Fred Selfe - Great Big Small Things

Fred Selfe was an All American football player and award-winning coach for the Emory and Henry College Wasps for 26 years. He taught “good old-fashioned, smash-mouth football” and baseball. He trained his scholar-athletes to enter the world with wisdom, courage, character and optimism.

Fred Selfe taught by example. The lessons were simple and direct. The way in which he lived his life and treated the world with respect make him an extraordinary force for good. His friend, coaching colleague, former Ranger platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division and decorated Vietnam War veteran, Bob Johnson says through his experiences he has known many fine men, “some of whom are buried in Arlington.” Johnson’s father, Gen. Harold K. Johnson, served as President Lyndon Johnson’s Army Chief of Staff during a crucial period of the war in Vietnam. Yet, Bob Johnson calls Fred Selfe “the best man I ever knew.”

Consider this:

- Coach Selfe coached an average 150 people (football, baseball) each year for 26 years. That equals 3,900 people directly affected by his life and teaching. If only 33 percent of those people were affected enough to emulate him, then 1,287 people exhibit the same traits.

- If those people coach, teach, manage or lead 100 people a year using the same teaching style that equals 128,700 people a year, multiplied by 26 years equals 3,346,200 people.

- There are 3.3 million men and women touched by the life of one simple man at a small college in a rural Southern town. It is the best example I know of the Biblical proverb, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” This man of iron has sharpened a group of men and women who use his lessons to sharpen others, and in turn, sharpen our culture.

Fred Selfe lived his life with the important principles most of us lack. He did small things that took root in the hearts and minds of those who witnessed them and shaped us in lasting ways. These small acts of kindness, courage, consistency, character, strength, poise, compassion, and selflessness become great big things in our timid, tepid world. Business executive and former U.S. Congressman Bruce Barton says, “Sometimes, when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things—a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped on a newsstand—I am tempted to think there are no little things.”

I am honored to present this book, Great Big Small Things, about Fred Selfe and the 9 powerful lessons we all need to change us and the world around us.

Dale McGlothlin