On the Path
Helping athletes keep a Christ centered life. Weekly episodes with athletes and coaches that are succeeding in their sport while remembering what is most important and keeping Jesus Christ at the center of their lives.
On the Path
Looking for Opportunities
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Charles Price, golf, gives us great insights on the importance looking for opportunities and to stop asking for results to come. Prayer is a strength as we seek for guidance and lean upon those around us.
What's up everyone? Welcome back to On the Path. I'm your host, Ben Daybell, and today I'm here with a special guest, one of my teammates. So today's gonna be pretty awesome for me. Today I'm here with Charles Price. I'll give us a little bit of an introduction on Charles so we can kind of get to know get to know him, but he'll give us a little bit more of a rundown after. So Charles, like I said, he's one of my teammates, so he's on the golf team here at Southern Virginia University. He's from McAllen, Texas, and he's a senior here at SVU Studying Business. So Charles, welcome. We're happy to have you here with us today. To get started, let's have you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up here as a golfer at Southern Virginia.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me, Ben. Of course. And I want to say this is uh is a great work that you're doing. I've been super proud to watch the videos and tune into the podcast. And so happy to be your teammate. Um, yeah, so it's kind of a long story how I ended up at SVU, but we'll kind of condense it into the what I feel are the important parts. But basically, I started golfing at a young age. I was like eight or nine years old, but I always played all the other sports, played football, basketball, baseball, cross country, and um I kind of realized that I was not ever gonna grow to be six foot for the audio listeners. I'm five eight. And so I kind of realized pretty quickly that I wasn't gonna go to the NBA, I wasn't gonna go to the NFL, and it was then that um I decided I was gonna focus on golf. And so this is around freshman year of high school, and if I'm being honest, I wasn't any good. My scores were um definitely below average. I mean, well, in this case above average for golf because low score is better, but yeah, I wasn't any good, and so I remember um right after basketball season, my eighth grade year, I went up to a swing coach just locally and said, I want to play college golf, and he said, That's a stretch, but we're sure gonna try. And so ever since that day I decided uh to quit basketball. I quit football and just went all in on golf. And you know, it was hard just going out there and practicing every single day, but um coming out of high school I was lucky enough to have um several offers, and I actually didn't uh start at Southern Virginia. I uh first went to my dream school, uh Brigham Young University, um, with an opportunity to try to walk on there and well things didn't really go my way, and um I remembered one summer meeting uh Coach Garner, who's the head men's golf coach and well and women's at Southern Virginia, and I decided to give him a call and he was um super understanding and um extended me the opportunity to come out here. So I only did a semester at at Brigham Young and ended up transferring out here and and I've never looked back.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. It's it's uh it's really a fun experience learning how everyone ends up where they are, because everyone has their own path, and sometimes we end up in places we never thought we would end up, right? Um but let's stick a little bit on the topic of golf. Um why don't you talk to us a little bit about um explain to the listeners because obviously I know golf a little bit, you know golf probably better than me. Um so explain to the listeners a little bit about golf in general, how it's the kind of sport it is and what it takes to get to where you are right now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, golf is is really hard because it can be seen as an individual sport, but it's also just really mental. Yeah. So there's a saying golf is played between the years, and over the I don't know, ten plus years that I've been playing, I've definitely learned that that is the case. And so I think for me growing up um playing in other sports, um it was hard to kinda come into golf and have you know that calm attitude that uh maybe helps a golfer succeed. And so it especially in my high school years, I was just on honestly, I was known for getting angry. I would just get really frustrated with myself and uh throw fits on the golf course, sometimes throwing clubs, balls in the water, you name it, I've probably done it.
SPEAKER_03And most of us have.
