For those of you who don’t know Doug, we wanted to provide some background information.
Doug was born in Turlock and raised in Hughson, California. He and Vicki met in high school and married soon after. They have three children, and now have eleven grandchildren. Doug attended Modesto Junior College, did well, and got a scholarship to Cal State Bakersfield. At CSUB he wrestled for Joe Seay, became team captain, and was an assistant coach. He moved back to the Hughson area, and coached at Stanislaus State College. For his first year efforts, he was named "Rookie Coach of the Year."
He and Vicki moved to Hickman, where he served on the local school board, started a Hickman recreation league for kids, and helped others resurrect the Hickman 4-H club. Doug received a lifetime achievement award from the local PTA for his service to the community. He founded a lively youth wrestling program in the small town of Hickman, and many of those boys eventually went on to college on wrestling scholarships, just as Doug had done.
Doug and Vicki began attending Hickman Community Church, where Doug became a Christian and began to serve as a youth leader. He then attended a Bible Institute, and was asked to serve as Hickman Church’s pastor soon after his graduation. The tiny, historic church in the small town grew considerably, and began to reach out to help others in the area. The church sponsored a drug rehab house, a local food bank, and actively began missionary support to a group of church planting pastors in Mexico. Doug continued to coach locally, encouraging several of his former wrestlers who are coaches in the area now.
Doug is well known for his love for God, his family, wrestling, fly-fishing and the Mexican Ministry. We asked him to write about some of his experiences in order to get some insight into him as a person. Following, in his own words, are some of the vignettes he sent us:
Coaching
At the age of 13, not being that talented myself and also questioning the fairness of coaching (who plays and who doesn’t play) I asked for permission to coach a city league team. They needed 4 teams for a league and only had 3 coaches. The age group was 10 to 12, and these were all the left over boys who didn’t make the 2 prestigious county league teams. Because they couldn’t find anyone else—they agreed to let me try. Being only 13, I didn’t have a wife, family or job, so we began to practice everyday, 3 or 4 hours a day, and then we’d all go swimming, or to my house and my mom would give us some good snacks.
I knew this mentally handicapped guy in his 30’s named Jim. He loved baseball and he loved being around us, I made him my assistant coach and batboy. His mom bought him this old used XXXL uniform-- he looked like Babe Ruth. He carried the equipment bag & all 13 boys would climb up on him and he could carry them all. We became good because we hung out together; practiced every day, and even went to a couple of Modesto Reds games. We won the city championship. We wanted to play more. So I talked to the County League Coach and asked him to play us so they could stay fired up before the playoffs. After six innings their coach called the game-- the score was 4 to 4. They were all mad and yelling; we were happy and having a great time.
I don’t know how I organized anything, but we had some great parents, I got some old uniforms, in different colors, and used my paper route money to enter us in a tournament in Livingston. We finished 3rd & 8th and ended up placing above both Hughson County teams. This was the beginning of my coaching career. What did I learn?
- Make sure your having fun-- laugh a lot
- Work really hard, harder than any one else ever.
- Think big, set high goals.
- Like people, help people, care.
In college I was voted captain of the team. I often had the honor of being team captain—not because I was the best, but I think because I cared about everyone. I believed every individual had something to offer, and in return each could also receive much encouragement from being a part of a team, a group of individuals who wanted to come together and accomplish something. I loved and promoted sweating together, shedding blood together, overcoming adversity together and accomplishing great things together. Every individual has to matter, and that starts with the leaders. Everyone is important. Some may be more talented than others, but no one is better than anyone else. I also believed the leader must work harder than anyone else and push everyone else to work harder than he ever has before.
Helping Others
One day I was going to Waterford from Hickman and I saw three young kids run across the road and down the hill. I thought they were a little young to be on this busy road and playing in the river. It was late spring but the river was still running strong and dangerous. Returning to Hickman I saw them again, this time four of them. I drove on up and then decided to go check out the situation, to make sure that at least someone was watching them. I drove down to the river, where, like scared animals, they all ran up under the bridge. I parked and got out. It was then I heard a lady crying. She was eight months pregnant and she told me her story. She had four kids, with one on the way, no job for her husband, no food, and right now under the bridge was home. I was angry, heart broken, and in a quandary as to what to do. I decided we could at least help with dinner and maybe one night until we could find another solution. They moved in with us until we borrowed a small travel trailer for them and parked it in our driveway. Well, three months later, the husband had a job, the baby was born and we moved them into a rental home and provided the furniture. We even got them going to church regularly. Oh yeah, in between all this, my entire family got lice (Vicki had to de-lice us all), we taught the husband how to work, cleaned up their language, got them on Medical, got the kids school clothes and enrolled them in Hickman School. What else could we do? We had to try, we had to help, we, my family and I, will never forget that experience.
