newspaper article

It has been a couple of days since I got something up here, but I just got an email with the article that was in my hometown paper. Thanks again to the author, Dan Truttschel, for writing the article. I’ve already had some people from the community contact me about support and my work with Athletes in Action. I’ve got to get to work a short devotional I’m doing at a FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) Huddle for high school students at Johnsburg high school tomorrow morning.

be a revolution.


By Dan Truttschel
Lake Geneva Regional News

The last time Badger High School graduate Zach Harrod left for the Czech Republic, he had a little bit of an idea of what he would find. Now, Harrod is back in the United States but just for 17 months before he departs again. There’s more work to be done.

Harrod, the son of Doug and Kate, Genoa City, spent the past 17 months in Prague as part of the Athletes in Action organization. Harrod competed and coached with the Prague Lions, who are members of the Czech Association of American Football.

The Lions won their second straight league title just before Harrod returned home, but it wasn’t easy, as organization isn¹t among the league’s best assets, he said. “As far as football, I found a league that was in somewhat of disarray,” Harrod said. “The leadership of the league really just thinks backwards and still is kind of thinking in a communist mindset.”

Harrod said one team seemed to make the rules and “run the show” during his time in Prague. Another problem came on the marketing end, which he said practically was nonexistent. “The league just needs help,” he said. “A lot of the teams are playing with equipment that wouldn’t be allowed to here in the states. We got as many donations as we possibly could the last year and a half. If guys have better equipment, they look like a team on the field, and it’s going to help the level of football increase.”

Coaching is yet another downfall of the Czech League, Harrod said, as he always felt confident his team could overcome any amount of athleticism and raw skill the opponent could throw at the Lions. In the end, his team’s strategy and knowledge of the game usually made the difference. “A lot of these teams will have a coach, but he¹s a Czech guy who just played, and mostly, that¹s not enough,” Harrod said. “They don¹t know the intricacies of football. They know some of the basics, but they can’t coach every position. You¹ll have one or two coaches trying to coach a team of 40 to 50 guys. It’s impossible.”

While other teams struggled at the top, Harrod said his head coach, Martin Kocian, was the key to the 24-9 win in the finals over the Lions’ rival, the Prague Panthers. Kocian spent some time in the states as a coach, which gave him a leg up on the opposition, Harrod said, even if the Panthers did “load up” their lineup in an attempt to defeat the Lions.

“He had us prepared,” he said. “Defensively, we just shut them down… We¹d bend, but didn’t break and ended up just scoring one touchdown when the game was out of their hands anyway.”

Another key was his teammates finally began to believe in their own abilities, which wasn’t always the case, Harrod said. “I don’t care who (the opposition) is,” he said. “If you believe in your own abilities, if you believe in your teammates, that is where it all starts from.”

Harrod also took a shot at coaching, as he worked with the junior team and also coached the defensive backs on the Lions. That was a fun experience, and after his playing days are over, Harrod wouldn’t rule out even more coaching down the road. “Coaching was great,” he said. “One of the greatest things with coaching was getting in a guy’s face after he failed and saying, ‘It¹s OK. This is what we need to do different, this is how we can get better. Let’s get better, and I believe in you. I think you can get better. Do it. Believe in yourself, work your tail off and go to the next level. I¹ll be here to help you through the process.’ I think that’s the greatest thing, more than just seeing kids do well on the field and start to get the game of football.”

Regardless of all the roadblocks, the game still was fun for Harrod, who played collegiately at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh when his Badger career was over. “Every team, you¹d find at least 30 guys who just loved football,” Harrod said. “That was really fun to see.”

“I started to learn through Athletes in Action, contacts my father has, and hopefully, contacts I will build, how we can begin to serve the Czech Republic and help them with the level of football.” And, once that happens, Harrod can really roll up his sleeves and perform the other half of his purpose several thousand miles away. “As we help them with the level of football, it will give me a better platform to talk about how God has changed my life and how He can change other’s lives,” Harrod said.

Forced to adjust.

Outside of his life on the football team, Harrod found many other aspects that took a little getting used to. While the standard of living has and continues to improve in the Czech Republic, like its football, there’s still room to grow. “It’s still very, very Eastern European,” Harrod said. “I was making well below the minimum wage here in the United States, and I was doing well there.”

“You can see the growing influence of westernism on the Czech people. There are some very good benefits; corruption is starting to be forced out of all facets of life… That¹s good to see. It’s just a process. Czech people still have a long way to go.”
Harrod said he made some headway on his goal of talking about God’s influence on his own life, but 17 months just wasn’t enough time. On a general level, the people in the Czech Republic lean toward atheism, which made Harrod’s task a little more daunting. But he keeps plowing forward.