SPEAKER_04And that was actually like one of the biggest things I learned uh coming to Southern Virginia was um it's kind of time to to be an adult and to recognize that even though the game is tough and even though it can be frustrating, um, it's time to you know calm down and manage your emotions and and represent a school and um and a faith well.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Yeah, it's it really is a mental game. I remember hearing that that quote golf is played between the ears so many times growing up. And it's really hard when it's such a mental game, because once you get off the once you get off your game, you stop focusing and everything just goes downhill really fast. So it's really important to work on the mental game, especially in golf. I mean other sports too. But I think it's a huge role in golf. Um tell us a little bit of your story, how you got into golf. Who who motivated you and who really encouraged you to choose golf? Because it's not it's not as much as a common sport as, like you said, basketball and football are.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's actually kind of a funny story. So my dad um picked up golf in his adult years, and uh growing up he would wake up really early on Saturday mornings and go play with with a friend of ours from church, and I'm not an early riser, so I never saw him leave, but I always saw him come back. And I mean, from a little age, my parents, you know, bought me the plastic clubs, and it's been said that before I could even walk, my grandma would walk me around the house and I'd have the plastic clubs and would be swinging them all over. But I never really knew what golf was, and I just knew that my dad would go somewhere Saturday mornings, and so naturally as a kid I said, I want to go. And my dad said no. And so this happened for I don't know how long, but eventually my parents said, you know, maybe there's something here, so they stuck me in a summer golf camp. And both my parents worked, so I spent most of my summer mornings in summer golf camps, and I'd stay after and just kind of mess around with my friends or try to get better, and so that's kind of how I got introduced to the game. And like I said earlier, I was still thinking I was going to the NBA, I was still playing baseball, and I was still um playing football, but golf was kind of always there, it was something I did in the summers and then just kind of uh let go away during the school year and then got right back into it in the summer, but it wasn't until um yeah, or like my eighth grade to freshman year that I decided okay, I I kind of like this, and I started to fall in love with it.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Um kind of look kind of looking at that eighth grade to freshman year transition. Um I'm curious on what really pushed you to stop playing those sports. Because like you said, you wanted to play um collegiate golf, but as an athlete, me as well, in high school I played multiple sports and throughout the years I dropped one um every so often. But it's hard. It's hard to quit a sport that you love playing, something you love doing because you know you're gonna be missing that, but you also kind of you can kind of see a greater picture, right? But how was that process deciding to leave those other sports behind and just focus on golf?
SPEAKER_04Um I've honestly never really thought about that too much, but thinking about it now, I think really uh what it came down to was realizing that I wasn't as good at the other sports as I thought I was. One, and then two, something uh really special happened in that in that summer between my eighth grade to ninth grade year, I reconnected with a really good friend from baseball that I had back in Little League. And he had already gone all in on golf, and so our parents were really good friends. I didn't even know that he golf. And one day I showed up to the course and he was on the chipping green and I said, Wait a minute, I think I know you, even though I hadn't seen him in years. And we instantly became best friends, and he introduced me to the other golfers in the area, and quickly, you know, I just developed these friendships with uh people that I'm still close to, and I think it was because of them that I finally said, Okay, all of us want to be really good at golf, and this is really fun, and that's kind of when I realized that it wasn't just something I did because I enjoyed it, but it was something that I'm truly passionate about and I wanted to do the the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's super awesome. It really is it's kind of fun trying to get into things because at first you kind of feel alone, right? When you make that decision to drop other sports and kind of get into something you want to do. It's kind of hard if you don't have people around you, but like you said, quickly you found that old friend and then you quickly became best friends with him, and then other golfers around the community helped you to kind of keep going, right? Super awesome. Um now speaking of golf still, let's kind of talk about the athletes in golf, right? There's so many great golfers and there's so many controversies with golfers, especially right now. Um we'll kind of stay away from that, but who's a golfer that from the beginning, when you first got into golf, who's someone that you loved watching, someone you wanted to be like?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've always been a really big Rory McElroy fan, and I think it just kinda happened perfectly there, right? When I started getting super serious about it, is when he started winning. And so I've just always uh followed him and you know tried to match his perfect swing, and I've even made claims that he's better than others that um are viewed as as really good. And so yeah, Rory's always been my guy and and he still is to this day, and so he's somebody that I've always looked up to and and inspired to be like.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Yeah, I've I've always really loved Rory McElroy too, and something for me, just like you, when I was playing sports, I realized I was never gonna grow to be six foot. Also for the listeners, I'm 5'7, so I'm even shorter, but it's kind of it's a realization that you have to have when you're a kid growing up wanting to move on in a sport, play at the next level. You have to pick something that you'll fit into and golf something that sure it may benefit being taller, but you don't have to be. And that's one reason I like Rory, because he's not the tallest, but he's a very powerful, he's a great golfer, and he's someone that's super motivating to me too. So I'm really happy that you mentioned him because he's he really is a great he's played a great role in the golf game recently. Um yeah, it's super awesome. Um so now kind of switching topics, let's talk a little bit about Christ and his life. Um so let's kind of let's see here. Um you talked a lot about how your family got you into golf. And family plays a big role, right? And kind of growing up, how did you how were you able to keep Christ in your life? How was that maybe it wasn't forced upon you, but how was that a mo how how was that a motivating factor in your life?