When I was young, I was always bringing stray animals home. When I was older, and had my own house, I brought people home. Following Bible College, we opened our home to prisoners, orphans, nice families in a tough spot, and friends who just needed a little help. Did I mention I was working full time, pastoring and coaching football and wrestling? Also every Wednesday night we’d have 50 to 60 high schoolers over for our church youth Group. You just make it work. Vicki’s the one who deserves a trophy.
I’ve already told you about the “under the bridge family” but there were also two boys from a broken home, Vicki brought them to live with us, they loved being in a home with rules and regularity. And then for a while Celeste’s beautiful daughters moved in after their mother passed away-- what a blessing they were. They were in high school and Jr. High. It reminded me of when Melanie moved in during the time her folks were going through a divorce. Then one of my wrestlers, Steve was with us for awhile. Aaron and Cory stayed with us at the end of every wrestling season and we were blessed with Billy for a couple of years. We never wanted any county assistance, they weren’t casual guests, and each one became a part of our family. We loved them, we paid for what was needed and what we could afford, we were Involved in their school, disciplining, going to activities, church, birthdays and Christmases. In every way we made them a part of our family. It was simple, there was a need and we could meet it-- we could help, it would have been a sin to say no.
Vicki and I come from a long line of hospitable families; we were taught this all our lives, and so we just put it into practice. It cost money, it took energy and both of those were in short supply while raising our own kids, but when it’s needed you’ve got to give it. It’s not always easy, sometimes you get hurt, but sharing our lives with each other is helping each other. We didn’t have any other option, it was all good.
As I look back on my life, I seem to attract a lot of peculiar people. I’m really not perfectly sure why, but I do. I believe everyone should have a chance at something. If God blesses me, do I need to keep it all, or should I share it with others? I like variety in people. Some Native American Tribes regarded peculiar people as "Strong Medicine". But people are interesting, they just show up and I’ve always felt I have some responsibility to watch out for them. In a family there is always one or two that just don’t march in time, but they are ours and we love them and live with them as long as they are there. TV and the movies are “perfect” but real life has a little of everything. My life isn’t of greater, importance than someone else’s. I don’t think it hurts to be kind and respectful of others, to talk with them, let them make some contributions. When you get to know them, they don’t seem that peculiar any longer.
4-H Sheep
I didn’t know anything about sheep; I was never in 4-H or FFA. But one of my sons joined 4-H with a lot of his friends and wanted an animal. So I go to a meeting but there are no leaders for groups, and 8 kids want to have a lamb. Don’t ask me how it exactly happened, but by the time I got home I was the sheep leader. I had to build a pen, and then make it bigger because most of the kids had no place to keep their lambs. So we built a good pen and barns, I never told Vicki but it probably cost $500. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Where do you find fair lambs? How big do they need to be? What’s the difference between a good lamb and a bad one? What equipment will we need? There were more questions than answers. I’ve made numerous calls, read books and watched videos. We went to every county sheep activity we would find. I’ll never forget us all going up to the hills to catch lambs, dock their tails, and doctor them all. After a big BBQ, my kids were learning and we were having a great time. Except for buying scales, clippers, stands, etc., etc., which I didn’t tell Vicki about.
Then fair time came. We had our little space, nice signs, boxes, and all the trimmings. Then I realized we needed buyers for all these lambs. Thank God for Joe and all his connections at his business. In the future we got a truck for hauling and even our own little flock to make lambs available to kids in need. Kids got really involved, moms and dads, grandparents too. We’ll never forget the fair and all the outings, and learning about sheep. I pray it’s a good memory for many. Oh yeah, sheep kids aren’t the same as driven little athletes, you just can’t push them the way you do wrestlers.
4-H backpacking
Well we were doing sheep; my father-in-law Joe was doing pigs, wasn’t that enough? “Come on Vicki lets do backpacking too”. We began borrowing equipment for any kid who wanted to be involved and covered the cost for those who couldn’t afford it, planned trips and provided or arranged rides for kids who didn’t have one. I remember a trip to Point Reyes once, when two brothers in the group couldn’t leave when were suppose to. The younger one was crying so I agreed to stay and wait for them. By the time everyone else had reached the camp site and was enjoying night camp fire, Charlie and David and I arrived at 9:00 a.m. at night. We were going to have to walk 5 miles in the dark to reach our camp. We start off and in 30 minutes, Charlie’s dead tired and sleepy. I add Charlie’s pack to my load, and I think, man his pack is heavy, maybe 70 lbs. No wonder the little guy was tired. We got to camp after midnight. I put them to bed and early next morning I’m up early making the fire and coffee for the adults. I started telling others about his heavy bag, so I went to see what he brought; well I was sure shocked when I pulled out around 15 rocks, his “Rock Collection”. I remember having Sunday Service on the beach there. Yeah, it was a lot of work but it was also the best of times-- little kids from Hickman backpacking all over California.
