Biography
Football and God have been two of the most constant and important focal points in Dal Shealy's productive life. And his commitments and accomplishments serving both have brought him this year's National Football Foundation Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award.
This award recognizes someone "whose efforts and activities have made a significant impact on amateur football and contributed to the advancement and betterment of the game."
Shealys love and talent for football began when he was a kid and led him to becoming a successful coach. When he was coaching, he was introduced to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and that, eventually, led to a new career and a new life combining Christianity and athletics. He has been president and CEO of FCA since June, 1992.
"Dal is one of Christ's favorite coaches," someone once said. The organization Shealy now coaches, the FCA, was incorporated in 1954 by its founder Don McClanan. Charter members included College Football Hall of Fame players Otto Graham (Northwestern) and Donn Moomaw (UCLA). Currently, the FCA has nearly 8,000 Huddles (chapters) in the United States involving some 500,000 students. Overseas the organization is "networking" in 165 countries, training leaders in 45 countries and developing partnerships in six countries.
The FCA describes itself as "an athletic ministry, its' primary constituency being athletes and coaches from the junior high through professional levels." It has one primary purpose: "Present to athletes and coaches, and all whom they influence, the challenge and adventure of receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, serving Him in their relationships and in the fellowship of the Church." It is interdenominational and is concerned with drawing athletes and coaches and all they influence into vital Christian service within the church.
As a youngster, Dal Shealy was an outstanding athlete, a triple-sport star who lettered four years each in football, basketball and baseball at Batesburg-Leesville High School in Batesburg, SC. He made All-State playing offensive guard and linebacker. "We played both ways and without face masks in those days," he proudly offers, He was also president of both his junior and senior high school classes.
Shealy went to Carson-Newman College for his BS and enhanced his athletic resume starting all four years and being named All-Tennessee and Honorable Mention All-America in 1960. Military service came next on the agenda and aside from his regular duties as a Marine lieutenant, Shealy played football with the legendary and tough Quantico Marines.
Following discharge, Shealy found the fire for football still burned inside and he went into coaching back home in South Carolina at Laurens High School. He also got his masters from George Peabody College/Vanderbilt. It was in the mid-sixties that Shealy was introduced to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He went to an FCA sponsored coach's breakfast in Chicago "because it was free and I was a young coach on a shoestring budget." Those free bacon and eggs would influence the rest of his life.
His coaching career progressed and soon Shealy was picked to reinstate the football program at Mars Hill College and then do the same job at his alma mater, Carson-Newman. At C-N, Shealy quickly built a winner and was named NAIA Area and District Coach of the Year in both 1971 and '72 and took the team to the championship game in 1972.
During this time, Shealy found himself being drawn closer and closer to the work of the Fellowship and at an FCA camp in Black Mountain, North Carolina he says, "I realized I had been a phony for 29 years and recommitted my life to Christ." From then on, his parallel relationships with Christ and with his profession would meld into one life path. He and his family (he and his wife Barbara have three children and nine grandchildren) attended conferences and camps where he served as a clinician and speaker. In schools where he coached, Shealy led the FCA Huddles and served on local and state FCA boards.
Shealy's career path led him to coaching jobs at Baylor and Tennessee and the position of assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at both Auburn and Iowa State. Then, in 1980, he got the call to reinstate another football program at another school; the University of Richmond. It was the third time Shealy had accepted this kind of daunting responsibility. And, for the third time, he succeeded.
As head coach, Shealy patiently and purposefully established his program and took his Richmond Spiders to the NCAA 1-AA playoffs twice in nine years; 1984 and '87. In 1987, his team was Yankee Conference champions and Shealy was Yankee Conference Coach of the Year. In 1985, Shealy's Spiders were ranked #1 in the nation for seven weeks before a plague of injuries decimated the team and dashed its' championship dreams. He was still named Downtown Athletic Club Coach of the Year.
Then, in 1989, Shealy got yet another kind of call. This one from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which he answered by joining the FCA as executive vice-president, then succeeding to president ten years ago. What started as a simple breakfast, a way to save a couple of bucks, led to a life's calling; a mission that transcended, as well as included, the playing field.
"When I left coaching to join the FCA," Shealy says, "the only thing I could see myself doing was working with coaches and athletes. FCA provided the opportunity to train, equip, resource and encourage coaches and athletes spiritually, as well as in the X's and O's of sport. Athletes and coaches are role models; be they good or bad, they are role models. Their influence on our youth today often leaves a lifelong impact. In our culture today, our young people are seeking heroes in the form of athletes and coaches. I believe the last stronghold of discipline we have in America is through sport and football is the greatest way to train, discipline and equip for life our young people."
