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My life changed when I was 15.
I remember coming home from high school.
We had just finished exams. Arriving to the house,
there was a lot of cars parked outside.
When I came in, I remember saying,
"What is this party for?
Why do we have so many people?" I saw my mom,
and when she came down the stairs she was in tears.
Her whole face--
you could tell her face, something was wrong.
I knew right then and there that something
happened to my dad.
I grew up in a blue-collar family with a dad and mom,
a brother, and two sisters.
It was great.
My dad was a cop, my mom a schoolteacher.
We always played sports together, playing around the
house, just being regular kids.
Football and baseball: those were my two favorite sports.
My dad always took me out, and always helped me practice.
He showed me what work ethic was.
On June 5, 2001, my dad passed.
He was in a car accident and
from that moment my life changed.
It was a turn upside down, a lot of things going crazy.
My life felt like a movie.
I realized just taking for granted how
influential he was to me.
He was the most important person in my
life at that time.
From that day my life changed.
I put everything I had into baseball.
I remember not wanting to come home from school, because I
didn't want to come home to the house.
My family was always crying, and it was real, real
depressing coming home.
I used to spend hours and hours at the baseball field,
hitting and fielding and hitting, and
hitting, and hitting.
I remember that that was my way to deal with the pain that
I was having.
At 16 was the first time that I started drinking.
My dad had always taught me what was right and wrong, but
I felt like this excuse that everybody would feel sorry for
me, that I could do whatever I wanted, because I
had the best excuse.
My world sucked at that time.
So I just kept playing baseball, and I kept doing the
same thing.
[In 2003 Chris Coglan received a baseball scholarship to the University of Mississippi.]
[Three years later he became the first round pick of the Florida Marlins.]
My dream had come true right then and there, everything
that I'd worked for.
I wanted to go play professional baseball.
I went to the minor leagues.
Same thing: All-Star every year that I played.
At the same time, I would say I was an All-Star off the
field as well.
I remember my first big league camp.
I went to spring training.
Being out the night before, going out and just consuming
alcohol and continuing to drink until I got drunk, so I
could have that feeling that I could go approach a female and
not have to worry about getting rejected, because I
was that insecure.
I remember the next morning, and just feeling terrible.
My body feeling terrible, being hung-over, and I had to
go to the ball field.
Everyone knew that I'd been out the night before.
They could just smell me.
We were playing catch.
I was playing catch with another teammate and messing
around and goofing, because I wasn't all there, because I
was hung-over.
I threw a curve ball.
I don't even know how to throw a curve ball, and from about
90 feet away I hit our All-Star second baseman--
he went down-- right in the cup.
I said, "I'm so sorry.
I thought you were my throwing partner." Another teammate
came running up.
He called me out.
I was busted right there, and I remember getting yelled at,
and having just this constant anxiety.
For the first time in my life, I didn't know what to do.
I kept apologizing.
I couldn't even catch a ground ball anymore.
I couldn't hit BP anymore, because I had so much anxiety,
and so much nervousness that everyone had known the
decision that I had made the night before.
The next day I got sent down.
When you move all your stuff and all your equipment,
everyone sees you.
You push it in a shopping cart, and everyone knows where
you're going.
That means that you got sent down.
You're going to the other side.
It's an empty feeling.
I was completely selfish.
It was whatever could benefit me.
The sad part was I didn't even know it.
I didn't even know how selfish I was.
Through that time was when I met a guy who was rehabbing.
He had a Bible, and he was reading a
Bible in the clubhouse.
I asked him, I said, "What are you reading?" But I knew he
was reading a Bible.
I just wanted to see if he was really going to tell me, "Yes,
I'm reading a Bible." He said, "Are you a man of faith?" I
said, "I'm not.
I believe that there's a God, but by no means am I living
for Him."
I remember later that day we went out to camp.
While we were out there, we were all the
way on the back field.
I wore my turfs out there, but our coach said, "Where are
your cleats at?" I didn't have them.
I said, "They're in the clubhouse." I thought in my
mind, "There's no way he's going to really tell me to run
all the way back there and get my cleats." Because I felt
like everybody owed me something.
I felt like I was owed, and that since I was in major
league camp, that I was better than the people out there.
I remember that guy, the same guy that was reading that
Bible in the clubhouse, said, "I'll go get them for you." He
ran all the way back there, got my cleats, and ran all the
way back, and brought them to me.
When he brought them to me, I was really kind of bummed out,
but at the same time I was like, "Man, this guy-- there's
something different about this guy.
This guy would run that far, and care that much to get my
cleats that--
I don't even know him."
He interacts with me.
We share our information about family and what's
going on in our lives.
We go to a Starbucks for two hours.
He opens that Bible, and he shares with me what Jesus is
like, and what Jesus has done in his life.
He shares the gospel.
One thing that I'll always remember is that if you
confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your
heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
That hit me right here.
I knew it right then and there.
I remember my heart just beating just a thousand times
per second.
I realized at that time that I wanted God.
I wanted Jesus.
I wanted Him in my life.
I was tired of chasing the wind.
I was tired of chasing these temporary satisfactions that I
was having, and realizing that every night I really had an
empty feeling.
I had an empty feeling inside.
I was trying to fill this void with these earthly things,
with baseball.
I realized that this game is all about--
is there's so much failure, and how you
deal with that failure.
I was a miserable person.
I wanted God, and I wanted Jesus.
I remember after he shared that with me, I accepted Jesus
Christ into my life.
[In May of 2009, Chris Coglan returned to the Major Leagues a changed man.]
[Six months later he was named the National League Rookie of the Year.]
What is 0 for 4?
What is striking out three times?
What is making two errors?
All that is, is temporary.
The constant satisfaction, that rock where I can put all
my hope, all my faith in, is Christ.
I think my dad is more proud that I accepted Christ into my
heart than anything that I could have made him proud of
on the baseball field, or any choices that
I could have made.
I think the most thing that he is proud of is to know that
I'm living for a righteous and holy God.
I guess that's it.
My name is Chris Coghlan, and I am Second.