PDF READ FREE Walk On: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines--My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God

PDF READ FREE Walk On: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines--My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God (Ebook Online)

Description for Walk On: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines--My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God

Review �If you�ve ever felt like throwing a red flag on God because it looked like He made the wrong call in your life, Ben�s story will give you hope�and show you that God has a game plan and purpose for you that�s far better than you could ever imagine.� �Dr. Tony Evans, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship and founder of the Urban Alternative �An amazing story from an amazing person. Ben�s story shows that hard work and an open mind can lead to a wonderful journey.� �Steve Kerr, head coach for the Golden State Warriors �God delights in doing mighty things through unlikely leaders. We see this over and over in Scripture, and we witness it firsthand in Ben Malcolmson�s life. Overcoming great odds and pursuing his God-given dreams, Ben has become a high-impact leader and influencer. He has my deepest respect, and after you read this book, I�m sure he�ll have yours as well.� �Mark Batterson, New York Times best-selling author of Whisper and lead pastor of National Community Church �There are numerous ways a person gets into football, and many walk-on stories, but none quite like Ben Malcolmson�s. Inspirational, encouraging, and a wonderful example of trusting God�s plan.� �Russell Wilson, Super Bowl�winning quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks �There must be more. This simple phrase most often finds its way into the depths of our hearts in the quiet moments after our perceived greatest victories or lowest defeats. There is no greater encouragement in seeking the answer than to know we are not alone in this journey. Ben�s story will let you know you are not alone and help you find your True North. Seeking God�s plan for your life? Take this journey and�walk on!� �Shane Williamson, president and CEO of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes �Walk On is an inspiring story that encourages all of us to live boldly and maximize the opportunities God gives us.� �Andrew Cathy, senior vice president of Chick-fil-A Inc. �As a lifelong sports fan (and a decade-long Ben Malcolmson fan), I�m a sucker for an underdog story. What makes Walk On so captivating is not just the odds Ben overcame or even the incredible drive he had to overcome them, but that he made his journey all about people and cultivating deep, self-sacrificial relationships. Call it unconventional, call it divine; Ben�s story will motivate, challenge, and compel you to dream bigger than you think you�re capable of and to love people well along the way.� �Samantha Ponder, ESPN �Sunday NFL Countdown� host �Ben Malcolmson�s compelling tale of the ups and downs in the life of a young athlete rings so true you won�t be able to put it down. Why? Because Walk On is Ben�s true story. As you travel with him from high school to college to the NFL, Ben shares the struggles and victories that tested and affirmed his growing faith. Personal challenges and Bible quotes after every chapter bring the book�s message directly into your daily life. I hope you read Walk On�and pass it along to someone you care about.� �Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager and Servant Leadership in Action �In Walk On, Ben Malcolmson not only shares the bright spots of his personal journey that has now landed him beside one of the NFL�s most respected coaches, but he also shares the bleak, sometimes painful moments that helped him focus on a life of purpose. His story is genuine�just like Ben�and comes from such a heartfelt place that it�s sure to capture the attention of those wondering what it looks like to live a life that follows Jesus.� �Judah Smith, lead pastor of Churchome and New York Times best-selling author of Jesus is _____. �Dedication is a characteristic attributed to passionate athletes. Ben is dedicated and passionate about football, but he�s even more dedicated and passionate about following God and serving His people. I would encourage everyone to read Ben�s story. And the best part of it all is that Ben isn�t done!� �Chad Veach, lead pastor of Zoe Church and author of Faith Forward Future �We often get so caught up in our own plans of life and weathering the ups and downs that we forget what it all comes back to. Ben�s story shows us that God�s timing and desires for our lives are bigger and greater than ours are. And as amazing as it is to travel with Ben through these pages all the way to the Super Bowl, he reminds us that the journey is also just as important as the destination. It is the beauty of how God weaves every step, disappointment, opportunity, and person we encounter together to be even greater than we could ever imagine.� �Bo Rinehart, NEEDTOBREATHE �Even if you don�t know much about football, you�re really going to enjoy this book. It�s full of heart, but that�s not what makes it good. Walk On reminds us how God can turn our worst moments into our best ones, make our biggest setbacks our greatest gains, and to live fully, love generously, and leave it all on the field.� �Maria Goff, best-selling author of Love Lives Here �Walk On will renew your faith in a God who moves in the hearts of His people�people like you and me�to accomplish His unfathomable purposes.� �Miles McPherson, former NFL player, author of Do Something: Make Your Life Count, and lead pastor of Rock Church'This autobiography is a heart-gripping, rip-roaring, totally engaging narrative of Ben Malcolmson�s life from tear-stained Pee Wee football uniforms to the locker room at the storied University of Southern California. At age 10, Ben cried and begged to quit Pee Wee football as his dad drove him to practice. It was traumatic enough to turn him away from organized sports for years.�However, academic success allowed Ben to skip senior year of high school and enroll at University of Southern California. As a journalism major, he soon became sports editor of the campus newspaper, and he enjoyed being in the sports press corps.�Ever creative with story ideas, Ben persuaded USC football coach Pete Carroll to let him walk on �undercover� to do a story on the guys who failed to earn scholarships. He wanted a story with victory, defeat, tears, cheers, and more. He got it. And he got more than he bargained for. Shocking everyone, he made the team himself!�Walk On�is his account of how that unexpected �victory� tested his Christian faith, bringing failure after failure as he tried to share his faith with teammates. These days, Malcolmson is Carroll�s personal assistant at the Seattle Seahawks. Learn more at�benmalcolmson.com.'