Teal Bunbury Testimony

He hands it wide for Bunbury. It's a steal, goes wild, goes in! My dad played professional soccer, so that was a big, big part of my life growing up. Open goal for Bunbury and makes it! Bunbury has a second chance. It's in! I always joke that like right when I was born, my dad put a soccer ball, you know, next to the crib, you know, and was like, hey, you're destined to do this. Put back in by Bunbury. 2! Bunbury! What a goal! I didn't play any other sports. I'd go to the stadiums, and like, the older I got, the more I'm like, "Oh, what a cool thing." So everybody around me was just kind of like, "Oh, Teal is the soccer guy." I even had my— back there was like AIM Messenger, and my little username was "T-Boy the Soccer Guy." Even that was just like, "Hey, that's just who I am. I'm just this soccer guy." I guess this is something I really want to do. I told my dad that. My dad's like, "Hey, okay, it's going to be hard work. There's going to be discipline." And he was pretty intense, but my mom was so loving and caring and gracious to me and always was a shoulder that I could kind of lean on if I was sad or whatever, you know? So I loved that, the experience of like training every day. And that led me to, you know, get recruited to go to the University of Akron in Ohio. My sophomore year was a year where I really, you know, hit my stride, had my confidence, and so many players around me like helped kind of build build me up. And I was fortunate enough to win the Herman Trophy, which is, you know, the collegiate correspondent to like the Heisman in college football. But there was just something more that I felt was out there to bring me more joy, more happiness than kind of winning that award. At University of Akron, there was a teammate of mine named Steve Zakawany. We call him Steve-O. He had this presence about him. He was always at peace and always had this calm, even keel about him. And I was always curious. I'm like, yo, Steve-O, man, like, what is it about you that you're able to, like, navigate all these things, you know? Because I'm here in college and, like, you know, training, you know, spring season's kicking my butt. And he broke it down for me. We were on, like, a bus ride. And he's like, "Hey, have you ever heard of Jesus?" And I'm like, "Yeah, dude, like I've heard of Jesus, but like, what about him?" And he told me about that it's not, you know, about a religion or knowing God isn't about a religion, it's about a relationship. So when I heard the word relationship, I said, "Okay, that's something I can understand. I can understand what a relationship is. It's spending time with that person. It's about getting to know them." It's trying to listen to them. And he broke down that, hey, we all fall short of His glory, but He is so gracious that He died for us so we can have a relationship with Him. And we started having Bible studies in college. We'd meet, you know, once, twice, sometimes 3 times a week, and we'd just go over different scripture. It was a process of just understanding and getting to know Him. Figure out who Jesus is. But the more I got to know him, the more I realized my identity was in Christ. It wasn't in anything I was doing, any accolades, any Hermann Trophy that I would win in the future, any championships, none of that stuff. There were so many people, so many chaplains at my different stages of kind of my career and different teams I was at. It really opened my eyes to, okay, you need to have a community, you need to have a brotherhood, you need to have people you can share that with and learn from. Trainings can be grueling and preseasons can be tough and the season can be hard. But when you would dive into these Bible studies and just open to discussion and learn more about who our Lord and Savior is, it gave us more confidence in like who I am as a player and more importantly, like as a human being. When I was done, when I retired, the reason I had peace was my identity was in Christ. My value as a person has nothing to do with my circumstances, and happiness is completely circumstantial. One day you might have some money, the next day you might not. One day you'll have a job and maybe you'll be laid off. You might become a professional, then you gotta retire someday. So if your identity is wrapped up in whatever thing that is, it will be fleeting. It's gonna come and it's gonna go. But something that never changes is Jesus Christ's love for you, His plan for you. He just cares about you and your heart. You know, He wants your heart. He wants all of you. He wants you to surrender. And it's a journey. But if you put your faith and your trust in Him, it's the best decision I ever made in my life. And it gave me a sense of purpose.