The Ripple Effect of One Coach
Chris Strange sat in his room, terrified he was going to get kicked out of a place he never thought he could get into in the first place. He looked into the eyes of a coach he knew he had disappointed, bracing himself for the kind of response he had come to expect from coaches. He was waiting to be cast aside.
But instead of shaming Chris, Jeremy Sather met him with grace.
Chris had been caught drinking on campus and faced expulsion from Crown College in St. Bonifacius, Minnesota. But Jeremy did not lecture him in that moment. Instead, he spoke honestly about his own failures and the times sin had a grip on him. For Chris, the moment was jarring.
Looking back, he still considers that conversation a turning point.
“I thought he was perfect,” Chris said. “And for him to sit there and tell me, ‘Man, I’ve struggled too,’ that changed everything for me. He wasn’t talking down to me. He was sitting right there with me.”
Jeremy helped Chris see that failure did not have to be the end of the story. And it changed their relationship forever.
“After that, I would’ve run through a wall for him,” Chris said. “Because I knew he loved me. I knew he wasn’t just my coach when I was doing well. He cared about me when I had blown it.”
That kind of trust can’t be forced. It has to be earned. Jeremy earned it by showing Chris that his value is greater than football or his mistakes.
Jeremy has said that it was always part of what he wanted to do as a coach.
“I wanted to be there for kids that maybe didn’t have a father figure,” he said. “I wanted them to know they were loved beyond what they could do on the field.”
Chris was one of those kids. And he never forgot it.
A Long Shot from Houston
Chris came to Crown as an undersized linebacker. At 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds, he did not look like a sure thing on paper. But he had built his life on fighting for every opportunity.
He grew up in a single-parent home in a dangerous area of Houston. He was tough, driven and hungry for approval. He also knew getting into Crown was a long shot. His background wasn’t like that of most of the students around him.
“When I got to Crown, I felt like a foreigner,” Chris said. “Everything was different — the culture, the way people talked, the way they did church.”
Before he ever got to campus, though, Jeremy had already started building trust. At the time, Jeremy was the defensive coordinator at Crown, and his recruiting call stood out right away.
“It didn’t feel like a recruiting call,” Chris said. “It felt like a relationship call. I felt safe. I felt like I could trust him. He cared about me, not just what I could do on the field.”
That early connection laid the foundation for a bond that would go far beyond football.
Beyond the Football Field
After Chris’s playing days were over, their relationship continued. In many ways, it deepened.
Chris moved in with Jeremy’s family after graduating, with Jeremy laying down one major rule: “When I’m not home, neither are you.” Sharing that time with the Sathers gave Chris a close-up view of Jeremy’s life away from practices and games. He got to see how Jeremy treated his wife, how he led at home and how consistent he was in everyday life.
“That was huge for me,” Chris said. “I got to learn how to be a man, how to be a husband, how to be a father. I wasn’t just learning football anymore. I was learning life.”
Jeremy’s influence on Chris was personal and lasting. It was not about one big speech. It was about years of steady investment.
“I am who I am because of Coach Sather and all the coaches at Crown,” he said. “Coach Sather had such a huge impact on me because he walked with me. He loved me when I didn’t deserve it. He believed in me.”
Jeremy remembers Chris as a young man searching for identity and hungry for love, yet deeply wired for leadership. Over time, he watched that potential come to life.
“You saw a kid who just needed somebody to stay with him,” Jeremy said. “And when somebody does that, when somebody believes in you and keeps showing up, it can change everything.”
The Ripple Effect of Mentorship
Today, that story is still unfolding.
Chris went from being a standout defensive back at Crown to coaching there himself. Now he serves as Minnesota FCA’s Southwest Area Director. Jeremy is the East Valley Area Director for FCA in Arizona and the defensive coordinator at Benjamin Franklin High School in Queen Creek, about 40 miles southeast of Phoenix.
They are in different places now, but the bond remains strong. And the impact has multiplied.
Chris invests in coaches and athletes the same way Jeremy invested in him. He leads with care, honesty and relationship rather than fear or shame. He walks with people. He listens. He tells the truth with love.
“I try to do for others what he did for me,” Chris said. “I try to love people well. I try to stay close to them. I try to help coaches and athletes see that they matter beyond performance. That came from him.”
That is the ripple effect of one coach’s influence. Jeremy’s care did not stop with Chris. It keeps moving through the people Chris now leads, the coaches he encourages and the athletes he serves.
Chris said Jeremy’s impact is not just a memory from college.
“It’s still relevant in my life today,” he said. “I still think about the things he taught me. I still think about how he loved me, how he led me and how he showed up for me.”
A coach can make a huge impact on a young person’s life. Chris Strange knows that because he lived it.
He came to Crown as a long shot from Houston, trying to prove himself. What he found there was more than a place to play football. He found a coach who made one recruiting call feel like “a relationship call,” one hard conversation feel like grace and one struggling young man feel worth fighting for.
And years later, that same grace is still moving outward.
Article originally appeared on FCA.org, the official website of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
