Remember Your Why
August 20, 2026
Remember Your Why
“You’re on God’s team, and I want to be on your team.”
Those words still land with me every time I hear them. A stranger said them to me years ago, and they have stayed with me ever since. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of why we started doing what we do. Life gets loud, the work gets heavy, and the calendar fills up with meetings, fundraisers, logistics, and the quiet weight of other people’s needs. Somewhere in all of that, the reason we began can get buried. So from one man who has walked this road for a while, I want to say it plainly: always remember your Why.
My Why started with a lot of things hitting at once in 2011. The tornadoes tore through Alabama that April, and at the same time, my personal life was falling apart. Somewhere in the middle of all that wreckage, I had a clear and quiet sense that God was pulling me back home to Alabama to help. I did not know exactly what that meant, and I certainly did not have a master plan. I was learning in real time what Proverbs means when it tells us to trust in the Lord rather than lean on our own understanding, because there was plenty I did not understand.
I never set out to build a veteran organization. That was not the plan. It began as something smaller and more immediate, a way for former college players to do something useful in Birmingham. Birmingham does not have the large military footprint that Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile, or Troy carry, but what we did have was the attention that comes with being lettermen. That attention opened doors other groups could not always reach, and we tried to use whatever influence we had for something bigger than ourselves.
Over the years, the work grew. What started as a handful of guys trying to help after the storms became something larger. We began helping veterans transition, standing with families, and serving people who simply needed someone to show up when life had knocked them flat. Looking back now, the pattern is hard to miss. God’s hand has been on this organization from the beginning, and most of the time I have felt less like the one steering it and more like someone trying to stay faithful to the next step. Scripture says that a man may plan his course, but the Lord establishes his steps, and that has felt true more times than I can count.
I still remember one night in Montgomery in January 2013. We were at the screening of American Man for Kevin Turner when a vendor I had never met walked straight up to me and asked, “Darryl, do you ever get the feeling that you’re not in control of this?”
I told him the truth. “Yeah. We’re not even the co-pilot. We’re just passengers.”
He looked at me for a second and said, “Well, you’re on God’s team, and I want to be on your team.” Then he handed me an autographed University of Alabama Nick Saban helmet as a gift for the organization. Everyone standing around us went quiet. It was one of those moments you could not have written if you tried, and it reminded me that sometimes God gives you just enough confirmation to keep walking.
That night has stayed with me, but not because of the helmet. It stayed with me because of the reminder behind it. God took a pretty broken guy from Southside and used him anyway. That is the real version of the story, not the polished version and not the one that makes it sound like I had everything figured out. It is the story of a man who got pulled back home, said yes when he did not feel qualified, and kept saying yes even when the road got hard.
Maybe that is part of why Paul’s words about God’s grace being sufficient and His strength being made perfect in weakness mean more to me now than they once did. God has never needed me to be impressive. He has only asked me to be willing, and there is a big difference between the two. The older I get, the more I understand that some of the places we think disqualify us are the very places God uses to remind us that the strength was never ours to begin with.
If you are carrying something heavy right now, whether it is a nonprofit, a family, a calling, a business, a ministry, or simply the daily work of trying to do right by the people in front of you, remember your Why. The work will try to bury it, and the noise will try to drown it out, but the Why is the part that keeps you steady when everything else shifts. Paul told the Galatians not to grow weary in doing good because, in due season, there would be a harvest if they did not give up. Some seasons make that promise harder to believe than others, but that does not make it any less true.
Your Why will not always make the road easier, but it will remind you why the road is worth walking. It will bring you back to the people, the purpose, and the calling that existed before the meetings, the budgets, the disappointments, and the long nights. And when you reach those moments where you wonder whether any of it matters, remember that faithfulness has never required knowing the whole plan. Sometimes it is simply taking the next step and trusting God with where it leads.
God is still in the business of using broken people. I know because I am one of them.
The night we screened American Man for Kevin Turner.
This is the poster from that evening—covered in signatures from people who showed up, people who cared, people who understood the cost of the game and the greater cost of the fight that came after.
It was also the night a complete stranger walked up, looked me in the eye, and said the words I still carry:
“You’re on God’s team, and I want to be on your team.”
Then he handed me an autographed Nick Saban helmet for the organization.
I didn’t know it then, but that moment would become one of the quiet anchors of my Why.
God has a way of using ordinary nights and unexpected people to remind you that you’re not steering the ship—you’re just trying to stay faithful to the next step.
Still grateful for that night.
Still trying to remember my Why.
January 2013. Montgomery Performing Arts Centre.
The night we screened American Man for Kevin Turner.
Standing here with Coach Gene Stallings — the man who led Alabama to the 1992 national championship and whose quiet strength and work with the RISE program have always meant more than any win-loss record.
Beside him is my A-Club brother, a former University of Alabama offensive tackle and teammate. He was the light-hearted one, always ready with a joke. We lost him too soon (RIP).
That evening was already full of emotion because of Kevin’s story. Then a stranger walked up, looked me in the eye, and said the words that still sit with me:
“You’re on God’s team, and I want to be on your team.”
Moments like this — shared with men who understand both the game and the greater fight — keep pointing me back to the Why.
Grateful for Coach. Grateful for my brother. Grateful for the reminder.
January 2013. Montgomery.
Moments after it happened.
This is the actual helmet the stranger handed me that night — an autographed Nick Saban Alabama helmet, still sitting on the Kevin Turner Foundation bid sheet.
He walked up out of nowhere, looked me in the eye, and said,
“You’re on God’s team, and I want to be on your team.”
Then he placed this in my hands.
I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t expect it.
It was one of those moments you couldn’t have written if you tried.
Fourteen years later it still sits as a quiet reminder:
We were never the ones steering.
Just passengers trying to stay faithful to the next step.
God took a pretty broken guy from Southside and used him anyway.
That’s the real version.
January 2013. Montgomery Performing Arts Centre.
Standing next to my Auburn football brother Adlai Trone is a man whose name I still don’t know.
He walked up that night, looked me in the eye, and said the words that have stayed with me ever since:
“You’re on God’s team, and I want to be on your team.”
Then he handed me the autographed Nick Saban helmet.
I never saw him again. I still don’t know who he was.
But in that moment I realized something bigger was already moving behind the scenes — quietly shaping what was still just a little “Thomas the Tank Engine” idea that would become Lettermen of the USA.
Some people are meant to stay nameless.
Their assignment is simply to speak the word you needed to hear and then step back into the crowd.
I’m still grateful he showed up.
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