��AFA Journal Read more About the Author BEN MALCOLMSON is the Director of External Relations and Assistant to the Head Coach for the Seattle Seahawks. He has a degree in Print Journalism from USC and is an active, connected Trojan alum. Malcolmson has authored over 200 articles including his creative article, 'Day in the Life of Pete Carroll,' which was linked to by the LA Times. He has contributed to a range of media outlets including the Associated Press, USA Today, and Sports Illustrated. PATTI MCCORD owns a consulting company that helps small businesses with their marketing needs. An accomplished writer and editor, she writes extensively on a variety of topics, including health and fitness and business management. She lives in San Diego, California. Read more Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1Rude AwakeningHad I known the day ahead was going to change the course of my life, I probably would have been more eager to get out of bed that morning.But for a college student at the University of Southern California, especially a second-semester senior, waking up at 7:30 a.m. felt painful. On that Thursday in March, I made the sacrifice of getting up so early to celebrate my friend Tim�s birthday at Denny�s across the street from campus. The air was thick with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and hot grease, the universal Denny�s smell that sticks to your clothes for the rest of the day.With USC�s spring break just a day away, students were all looking forward to a week off that we would spend on the slopes of Colorado, lounging on a crowded beach in Mexico�s Cabo San Lucas, or at home to take advantage of Mom�s laundry service. I was going on a road trip with twelve of my buddies to Crested Butte, Colorado, to spend five days skiing without a textbook in sight. While eating my go-to $3.99 Grand Slam, I drifted off in a daydream of knee-deep powder. I was roused back to reality just in time to join a pitiful, off-key rendition of �Happy Birthday� and watch Tim blow out the blue and white striped candle stuck lopsided in his pancake.Half an hour later, I hopped on my bike and rode the half mile back to the fraternity house, considering my options for the next couple hours. Since I didn�t have class until eleven, I had some time to pull together my notes and maybe even complete the article I was writing for USC�s newspaper, the Daily Trojan, about the walk-on football tryouts that had taken place on Tuesday.As a journalism major and student reporter who had covered the team for the past three years, I wanted a unique first-person angle for the story, so I had secretly participated in the tryouts. I was still so sore that the motions of raising my leg over my bike and pedaling made my quads burn intensely. I thought how dumb it was to have gone through all that just for an article and still be paying for it two days later.No story was worth that much wear and tear on my body, and I made a mental note not to make that mistake again, even if it was for the article of a lifetime.At the time, USC was on an unparalleled trajectory in college football history. Two months earlier, the Trojans had come within nineteen seconds of beating the undefeated Texas Longhorns in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, which would have earned an unprecedented third consecutive national title. But even with the gut-wrenching loss, USC had established itself as the premier program of the decade and perhaps even earned a place among the all-time great dynasties in college football history. In the previous four seasons, the Trojans had won thirty-four straight games, two national championships, four Pacific-10 Conference titles, and three Heisman Trophies. Their fans routinely packed the ninety-two-thousand-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as coach Pete Carroll spearheaded an unmatched run�all while making USC football fun and becoming the envy of many college football programs in the country.Unfortunately at that early hour, I didn�t have sufficient brain cells awake enough to work on my article. So as the pancakes hit rock bottom, I decided to hustle home and hop right back in my bed, bury my head in my pillow, and sleep for another hour and a half.After crawling up the wooden ladder onto the top bunk, I collapsed onto my bargain basement IKEA mattress and began drifting in and out of consciousness. I nodded off around 9:30, but at exactly 9:44 a.m., my blissful sleep came to an abrupt end.Jolted awake by my annoying ringtone�the sound of an old rotary phone�I flipped my phone open while trying to focus on the caller ID. �Lana� was the name on the display. Lana, Lana, Lana.�Who is Lana, and why in the world is she calling me in the middle of the night?My half-asleep brain struggled to place her until I finally remembered. Lana had crossed my path a bunch over the years, but she had never called me before. I mumbled a groggy �What�s up?� and her voice, way too cheery for that time in the morning, said, �Ben! Did you try out for the football team?�Now I was really confused. I hadn�t told anyone that I was doing the undercover tryouts story except for a few friends and the head coach. I figured that one of my friends had told her, and I was a bit embarrassed. I rolled onto my side, propped my head in the palm of my hand, and sheepishly replied, �Yeah, who told you?��Well, you made it!� she said enthusiastically.As if an errant bolt of lightning had just struck me, I was jolted wide awake. �What are you talking about?�Without missing a beat, she said, �Your name is on the list,� emphasizing each word. Suddenly I remembered a passing comment one of my fraternity brothers made the night of the tryouts. He asked me what I would do if I actually did make the team. I had dismissed the notion and hadn�t given it another thought, until now.I weighed a whopping one hundred sixty-five pounds and I hadn�t played football since I was ten years old, making this scenario utterly ridiculous�or more like impossible. This had to be someone�s idea of a prank, and I wasn�t particularly amused. I snapped my phone shut without bothering to say goodbye and slid off my bunk onto the floor with a million thoughts running through my head. I knew there had to be some mistake. There was no way it could be real. I bounced around the room for a few seconds like a pinball, trying to figure out what to do next.I knew the coaches were going to post a list of the guys who made the team that morning, and I had already planned to get over to the football building to interview a couple of the lucky ones for my story. But that call added a fresh sense of urgency, so I snatched my keys off the desk, grabbed my reporter�s notebook and pen, and shoved them into my pocket. I looked like a slob, with a severe case of bed head and still wearing the same wrinkled gray T-shirt and black athletic shorts I had slept in. I put on my brown Rainbow sandals, flung the door open, and bounded down the stairs two at a time.I passed one of my fraternity brothers in the hallway. �Whoa, Ben, what�s wrong?