Daryl Strickland

There are only four teams left in the state in our division and tonight it goes to two. The winner of our game tonight is the Eastern State Champion and will play for the State Championship next Saturday at Wake Forest University.

Our opponent is Southern Durham which is the No. 2 seeded team in our bracket. They have won seven straight games and 10 out of 11. From our film studies, their strength is a fast defense that doesn’t miss tackles. They also have a strong running game.

Hoggard has not lost a home game since 2005  and it’s only  road loss was last season in this game a 31-29 defeat to eventual state champs Greenville Rose.

The place will be packed, the air electric. Thank you God for the opportunity to be apart of the community this way!

It’s game day, I must go find a toilet.

Week Two of “ING” - StewardING

Attendance - 339 - same week last year 223 (52 % increase)

Thoughts:

• Lifepoint had a quest speaker this week and he rocked! You have to check out the podcast this week.
• This series is so important to honoring God in our finances and getting ahead. God’s Word is so clear in this area and when we follow it, we position ourselves for blessings.

Bottom Line: Put God First And Your Finances Will Last

Next Week: “ING” week 3 - ManagING

Sorry, that I didn’t hype this one up during the week. We played a really talented Durham Hillside team last night in the Eastern Semifinals and we came out victoriously. The final score was 29-14 and puts us in the Eastern Finals and one game away from the state championship game.

The best part about this game is that our short comings and misfortune from last week, helped us tremendously this week. Just like last week, we had some misfortune early (bad snap on field goal attempt, lost our starting QB, fumbled deep in our on territory) and with all that, the team kept their head up, kept digging and before you knew it, we were back on top. Just like in life, if we look at obsticles as opportunities and learn from mistakes, we will succeed.

Having said that, we had to overcome some new obsticles that I am sure we will address on Monday.

If you live in Wilmington, you should come out to the game next week. It is not often that you get to host one of these games. We will be playing Southern Durham which is the #2 seed in the east.

The Dream Season Continues!!!

I can’t tell you how excited that I am over the next few months at Lifepoint. I think God is going to light a fire in our hearts that will burn forever and ever and ever. Jump in with both feet!!

Please don’t take this the wrong and I already know Jesus loves everyone but some people are very weird. Worse than that, the weirder they are, the friendlier they are.

I am at a coffee shop today, trying to do a little studying and I just met a new friend. Her name is Tori and she has a friend visiting from Kansas that I will called Pat (if you are a SNL fan, your tracking). Tori, (uninvited) approached my table, ask me my favorite drink here, told me coconut sucks, made fun of my shoes, ask me where her and Pat could find a photo both, cused a few times and left. Thank you Jesus.

Call me insensitive but, what was that all about. Was it a divine appointment or a close encounter of the weird kind. What’s really funny is that Dave Holt is here at another table and he emailed me to see if everything was okay (Thanks for having my back Dave!). Have you had any weird run ins lately?

If you read my blog at all, you know that I am helping coach a local high school football team and we are deep into a really neat season. If you have read any of the scores, you know that we have handled most of our opponents with ease this year. A quick glance at last Friday’s score and you may think the same thing (we won 52-23). But we found ourselves in unfamilar territory on Friday. We turned the ball over three times in the first have, endured some sketch officiating and found ourselves with the first halftime deficit of the year 10-20.

You would think that the halftime speech would have been a tremendous amount of shouting and ranting about poor play but it was very different than that. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time for getting in their face, but good leaders/coaches always know what is right and Coach knew these kids were just a little rattled and needed to be calmed down. He told them we were fine, walked them through what the next few series should look like and assured them, we would be up on the scoreboard, if they followed that plan. Guess what, they did it and we were up. We out score Pine Forest 42-3 in the second half and we play Durham Hillside the day after Thanksgiving.

Hillside looks to be the toughest opponent we have faced all year. They are 10-2, they’re BIG, FAST and Strong. We will see if the story continues. I still think that it is our year.

We learned a little more about our character and our resolve last week. Hopefully that will help us this week.

Week One of “ING”

Attendance - 409 - same week last year 226 (81 % increase)

Thought’s:

• This has been a much anticipated series and you can sense that this one is hitting a need BIG time.
• Set and Tear Down Rocked today! Dream Team your awesome.
• Music was tight today. Drew, the band, and the sound team were on it.
• Jeff did was Jeff does: Present hope and point people to the One who can help them.
• Great first message in this series check out the podcast if you missed it.

Next Week: “ING” week 2 - StewardING

Well almost. I purchase a second generation ipod back in May of 2004 and although I usually say no to the warranties that companies offer, the guy talked me into this one. The saleman said that the warranty would pay for itself, just with the battery replacement on my device. He was right. I had to send my ipod back 4 times and the last time they did what they call a junkout. Sounds bad but it’s great for me. Basically, Christmas came early for Strick. I got to pick out a replacement ipod that matched the cost of my original. Although my 2nd gen ipod was black and white, no video and 20GB, it was worth $399 today.

So I picked out the itouch ipod that is basically an iphone without the phone. This thing is awesome! It does video, it surfs the web, obviously it does my music, it has my contacts, my calendar and more. This is definitely one time that the warranty was worth every penny and then some. This is a cool little device.

Okay, maybe it was just Pop. That’s what one of my quad muscles did today as I tried to run sprints with the team. I don’t know that I have experienced that much pain in my life. I am full of Alieve right now so things are good but earlier, I thought my femur was broken.

If you are wondering, I am 35 years old. Apparently that’s old.

Here is what I learned today from my muscle popping experience.

1. If you want to use something, you have to keep up the maintenance on it.
2. If you use something that you don’t keep up, expect it to break.
3. If someone gives you a Porsche, treat it like one (all the time). From the fuel you put in it, to the maintenance on it.

Hoggard that is, won the first round playoff game against Hoke County. The final score was 31-8. Hoke had a pretty nice tailback that has signed with NC State but the vikings held their own.

Next up is round two of the state playoffs and Pine Forest is our opponent. They won their first round game 41-17 and have a couple of pretty solid backs as well.

Practice was good today. The guys seem more intense this week (Maybe it’s because they got ripped up pretty good in game film).

I’m still believing that we have a chance at going all the way. We will see.