SPEAKER_04Um I think that I was able to to keep Christ in my life not only because of my family, but because of the love that I felt as I worshipped him on Sundays. And so I think um one thing that I did from the beginning of my golf career is I told all my friends that um I wouldn't practice on Sundays. And so even though that might have been the most fun match that we had all week, I was never there and I always made it a point to go to church and spend time with family um on those Sundays, and I think that allowed me to kind of remember that um, you know, God is an important part of my life and and needs to be um the focal point of everything that I do. And so I think just taking that step back at least once a week to kind of remember who I am, where I came from, and who I have the um ability to become um allowed me to keep Christ at the center of my golf career and everything that I did.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. That's I love that because it really is important. I love the fact how you chose early on that you wouldn't golf on Sundays because I mean, for our golf team here, that's kind of a rule, right? That's a rule we abide by. We don't golf on Sundays because that's our chance to go to church to worship God and to have that time to take a step back. And it really is, I believe, I have a very strong testimony that that day off I mean it's a day off, yes, but it's a the most important day of the week. It's the day we get to go to church and we get to worship our God who gives us the opportunity to be here. He gave us our skills and our abilities. He's the reason that we're able to golf every other day of the week. Um so it really is important for us to kind of step back and and do that. Um so now let's kind of keep our focus on on Sunday services. Um I haven't talked about this with anyone else, but let's talk kind of about music and hymns. Um I believe the spirit comes when we're listening to the right music and especially um gospel hymns, because that's just it's something that's amazing that I love and brings so much peace. What's kind of a hymn that you've always turned to that that's always been this peace giver to you?
SPEAKER_04Um there's a lot. Um I think growing up uh the hymn child's prayer always stood out to me. Yeah. And just kind of remembering that God truly does listen to our prayers, even that of a a little child. And then recently, I don't know the name of it. I can look it up here real quick. There's a hymn that I've really liked, and it there's actually sorry.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I think while you're looking at that, I'm gonna kind of I'm gonna paraphrase kind of the words of a child's prayer because I love that hymn as well. Um so for those listening, this hymn is in the children's songbook. And it's uh it's just a great reminder of us that Heavenly Father listens to us. It kind of starts off with questions. I'll read the first two questions that it mentions. It says, Heavenly Father, are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child's prayer? And I love that. And then obviously it keeps going, but in the second verse, I love where it says, pray, he is there, speak, he is listening. So it's those first two lines in the first and second verse are just kind of super powerful because it's just asking, like, is he really there? Is he really listening to us? Even a child who's praying to him. Um, and it's just a great reminder that we just should just always pray. He's always listening to us.
SPEAKER_04For sure. Yeah, I think that concept has always um been super powerful for me, just kind of recognizing that I can pray anytime and anywhere, and God will be listening, and and I know that that is true, and I've felt it in my life. But yeah, I found it so recently um some new hymns have come out, and it's I will walk with Jesus has been my favorite as of late. And so um it's something that's um on my mind constantly, just recognizing that Jesus is always with us, but we also need to always be with him, and so I kind of interpret it and that I need to be an example at all times and in all places. And so that means when I'm on the golf course and things are uh getting hard, uh I need to remember uh who's walking with me. And so I need to remember to represent him well and to not get frustrated and not um you know represent uh Christ in a in a bad way, but kinda um be the odd man out and kind of be that example to the people in the tournament and to my teammates and people that are watching. And so yeah, that's something that um has been on my mind, especially this semester, just kind of remembering that Jesus walks with me, so I need to respect him enough to walk with him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I love that. That's that's awesome. It's super important um for us to always remember who's walking beside us, because he really does never leave our side. We may mess up, we may forget to read our scriptures for a while, forget to pray for a while, but he will never abandon us. Um so it's important even on the golf course, no matter where it is, to remember who's with us, because as golfers we know it gets hard and maybe we have a really bad hole and we want to slip up, but we always remember that it's important for us to keep that memory that Christ is by our side, walking with us through this struggle. Um but yeah, I I also love that that knew him and it's a great reminder for us to stay by his side because he won't he won't leave our side. Right. Um but yeah, it's it's it's great. Um so music is a great aspect of life. It's something that everyone listens to, and it's important for us, I think, even throughout the week, to remember Christ and listen to the music music that talks about him. There's many artists out there that will play gospel Christian music, and it's something that that's super powerful, no matter the setting. So great reminder to listen to good music. Um along with that, throughout the week, kind of going away from Sundays now, throughout the week, what do you do as a student athlete to keep Christ in your life? What are the what we've been saying the last couple episodes are the small and simple things that you can do on a daily?