Photo by Neal Embry.
Former Alabama quarterback and leader of the Big Oak Ranch Brodie Croyle speaks at the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast at the Vestavia Country Club on Aug. 24.
Brodie Croyle’s first NFL pass wasn’t necessarily memorable, at least not for good reasons.
Croyle, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, entered a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers with his team trailing by more than 40 points. Due to the large deficit, then-Chiefs coach Herm Edwards pulled starting quarterback Trent Green to allow Croyle to get game time.
As he lined up under center, Croyle knew the goal was to get the ball to tight end Tony Gonzalez, regarded as one of the best at his position in NFL history.
After the snap, Croyle stepped back and threw the ball in the direction of Gonzalez. Unfortunately for Croyle, he failed to see the linebacker standing right in front of his tight end. The linebacker intercepted the pass and ran it back for a Steelers touchdown.
When Croyle got back to the Chiefs sideline, Edwards came over to the rookie quarterback.
“Well kid, you can’t do worse than that,” Edwards said. “Go run it again.”
That advice left an impact on Croyle, the former Alabama quarterback shared with the crowd at the Vestavia Hills Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast on Aug. 24.
As he stepped away from football and began working with his father, John, at the family’s Big Oak Ranch, which provides Christian homes for boys and girls who are in need, Croyle realized how blessed he was to be able to impact young lives and to give them another chance.
“We have the incredible privilege of going to tell our kids, ‘Hey, go run it again,’” Croyle said.
The staff at Big Oak Ranch makes four promises to every child that comes through their doors, Croyle said. Those promises are:
► We love you, and our love does not cost anything.
► We will never lie to you.
► We’ll stick with you until you’re grown if you’ll let us.
► There are boundaries.
In the 48 years the ranch has existed and with more than 2,000 children served, Croyle said the ranch has never had to let anyone go for lying to a child, which is vital as all of the children Big Oak Ranch serves have been lied to at some point in their lives.
The “boundaries” Croyle mentioned are the ranch’s way of teaching their children the right way to do things, and the act of sacrificing what they might want to do for what they need to do.
“If we can teach our children that what they have to do is what they want to do, that discipline becomes theirs,” Croyle said.
Croyle said children growing up today are growing up in a culture that no longer values time-tested virtues.
“We live in a culture that is trying to strip our children of the very virtues that we hold so dearly,” Croyle said.
Children are a gift from God and are given “on loan” to parents to raise well, he said.
“We get so tired that we forget the cost of the loan,” Croyle said. “There is no instant gratification in raising a family.”
One of Croyle’s best friends is an example of the successful impact Big Oak Ranch has had on so many young people, Croyle said.
When Croyle was a young boy, he was out on the ranch with his dad when a man pulled up and walked up to John. He said his new girlfriend told him he had to choose between her and his boys. The man decided to leave his three boys at Big Oak Ranch.
“You can’t leave me the same way mama did,” the boy told his father.
But the boy’s father would not see him again until he graduated from high school, Croyle said.
The impact of the Big Oak Ranch helped the young man not only survive, but thrive, Croyle said. The boy, who became a friend of Croyle, recently got married and was reminiscing about the impact the ranch had on his life to Croyle just before the wedding, he said.
“I met my real dad. I met my real mom,” the groom told Croyle. “At my lowest point, God was preparing me for the life I was going to live.”
Croyle asked what he meant by that. As it turns out, the man’s soon-to-be wife has a 7-year-old son who needs a father, just like he did all those years ago.
“You’re not planting on behalf of yourself,” Croyle told the crowd. “You are planting on behalf of the one who gave you that loan.”
