Camille Garcia  |  Contributing Writer 

“When you have young men for a minimum of 20 hours a week, what are you going to do with that?” That’s what Victor Santa Cruz says he asked himself as soon as he became head coach for the APU football team.

Many college football players pursue the dream of being drafted by the NFL, but it’s not always clear how coaches from these college teams are preparing their players for the most elite sport organization in the world. In the time that they have with them, one wonders how the players are readying for the real world.

With APU’s football team starting the season as a full member of NCAA Division II, the squad is going for the championships. However, the players are also in the pursuit of finding the good in all of their adversities during a transformational period of their lives.

To answer his own question, Santa Cruz uses this transformational period to his advantage by making the sport of football an opportunity to change lives. He’s set the goal for the team to develop into more than just talented players.

Coming from a ministry background, Santa Cruz found that in his life, coaches were the biggest role models outside the home. When he became the coach for APU, he saw his job as a golden opportunity.

“Every player I have, from the time I receive them to the time they graduate and leave the program, there’s an ‘under construction’ sign on them,” Santa Cruz says.

As head coach, Santa Cruz has created standards that promote discipline, with the goal of encouraging each player to become a better man of God. Santa Cruz has built up his program with the help of coaches whose beliefs are aligned with APU’s mission of producing difference-makers.

Among the coaches is NFL Hall of Famer Jackie Slater, who serves as the offensive line coach for the Cougars. Santa Cruz also recruited Carlos Rivas-Sandoval, the new defensive coordinator coach, who has been a part of NFL Minority Coaching Fellowships with the Miami Dolphins and the Green Bay Packers.

Rivas-Sandoval has brought to the team knowledge about the NFL and football as a profession. Along with utilizing the organizational standards he learned from the pros such as the time management of practices, Rivas-Sandoval communicates to players the importance of the great expectations he has of them.

“We’re trying to prepare them to be great employees in whatever capacity, whatever job, whatever profession that might be,” Rivas-Sandoval says. “Great husbands, great fathers, great sons, people with great character and integrity — young men that are strong in their faith and can make tough decisions when faced with adversity or faced with these tough decisions.”

The coaches on the team have worked together to help each player reach the standard of being a “warrior man,” reminding the athletes that God did not give them the spirit of fear, but of power, love and self discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).

Junior defensive end Matthew Hackett is one of over 100 players who has been on the football team under Santa Cruz and feels this program has impacted his life in a positive way.

“He [Santa Cruz] wants us to hold each other accountable, make sure we’re in class on time, make sure we’re sitting in the front row, make sure if someone drops trash we pick it up after them even though it’s not ours,” Hackett said. “It’s just trying to be above average, trying not to be that stereotypical college football player — the standard of being a better man, of being a Christian man of God,” Hackett said.

There is no tolerance for players who exhibit harmful behavior. According to Santa Cruz, the coaches fall in line with the university’s judicial system and put in the right jurisdiction any needed disciplinary action.

“We need to help men discover themselves; we need to help men find answers in life. …This is a confusing world, and there’s just so many confusing messages about what a man is, and it breaks your heart,” Santa Cruz said. “Issues like domestic violence and different social epidemics that we have, we understand that it’s a failure in the accountability with the power that people have, with the power that a man has or a woman [has].”

According to a database compiled by USA Today, of the 713 arrests of NFL players since 2000, 85 were made on domestic violence counts. In recent indictments against several NFL players, many onlookers have criticized how the league has dealt with these allegations. These include the alleged assault of Janay Palmer by husband Ray Rice, the confusion behind Minnesota Vikings’ running back superstar Adrian Peterson being charged with beating his 4-year-old son with a tree branch and reports of Arizona Cardinals’ Jonathan Dwyer head-butting his wife and throwing a shoe at his son.

In spite of this news, Santa Cruz continues to inspire the next generation of men. Hackett says that the head coach is encouraging him to be a “bigger and better man” and apply to his life the techniques and skills that he learns.

“We’re trying to prepare them for everything, whatever their dreams are, whatever their aspirations are, that’s what we’re trying to do,” Rivas-Sandoval says.