“My main purpose there is to talk about God,” he said. “I need more time there. I spent 17 months, and I knew before going there the country was nearly 90 percent atheist, the highest rate of any European country.”

“I knew it would be hard, but the difficulty is far greater than I expected. In 17 months, I saw one student at the university I worked at make a response to Jesus Christ in a way that is real and relevant to him.”

But what Harrod also quickly learned is that, while the Czech people may say they’re atheist, they also may not have known the true definition of the word. That realization came through in several discussions with teammates, Harrod said. “I would ask them what that means, we would get talking, and they would say, ‘Well, there’s something out there,” Harrod said. “Then I¹m like, ‘Then you¹re not an atheist.’”
Slowly, the thoughts of many around Harrod began to change, right up to the day he left to come home. “Before I left, I would say there was maybe 10 guys on my team, and about the same amount of students who were at the point where they’re actually considering there is a personal God who exists, who offers a real personal relationship with Him,” Harrod said.

“They’re just beginning to think about it. There’s probably four or five who are at the threshold.”
The events through the world that continue to hold everyone’s attention also had a direct impact on Harrod, as just two weeks before the July bombing in London, he was in that very train station during a visit to see his sister, Megan. That experience was a bit shocking to say the least, but Harrod said here fuses to live scared of any future terrorist attacks.

“I went right through those spots (that were hit),” he said. “I didn’t really think about it with the first attack, but (I did) after the second attack.”

Harrod said when he didn’t get a ride to practice, he would head to the train station, football gear and all. In the wake of both attacks, he took some time to look around the train and think a little. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. “I had to take the busiest one and the longest one to get to where we would have practice, generally during rush hour,” Harrod said. “I’d have to stand for 20 minutes, packed in with my big bag.”

“I was thinking, ‘It would be so easy (for something to happen).’ It rattled me a little, but if it happens, it happens. There’s not much I could do about it anyway. It’s in the Lord’s hands, and I’m not going to spend my time worrying about something I don’t have any control over.”
Politics and the current situation in the Middle East never became too much of a focus of conversation, Harrod said. If he was asked, he’d answer, but there were many other important topics to cover during his time in Prague. “Sometimes, I’m like, ‘I’m not here representing America. I do love my country. My country does have problems. I try to be responsible, vote and do the necessary things to see change, but I’m not here representing America,” Harrod said.

“I’m here to be an ambassador for Jesus first and foremost. What He says goes with me, and if my country does something I think is polar opposite to that, I’m not going to support it.”

Even though he’s willing to talk about nearly any topic, when it came time to vote in the 2004 presidential election, Harrod kept that decision to himself. “All of them asked me who I was going to vote for,” he said. “I said, ‘That’s between me and the absentee ballot.’ Months before the election actually happened, my vote was already cast.”

Busy 17 months ahead
While he’s back in the states, Harrod won’t be spending a lot of time at home, as he plans to spend the fall all around the Midwest. After some time in Oshkosh, Harrod will leave for Orlando, Fla., twice for training, then spend a majority of his time at the Athletes in Action headquarters in Xenia, Ohio.

Once the 17 months are done, he’ll get back on a plane and head to Prague again – this time for a five- to seven-year stint. And he’s excited for the challenge that lies ahead.

“I don’t want to go back and just survive and just make it,” Harrod said. “I want to go back there and see our ministry at the university thrive. When we get back there and have more of a long-term team… that will spill over, not only just to Czech but to other countries.”
Harrod said there’s a chance the Lions may join the European League, which would afford him the chance to not only play football at a higher level, but also reach many more people with the message he brings. “We would be playing against a good team in Moscow or the best teams in Germany and Austria, where football is huge,” he said.

From there, he doesn’t know what will happen, but he is certain that one thing has changed the past 17 months. Harrod’s “world” now is much bigger than it used to be. “My perspective, my world is so much bigger,” he said. “I have so many friends who get done with college, they go right into their career path, and they just tend to forget about how big this world is.”

“They’re aiming for that white house, that picket fence, two cars in the garage, three kids. My world in the past 17 months has just exploded, and it can only get bigger… It made me appreciate what I do have and see what really is necessary.” Regardless of the future, Harrod does have a perfect vision in mind for the end of his next commitment. “I’m just going to go, and I’ll do what’s put before me and what I feel God is calling me to do at the moment,” he said. “I have no idea what’s going to happen after those seven years.”

“What my hope would be is there would be enough Czechs who could replace me, and I could move on. My dream is I would see Czechs reaching Czechs. People reaching their own countrymen is far greater and more effective than an American reaching a Czech.”