1. Chad Stafford loves Baseball.
He loves the game with such fiery intensity that he played two years with a separated shoulder.
One day during Chad’s senior year, a visiting trainer saw Chad’s shoulder pop out, and heard the
familiar laughing from his teammates, as is the territory when something happens on such a
regular basis. The trainer pulled him aside to ask him how much his shoulder popped out. Coach
Stafford told him that it happened at every practice. The trainer asked about tingling and
soreness, and Coach Stafford told him that experienced those symptoms at one time, but that the
tingling and soreness had subsided.
Now, most people would attribute this to the shoulder healing, or Stafford becoming tougher, but
the trainer had a different idea. He told Stafford that he wasn’t getting tougher, but that his
nerves were dying.
And so begins the story of a man who never let obstacles interrupt his ascension to greatness.
Tell him he cannot start a church with little to no funding, he’ll start a church. Tell him that he
cannot start on the football team, he will fight a player every day until someone notices him. Tell
Chad Stafford that he can no longer play the game that was his life for more than a decade, and
he becomes one of the most influential sports figures in Daphne, Alabama’s rich history.
He’ll become Coach Chad Stafford. Pastor Chad Stafford. The two are terms are simultaneous;
forever interchangeable, yet fitting, for a man who has truly done it all.
This is exactly what Chad Stafford is. He is a coach, and a pastor. He is a father, and a leader.
Stafford is one of those small-town celebrities that only television can paint. A man who has
found his niche as a coach and a pastor, Stafford has enjoyed great success that includes being a
part of 7 State Championships in baseball and football, and coaching a band to a national
championship during his stint as youth leader of the Daphne, Al based church, Eastern Shore
Christian Center, as well as founding a new church in Daphne.
But perhaps his greatest success cannot be measured by rings, wins, or losses. Perhaps his
greatest achievements will never be written in black and white, or signified by gold and silver.
For when a man touches the hearts of as many people as Stafford’s has touched, it is next to
impossible to enumerate such things.
I sat with Pastor Chad on several occasions to ascertain a better understanding of the man they
call P.C. What I came away with was a man unlike any other, forever imitated, but never
duplicated; forever adored, but never self-important. He is a man who is flushed with confidence,
but still boyish and humble in his smile.
Chad Stafford is the founder and leader of Coastal Church in Daphne, Alabama. His
congregation has grown from less than 10 people to more than 300 in 2 short years. Not because

2. the music is contemporary, or because the church is conveniently located in the heart of
Downtown Daphne, or even that the church serves flavored coffee and refreshments.
No, this is because Chad Stafford is one of those people who you gravitate towards. He is the
epitome of an open-door policy.
"I don't want to be one of those pastors who has bodyguards around him. If I have to be
surrounded by people to protect me from people, I have the wrong people." Stafford muses.
Employing a brand of preaching that involves the use of sports metaphors, an in-your-face
attitude, and commanding the respect of a congregation, Pastor Chad Stafford is like a coach in
the pulpit.
To put it plainer, Pastor Chad Stafford IS a coach in the pulpit.
Pastor Chad is Coach Stafford.
But Coach Stafford wasn’t always a coach. That title was earned during his senior year of High
School; a very rare occurrence in the world of sports.
The injury to Stafford’s shoulder would render his playing days over, but Stafford wanted to be
around the game of baseball even if it meant being relegated to keeping stats, or shagging
baseballs, or watching batting practice knowing that he could not swing a bat.
Chad’s injury was nothing to take lightly, though he did for many years. The trainer that told him
his nerves were dying also told him that he if he kept playing baseball, he would wake up one
day at find it impossible to put his wallet in his back pocket.
And so Coach Stafford found a way to contribute to a team that he called family.
"Coach, I just want to be around the game,” Stafford recalls of a conversation he had with Coach
Lloyd Skoda, “and Skoda told me that I could help him with stats."
So he started doing exactly that during his junior year. One day, Coach Skoda, former head
baseball coach at Daphne High School and current head baseball coach at Faith Academy, told
Stafford that when he graduated, he would know more about the game of baseball than 90% of
the coaches on the staff.
You see the story of Chad Stafford starts and ends with Lloyd Skoda and the story, this story,
cannot be told by letters forming themselves to make words, or punctuation, nouns, and verbs
forming themselves to create sentences. Knowing Pastor and Coach Chad Stafford is an
experience; one that cannot be felt while reading words upon a page.
Skoda knows Chad Stafford as well as anyone in this world. ”Chad is one of those guys who you
want to be around. He wins everywhere he goes" Skoda recalls.

