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They say football is life in west Texas.
They say being a good athlete is life.
But what happens when it's over?
What happens when football's over?
What happens if you can't play sports anymore?
If that's your life, what happens then?
When I was growing up, things were rough.
My mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was
around ten years old.
She passed away when I was in ninth grade.
I have three brothers and a sister.
We kind of had to raise ourselves, and that's kind of where my hardheadedness
comes from.
It comes from, no one can tell me anything because I've
done it on my own.
I played football in high school and I was pretty good.
I was pretty good.
Good enough to get exposure and to get a scholarship offer from several
schools, and I chose to go to Texas Tech.
When I first got there, man, I was a hothead, just thinking that I had the
world in a choke hold.
I was bringing my A-game in life, that I knew what I was doing.
I knew I was doing it right.
I honestly believed that the success that I had achieved, it was only going
to get better by me doing it the way I thought I should do it, and that was
absolutely not true.
I like to just equate it like this.
That if you're 1,000 steps away from God, which I was, God will take 999
steps just so you'll take that one.
October 18th, 2006, I'm blocking a linebacker in team drills, and someone
just rolls on my ankle, and [SNAPS]
like that, I'm just down.
They took me in, got x-rays, and that quick, it's just done.
There's no fixing it.
You have to get surgery.
So, after I had my first surgery--
the swelling never really went down--
I went in for my second surgery six weeks after my first, and I wake up,
and I come to, and the doctor's looking at me.
I was like, "how did the surgery go?"
He said, "no, it didn't go good."
I said, "well what does that mean?
What does that mean?
What are you trying to tell me?"
He said, "well, we've got to do another surgery and clean it out."
And you know, the same thing went on five other times.
Every time waking up, hoping that the nightmare was over.
I was ready to quit.
I was ready to quit.
My identity was gone.
God had taken my identity and the person who I said I was, which was a
college athlete, and took it from me.
Yanked the rug right out from underneath me.
All my friends that I thought were my friends never came and saw me, never
came and really visited.
It was two guys that I really didn't talk to much on the team came and
said, "Baron, God has a plan for you."
I was skeptic.
I was mad at God.
I still didn't want to just get the hint that God had put a roadblock.
God had removed all the distractions, and the one big distraction that was
keeping me from Him, and that was football.
I eventually started going to church, started going to Bible studies, and
changing my life in little ways.
I started reading the word, getting into the word more,
and it started small.
I started with baby steps.
Eventually the ankle got better.
The infection went away.
It was not an overnight transformation.
It was not one of those things you wake up and your leg's healed, and I
start dancing around, I say "God, you healed me."
It wasn't one of those.
Oh man, after that, things got harder after that.
But slowly, things started to change in my life.
I said, God, "I know I'm a screw-up.
I know I'm a screw-up.
You know I'm a screw-up.
I understand that you gave me these talents and these abilities, and I
spit on them.
I spit all over them.
I disrespected the things that You gave me and tried to claim them for
myself, to bring glory for me."
I remember the first time I put back on my cleats and went back out to
play, the feeling that I had, knowing that the only reason I was out there
was because God put me back out there.
To me, Jesus dying on the cross is the ultimate act of love and the ultimate
act of obedience.
That's why when I score touchdowns, I don't pound my chest anymore.
I don't pound my chest or point to my jersey so people can see my number or
the name on the back of my jersey.
I don't do it.
All I can do, every time I get in the end zone, is point up.
Point up and say, "thank you, God.
Thank you, God, because you are so, so, so, so, faithful."
You were faithful when I wasn't.
You were faithful when I laughed at You.
You were faithful when I said I didn't want to have a part of You.
But yet, somehow, You turned all of that into a powerful testimony.
I have two scars on my ankle, on the left and right side.
I think that God gives us scars sometimes to remind us where we've
been, and more importantly, that He's healed us.
And then once we have those scars, we can show people, and say, "look, this
is what God's done for me."
My name is Baron Batch, and I am Second.