Off-Season Talks – The Warrior Way

Phil: Welcome back to How Soccer Explains Leadership. Thank you again for your download. Thanks for being a part of this how soccer explains leadership conversation today. Paul Jobson and I, Phil Darke are going to be just had a little conversation about the Warrior Way program. We've talked about it quite a bit, you know, just in passing saying, Hey.

Go check out the warrior way program. Marci Jobson. Paul's, I'll say this, he goes, he said it here, his better half in much better soccer player, half will was on during the, I think the initial off-season talks Paul actually had his interview prowess showing and his brilliance and his interview questioning of Marci, so if you want to go check those out as far as the pillars of the warrior way, but we're just going to talk a little bit today about the warrior way program and and also the consulting and warrior way gives and just what all that is. We've talked about it. We're going to get a little bit more in depth.

So, Paul, first of all, how you do.

[00:00:58] Paul: Doing great. Doing great. And yeah, the [00:01:00] interview prowess was so good, it's continued on to so many other interviews that I've, that I've done. So, now, but that was, that was fun doing that with Marcy. And if people can go back and listen to the pillars and kind of how warrior way got started and, and whatnot.

But I think today, maybe just diving in to the different things, the different doors that God's kind of opened up through this process, and it's been, been fun to watch it grow and develop over the last

[00:01:23] Phil: Well, we are going to get you into that, that back interviewing. So we have talked about that.

We have one coming up here too. So stay tuned. We will have a bit of that. We will have a little bit of that. Also at the end, after we talked about Warrior Way there will be an opportunity, I'm going to talk a little bit about, and you'll have a way to check it out on the show notes. Everything we talk about here will also be in the show notes, but there's a gathering in Houston coming up in the end of April for anyone interested in doing some stuff in connection with World Cup '26, developing strategies for the church and, and other ministries. So if you're interested in that, stick around and I'll get you the information for that, but let's get back into [00:02:00] the warrior way program, everything going on, all things warrior way. So just, can you just give an overview of, of what's going on and then I can follow up on anything that I have questions about, which presumably other people have questions about.

[00:02:13] Paul: Yeah. So obviously Warrior Way, if you listen to some of the original interview, kind of grew out of a program, we called Little Bears while we were at Baylor. And it has grown into an opportunity to just in our communities where it started. For us to, to merge faith and sport starting with two year olds all the way up to really 14, 15 year olds, and it'll continue to grow through, through ages.

But it started with that. And one night, a week in Waco, great coaches from our local community paid coaches. So not, not volunteers, but people that are really invested in youth sport and ministry in our community. And it's been really fun to see. Doing it so long, seeing kids really developed through the process of how they're emerging their faith in sport and how it's hearing stories of how it's, what they're learning and warrior way [00:03:00] weaving into other things they're doing, whether they're playing basketball or baseball or they're in Scouts, or just how it's woven into their everyday school life.

Because as we know, and as we've talked about on this. Yeah, sports sport really does mimic or replicate or mirror life. So seeing these, these things that we're teaching a warrior way really overlap into these kids' lives. Maybe some of the parents too has been really, really fun to, to watch. And we've had some other things kind of grow out of that.

That's how it started. Well, we're continuing to grow here and in Waco or Monday night clinics and unfortunate the last two weeks, God has sent great rain to Waco, but only on Monday nights. So the last two Mondays have been rain outs. So we hope to get started. This is actually a Monday that we're recording.

So hopefully tonight we'll get get it in and get rolling on this spring season. But it's been, been a lot of fun and God's really blessed us with some amazing, amazing people in this community. To help us pour into, to these young people in these families, in our community.

[00:03:57] Phil: So you have those camps and you've been doing the camps [00:04:00] and the Monday night camps that you, that you're doing there with those kids.

And one of the things I love, what you said is, you know, your, the, the idea of how we can live out faith, how we can use faith and how sports and faith are not, you know, some people's thinking are in conflict, right? There's people out there who say, oh, sports are just a completely separate thing. They actually get in the way cause people Ms.

Church because of it, people do other things because of sports. And the fact is WIC sports is, is a creation, you know, of, of God's people as well. Right? It's not something. It's in the Bible, it's throughout scripture and you know, the references Paul uses to sport. So it's not this thing that's against. And so can you speak to that a little bit as far as, you know, the, the thought process and how we want it?

As one of my good friends has said, he says we want to redeem sports And so what does that look like?

[00:04:52] Paul: Well, it's like anything, right? I mean, People think that that money can be evil, that our, our technology can be evil. That sport can be [00:05:00] evil, you know, any, anything can be if used inappropriately.

Right. And if it becomes an idol or gets in the way of your relationship with Jesus, then yeah, it can be a bad thing. But having coached at a Christian university for 14 years, I saw so many students come in and that were Christians and they were athletes, but they weren't. Christian athletes. They didn't, those words didn't merge at all.