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um I think the biggest lesson that I've learned in my life is that as humans we are sometimes self centered, we turn inward. But Christ on the earth always turned outwards and continues to do that now. And so a rule that I live by is if somebody Comes to my mind, I always text them or call them. And so if you're a friend of mine, a teammate, and I call you randomly, it's because you came to my mind. And so I found that as I do that, opportunities to help those around me just kind of fall into my lap. And I've realized that it's in those moments as I'm helping people that I am the happiest. And so that's kind of just something little that I do aside from you know praying and and the other ones that I feel like are common answers to a kind of walk with Jesus and act uh as he would.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. I love that. Cause um it really is important for us to reach out. I love that example that you give because there's many times where we think we need to focus on ourselves, focus on ourselves spiritually, but we look at Christ who came to earth not just to receive service from others, but to serve others. And there's a great story in the Bible that talks about that when James and John are kind of asking to stand by Christ, be by his be on his right and his left side, right? But Christ gives them the whole story that if you want to be a leader, if you want to be someone that's uh a Christ-like example, you need to turn outwards and serve others. And it's Christ directly giving us that example. He's the one telling us that we shouldn't be self-centered, but we need to help other people. So the idea of service, even just reaching out with a phone call or a text, is something that will help someone, that will brighten someone's day, and that's just a great example and um something that everyone should strive to do. Um, kind of talking, we'll go back and talk a little bit about prayer. We talked about that briefly with the hymn A Child's Prayer. How have you recognized the power of prayer in your life?
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah. Um, I think I really started to see the power of prayer in my life as I shifted the way that that I was praying. And so for a long time my life was just centered around golf. That was all I really cared about. And luckily, because of you know the environment I was raised in, my grades were good and other aspects were fine, and so I could just focus on golf or just worry about only golf. And so I realized I'm not really sure when, somewhere in high school, that I was praying maybe in the wrong way. And so it used to be I'd you know pray at night and pray in the morning that I'd go out and win the tournament and you know, have my best stuff, or that my swing change would be in full effect, or whatever the case may be. And then it wouldn't happen, and I'd be like, What the heck? Like I said the prayer, you I know you're real. Yeah, so what just happened? And I'm not sure when or where, but I learned it somewhere. I shifted my prayers away from asking for specific results and started to ask for opportunities to you know showcase what I was already working on. So I asked for the opportunity to you know win the golf tournament, or I asked for the ability to accept whatever the result may be. And so I found that when I go into anything in life with that mindset, um, it allows me to learn from you know whatever happens, whether it be a success or or failure. And there's actually a specific time that um really stood out to me and I think about often, especially after um tournaments. Um it was in high school, I was playing just a normal high school tournament, and where I'm from in Texas, it's pretty close to the Mexican border. And so there's some schools that are closer than mine where um you get uh student athletes that are actually living in Mexico and cross the border every day to, you know, attend school. And so I'm playing in this tournament, and the person that I'm paired with um does not live in the US, and he's telling me that he had to wake up at I don't know, three in the morning to get on the bus and make it the two and a half hours to the tournament that we were playing. And I was complaining about waking up at six, and yeah, so I'm sitting here and I'm like, okay, that's great. Now it's time to play. And so I play the tournament and he beats me. And um in the most humble way, I was having a pretty good season. I'd won most of the tournaments I played in, and this kid, I don't remember his name, but he hadn't won any. And I remember vividly when they called his name up, he just looked so happy to get that trophy. And I realized that it wasn't God's will for me to win the tournament that day, but that that student athlete needed it a lot more than I did. And realizing that I kinda, you know, try to remember that every time I play a tournament. That sometimes, you know, as much as I want to win, somebody might need that win a little bit more than I do, or it might just be, you know, in the cards for that person to have the bounces go their way and not for me. And so that kind of shifted the way that I looked at um my prayers, and it kind of shifted the way that I look at golf too. And so instead of praying for the win, I prayed for opportunities to you know recognize God's hand in my life and in the life of the people around and kind of accept whatever the case may be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's awesome. Um, I love that example. It's it's kind of interesting for us to to look at things that way, to have that different perspective. But that is kind of what it takes is to have that that perspective, because if we're just praying and asking God, please let me win today, it's kind of like, oh well, let's maybe think of that a little bit differently, because we're not gonna win every single time. And we just need to go out and be able to play to the best of our abilities. I kind of shared an experience maybe not exactly like that, but a little bit similar with my team praying um before every single tournament. And like the first two rounds we played, we shot school records. And it was it really was a an an awesome experience, obviously. But after that, the rest of our season kind of I wouldn't say went downhill, but we didn't shoot any more school records, so it's just kind of it's important for us to rem remember prayer and pray in the right ways, right? For us to just talk to God and ask Him to help us, maybe not give us the win, but give us the opportunity to succeed, to try something new. Um let's kind of talk a little bit about the sports world again while keeping the gospel aspect. We see many examples throughout the sports world of athletes who talk about Christ who use Bible verses and all these things. Have there been any athletes that have inspired you to keep this Christ-centered life?
