Coach Drew Maddux Shares Testimony Of Overcoming Fear And Anxiety
In an ‘I Am Second’ video, Coach Drew Maddux shares his testimony about overcoming fear and anxiety and his need to perform.
“For as long as I could remember, performing at a high level, achieving at a high level, totally controlled me,” shared Drew. “Performance, to me, was everything. Achievement was everything. Accomplishment was everything. So much so that I felt like how I shot a basket through a hoop really defined how people felt about me.”
Drew played basketball his whole life. And just like his father and grandfather before him, he also went to Vanderbilt for college and played on the basketball team there. He was so obsessed with being the best, that he would shoot over 1,500 baskets a day.
“Because nobody was going to shoot more than me,” Drew said. “And doing more weightlifting than anybody cause nobody was going to lift more than me. And so, yeah, I did have a sense of accomplishment, but never did I sit back and say, ‘I have arrived.’ There was always what was next.”
Drew came to a point in his life where he was at the end of his rope from all of his striving. He knew that he needed to turn his life to Jesus.
“At that time, all I ever knew was performance drove everything around me. And so, I was so willing cause I was at the end of myself to say I’ll do whatever it takes,” Drew explained. “I need Him to come into this with me, and hopefully release me of this. This feeling and this emotion.”
After years of chasing success by climbing the corporate ladder, Drew followed God’s call and changed the direction of his life by coaching basketball at his old high school.
“God was placing me right back into the thing that had held me in bondage for so long,” he shared. “And He was going to do a work through that experience of freeing me of understanding what abundant freedom feels like. And in the process, He was gonna use my story to help 15 to 18-year-old boys come and experience freedom before they set out and impact the world.”
Drew now sees his life with new purpose and no longer has to strive to be the best to find his worth.
“I exist to make His name famous,” Drew shared. “And the way that I do that is to love the next one He places in front of me. Whether that’s on the basketball court, in a camp, in a locker room, one of my players. Whatever that is, I’m here to love the next one that He calls to be placed in my path.”