They were Christians in their daily life and they were athletes and another part of their life, but how to put that, those two pieces together to make. Maybe a stronger Christian, maybe a better athlete maybe a better human I think all those pieces that if God, if God has equipped you with something, he's given you a skill, he's given you an ability he wants you to be the best you can at it and not keep him out of it, but, but bring him into it so that he can be glorified in what you're doing.

And I think that's kind of what we're trying to well, not kind of, it is what we're trying to get done in warrior way is how can you. [00:06:00] Bring glory to God and in the skills and abilities he's given you, but also how can you use the sport through game, whatever not to glorify him, but to strengthen yourself as a person, how can you pour into community?

How can you learn to be a leader? You know, how can you learn to be great in your community? How can you be a better family member? All those different things really play well into it because other things that are taught in the Bible, you know, how are we loving on people? But at the same time, we need to know how to compete.

We need to know how to take the gifts and abilities that God's given us. Be the best we can. And, you know, we always say, Hey, if you're, if you're a skill ability is a six, be a six, don't be a four, right? You're not giving glory to God by being less than what he's given you the ability to do. So those are some things we try to work into Warrior Way and really challenging kids and working on mentality and toughness.

You know, I think too many people think that the Christian. You know, a Christian athlete, can't be tough that a Christian athlete has to be soft. And I think just the opposite, you know, Marcy. And I think that, [00:07:00] you know, if you're playing for our creator you've got to give all the glory to him, but you've got to work extremely hard because you represent the creator on the field.

You're not a jerk, right. You're not evil, but you're going to compete and you're going to work hard. And I think mental toughness. Things like that, or definitely, obviously mental toughness is one of our pillars. But it's, it's definitely a piece that can not be overlooked as you're, as you're competing

[00:07:25] Phil: yeah, we talked about that. Or I guess I talked about it on that on the couple episodes ago about you know, don't respond cheap for cheap it's it's like work harder. It's it's for the glory. It's character it's class. It's it's you know, are you living it out? Look at Paul in scripture. Talk about. And that dude it's like flogged beaten, shipwrecked, you know, stoned.

And he's like, I got, I I'm gonna, I got this. I gotta go. I got, I'm gonna, I'm gonna press on. Right. I'm gonna press on. And, and that's something that is incredible lessons. You said that mental toughness, that ability to go through and, [00:08:00] and live. Your God given abilities. I love what you also said too. It's one of those things.

It's funny. We're bringing back the last two off season talks, actually the idea of tech to like, there is bad tech, there's bad, you know, the internet has a lot of really bad things, but that doesn't mean we throw it all on. Right. It's we got to stop this either or thinking, right. What's the both. And what's that third way.

What's that, that, that good that we can come out of it. How do we redeem it? And that's something I heard a talk a long time ago about technology. In fact, he said just because we have bad technology, should we get rid of all of it? Instead, of course not. We just need to make it better. We just need to redeem it.

And so I love that. I love that. That's yeah.

[00:08:38] Paul: I think one of the, one of the best compliments, I think that we've ever gotten as a. When we were coaching was kind of back to the whole mentality piece and all that stuff competing is that, you know, after a game I coach was like, Hey, like your kids compete hard.

Like, you know, before a game, we're trying to get our team up so they can compete. Like we can match tensity, blah, blah, blah. Like they're just tough. They go after [00:09:00] everything, they get stuck in and they work hard. But after the game, there's some of the most, you know, the nicest, nicest players, most respectful w once the whistles blow into the game's over.

We're all people here. And I think that's one of the greatest compliments we ever gotten as a program was that, Hey, between the lines we're going to compete, man, we're we're, we're, we're going to win. We wanna win. But when the game's over, Hey, love you like a brother, a sister, a great job. You know, let's, can't wait, just, can't wait to face you again, you know, let's get after it.

So I think those are just things that we want. Portray and develop and deliver to the people that we work with. It, you know, even in our own home with our own children, I think it's important. But put them in a, in a community of people where we're striving to be good at what we do, no matter it is and give glory to God for it, but also rely on his wisdom and his power and his words to, to be able to accomplish the things he wants us to accomplish.

[00:09:56] Phil: Yeah. You know, I mean, I think all you need to do to show that you can play hard and [00:10:00] after the game still be a great person. It's just some old footage of Marci playing. And that will show that you can go and play as hard as anyone can play and hit people really hard and then pick them up and say, Hey, good game.

[00:10:12] Paul: Yeah, a lot made a lot of this programming, which you would have heard in that. The other interview is it comes out of how Marci developed her game through the mentors that she had, the people she watched really developed this program. And you're right, you go back and watch Marci compete, and everybody knows Marci.

It really does kind of replicate what she has been taught over her career to do it didn't come naturally to her. It was taught to her through a different series of things and I want to make sure we pass that on to the next generation, so to speak or anybody that has a, an ear to hear.

[00:10:43] Phil: All right.

So that's the kind of the overview of just really the what's what's underlying, what's under what's, what's the foundation of everything, all things warrior way, but what, what is, Warrior Way Gives, Warrior Way consulting? What's what's going on with that?

