This story appears in FCA Magazine’s May/June 2015 issue. Subscribe today!
The closet would be the best place.
Barry Cox was going to put a bullet in his head, and he wanted to minimize the mess. Yes, the closet would be easiest to clean.
As Cox knelt down in that closet, loaded gun in hand, the magnitude of his wasted life came rushing at him—a life filled with alcohol, drugs, gambling and a crumbling marriage. He remembered the four colleges he had either left or been kicked out of. Even that day, his six-year-old daughter told him, “Daddy, I don’t like you very much. I wish you’d leave.”
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Flash forward to present day, on the campus of Lane College, a historically black liberal arts institution in Jackson, Tenn., with an enrollment of about 2,000. It’s here where kids’ hearts are being changed through God’s work in FCA, and one man is playing an integral role.
“These kids go back home and say, ‘We have this amazing chaplain who is just off the charts,’” said David Hicks, Southwestern Tennessee FCA Area Director. “I can’t imagine the faces of the parents when they realize that chaplain is the same Barry Cox.
“A lot of the fathers played with or knew Barry when they went to Lane. They remember him being a volatile hot-head who was knee deep in drugs and alcohol.”
Barry Cox did not pull the trigger on that night more than 25 years ago. God had other plans. Cox is now a chaplain at Lane, the very place from which he was once expelled, and for the past eight years he’s served as an FCA Area Representative in Jackson.
“I am not a real talented athlete; I just hate to lose,” Cox said, explaining what led him to the closet all those years ago. “Yet here I was, losing at life. … I said, ‘God, I don’t want to lose. If you’re real, before I put this bullet in my head, I’m going to give you one chance.’
“But after that, I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
The near suicide was a watershed moment in Cox’s life. Immediately after, he rededicated himself to attending church and soon gave his life to Jesus Christ.
“It was a real transformation,” Cox said. “God became my whole life.”
With the support of his wife Brenda, Barry Cox is impacting young lives as he shares the message of Christ through FCA.
Cox’s marriage to his college sweetheart, Brenda, is now in its 31st year. On the same campus where he once got into fights, he now brings a powerful message of God’s love. The old Cox once got into a fistfight with a teammate. Nearly 30 years later, he led that player’s son, a quarterback at Lane, to rededicate his life to Christ. The quarterback now attends every FCA Huddle and is involved in a local church.
Lane football coach Derrick Burroughs, who has had a front-row seat to Cox’s ministry, said, “Barry has been such a godsend to our football program, and he has really meant a lot to me in trying to help shape me into more of a Christian man and Christian coach.”
Ephesians 4:24 says “you put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.” Cox still runs into people who haven’t yet seen his “new self,” mostly old teammates who see his Lane College gear and ask if he’s coaching offense or defense.
“When I tell them I’m team chaplain, they do a Scooby-Doo like, ‘What?’” Cox said, laughing.
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Cox was born just 25 miles south of Jackson in Bolivar, Tenn., but his family soon moved to East St. Louis, Ill.—statistically, the most violent city in the United States.
“I’ve seen shootings and all kinds of things,” Cox said. “I was scared and used to sleep on the floor by my momma’s bed. One guy actually died in my front yard.”
The 6-foot-4 Cox was a basketball standout. He attended Belleville College, but had to leave due to problems. He also played briefly at McKendree University. When those schools didn't work out, a former high school teammate suggested Cox try football. That teammate was Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow.
“I ended up going to Lane. I tried to be a tight end, but I couldn’t play like Winslow,” Cox laughed, “so they beefed me up and I played offensive tackle. I knew that was my last shot.”
Cox had so much potential that, despite all his previous trouble, the NFL still had an eye on him. Lane coaches told the 265-pound Cox that the Minnesota Vikings were looking at him—if he could get his act together and hit the weight room. Instead, depression and anger set in, and Brenda told him she was pregnant. Cox started a violent downward spiral that led to him getting kicked off the team, banned from Lane, and eventually to that night he cried out to God with a gun in his hand ready to take his own life.
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Michael Sparks did not know about any of Cox's checkered history when the two first met. Sparks just saw Cox as a counselor for at-risk and addicted youth who, while physically large, carried a spirit of humility.