� I must have looked distraught, but I didn�t even answer. Eyes focused straight ahead, I just kept moving as fast as my stiff, achy, post-tryouts legs would go.I leaped down the steps into the courtyard, raced to the bike rack, and fumbled with the lock on my bike. My hands were trembling, and I could not get the key into the lock. When it finally clicked into place, I turned the key, ripped the lock off, and yanked my bike out of the rack. I slammed open the back gate, vaulted onto my bike, and tore out into the alley.It was now 9:48 a.m., precisely four minutes since I had received the phone call. The bike path was jam-packed with students scurrying to their ten o�clock classes. I stood up on the pedals, cranking like I was in the final stage of the Tour de France, and searched for the fastest route through the crowd. My black cruiser bicycle had been my main mode of transportation since I started college almost four years earlier, and we had traveled countless miles together, although none more potentially life changing than this one. My mind was racing as fast as my feet were pedaling.One thing I knew for sure: there was no way a scrawny, six-foot, 165-pound newspaper reporter, who hadn�t played organized football since one horrific youth football experience in the fifth grade, had actually landed a spot on the nation�s top-ranked college football team.This was beyond any sense of reality. Heck, this was beyond any dream.There was just no way this could be true.Walk On: Expect the UnexpectedLooking at life with an expectant perspective, through a lens of excitement and anticipation of God�s goodness, can fill every day with wonder. Getting that phone call from Lana took me completely by surprise. You just never know what God has planned for you; it may be something completely unexpected, far more amazing than you could ever hope or dream. Will you join me in embracing the adventure God promises when we live by faith?Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.�Ephesians 3:20�2Are You In?I knew the only logical explanation was that someone was playing a practical joke on me. But who? Was it one of my buddies or Coach Carroll himself, who had a reputation for being a world-class prankster?Within the last couple of years, Coach had pulled some whoppers on his team. One involved a mystery guest who arrived at practice in a golf cart wearing a number 85 jersey, then sprinted to the huddle and was instructed to �go long� as a wide receiver. After catching a near-perfect pass, he fell into the end zone amidst Coach�s frantic screams of �Don�t touch him! Don�t touch him!� In a matter of seconds, Will Ferrell jumped to his feet after making his first and only touchdown as a Trojan.Another of his renowned pranks involved All-American tailback LenDale White. After a staged argument with Coach Carroll, White pretended to get angry, hurled his helmet to the turf while screaming �I quit!� and fumed out of practice. His theatrical quitting of the team was only the beginning of a jaw-dropping stunt that none of the team and staff will ever forget.As I thought back on those pranks, I became completely convinced that Coach Carroll or one of my buddies had somehow enlisted Lana as a co-conspirator. The bike path ended, and I could see the football building, Heritage Hall, just a hundred yards away. I rode my bike full speed into the bike rack, nearly catapulting myself over the handlebars as it thudded to a stop. In four years I had never left my bike unlocked for one simple reason: I knew it would not be there when I returned. But that day I just left it and bolted up the ten concrete steps to Heritage Hall, a stately red-brick building with gigantic arched windows.Upon reaching the top of the steps, I slowed down, not wanting to draw attention to myself. There, just to the left of the center of the building, was a white piece of paper taped to the glass door. In moments, I was standing there reading: �The following walk-on athletes will join the USC football program this spring.�I slowly drew my finger down the names, which were listed in alphabetical order. When I got to M, I froze. Right there, sandwiched between Kevin Livermore and Will Mullen, was my name, Ben Malcolmson. I continued, deliberately drawing my finger down to the bottom of the list and then returning to the top, over and over again.I felt sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. Each time I passed my name, I was certain it would have disappeared. But it was still there, in black and white, every single time. Standing in front of that list on shaky legs, I bent my knees, dropped my head into my hands, closed my eyes, and just kept whispering over and over, �Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.�I was a student newspaper reporter, for heaven�s sake, who thought it would be funny to write an article on the walk-ons from a self-deprecating first-person perspective, chronicling the efforts of the seventy-five hopeful prospects while belittling my own lack of talent. The chances of me actually becoming a bona-fide member of the USC football team were just about as likely as Sports Illustrated signing me as a swimsuit model.In an attempt to calm myself, I turned around with my back to the list and was immediately blinded by the intense morning sun. I squeezed my eyes shut again and told myself, Ben, relax and stop panting like a madman. I glanced down and checked my phone. It was 9:58 a.m. To think I had been peacefully asleep just fifteen minutes earlier.Coach Carroll was the only possible person who could have pulled off this masquerade so flawlessly. I thought back to all the times I had laughed out loud at the poor suckers who were the brunt of Coach�s pranks, and I realized I was just about to become one of them. I expected the ESPN cameras to roll out at any moment, while brightly colored confetti dropped from the ceiling and Will Ferrell jumped out from the shadows and burst into laughter, saying, �Dude, you�ve been punked!� And I would freeze, stare blankly into the bright lights, and look like the biggest fool on the planet.I was a little ticked off being the butt of this joke, so I decided to get the experience over with as soon as possible in order to salvage the rest of my day. I jerked the door to Heritage Hall open and sprinted up the stairs two at a time to the second floor. I had been there just once before to write my �Day in the Life of Pete Carroll� story eighteen months earlier. During the fifteen hours I shadowed Coach Carroll, I experienced firsthand his larger-than-life persona and watched his executive assistant, Christie Uribe, guard him as if she had been trained by the Secret Service. The football offices at USC were considered hallowed ground, and nobody was dumb enough to barge in without an appointment.Since I was typically a quiet, behind-the-scenes guy, I had to be much braver than I actually felt at that moment. And it was a good thing I didn�t really have time to think about what I was doing, because if I had, I surely would have turned around and run down the stairs even faster than I had run up.Upon entering the football office, I was immediately greeted by Coach Carroll�s executive assistant. �Congratulations Ben! We�re so excited for you!� she said. �Let me see if Coach is available to talk with you now.�Oh great, she�s in on the prank too, I thought but politely responded, �Thank you. This is crazy!� I was sure she could hear my heart pounding. Read more

