Chapter 4 The Seed

The Seed

            A couple of weeks ago, an uber came to pick me up after church.  The car was a little nasty and as I opened the door, the lady told me to sit up front with her as there was little room in the back.  She caught me at the right time coming out of church because this would have horrified me the day before, but I was going to try to attempt to love her as Christ would.  She had Florida State Seminole paraphernalia all over her car.  She was wearing a Seminole sweatshirt.  I immediately told her I would have a problem sitting on an FSU seat cover considering I am a Tennessee Vols fan, attempting to talk some trash.  She said she loved the Vols because she hates the Florida Gators.  She began to proceed to talk about Seminole football like an expert, telling me their history and who the new quarterback would be.  I was impressed.  I told her my brother played for the Gators when they beat FSU in the national championship in 97.  She asked me who my brother was.  I told her, Tre Allen.  She said, “I know who he is”.  I thought she was lying. Then she said “Your brother and Peter Boulware used to have wars when they played against each other.”  With that, I knew, she knew, exactly who my brother was. 

            Peter Boulware was a high school All American who played outside linebacker at Florida State.  He was a consensus college football All American and was a first-round draft pick in the NFL.  He was selected as one the all-time great linebackers by Sports Illustrated and selected to the all-20^th century team.  That means he was one of the greatest players in the history of college football.  He went to the NFL and was rookie of the year, made the pro-bowl four times and finished as the Ravens all-time sack leader.  Tre Allen played one year of high school football.  He went to Florida because of their architecture program.  He was playing flag football one day and one of the assistant coaches saw how fast he was and how well he caught the ball and convinced him to be a walk on for the Steve Spurrier’s Florida Gators.  Talk about being his father’s son and having the infamous Allen hubris, he does walk on, ends up getting a scholarship and started, two years, for the number one ranked team in the country and eventual national champion.  And on national television, in the biggest game in Florida Gator history, he goes to war with Peter Boulware, and wins, holding Peter Boulware sackless.

            How is this even possible? 

            Tremayne hit his growth spurt late.  In ninth grade he was tiny.  He didn’t even want to play football in high school, becoming the team’s manager.  He didn’t play until his junior year, after he grew a little bit but never saw the field.  He started and played his senior year.  He found brothers on that team that drew him in because they saw something special in him. It was through that chemistry; they won a state championship the year after I left.  My last team was ranked in the top ten nationally but lost in the playoffs.  Through chemistry and love for each other, my brother’s team won it all.  Am I lying Matt Jennings? But Tremayne didn’t receive recruiting letters, he didn’t get any recognition.  No one thought he would play at the next level. But he did, and you could easily argue he played at the next level like no other athlete in the school’s history before we got there. 

Brentwood Academy was the top football program in Tennessee, nationally recognized.  They have multiple state championships, hundreds of all-state players. From what I remember, only six players received Division 1 football scholarships in Brentwood Academy’s history at the time and only one didn’t go to Vanderbilt or Tennessee. Tremayne was the seventh.  Tremayne was the first to go to a top ranked program and the first to win a national championship.  The only other BA player to do this same is Jalen Ramsey, current cornerback for the Rams. 

            How did this happen?

            My Dad happened.  He was our very first coach in everything, even baseball, which he never played.  I remember being seven years old and Mom signing me up for a pee-wee football league.  I hovered over everyone and got two sacks in the first game.  I came home jubilantly to tell my dad.  He didn’t say congratulations.  He said, let me see your stance.  I got into a stance that looked like an epileptic boy playing Twister while having a seizure.  And that was the beginning.  The next year, he became the coach of the team.  If you think that would be cool to be the coach’s son, think again. My dad pushed everyone on the team in the first practice like He was Nick Saban.  Hollering, motivating, chasing, correcting, conditioning, strengthening…leg lifts.  Oh, I hated leg lifts.  His voice still haunts me

            Up….Hold it there….hold it there…I better not see anyone’s feet touching the ground….hold it there.  Am I lying Heath Larkin?

            I remember looking at my brother with this stupefied look in my eyes.  I am sure if I my eight year old mind knew the right words to say, it would have been, “This negro is CRAZY!.”

            As hard as practice was, I quickly learned it was not over for me and Tremayne.  We then had to go to the backyard and practice the fundamentals he taught in practice.  Then we would have to run up the backyard hill ten times and touch the doghouse.  Only then, we were done.  Even my mom thought this was torture as she would try to microwave dinner as quickly as possible to save us and say “Aubrey, dinner is ready”. “We will eat when they get it right,” my dad would bark.  And then he would turn to us and say, “and that could be all night.”

