The Power of the Patch

The Power of the Patch

For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span? And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

~Matthew 6:25–34

The Power of the Patch

Greg Vandagriff

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

The Power of the Patch

Copyright © 2025

Greg Vandagriff

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-962218-92-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-962218-93-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations for review purposes.

Published by WordCrafts Press

Cody, Wyoming 82414

www.wordcrafts.net

Contents

Pre-Game 1

Understanding the Chapters 10

The Treasure Hunt Christmas 12

You Gotta Know When to Hold ’Em… 22

My First (and only) BB gun 34

Fort Lauderdale or Bust 45

I’m a Little What? 56

Brennan McCool 68

So, If I Lie to the Pastor… 85

I Can’t Drive 55 98

Conclusion 111

Our Code 115

Acknowledgements 118

About the Author 119

To all of those men that feel ill equipped,

unprepared and not ready to be a Dad,

let alone a Dad Legend.

You can do it! One day at a time.

Pre-Game

Hello. I want to take a moment to set the stage for this book. Currently (in the year 2024), I am finishing my 35th year as a high school football coach. One of the best things we do in our program is the Father/Son Dinner we host near the end of each football season. The entire football team, coaches, and support personnel attend the function. But the seniors and their dads are the ones we’re honoring. We serve them steaks and everyone else gets hamburgers and hot dogs. If a student-athlete makes it all the way through our program, his dad (or important, male role model) gets to come share this senior year honor.

When the dads arrive at the dinner, I hand them a sheet of paper with three questions on it. They are to answer these easy questions about their sons in front of the entire team. Many of the dads immediately begin to sweat and get anxious about having to do this . . . and I want them to be uncomfortable. Also, several dads ask, Why didn’t you give this to me yesterday, so that I could’ve had time to think about it? Well, that is exactly the point. I do not want them to have more than fifteen minutes to think about these extremely basic questions. I know what you are thinking: What are the questions? Well, I am not going to let that out of the bag. They’re not complex questions, but they are definitely from the heart. I need every dad to feel some emotion as they answer. The players answer the same basic questions about their dads.

Once the seniors and their dads have had time to complete the questions and eat, the program begins. I stand up front and talk about the fact that I never experienced something like this with my dad and how special this moment can be. If each dad and son are authentic and forget there is anyone else in the room, they can create a moment for each other that neither will ever forget. It is in these moments that, through the tears, I have watched the dads and players share their hearts about one another. It was in moments like this that I began to realize what I needed to do—start a crusade to help dads be a stronger part of their children’s lives. I also realized that if it were not for solid coaches and men in my life, I would have been clueless about being a strong dad. So, if I can help motivate other dads to have stronger roles in their kids’ lives, they too can begin to heal the unhealthiness that may exist in their family trees, as I have.

My Why

I’ve wanted to write this book for many years. I had no idea who would desire to read it, but I knew I could not be the only man in the world who felt so ill-prepared and completely unqualified to be a good dad. When you grow up without the example of a good dad, how do you become one? Thus begin the questions that enter your mind once you begin having your own children. When my wife, Kelly, and I were preparing for our first child, I was bombarded with emotions. I couldn’t believe I was getting the chance to be a dad. It was real! But then came the overwhelming emotions of how unprepared I was for this challenge.

I’m writing this book to share not only the failures and the sense of inadequacy I had in my own life but also the undeniable reality that we (men) are the reason our country (and the world) is in the situation it’s in right now. It’s largely due to our desire to be self-fulfilled instead of being willing and ready to take on the responsibility of being a role model to our own children. Statistically, it’s overwhelming how destructive it is for the life of a child when the dad is not present in the home.

Now, it’s one thing to be a physical body within the home but it’s another thing to be an active participant in the raising of your children—to be a consistent source of healthy discipline and love for them. If sharing my experiences can help even one Dad become more equipped to step up to the plate, it’s more than worth it. As you read through the stories in this book, and the lessons they taught me, maybe you will be prompted to think of some of your own stories. Maybe you will learn fresh lessons from experiences in which you survived or thrived. Many of the stories I’ll share simply illustrate my amazement that I survived. But more importantly, they show the truth that, through every single moment of my life, even when I did not realize it, God had a plan for me. He helped me get through and learn time and again. He’s still doing that in my life today. I truly believe, deep within my being, that God has a plan for me. I was not in any way a mistake, and He has been preparing me to do what He created me to do.

One main factor that rang true throughout my life was that I always saw myself as part of the answer. Let’s take a moment and dig into this belief. Let’s think about the world and all the problems that exist within it. My simple question to you is: Are you part of the problem or are you part of the answer? I truly believe a lot of your decision-making could fall into one of those two categories. So, if you’ll answer that question (Am I part of the problem or the answer?) when you choose to do something, I believe it will help you make the right decision. Another simple question I’ve learned to ask myself (that I probably should have asked many more times than I did) is, what good can come from this? Seriously, if I do this, what good can come from it? This is a question I wish I had asked more in my life.

So, in this book, I’m going to share with you a few stories from my childhood, my teens, and my early twenties. Through these experiences, I’ll share lessons I’ve learned and some of the lessons I should have learned. Hopefully you can identify with these experiences and maybe learn some fresh lessons as well.

Let me take a moment and set the stage, providing a little background before I just dive into my stories. I need to clearly explain the setting, the obstacles, and the realities that existed. However, please remember that my main purpose in writing this book is to try and encourage, motivate or inspire fellow dads to man up and start striving to be part of the answer! I believe we all have a story to tell and when you understand another person’s story, it can help you better understand who they are and who they are trying to become. A person’s story is like a road map. Many times, when we put in that GPS address, it gives us the fastest way or a route without toll roads or one that stays on major highways. I believe this illustration can help us approach our decision-making. We often know where we want to go in life, but the problem is there are so many routes from which to choose. So, we begin our journey and have no idea how some uneducated and easy decisions can take us completely off the beaten path and down a road that is entirely under