Books are everywhere. Libraries big and small and bookstores are splattered all over college campuses and larger cities. They are all filled with one of the most important things of all time—books. Those who read books appreciate the multiple places to find books. Those who aren’t fans of books, don’t understand what could make readers want to obsess over books. There is a reason for their obsession, though. You hear it all the time: read every day.Reading is important because it develops our thoughts, gives us endless knowledge and lessons to read while keeping our minds active. Reading books to help us learn and understand and makes us smarter, not to mention the knowledge, vocabulary and thinking skills we develop.In the world today where information are abundant, reading books is one of the best ways to be informed. Though reading might seem like simple fun, it can be helping your body and mind without you even realising what is happening. What makes reading so important? It can be for these reasons and not just knowledge.For those who don’t enjoy it, you might change your mind after hearing about the benefits. Can something so easy and fun be so helpful in your life? Of course, it can! Reading can be a great benefit to you in many different ways—such as sharpening your mind, imagination, and writing skills. With so many advantages, it should be an everyday occurrence to read at least a little something.Books can hold and keep all kinds of information, stories, thoughts and feelings unlike anything else in this world. Can words, paragraphs, and fictional worlds be all that great for you and your health? It definitely can, and it is a timeless form of entertainment and information

Step-By Step To Download Walk On: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines--My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God

• Click The Button "DOWNLOAD" Or "READ ONLINE"

• Sign UP registration to access & UNLIMITED BOOKS

• DOWNLOAD as many books as you like (personal use)

• CANCEL the membership at ANY TIME if not satisfied

• Join Over 80.000 & Happy Readers.

CLICK HERE TO READ ONLINE "Walk On: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines--My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God" FULL BOOK

OR