            We went undefeated that year, winning every game, until the city championship.  I can’t name more than five people on my high school football team, but I still can name people from that team. It’s like we stormed the beaches of Normandy together.   Heath Larkin, from that team, became one of the best friends I have ever had.  We were roommates right out of college and were in the wedding party of each other’s weddings.  I devoted my first book to his father. 

Tremayne came to Dad after the season and wanted to quit.  Dad told him if he can sell his equipment, then he can quit.  Dad didn’t think that was possible but Tremayne, showing Allen ingenuity, actually found someone to buy his equipment.  So, Dad made a deal that he would not move up with me but stay to coach Tremayne’s team. I am sure Tremayne thought, “You are the reason why am I quitting in the first place”.

            The next year, we basically had the same team that my dad coached the year before that went undefeated and we lost every game.  Tremayne’s team, with my Dad coaching, went undefeated and this time, won the city championship.  Tremayne played running back and was the best player in the city.  He averaged over two hundred yards a game.  He was a version of Derrick Henrey.  He ran over kids and ran past kids them on the same play.  He was unstoppable.  Am I lying Jason Fisher.  Tremayne never found the same success until running on the field at Ben Griffith stadium in front of ninety thousand screaming fans.

            How did all this happen?  My Dad happened.  He planted a seed in Tremayne.  I don’t know what it was.  I have no idea.  I was shocked about his success as much as anyone.  I know the seeds he planted in me and that is another Dad gospel. Tremayne and my Dad, however, have a completely different relationship. My brother told me recently that as hard as Dad was on the football field, he would wake up my brother in the middle of the night and take him to the country club where he was the culinary director and they would just hang out as Dad would check on the overnight staff that worked for him.  My brother told the story in such intimate detail, it made me jealous. 

            Whatever he planted, no one saw.  No one knew except my dad.  The seed germinated in Tremayne’s heart and soul and spirit; invisible to the naked eye, but still real all the same.  And when it broke through the ground and sprouted for everyone to see, it became such a marvel that even thirty years later, people still remember his name. 

            The bible says that the Spirit of God is an imperishable seed (I Peter 2:18).  I hate how people talk about the Spirit of God like it is Jimmy Cricket on your shoulder telling you not click that link on the internet.  The Spirit of God who lives in us existed before the beginning of time.  He helped create Adam and breathed life into him.  He knows everything, can do anything, and is everywhere.  The same spirit that lived in us is the same Spirit that lived in Jesus Christ.  Paul says this spirit that lives in us is the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of God above everything in all of existence.  That power lives in me.  I don’t know need the power to be ruler over everything, but I do have some things I need to accomplish and redeem and overcome.   That power is a seed that is already in me, germinating, even though no one can see it.

            I did not like the apostle Peter very much.  Jesus told Peter, on him, he will build his church.  I never knew why he said it because it looks like Paul built his church.  Paul wrote most of the New Testament and even said he was better than all the other apostles.  Acts talks about Peter for a few chapters and then Peter disappears.  For thirty years of my life, I thought Peter failed. 

            When doing a bible study with my sister-in-law, around the show, The Chosen, we discovered something that I never knew (and every time that happens, I absolutely shocked.  LOL!).  Am I lying Caroline Allen?  God always chose Rome as the instrument to spread the gospel around the world.  Paul even calls Rome a minister of God while Rome was killing Christians.  Rome’s empire was already everywhere before Jesus was born.  But Jesus knew Rome was the instrument to proliferate the gospel around the world.  In 312 AD, Rome became a Christian nation and just like that, the gospel went to every place Rome ruled.  That’s a brilliant plan by God. The question is, how did Rome become a Christian nation?  Its emperor became a Christian.  How did he become a Christian?  Because there were Christian churches in Rome competing with the paganism of the city.  How were there Christian churches still in Rome even during two hundreds of persecution?  Because the father of the Roman Christian movement was Peter.  Peter was the leader of the first generation of Roman Christians.  Peter stayed in Rome 25 years, building the Roman church before Rome crucified him upside down.  No one ever talks about it. Peter was the rock of which God built His church.  

            When Jesus told Peter this, Peter just retired from being a fisherman months before.  He probably could not read, and certainly could not speak Latin or Greek, the language of the Romans.  He was Jesus’ most dysfunctional disciple.  Yet, God saw something in Peter and planted his seed and Peter began the movement that spread the gospel all over the world to billions of believers over two thousands of years where is the largest religion in the world today. How did this happen?  Our God happened.  He planted the same seed in Peter that he plants in everyone who calls on His name. 

            There is power in the seed.  Am I lying Tremayne Allen?

 

Matthew 17:20

New International Version

²⁰ He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”