By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director
Drew Hall always closes WEIS radio’s Scoreboard Show on Friday nights with a message to listeners about coming to know Jesus. Now he has a brand new way of reaching audiences with that message.
Hall just recently finished writing a book called “Tier 1 Christianity: The Stories, Lessons, and Heroes of the Special Operations Community” by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc. The book is now available for purchase online at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
Hall, a former basketball assistant and head softball coach at Cherokee County High School, returned to his hometown of Glencoe in 2018. Before he left for home, he led the Lady Warrior softball team to a 39-12 record and their first state tournament berth in five years. Following that season, Hall was chosen by the Alabama Sports Writers Association as their Class 4A Softball Coach of The Year.
“I coached for a few years but have taken a step back from coaching with everything going on with my wife (Gena) and daughter (Emory Kate),” Hall said. “I just needed to take some time. I’m just teaching now. I was a youth pastor for three years. I’m going around speaking at churches. Anybody who wants me to come and share or preach, that’s kind of what I’m doing now since I opened up my calendar from coaching. I’ve got a little more free time.”
That free time also allowed him to write his first book. WEIS Sports Director Shannon Fagan talked with Hall on Tuesday morning about taking on his latest endeavor.
Q: First of all, what kind of book have you written?
A: “Really, it’s an encouragement book that paints the picture of the gospel on every page. It really just encourages discipleship. It came from the last few years of my life when my wife was going through cancer and my daughter was diagnosed with autism.
“To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. That all happened within a few months of each other. One of the first doctor’s appointments, when they told us it was cancer, we got back in the car and I just lost it. My wife, being the strong person she is, starts telling me ‘Drew, you can’t do this right now.’ I said a little prayer and said ‘God, let me be strong for her.’
“At that moment, God took me back to something I read five or six years ago. It was from a book Mark Owen wrote. That’s his pen name. He was a member of Seal Team 6 on the Osama bin Laden raid. He was telling the story about training, where he kind of freaked out and froze when he was rock climbing. The guy told him ‘Hey man, stay in your three-foot world and control what you can control.’ That’s what God took me back to. That’s what I tried to do the whole time with Gena and Emory Kate. I couldn’t make things happen. I couldn’t make doctors’ appointments when her tests came back. I just tried to stay in my three-foot world.
“I really thought it was going to be a sermon series with the youth on Wednesday nights. One night God really hit me in the heart with it and said ‘I want you to write a book.’ I’m a history nerd from being around Tony (Hathcock). A lot of my reading and studying has come from the last 20-plus years, with the global war on terror and all that stuff. I’ve read a lot of special operations books and things like that, watched documentaries. It’s just kind of been a hobby of mine.
“I had all this knowledge of all the lessons and stuff. What I did with the book I just tried to take those lessons and the heroes and the stories and I draw connections between them and the gospel and discipleship. It’s really an encouragement kind of book. All the special operations stuff and all that is really just a vessel for me to be able to share the gospel and the lessons of the gospel.”
Q: When did you start writing it? How long did it take you?
A: “I would say 18 months ago. I think I wrote it in about five months, which was really fast. I got it done. I was just really inspired. I just had to get all this stuff out. I didn’t even know if it was going to be worth anything. My wife just encouraged me. She said ‘Drew, maybe this is just some therapy for you.’ I thought maybe it is.
“I sent it off to a publisher and it wasn’t even done. I said ‘Hey, I’m about halfway done with this. Is this something you would be interested in?’ I was kind of at the point where I didn’t know if I wanted to finish it or not, but they read it, and a few weeks later they got back with me and said ‘Hey, this is really interesting and different. We want to see it when it’s done.’ I finished it, sent it off and they said they’d publish it. It has been an eight or nine month journey since then. It finally all kind of capped off today (Tuesday).”
Q: How excited are you that you can share this message with a lot of people who read this?
A: “That’s been my prayer the whole time, not only with a book to share Jesus on every page but I also hope it opens up a platform for me to go share it. None of this book is pointing toward me, look how great I am. Really it’s more about the stuff I screwed up but I did try. The guys who read it for me, I tried to throw things back and forth with them and said ‘Hey, check this out. Make sure it’s okay.’ They knew what I wanted to do. Every chapter, every page, it points to Jesus. That’s the goal.”
Q: I know whenever you do the Scoreboard Show with Tony, I know you always close with trying to help the listeners come closer to Jesus. This can really reach out in a whole different medium with you being published. How does make you feel reaching people at a different level?
A: “That’s kind of what I was hoping. That’s something I didn’t do at first (in closing the show out). I wished I would have, at the end of all our shows, really try to share Jesus. I’ve really tried to share that the last few years when we close out every (Friday) night.
“The crazy thing is I’m no writer. You could ask my English teachers in high school and tell them I wrote a book and they’d laugh at you. Some of them actually proofed it for me. They’ve been really cool about it.
“I’ve coached and taught, and I was an okay coach, but I don’t think that’s what God made me for. It’s not that I was bad at it or anything like that. It’s just that’s not my calling. I think God made me to preach the gospel. I think he gave me the gift of communication. I’m trying to be faithful and step into that and use it for Him.”
Q: Did coaching maybe sort of help you writing this?
A: “Yeah. There are definitely some connections there. We reference Nick Saban in the book. The heart of the book really came from the world getting apathetical. It’s getting to where we accept mediocre and we accept average. That is the complete opposite of the special operations community. It’s definitely the exact opposite of what Jesus wants. Jesus said if you’re going to be a follower you’ve got to carry your cross. There is nothing mediocre or average about that. That’s the message I really wanted to kind of tap into. I see that as a teacher and a coach.
“I was blessed to be around a bunch of good people and a bunch of good parents. I saw it in other places too in talking with other coaches and the struggles they have. That was kind of part of it too. It’s really about 10 years of my life and stories and experiences all poured out in 100-plus pages.”
Q: Any shout-outs or thank-yous you’d like to give?
A: “Tony Hathcock. Tony served in the 20th group. He was the guy I leaned on. If you know anything about the military side of things, if you write something, post something, say something and it’s wrong, they let you know it. I tried as hard as I could for somebody who was never in that world to get it as right as I could. I tried to make sure I gave all the men and women in the special operations community and the military all the credit and glory. It’s not mine, it’s their stories. I’m just using them to share the gospel.
“Above anybody else, Gena, my wife. She was the one who kept encouraging me, saying ‘Hey, keep going. Keep doing this.’
“Sometimes you think people just don’t care, and I’m trying really hard and it doesn’t matter, you need those people in your life who are going to say ‘No, you’re doing what’s right. You keep going.’ Gina is that person for me, even when she was going through all her stuff. Definitely those two for sure.
“Anybody who buys this (book), I’d be humbled. I hope and pray it really encourages them. Even if they’ve been a Christian for years. I hope it encourages them to go a little deeper.”