Rob Harrod - Cleats to Classroom: When God Changes Your Playbook
- Author
- The Gospel In The Game
- Published
- Sat 05 Jul 2025
- Episode Link
- None
What happens when you shift your focus from athletic achievement to seeking God first? Former CFL player Rob Harrod discovered the answer midway through his college football career, and it changed everything.
Rob takes us behind the scenes of professional football, sharing what it was like to have a locker next to legendary Gizmo Williams as a rookie and build relationships with fellow believers in a high-performance environment. With refreshing honesty, he reflects on how these locker room connections have spanned decades, now helping open doors for his son's football journey nearly twenty years later.
As an assistant principal and football coach at Millwood Christian School, Rob offers profound wisdom about excellence versus perfection: "Excellence is a direction you're going. Perfection is a destination." This philosophy shapes his approach to coaching, parenting, and faith. His transparency about balancing competitive drive with spiritual growth provides a roadmap for anyone struggling to integrate their passions with their beliefs.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Rob reveals the spiritual turning point that paradoxically elevated his athletic career. "I need to focus on Christ and what he's doing in my life, allow him to work. And then those other things were actually taken care of," he explains, describing how letting go of his tight grip on athletic success led to being drafted into professional football.
Whether you're an athlete, coach, parent, or simply someone seeking to live with greater purpose, Rob's journey demonstrates how relationships built through sport can become vehicles for meaningful impact across generations. His story reminds us that while athletic careers eventually end, the character developed through sports—especially when grounded in faith—creates a legacy that outlasts any on-field accomplishment.