After his near suicide experience and conversion, Cox landed a position at Youth Town Ministries, a Christian home for troubled boys in Jackson; Sparks was the long-time FCA Area Director in Jackson.
“Barry is one of the most Christ-like men I’ve ever been around,” said Sparks, who now serves as the Community Life Pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Jackson. “I’d be crazy not to hire a role model like him. The kids need to see him.”
"Barry is a living testimony that God gives seco."nd chances and bountifully blesses those who make the most of it."
-Dr. Logan Hampton, President, Lane College
In his eight years with FCA, Cox has mentored countless young people one on one. During a troubling time of shootings and gang activities in Jackson, a time that reminded Cox all too much of his upbringing in East St. Louis, he and area athletes wanted to show solidarity with the community. So they orchestrated a march through the community where the violence had taken place to show support.
“I always wanted to forget (East St. Louis), and God brought that back to me,” Cox said. “Jackson has gotten really bad in certain areas, and we wanted to support the kids. God said, ‘You can do something about this now,’ so we began a We Care Campaign.”
Cox helped put together local TV ads featuring athletic teams re-enforcing messages of caring.
“We still have a long way to go, but that is some of the stuff that God keeps doing,” Cox said.
After meeting new Lane president Dr. Logan Hampton at a Bible study and explaining his FCA ties, Hampton stared Cox in the eye and said, “FCA? I don’t want anything to do with y’all.”
But then he laughed. Cox didn’t realize it, but Hampton was joking. As a high schooler in Little Rock, Ark., Hampton had turned away from the Lord, but God cut a hole in him at an FCA Huddle, and he rededicated his life. He said he would always do something for FCA, and here was his opportunity.
Lane is a Christian college with mandatory chapel on Wednesdays. Hampton asked Cox to share his testimony. It made for a powerful introduction, with Hampton saying, “Chaplain Cox has a great testimony of how God redeemed him. He went to school here and made some terrible mistakes. He was banned from campus in 1981, but I’m here to say the ban is officially lifted.”
Cox then gave his testimony, followed by an altar call, and more than 40 young men dedicated their lives to Jesus.
“Chaplain Cox is a blessing to Lane College,” Hampton said. “He moves about campus radiating the warm glow of Christ."
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When Sparks thinks of Cox, he reflects upon the impact a truly humble servant of the Lord can make.
"Dwight Moody’s quote: 'The measure of a man isn’t how many servants he has, but how many men he has served,' sums up Barry to the nth degree,” Sparks said. “There is not a prideful bone in his body, and that’s why he is so effective.”
Since surrendering his life to Christ, the Lord has placed many students in Cox’s path. Usually it’s the ones like he was: out of control and ready to get kicked off the team. Burroughs believes Cox’s background makes him an ideal mentor to youth.
“The kids know Barry has struggled like they have,” he said. “Barry has been very up front about himself and his relationship with God. They don’t just see Barry as a minister; they see him as a confidant. They know he doesn’t judge them, and he listens to them. That is the biggest thing.”
"It has become so normal for me to be in situations that are so abnormal. But I don't want people to think it's me. God gets the glory." -Barry Cox
Despite fighting a nasty cold one day, Cox felt God’s call to make the rounds of his campuses. As he pulled into the parking lot of a high school, he saw the local sheriff getting ready to take a football player to jail.
Cox asked if he could talk to the player, David, who had no mother or father in his life. After the talk, David gave a heartfelt apology to the officer and was released. Later, the officer told Cox that David was doing well and attending church with his grandmother.
“I just broke,” Cox said. “On my worst day, I stopped a kid from going to jail. That is a typical day; it has become so normal for me to be in situations that are so abnormal. But I don’t want people to think it’s me. God gets the glory.
“I’m the chaplain, and I should have been doing jail time. That is why I serve the school like I do.”
Cox’s life is a powerful story of God’s redemption. A college closed to Cox because of his past sins and self-centeredness was opened by God’s grace.
“I was an idiot, and God pursued me,” Cox said. “It’s amazing to me that He would do what He is doing. All I want is for God to be glorified.”
–This article appears in the May/June 2015 issue of FCA Magazine. To view the issue in its entirety digitally, click here: May/June 2015 FCA Mag Digital
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Photos courtesy of Barry Cox