Baseball
The boys wanted to play tee-ball, but again, they were short on coaches. OK, at least I know a little about baseball and I get Joe to be my assistant, and some dads to help when they can. Jerry, John, Billy Bob, Steve, my dad and others. Well, let’s have fun but at the same time work hard and see if we can win. We did both! We practiced hard and long, but we also had a lot of swim parties at my house. I think I had the only pool in Hickman at the time. I can remember once or twice seeing forty kids in that pool, plus a couple of dogs. We spent a small fortune on chlorine. We had 16 kids on our team and if a kid came to all the practices, he or she, got to play at least 2 innings. It was a good rule, but it did cost us a championship once. We played some pretty good baseball through the years and had a lot of laughs, Noah in the tree, Jennifer always trying to take over the team, Justin’s mud bath at Shiloh-Paradise, Doug’s shy little expression, Jay’s “I know”, Teddy’s hat pulled down, a lot of smiles, contributing to a wonderful life. Eventually I became the director and little Hickman had 6 teams playing in the county, all completely outfitted and successful. I learned to do awards banquets during this time, they always went too long, but you have to say something heartfelt, something special, and something good about each kid-every-time, I’ll never forget it.
Hickman Wrestling
How this journey blessed me. Sixty very different boys of all sizes from 6 to 14 yrs of age, trying to become the best ever and being apart of “95323 Wrestling Capital of the World”. Yes we won a lot, but what I remember most is practice every night after a hard day’s work. Sixty boys with a lot of energy on a 24’x24’ mat, a feat I’ve never seen equaled. We talked about winning, we worked harder than any group of kids I’ve every coached, we worked and suffered through injuries. I pushed them like men and we became a TEAM. Half of them had no money; their parents never came or called for information. They had no money for their entry fee, no lunch or money for food. I’ve had to go get many of them out of bed and, I know it’s not legal or politically correct, but I’ve hauled way more kids in my car than I’ve had seat belts. I’d have to go talk with parents breaking up, counsel them, and their sons. I would do all the families weddings, funerals and whatever else was needed. If they qualified for the next level, I was committed to helping them pay their way. If they needed a place to stay, my door was always open. I’ve driven halfway across the country to do more than one wedding for these boys and one of the hardest things I’ve every had to do was funeral service for one of their children. As soon as one group moved on a new group showed up. They are my team, each one special, each one a brother to the death. I loved those boys, and I could go on and on about great victories, but it wasn’t about that. I preached the gospel to every one of them, I supported their parents and if they didn’t have any, I would be their parent. I saved multiple sons from out of control dads. I spent hundreds of hours counseling and prayed a million prayers. You’ll have to ask each boy about if he had fun or was it special-- it was to me.
Hickman Community Church
Another great blessing from God, we grew up together in ministry and in the Lord. We worked hard and we did real ministry. Thousands of hours, of marriage, and family, counseling. Strong youth ministry that continues to bless the church today as many now serve within the church. Our drug recovery work at Unity House, Our benevolence and hospitality ministries, our church planting work, how we became missionaries together, and the great work in Mexico. But our greatest work was our commitment to His Word, worshiping our God, seeking to do His will in every way. I loved being apart of your lives, watching you grow up in the Lord and give yourselves to Him. I appreciate how you loved me and how you let me love you in return, for forgiving all my shortcomings and mistakes. The Lord knows many came to know Him at Hickman and many served Him faithfully. Did I make mistakes? Yeah! Did I love the ministry? Yeah! Was the work really special? Amen! Thank you so much, God bless you all, wherever He has taken you.
Unity House
As I was counseling, family after family was in some way affected by drug and alcohol problems. I was committed to this truth-- “Christ is the only answer”. I thought the real, practical kind of Christianity manifested at HCC could help create a type of environment to encourage and help people turn away from this destroying addiction. I thought if I led the attack, involvement, studies, caring and support, others would join in this work. I was greatly blessed seeing these men in church, presenting Christ to them, watching them interact in all our fellowships and programs. I think one year we brought about 25 of them to Promise Keepers in Oakland- I really believe we touched a lot of lives.
Since being here (Stanislaus County Jail), one day I was sharing the Christian faith with four men, they had never been interested before, there opinion was, “Christians” were just about themselves – their opinion was very negative. Just then a guy walked into our little group and said I was telling the truth, he was a four month resident at Unity House. He spoke of our teaching God’s Word, “making it real”, having me, and others standing up for them in court. Tattooed, scraggly, guys being accepted, not left out, allowed to participate, our being involved in their lives. Then he said, “This guy is real and it’s a great farce he’s in here”. I hugged him and then he walked away. What a blessing!
