Joe Ehrmann Presentation at NCHS October 4

New Canaan Community Foundation sponsorship opportunity for Joe Ehrmann presentation at NCHS on October 4

Parade magazine called Joe Ehrmann “the most important coach in America” in a cover story they did on Joe. He was the subject of Season of Life, the best selling sports book in the country last year. Joe was a twelve year veteran defensive tackle on the old Baltimore Colts football team. He was the defensive captain for a number of those years and one of the chief organizers of the kinds of extracurricular activities which give professional athletes a bad name. Late in his career his nine year younger brother was stricken with cancer and died. That experience changed Joe’s life.

He founded the first Ronald McDonald House in Baltimore and became an ordained minister. He has had several ministries working with needy families while refining a philosophy about what causes society’s ills. He is currently the pastor of a 4,000 member non-denominational Christian church in Baltimore, the founder of a foundation called Building Men and Women for Others, Inc., and the defensive coordinator for the Gilman High School football team. Season of Life is ostensibly about one season in the life of that team. It is really about instilling his philosophy- embracing inclusion, acceptance, empathy, respect, commitment, service, respect and love- into the members of the Gilman football community.

Joe’s teams win. The team members are a positive change agent for the larger school community. He realizes that most kids won’t grow up to be professional athletes, but most are already sons and daughters, friends and teammates, who will grow to become husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, business people and professionals. I believe his concern is to instill a value system through the sports experience now which will raise the odds that the players, and those they influence, will be successful in those more important roles later in their lives. The message being sent to many of today’s athletes is the opposite of what Joe is selling.

When Jeffrey Marx, the author of Season of Life, and Joe completed the book they thought that was the end of their collaborative effort. Over the ensuing year over 500 invitations to carry their message to an extremely diverse group of organizations, ranging from the NFL to the Ms. Foundation, poured in. They have speaking engagements with schools, colleges, churches, corporations and others scheduled into 2007. New Canaan is fortunate to have Joe coming to the newly refurbished NCHS auditorium on the evening of October 4, 2006 to address most of the 750 NCHS interscholastic athletes and their coaches and parents. Numerous local groups are involved in this effort including the Sports Council, the Coalition, New Canaan Cares, the Fairfield County Sports Commission and YMCA.