin finishing second.

Gibbs, whose team also has 88 career Cup victories, has thrived in NASCAR just like he did as head coach in the National Football League. A three-time Super Bowl winner with the Washington Redskins, Gibbs was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1996.

His accomplishments at the highest level of two professional sports are laudable. But numbers don’t tell the full measure of the man.

Not unless you count the number of lives Gibbs has influenced in a positive way.

In 2010, his “Game Plan For Life” ministry, born from the book of the same name, has touched the lives of thousands.

With football as the primary metaphor, Gibbs’ book establishes a faith-based blueprint for success that he hopes will inspire men from all walks of life.

But Gibbs has done more than write a book. After the release of “Game Plan” last July, he embarked on a barnstorming tour that reached full steam this year.

Gibbs likes to joke that he’s playing in the fourth quarter of his own life, but he shows no signs of slowing. By year’s end, he will have logged more than 4,000 miles for 12 “Game Plan” events concentrated largely in the Southeast.

Gibbs made one such visit to Turbeville Correctional Institution in the hinterland of South Carolina in August. One major pillar of Gibbs’ ministry is outreach to prisons – he’s been to six different facilities spanning the Carolinas, Ohio and Florida.

Passing through the medium-security prison’s steel holding gate armed only with a Bible, Gibbs worked the sun-baked prison yard as if it were an NFL sideline. Sweating through a button-down blue dress shirt, Gibbs gave his testimony with more vigor than you might expect from a 69-year-old grandfather of eight.

“You and I,” Gibbs bellowed into a handheld microphone, “we serve a God of second chances.”

With his voice reverberating off stark white-washed buildings rimmed by barbed wire, the echoes called to mind Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. Turbeville is home to 1,400 inmates and a majority of them were seated around Gibbs on a blindingly bright day.

Turbeville Division Director of Inmate Services Gary Boyd called the appearance by Gibbs a “big-ticket event” that helped improve both the population’s morale and behavior.

“Act out, you don’t go,” Boyd told inmates in the days leading up to the event. “You need to get your act together.”

Former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, who wrote the foreword to “Game Plan For Life,” visited the prison in July. Gibbs, in typical self-deprecating style, referred to himself as the “second string” speaker in the wake of Dungy’s appearance.

Joe Gibbs is a three-time Sprint Cup champion team owner. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“There are probably a few race fans here and probably a few NFL fans here,” he continued. “Now if I can get just a few boos I’ll feel right at home.”

In khaki uniforms with “SCDC” on the back, the inmates laughed as prison guards clad in bright red uniforms stood around them. Security was not an issue but the mere threat of an uprising might affect a man of lesser faith.

Bob Dyer has seen Gibbs in this environment before and still marvels at his demeanor. Dyer, who joined Joe Gibbs Racing as team chaplain in 1996 after working at Motor Racing Outreach, recalled a February “Game Plan” event staged in Orlando. Held at the Central Florida Reception Center, it was the first prison appearance of the 2010 tour – and one that spurred Gibbs’ interest in visiting more of them.

“There were 1,300 men there and they gathered around him in the yard. Every prison is so different, it’s hard to get a feel for what is going to happen,” Dyer said. “But he is so good with people, you just never know how they are going to respond. He rolls with the punches. He’s out there shaking hands and signing autographs. And I’m thinking, ‘Should he be doing this?’”

The answer, according to Gibbs, is never in question when it comes to winning souls.

“God does it, I don’t do it,” he said.

Somewhere in the sprawl of Turbeville prisoners was a 46-year-old inmate named Jerome, whose last name cannot be disclosed for legal reasons. Jerome said afterward that he’s due to be released from Turbeville in a year. He was asked what Gibbs’ message meant to the prisoners.

“To know that they can be better, that they can be great. They can be successful,” Jerome said. “We need more volunteers that will come and advocate for those who have been broken, to bring hope to a population that is in desperate need. To let them know that there’s someone that cares.

“This is what I’ve been praying for since I’ve been in this yard.”

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