3. So it is no wonder that Lloyd Skoda decided to make Stafford a coach at the ripe age of 17.
Coach Stafford recalled how influential Lloyd Skoda was on his life.
"Monumentally…I can talk with him on a level that very few can.” he continued, "Coach Skoda
was like a father to me. My dad traveled 46 weeks out of the year. We still talk on a weekly
basis. We talk baseball, but we talk more about God's word."
Lloyd Skoda is an icon to Stafford, but perhaps more importantly, he was and still is a guide. He
was the mold from which Coach Stafford was formed. He is also simultaneously the mold from
which Pastor Chad was formed.
"There is a side to me that whenever we talk baseball, we'll talk about me coaching, and it’s him.
But there is a side to me that feels 15 again."
Stafford wasn’t the most talented guy in the world, but he played the game of baseball with a
selflessness that is rarely replicated. Stafford knew that he would never be the starting pitcher for
the New York Yankees, but he understood that everyone has a place that they fit.
"Not everyone can be the clean-up hitter, or be the starting quarterback. But that doesn’t mean
you can’t have a very important role on a team. If you are faithful with that, God will give you
more", Stafford says sagely.
And Stafford never was the starting pitcher, or the starting quarterback, but he still found a way
to make an impact.
How big of an impact Stafford never knew, but it certainly became evident in a session of batting
practice one day.
"I was watching BP [batting practice] one time. And there was a guy who was batting. I stopped
him and didn’t know Coach Skoda was behind me, but I stopped him and said ‘You see how
smooth you are right now? That’s why you're crushing it. Most times you are trying to kill it and
it’s not working. That’s the tempo you need to have,’ and Coach Skoda stopped practice and told
the team that I was no longer statistician, that I was an assistant coach. He stopped practice and
went and got me a uniform and made me a Coach my senior year. I can’t tell you what that did
inside of me. And so from that point on, I carried myself as a coach."
That year Daphne High School went on to beat the 17th ranked team in the nation out of
Hartselle, Alabama to claim the State Championship.
Stafford went on to enroll at what was then known as Central Bible College (now Evangel
University), without a clue that he would return to coaching. But at the end of his senior year,
that would change.

4. "On my way home, my girlfriend said that Coach Skoda wanted me to stop by his classroom. I
thought my coaching days were over. But I stopped by and Coach said ‘Chad, I need you to
coach this 17-18 year old team’, and I said ‘I’d be glad to help you’ and he said ‘no, I need you
to be the head coach [of the summer league team]’.”
Stafford continued “We were the first ever team from Mobile and Baldwin county to win the
State championship in Alabama and we represented the state. We lost to Florida after winning
the first two games. He told me that it was the best thing that could have happened to the
program."
Once again, Coach Stafford found his eyes pointing skyward, and his role in life laid before him.
"What started off as a curse, became a gift. God had a different role for me." Coach Stafford
asserted.
And it is with this role that Coach Stafford has not only touched the lives of students at Daphne
High School, but also the hearts of many who attend a service he is preaching.
He can relate to you on a level few others can. Listening to him is like listening to a coach give
the pregame speech. He is intense, but compassionate. He is fiery, but poignant.
“I wish there was a little bit less of intensity when preaching, but because God has put a calling
on my life to be a Pastor and a Coach, it’s what happens.” Coach Stafford admits.
That passion is contagious.
Many of the students who have played under Coach Stafford, or went to youth group lead by
Pastor Chad, have gone on to be monumental successes in their own right.
Stafford was a position coach of Jeremy Clark, defensive tackle for the NFL’s Philadelphia
Eagles, who also played with the New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins,
Arizona Cardinals, and Dallas Cowboys.
He also coached several players who enjoyed college success, including QB Pat White, West
Virginia’s 2007 Heisman candidate.
But perhaps no one was more influenced by Coach and Pastor Chad Stafford, than Austin Lee.
Lee pitched for Daphne High School and is now the Children’s pastor at Celebration Church in
Fairhope, Alabama. He played under Coach Stafford for 3 years, and it is during this time that
Lee first accepted Stafford’s invitation to attend a youth group led by Stafford called “180”.
”It all kind of started my freshman year at an event [called Burger Bash]. They were doing a
rendition of Heavens Gates/Hells Flames.” Lee recalled, “That night after watching the show
and hearing Pastor Chad’s message, I decided to go down to the altar. I knew that this feeling