SPEAKER_04Um, for sure. I mean, there's been a lot um people like Steph Curry that write Bible verses on his shoes, but recently somebody who has stood out a lot is Scotty Scheffler, who's the current number one golfer in the world. Yeah. Um what's really impressed me about him is um how despite you know all his success, he still is grounded in his faith and in his family. And the big thing for me is he's not defined by his success or failure on the golf course, but he's defined by his efforts to, you know, be a good dad or to remember Christ and and represent him well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's super awesome. I actually really love that example. I remember I had the opportunity to watch Scotty Scheffler in a tournament in person this year, and kind of just seeing him go throughout his game. Sometimes it's like he doesn't even care about golf. Like that's the least important thing on his mind, but he still goes out there and plays and destroys everyone at almost every other every other tournament. But it I love the way he talks about God, the way he talks about his family, because his family obviously is super important, and it's important for us to kind of remember and have that same aspect in life that that Scotty's showing to us. And I love when professional athletes use the platform they have to talk about God because it's important for them to to do that and help us listen to them and hear them talk about God because that makes us kind of think, oh, maybe we should be thinking about that too. Right? Um so yeah, there's like you said, there's so many examples out there. And it's it's it's really fun to see them use those um use those words. Right. Um so I think we're kind of getting towards the end here. We have our little tradition where I have you share two different things kind of to to end us off. So we'll have you first share your your best piece of advice for athletes that are trying to stay on the path. Someone that's trying, or maybe someone that's not trying, to get back on the path, somebody that needs to know why um God is important while playing this sport. And then after that, I'll have you share your favorite Bible verse and a little story behind it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, actually I can do it. I'll try to do it both at the same time. So I like it. Um I don't know if I necessarily have a favorite Bible verse, but I just like all of John 14 in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_04And so specifically verse 6 is kind of famous, but it says, Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And so I think the biggest piece of advice I could give to an athlete trying to stay on the path is to just remember that Jesus truly is the way, the truth, and the life. And if we could change this first, you can say no man cometh unto success in sports in life but through him. And so I think um just kind of remembering why we play the sport that we play, or why we work the job that we do, why we, you know, go to school allows us to involve Christ in that process. And so that's something that I've had to do personally, especially this uh semester. Just kind of remember um what brought me here and and why I'm still doing it. And one thing I've realized is that the reason why I'm playing college golf and the reason why I'm alive today is because of Christ. And as I recognize that, I think uh you start to realize that he's involved in everything that you do and just naturally you'll have the desire to follow him. And we don't have to be perfect, I'm not perfect by any means. I've had my fair share of angry tournaments even this semester.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04But, you know, that's why I can sit here and tell you why you shouldn't or how you know to better that because I have fallen, you know, off of that, you know, path and and came back through Christ's example of humility and love, and and I know that through him we can find success in whatever it is that we do, especially in sports.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that advice. I really hope someone, I mean, I'll take it to heart, but I'm I'm really hoping one of these listeners will take it to heart and remember to keep Christ centered in their life because that will be a blessing both in life in general. Something I keep saying is that one day we'll hang up the cleats, one day the clubs will stay in the closet and we won't be able to get back out there. But the one thing that will that's eternal is Christ. And we need to remember to always stay with him and keep him by our side. So especially as athletes, I mean it's important for us because he's the one that gave us these skills. He's the one that gave us our talents. So it's it's been awesome. It's been ha awesome having you with us today, Charles. Thank you so much for this time. Um and thank you again everyone for listening and taking the time to to hear Charles and his story and how he got to where he is today by keeping a Christ centered life. Um I hope you uh all have a great week and always remember to stay on the path.