Pat Walker, a Wasp football player in the early 1990s and current assistant football coach at North Carolina Wesleyan College, calls Coach Selfe the “closest thing to a father” he ever had. Walker tells how Fred Selfe cared for “an underachiever;” guiding him into the teaching profession in which he now excels. “I saw him the summer before his last year of life,” Walker recalls, “He knew he was sick and didn't tell me. I had my two boys with me (my third son was born two weeks before he died) and he played with them while we visited. Before we left, he took off his old beat up baseball cap, put it on my head and told me he wanted me to have it. So, not only do I have the lessons he taught me and the great memories we shared, but I guess he wanted me to have something tangible as well. He didn't have to do that, but God knows how grateful I am he did.”

Each day someone uses a principle in their own life they learned and embraced from observing him. Someone asks what Fred Selfe would do in a certain situation. Someone teaches someone else a lesson they learned from him. Someone stops to help a stranded motorist, shovels snow from the driveway of a neighbor, gives a few dollars to a needy stranger, or a beaten up old baseball cap or football helmet to a young man or woman who will cherish it forever. Each day someone is Fred Selfe.

Allyson Cox Newton, a teacher and E&H graduate, writes in a personal letter: “Not a week goes by that I am not reminded of something you said or did . . . or how you handled a situation that makes me stop, think and then—hopefully—make the right decision.” Newton describes Coach Selfe as “big in stature, big in compassion, big in heart with a constant warm twinkle . . . .” She also admits, “When I was in college and for all the years after I would tell my family that ‘one of these days I am going to marry Coach Selfe!’ My parents, chuckling, would remind me that I would first have to talk to Mrs. Selfe and Paige. I would reply, ‘Well, I will just have to marry someone like Coach Selfe.’ I hope one day I will have an impact on a few of my students like you had on many of yours.”

Steve Allen, a lightning-fast receiver who played football for Emory and Henry in the early 1980s, is now head football coach at Flagler Palm Coast High School in Bunnell, Florida. Steve sums up Fred Selfe’s indelible influence in a letter to Becky Selfe: “Without having known Coach Selfe, I would never have been a coach. Heck, I might be digging ditches somewhere! He was a tremendous role model. He looked after me when I didn’t even know I needed to be cared for. He supported me when I didn’t support him. He taught me although I was not ready to learn. Most of all he showed me how to conduct myself as a young man when I was just a boy.”

This book is not a biography of Fred Selfe, instead it is a collection of stories and lessons of the amazingly good things Fred Selfe did for the world and an awestruck appreciation for what they will continue to do.

I include a very personal narrative in the book’s epilogue of Fred Selfe’s memorial service and how we celebrated his life that day. You may choose to read it first—if so, I hope it serves as an introduction to the man and the college—an explanation of what leads me to write this book and sows the seeds of the Selfe Factor. The second epilogue is a remembrance of Fred Selfe by Emory and Henry’s 18th president, Dr. Charles Sydnor. Dr. Sydnor’s essay is also a wonderful portrait of the coach and the college.

Chapter one explains how small things get to be great big things that change the world around us. Chapters two through nine are the lessons—Fred Selfe’s Great Big Small Things—you can use to change your life. These chapters describe:

Through the memories of those who knew him it weaves a colorful story of his amazing character and recognizes the powerful virtues and lessons he left to inspire and change us—lessons that, if enough people learn and share with others, can help rebuild our fractured culture.

I know as you read this book Fred Selfe is somewhere up there, shaking his head, swatting away with his blue and gold baseball cap, and with that stern look on his face telling no one in particular, “Gosh dandy! Bullfrog youngun!” But, he never did like talking about what to do—he just liked doing it.

Forget all the best-selling self-help books, workshops for dummies, and extension classes. Forget the Leadership Secrets of books, and the big name speakers who charge thousands of dollars for a weekend of showbiz. If you are searching for a real life example for doing better as a person, parent, teacher, coach, manager—or if you just wake up each morning and do not see the person in the mirror you want to see—read this book. Fred Selfe lived a life full of examples and taught powerful lessons of being and doing Great Big Small Things for others. He was a teacher of exceptional skill and I am determined to define and explain how the principles by which he lived and those he displayed every day are the principles that make us all good people. Ensuring those lessons does not end with his death, but continue through the chronicling of his life.

Use the life of Fred Selfe to mold and change your own life. Begin the process of making yourself into a better person. Do Fred Selfe’s Great Big Small Things each day to make the world a better place.