5. was different. I didn’t know at the time that I would eventually go into the ministry, but that’s
where it started.”
It is under the tutelage of Pastor Chad that Lee started to develop tendencies that would lead him
to the decision to enter the ministry, and later culminate with a leadership position within a
church.
Just as Stafford molds himself after Coach Skoda, Lee molds himself after Pastor Chad.
“The biggest thing I’ve taken from Pastor Chad is his humor. That may not be the most spiritual
answer”, Lee admitted, “but it makes people laugh, and when people laugh, walls come down.
Then he brings it back to reality.”
I had a chance to witness this while attending a service with Pastor Chad. I noticed that he
switched from humor to seriousness in a split-second’s time, and faces that were wrought with
laughter were now transfixed on the point they never saw coming.
It wasn’t normal; not something you would see at every church service, but it was a bit
refreshing. And it is then that you could see the Coach come out of Pastor Chad.
“Coaching helped a lot by being able to talk with kids; being able to relate to them is
paramount,” Lee stated, “And he was never scared to crawl our tales, but he did so with
motivation, not condemnation.”
And this is what separates Coach Stafford from many others, his ability to understand that a
game is a game, and inherent in that game are mistakes.
"I don’t yell at my guys for committing errors. That’s baseball. But you can’t coach
passion…What might get a guy to the next level isn’t their talent, it’s their discipline"
Coach Stafford is as disciplined a man as you will find. He is an organized man. As a baseball
player, he made it a point to eat, sleep, and breathe the game.
"This is a generation that is so much different. When I played 20 years ago, I would practice till
9 o’clock at night. But when we would go home, and we turned on Nintendo, we weren't playing
Halo, we were playing baseball. We were learning stealing situations then, bunting then. We
were branded with the fundamentals of the game." Stafford explained.
The look in his eyes as he said this was sad. He realized that things change. People change. And
that for him, baseball will soon be something he will not be able to participate in; not in the way
that he would like.
Coach Stafford is stepping down from his position as head coach for the Junior Varsity team at
Daphne High School.

6. “I couldn’t devote all the time I wanted [to the game]. I went 3 months, 7 days straight, and you
can’t do that. I only have 13 more summers with my little boy.”
His new position will be, “something along the lines of Director of Baseball Operations.”
Though Coach Stafford is doing so with a heavy heart, he is also doing it with a clear vision.
“Coastal Church is growing by leaps and bounds. We are looking into possibly getting some land
to relocate.”
But Coach Stafford is appreciative of his time spent on the diamond.
"It’s my prayer every day that I will appear to be the most thankful person that ever lived."
Though Chad Stafford is an extraordinary man, he talks conversationally with a level of humility
one would expect from someone who didn’t participate in 7 State Championships. He walks like
a man who isn’t a small-town celebrity.
“When you have been blessed to be a part of 7 State championships, there’s a side to you where
you constantly [have] to prove to yourself that you are not a loser. For the guys who have always
had to scrap, who were never the all-stars, I want them to know that life from the B-team… you
never know what can happen."
Chad Stafford isn’t a part of that B-team anymore.
But don't tell him that.
As with all things Pastor and Coach Chad Stafford has done, he finds his role. He always found
the spot that he was made to fit, and fit it like a glove.
A baseball glove.
-Josh York