Football in the Park
A Coach with a Past Turns Toward the Future
Donovan Osby, a local fitness instructor and, it turns out, youth football coach, invited us out to a game he was coaching on Saturday 25 July 2026. We were already slated to cover the 30th Annual Fishing Derby earlier that day, so we decided to swing by Clapp Park at afterwards.
By the time we arrived, the temperature was beginning to rise. We found the action on the field already at full tilt, though. We began snapping away, and rolling on video trying to keep up with the frenzied pace. Oh, to be young and impervious to little things like 90 degree weather!
We are not sports photographers by trade, but we did manage to capture a few good frames. The team in black apparently had a 12-year old quarterback. To us, it was a little difficult to believe that was his true age. Whatever the case, the kid had presence in the pocket, and could fling that ball pretty good.
Coach Osby’s team were no slouches either. They were effective on the ground and through the air. If we understood him correctly, Osby helped cobble together the two teams with players from all over the city.
We were impressed with Coach Osby’s style in the huddle. At one point, he asked his players what they were seeing, and after listening to them, he crafted on the spot a strategy based on their input.
In the end the score was something like 36-34 in favor of the other team. However the kids played well, and Coach Osby seemed like he was pouring something out of himself into this effort. There seemed to be a quiet purpose behind the way he handled himself and his team.
We first met Osby probably about a year ago at his gym. Then, a few months ago, while crusading with Freedom in Jesus Prison Ministries on the Clements Unit, we encountered Coach Osby again. He was part of the group of us volunteers who went in to minister to the prisoners.
At one point during the crusade, Coach Osby mentioned that he had been previously incarcerated on that very unit. So though we were aware of his past, we also knew that he had repented — which just means that he stopped, and turned around.
As we watched the game this past Saturday, Coach Osby seemed inspired and nourished by leading those young men on his team. As we write this now, we wonder if he felt that coaching was a way for him to atone or make amends. Not that the past is something we should dwell on.
The Word tells us to “put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Coach Osby seems to be striving mightily to do just that.
