From Last Place to Gold: The Transformation of the 1980 US Hockey Team

In the fall of 1979, coach Herb Brooks assembled a ragtag group of college hockey players — kids who had no business competing against the Soviet Union's legendary Red Army team, a squad that had dominated international hockey for nearly two decades. The Americans had finished seventh at the 1976 Olympics. Dead last among contenders.

But Brooks did something radical. He didn't just teach them new plays. He transformed how they saw themselves. Night after night, he pushed them past what they believed they could endure. After a lackluster exhibition game against Norway, he famously kept them skating wind sprints long after the arena lights were turned off. "Again," he kept saying. Again and again and again.

By February 22, 1980, in Lake Placid, those young men defeated the Soviets 4-3 in what sportscaster Al Michaels called the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century. They were the same players who had been nobodies six months earlier — same bodies, same skates, same sticks. But they had been utterly transformed from the inside out.

The Apostle Paul writes, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). Notice — God doesn't swap us out for different people. He transforms the ones we already are. The same hands, the same heart, the same history — but surrendered to a Coach who sees what we cannot yet see in ourselves.

What is the Almighty calling you to become that you haven't yet believed is possible?