The Many Faces of Brock Huard

 Brock Huard: “So many of these student-athletes are remarkable, right, of what they've overcome already in their lives, is they're trying to be students, they're trying to be athletes. And then what happens, those boosters or those companies are paying them … guess what they want? A piece of ‘em!”
 
Brock Huard looks past the pieces to a broader view, watching Name, Image, and Likeness - impact the college game. The former NFL and collegiate quarterback is a game analyst with Fox Sports and a sports-radio show host, with a sightline as dad to a pair of college student-athletes, and a third soon to navigate the evolving financial compensation of NIL and transfer portals.
 
Question: “Change - at a number of levels?”
 
Brock Huard: Yeah, college athletics has become transactional. It was developmental. My daughter went from the University of Montana to Oklahoma State, and we walked through this. I mean, this was really personal right up here in this home that we're in, because I made this commitment to this school.  You finish what you started. And this whole deal is that's out the door from coaches to players to AD's to universities to conferences - It's all transactional! How do I navigate that?”
 
Question: “T­­he student athlete - how do we come alongside them to support them?”
 
Brock Huard: “Transparency and being genuine! Watching my daughters they were both together at the university of Montana. Sugarcoating in this day and age does zero. But now everything is laid bare, it's open, life is lived on these phones and through social media and there's no more under the carpet. And for those church communities - truth is where life is. It's not, oh, I gotta be ‘buddy buddy’. It is speaking truth. Because on these college campuses, they're getting none of it.”
 
Question: “Where is the greatest crack in this foundation of NIL right now?”
 
 
BrockSOT3: Brock Huard he was tempted and the devil tempting him with his ego, with his likeness, with your power, with all of this. It's all about you, you, you, you, you.  And Jesus, just as he had to thwart the enemy with truth - we've got to speak truth because it's all self-indulgence. It's all about me. It's my name, it's my image, and it’s my likeness. So you've got to just as Jesus did, combat it with truth. We have to do the same”.
 
Question: “And Brock, coupled with that window in life when our student athletes are at that age when they're trying to find themselves.”
 
Brock Huard: “Well, I remember that sitting in my dorm room at the University of Washington in 1995. Wow, I'm no longer under my parents' roof. I'm walking through it with my college aged daughters. And you could feel that, that wrestling, like, who am I? And now it is just further inflamed with all of, you know, this name, with all this money, with all these resources, with people all wanting a piece of you. There used to be at least some barrier between all the boosters and all the attention and all of it. And there are no longer barriers”.
 
Question: “Greed. How does it blind and paralyze from where you sit?”
 
Brock Huard: “Whew. Greed, when you just say the word, you think of big business.  How and when have we ever connected greed with a high school kid? (Yeah)  When? Never, never! We've seen it with young Hollywood stars, the catastrophes from that and the sadness and the hurt that comes from that is you're not equipped. No! An 18-year-old is like in an age of discovery of identity. How has God made me equip me, built me to, to live for him and now I've got this money? How do I even handle this? But how's a college kid to be a good steward with what he's been given? Man, is it a challenge.”
 
Question: “In each of our lives there's an NIL. We wanna make a good first impression, name, image, and likeness, but we can hide behind it. Speak as a dad to that, how do you address that with your kids?”
 
Brock Huard: That’s a great question! And especially in the world of sport and performance, right? So how do you go out and perform and not make it about you? Tom, from when I played, I’ve encouraged my kids a bunch. I always pray – and its so easy – Oh, I’m gonna play for an audience of one. Then you get on that court, or you get on that field, and you just feel like I gotta go compete, right! So, you’ve got to be infused from the inside out with the Holy Spirit! You gotta truly believe what Paul and others wrote to die to ourselves - to live for Him. Right! Move me outta the way. ­To die is gain, to move me outta the way! And just truly let me go live and perform for you. And yeah, it is a minute battle! Hey, man, every minute of every day I'm gonna die to myself and live for him.”
   
Question: “The uncertainty, the fear that comes with it. How do you confront change with both feet on the ground?”
 
Brock Huard: “You better do it on your knees. There’s a holy stirring, like ‘you gotta go’. You gotta go! For my daughter as we walked through that hard process there was a holy stirring like – there is more! So it is a profound question, not too different, like a lot of people watching this in their own lives – ‘how do I know the Lord has this for me?’ Because when you know it’s the Lord, and you feel it from the Lord, let’s go! I’ll run through those doors.”
 
Question: “This plays into a generation that is adaptable to be willing to say ‘I’m willing to go’?”
 
Brock Huard: “Yeah! Go therefore! And make disciples. Go! Right? One of the greatest last charges – Go!  And I think, Tom, that's an astute point that as much and as hard as time we have with phones and technology. The unintended consequences of NIL and all this because now it starts earlier and earlier and earlier. But you know what equips 'em for, to your point: change! And they can be more nimble and they can pack up and go, take this step of faith, let me go where maybe the previous generations, could have never done that.”
 
Question: “Where is your rock amidst the change?”
 
Brock Huard: “Oh gosh, yeah. How many times we have to say, but God, God's got it.  But where's our faith? This isn't happening on our time. Or there's this real frustration, or all these questions of ‘is this the right thing’. But God! And where’s our faith? There’s stress. There’s real live stuff. Where really is our Rock and our Faith? Is it really about dying to ourselves and really giving our life to him and realizing that every day is a gift that we have. If we pronounce that and we say it, we gotta walk it.”