KENT: Flint River FCA honors coaches' wives, female coaches

The Flint River Fellowship of Christian is known for its support of and ministry to local athletes, but members took their dedication further by holding an appreciation dinner for coaches' wives and female coaches last week.

Special music at the event, which included a dinner at Trinity United Methodist Church, was provided by Morgan Dockery.

The guest speaker for the evening was Shannen Fields. Fields is an actress who played the head coach's wife in the movie "Facing the Giants." In real life, she is also the wife of a head football coach, Jimmy Fields, who coaches football at Trinity Christian School in Dublin.

Fields told the audience about her experience of trying to become an actress.

"God has taught me that he can do more than I ask," Fields said.

Fields said that she had dreamed of acting when her husband had taken a job outside of coaching for a year and the family had moved to North Carolina near an established area for actors. Two weeks into the job, Fields said her husband knew he had made a mistake leaving coaching.

"A door opened at Sherwood Christian Academy," said Fields, who admitted that she wasn't thrilled about moving back to Albany, where the family had lived previously when her husband was coaching at another school. She figured that her acting dreams would have to be put on hold again.

"But you have to trust that God can do more than anything you can think or imagine," she said.

At the time, Sherwood Baptist Church was beginning its movie ministry. Fields had a role in Sherwood's first production, "Flywheel." She starred in the church's next production, "Facing the Giants," and she has appeared in a dozen movies since then.

"God's way is better than mine," Fields said.

Tom Mobley, who retired as a coach and teacher at Warner Robins High School last year, is now working with the Flint River FCA. He said the evening was part of the "Behind the Benches" ministry of FCA.

Mobley said that the goal of the evening was just to let female coaches and coaches' wives know that the FCA is there for them.

Mobley's wife, Cindy, was involved in organizing the event. She said that people don't always realize the commitment of a coach.

"It is year-round with 80-hour weeks during football and 70-hour weeks during basketball. He would get home from a football game at 1 a.m. and have to be back at the school at 7 a.m. It is like you are a single parent," Cindy Mobley said. "But they have such a platform, such a field for God to use them in the lives of their students.

For more information about the ministries of the Flint River FCA, visit its website at www.flintriverfca.org

Alline Kent can be reached at 396-2467 or allinekent@cox.net.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 8:13 PM with the headline "KENT: Flint River FCA honors coaches' wives, female coaches ."