400-408 – David Thomas, Sports Columnist and Senior Writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, wrote a story a few years ago about a high school football game that ended up not only capturing national attention, but has become a book and next year you'll be seeing the movie, entitled One Heart (OneHeart.com). It was a game that has changed many lives, and was played in November, 2008, between Faith Christian Lions and Gainesville State Tornadoes – a school for convicted juvenile offenders. The book is entitled, Remember Why You Play (RememberWhyYouPlay.com).
Coach Kris Hogan is Head Football Coach and Athletic Director at Faith Christian School in Grapevine, Texas (GrapevineFaith.com). He's currently in his 8th season at Faith Christian and 12th season overall as a head football coach, compiling a career record of 97-45. His football teams have been to the State Semifinals 5 times, and the Finals once – and when you count all the sports he coaches, his teams have won 8 state championships. He's been voted Coach of the Year 6 times at the District and Regional levels.
• From the RememberWhyYouPlay.com website,
In November 2008, the Faith Christian Lions closed their regular season by playing the Gainesville State Tornadoes. Faith had already secured its slot in the playoffs. The Tornadoes were winless in eight games and had scored only two touchdowns all season.
The game should have meant nothing. It turned out to mean everything.
With no field of their own, every game was a road game for the players of Gainesville State School -- a maximum-security correctional facility. That is, until Faith Christian head coach Kris Hogan decided that for their final game of the 2008 season, not only would they make the Tornadoes the home team, they would make them "their" team.
At Hogan's urging, more than three hundred Faith parents and students formed a 40-yard-long spirit line, cheering the Tornadoes onto the field for the first time in the school's history. Then, moments before kickoff, half of the Faith fans and cheerleaders moved to the visitors' side of the stadium where they cheered -- by name -- for the stunned Gainesville State players, some encouraging kids they didn't even know to tackle their own sons.
Remember Why You Play details the Lions' 2007 season from the beginning of two-a-day practices through the school's first appearance in the state championship game and, along the way, shares the life lessons Faith coaches teach their players. The book demonstrates how those lessons were lived out the following season when football became a platform for Faith Christian to reach out and help others. Most notable among those moments is the Lions' game against Gainesville State.
An inspiring story about the power of second chances and the impact that simply believing in others can have on the human spirit, Remember Why You Play chronicles how one coach's faith is changing the lives of his players, his community, and the way millions view Friday night football in Texas.
413-423 – David Thomas & Coach Kris Hogan
428-437 – David Thomas & Coach Kris Hogan
443-452 – David Thomas & Coach Kris Hogan.
458-508 – Jeff Vines, senior pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley in San Dimas (ccvnow.com), shares about his recent trip to the prisons in Rwanda.
512-523 – Jeff Vines,
528-539 – • Thanks to Lori Barragar, family owner of Shelton's Premium Poultry (sheltons.com), for her generous donation of 20 Thanksgiving turkeys for us to give away here on the show, one a day! Be the X-caller and we'll give you a certificate!
•• ABC News (11/9/2010) Atheist Ministers Struggle With Leading the Faithful: Two Active Ministers Say They No Longer Believe in God but No One Knows. These atheists-in-the-pulpit are trying to evolve religion into atheism. We shred this journal article.
• Daniel Dennett & Linda LaScola, Evolutionary Psychology, "Preachers Who Are Not Believers" [2010. 8(1): 122-150].
544-554 – Calls. Doctor who kills people. Lawyer who doesn't believe the Constitution. Dodger fan who hates baseball.
558-608 – Calls
612-623 – Calls
628-639 – Calls
644-655 – Calls
• USA Today (11/10/2010) More federal workers' pay tops $150,000.
The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week's elections. Already, some lawmakers are planning to use the lame-duck session that starts Monday to challenge the president's plan to give a 1.4% across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who will head the panel overseeing federal pay, says he wants a pay freeze and prefers a 10% pay cut. "It's stunning when you see what's happened to federal compensation," he says. "Every metric shows we're heading in the wrong direction."
National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley counters that the proposed raise "is a modest amount and should be implemented" to help make salaries more comparable with those in the private sector.
Federal salaries have grown robustly in recent years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Office of Personnel Management data. Key findings:
• Government-wide raises. Top-paid staff have increased in every department and agency. The Defense Department had nine civilians earning $170,000 or more in 2005, 214 when Obama took office and 994 in June.
• Long-time workers thrive. The biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years. Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate.
• Physicians rewarded. Medical doctors at veterans hospitals, prisons and elsewhere earn an average of $179,500, up from $111,000 in 2005.
Federal workers earning $150,000 or more make up 3.9% of the workforce, up from 0.4% in 2005.
Since 2000, federal pay and benefits have increased 3% annually above inflation compared with 0.8% for private workers, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Members of Congress earn $174,000, up from $141,300 in 2000, an increase below the rate of inflation.
• USA Today (3/8/2010) Federal pay ahead of private industry.
• Seattle Times (11/9/2010) White House moves away from 2011 Afghanistan withdrawal timeline.
• John Goodman, NRO (11/10/2010) What Can Republicans Do About Obamacare? Let it twist slowly, slowly in the wind. — John C. Goodman is president and Kellye Wright Fellow of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
• James Pinkerton, NRO (11/10/2010) The Real Cure for Medicare: An aging population is expensive. But instead of Obamacare rationing, we should be looking at making seniors healthier. — James P. Pinkerton, a domestic-policy aide in the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, is a Fox News contributor and the editor of the Serious Medicine Strategy blog.
• Zoltan Hajnal, WSJ (11/10/2010) The GOP's Racial Challenge: Republicans can't win in the future without more nonwhite votes. Mr. Hajnal, an associate professor of political science at U.C. San Diego, is author of "America's Uneven Democracy" (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
