By ANDRIANNA MARSTON
alm045@latech.edu
Joe Ehrmann’s speech at the
Jeffery Marx, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and Ehrmann, a high school football coach and former All-Pro
defensive tackle for the Baltimore Colts, spoke with athletes and the student
body from Tech, Tulane, Grambling and area high schools about how to be a
prosperous society.
Ehrmann said for years athletes
have been led to believe playing sports is all about athletic ability, sexual
conquest and economic success, but he has different beliefs.
“Athletes should get beyond the three lies that athletic
ability, sexual conquest and economic success are what sports is all about, and
learn the importance of accepting responsibility, loving others and serving
others,” Ehrmann said.
The three lies are fed to every man in this country, Ehrmann said.
“They are the same lies that were fed to me that are
being fed to boys in America today,” Ehrmann said.
“And these same lies have made themselves a part of our culture and created a
natural wound in men.”
Ehrmann said he derived his
beliefs from personal background.
Because Ehrmann did not know
his father until he was well into high school, he said he grew up under a lot
of pressure at home and inside the community. As a result, football was always
a normal outlet for him.
“I spent 13 years playing professional football and the
one thing I was able to take out of the game and apply to my life and ministry
was the concept of a team,” Ehrmann said.
An athlete has to learn to set aside the goal for
personal wants in order to be an important asset to the team, Ehrmann said.
John Butler, area representative for the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes, said Marx wrote the book “Season of Life” because he was
inspired by his childhood hero, Ehrmann.
“One of the problems in our society is everybody worrying
about being ‘number one,’ ‘It’s all about me,’ and all of those little media
terms that have generated over the last 15 to 20 years, and no one worries
about someone else,” Butler said.
Butler said Ehrmann wants the
world of athletics to realize the job of the coach is to help develop and
produce a growing environment.
“The ultimate product is for young men and women who play
sports to be involved in a positive society,” Butler said.
Breon Johnson, a sophomore sociology major, said although he loves
football, he feels the sport has lost its genuine purpose.
“The game is more like a business; it’s all about winning
rather than just playing for fun,” Johnson said.
Marx said when Ehrmann was
named the most important coach in America, it had nothing to do with the score
board; it all revolved around his inspirational messages.
Marx said, “Empathy, integrity, service for others and
justice are not words that are usually associated with football, but they are
certainly words associated with Joe Ehrmann’s
‘Building Men for Others’ program.”