[00:10:56] Paul: Yeah. So we just kind of had this vision [00:11:00] of everything we're doing with warrior way.

We wanted to. You know, it is a for-profit business, right? So we are trying to, to, you know, make a living or whatever. But at the same time, we want to be able to, to, to, to give this programming to people that maybe can't afford it, or we take it to places that maybe aren't exposed or have exposure to some of the things that we're doing.

So that's how Warrior Way Gives was born as the nonprofit arm of have, or your way. And it's an opportunity for us to give the warrior way programming To to people that maybe can't afford it or in parts of different communities that don't have the exposure to what we're doing. So we're able to, just to, to, I may really is what it says.

It gives we're taking the order, reprogramming everything we just talked about and giving it to other communities that maybe don't don't have that opportunity. Th that we see in our, in other parts of our community. So for an example, a warrior way gives is, is doing an afterschool program with a local elementary.

We're going in once a week on Wednesday afternoons after school and [00:12:00] doing some of the warrior way programming with these, with these elementary school kids, bringing some of our coaches. It's been very rewarding with our coaches that are doing that. We're taking a team of probably about 20, 25 people down to Guatemala in may we have a great relationship with FCA down there that we've gone before. But we're taking soccer players and adults and kids, and just going, going down there to really poor or into. The youth down there, also some of the the female professional teams that are down there, just building some relationships and loving on them and kind of.

The warrior reprogramming down there as well. I'm also doing some, some things with some special need clinics here in Waco, a community that gets overlooked and bypass a lot, and all of our communities are the special needs communities. But just put together some programming just to love on them and show them that we care about them, that we love them and that they can be included in the things that we're doing.

So there's some different things that, that God's put on our heart over the last year, really to, to get [00:13:00] involved. Our local community here in Waco and extending outside of our borders down to Guatemala on the Gives part, just taking it again for your way and just try to just give it, give it away to other communities and we're a 5 0 1 C3 that part of it and take donations on online.

Now we're up and running online with online donations. So that's finally up and running. We feel so tech but it's been a cool process to watch God work through all the things like, wait, we have no experience in any of this stuff and it's been cool just to watch it unravel in front of us. And then the consulting piece is just an opportunity for Marci and I to take our experiences important to players, coaches, and clubs around the country.

And we've, we built some amazing responses, amazing relationships over our career. And our now. To pour back into players, coaches, and clubs working with a number of clubs around the country, honestly primarily there's some in Dallas we're working with but doing some personal training, private training [00:14:00] with players individual teams and then clubs as a whole working on culture and special programming, whatever we can do to, to help these clubs.

Some of it is Warrior Way programming specifically. And some of it the Warrior Way program. That program is kind of woven into what we're doing, just because of who we are. How we do things, but yeah, it's just, I feel like there's a lot going on. There's a lot of other things that are coming down the road that I'll be love to talk about probably in the next six months that we've got coming down the pipeline here in the U S and internationally that we're going to be partnering with really a lot of exciting things that God's doing, but the next thing will be Pushing our warrior way concept into some, outside of Waco clubs and some outside of Waco town.

So we were, I think we'll probably have one up in Chicago later this summer and hopefully up in Dallas as well. So a lot, a lot going on kind of spattering that out there, but it's been really cool to see God blessing Warrior Way

[00:14:59] Phil: yeah, [00:15:00] it's been fun to watch it grow and fun, to watch it develop and evolve into what it is now.

And even just talking the last couple of years with you, just about how God's been working in all those different ways. So super, super cool. We'll have all the information on that. All the links, everything on the show notes, you can go check those out just at, at how soccer explains leadership.com and click on this episode.

And you'll see the links there. If you're interested at all about warrior way. Also, we have nations United it's a group that's coming together to put together strategies for the church to connect with people and bring together the nations for the gospel in connection with World Cup '26 and the Olympics 28, which are all coming here to the US and also the winter Olympics 30.

So, but in, in first is world cup. And so it will all be soccer strategies. So if you're interested. At all, if that, if that intrigues, you even go check out the show notes, I'll have the flyer there. There's a, there's a gathering coming up in Houston in connection with a cup of nations, [00:16:00] which is a tournament for refugees in Houston April 22 to 24.

So hopefully we can see you there, but you can check that out at the flyer on the show notes. So any, any last thoughts from you, Paul, before we sign off?

[00:16:15] Paul: No, but excited about that nations United gathering. It's gonna be really, really, really cool. I hope people will join in that. Check out the info in the show notes.

And if anybody wants to reach out to us about warrior way, you can find us@warriorwaysoccer.com. My email address is PA jobson@gmail.com.

[00:16:33] Phil: All right, folks. As always, we hope that you take in all that you're learning from this show and you're using it to help you to be a better leader, to be a better spouse, to be a better parent, to just be a better friend and that you will continue to learn more and more how soccer does explain life and leadership.

Thanks a lot. Have a great week.