I deeply believe everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, we face challenges that just SUCK; we cry, we are angry, we ask why? Why me and why now?
I believe that God provides us with these tests and lessons to help us grow and learn; to be better and stronger than we once were. Sometimes, there is no explanation; we just have to trust and have faith that He has a plan for us we may not understand.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
Last fall, we learned that Brian’s work division, where he had grown as a professional and a leader for 8 years, was likely being eliminated. We prepared and planned, and true to my husband’s character, he spent the last few months of the year focused on the employees on his team. He had meetings, lunches, conversations, all to plant seeds for a possible new beginning. We discussed starting a business. We talked about investing in property as a potential asset and income source. Brian cleaned up his resume and searched for the next chapter in his career.
January.
February.
March.
April.
May.
I noticed how many of my friends and colleagues were also dealing with similar challenges. My dear friend Adair was forced to close her boutique, Brick & Mortar. I received texts from THREE friends letting me know they had been let go from their jobs. I saw the same from others on LinkedIn, longtime colleagues across multiple industries sharing that ‘Open To Work’ frame, asking for references and job opportunities. All of these folks with amazing talent and work ethic, let go due to no fault of their own. Our challenges were not unique, but it’s certainly a club no one wants to be part of.
Brian told me one night that there was nothing more frustrating than getting an email with ‘we really like you but you’re overqualified’ or ‘thank you for applying but..’ By the end of April, Brian had applied for upwards of 200 jobs nationwide and received more than 75 of those emails. He is a proud husband and father, wanting to shoulder the responsibility of providing for his family. This weight became heavier and heavier with each passing week, and each rejection email.
I tried to focus on the positive; Brian could be there for our boys (and me!) when they were home sick, needed rides to activities and practices, and greet them when they got home from school. As I navigate my challenges with chronic vestibular migraines, it’s been invaluable to have Brian focused on our home and kids full-time when I suffer an attack. I also reminded Brian that this new time meant he could fully commit to something he absolutely loved: BASEBALL.
Baseball has always been part of Brian’s life. He began coaching for the Millard North Mustangs in 2006; he loved it so much, he went back to school to earn a degree in teaching. The teaching career didn’t work out, but the coaching did; Brian was a member of legendary Coach Dave Cork’s staff for 13 seasons. He left when our boys were 7 and 5 to coach their T-Ball teams.
Fast forward to 2023. Our boys had traded baseball for football, Quiz Bowl, soccer and basketball. While they no longer played the game, their teammates in other sports did, and many of them were on track to attend our community’s brand new Gretna East High School. When this beautiful building opened in 2023, Brian reached out to administrators about joining the Varsity Baseball staff.
Brian joined Head Coach Darrell Everhart and Assistant Coaches Matt Renshaw and Collier Buttgen to form Gretna East High School Varsity Baseball’s first coaching staff. In their inaugural season in 2024, without any seniors, the team won a District title and finished as the Class B State Runner Up. It was one of Brian’s most successful years in his coaching career. Just as important, if not more so, we felt like family with this team and staff from day one. The culture created by Coach Darrell, emphasized by each member of his staff, his parents and his players, was focused on teamwork, staying humble, working hard. They finished every game with a team huddle and prayer on the field, reinforcing they were a family and not a collection of separate individuals. At a time when so many teams, players, parents, coaches are focused on ‘how do I get noticed; how do I get that scholarship; how do we win at all costs’; Griffins Baseball lived by the mantra of mentoring and nurturing young men, developing stellar baseball skills and knowledge of the game, while reinforcing great LIFE skills and building a brotherhood among one another.
Needless to say, we were all excited for high school baseball season this year. Nine returning seniors and a slew of up-and-coming talent, hungry and eager to learn. Reunited with all of our coaches (and their families!) at the ballpark. Our team motto was #JobsNotDone, reflecting back on that 2024 State Runner Up finish, one game away from winning it all.
The job was hard. We’d follow up a win with a 1-run loss. It would happen again. One step forward, two steps back. Moments of the same greatness we saw in 2024, followed by frustration. At one point, it looked like our Griffs would have to win Districts to even COMPETE at State, let alone be a contender.
April 29.. and everything started to fall into place. We won our final four games of the regular season. We won the District Championship against higher-seeded Waverly on their turf. We headed back to the State Championship at UNO’s Tal Anderson field feeling dejavu – in a good way.
We got the other kind of dejavu – the kind you want to forget. Our team lost in the opening game in a 1-run walk-off to Waverly, the team we had beaten in our two prior meetings just the week before. Our Griffs would have to claw our way back, through the loser’s bracket, or our season would be over.
With baseball superstitions alive and well, I didn’t even write potential game times on my calendar in fear I’d jinx everything. Day by day, game by game, inning by inning.
Monday at Papillion-La Vista South – we beat Hastings.
Tuesday at Werner Park – we faced Waverly again and won.
Wednesday at Papillion-La Vista South – we would have to beat Skutt Catholic TWICE to stay alive and make it back to the state title game. Skutt had been top-ranked in Class B all year, beating us earlier in the season in one of those 1-run heartbreakers. As our boys battled every day that week, Skutt had been resting in the winner’s bracket. Tensions were high for both sides (some showing it with more grace than others.) In the middle of the first game, one of our team leaders and star players, Easton Leahy, took a fast ball straight to the head and immediately dropped at home plate. NSAA medical staff treated him and got him off the field. As his mom ran to her SUV to take him in to be checked, Easton collapsed again behind the dugout. We called 911 and Papillion Fire & Rescue arrived within minutes to take him to an area hospital.
We found out within a few hours Easton was fine and had cleared all medical testing, but at the time, our boys and coaches were asked to keep playing not knowing what had happened to their friend, clearly rattled at everything that had just taken place. They pushed through – yelling ‘For E!’ throughout the remaining innings.
Another 1-run victory – this time, with us on the winning side.
So, we had to play again. By the bottom of the 7th, we were up by a run and down to their final out. Skutt battled back, tying the score.
In high school baseball in Nebraska, teams play 7 innings. This game went 15. Pitch after pitch, play after play, our boys battled. Our catcher Carson Herrmann, after squatting his 6’2″ frame for hours behind the plate, laid out in a straight dive to snag a foul ball. Our 2nd baseman Tyler Cox stopped everything hit his way, even taking cleats to the shin at one point by a player trying to slide in safely (Tyler got him.) Our boys were defensive showcases, turning outstanding plays all over the diamond and in the outfield. They never turned on one another; they lifted each other up; they battled like warriors but played with great sportsmanship and true character.
In the bottom of the 15th, Colton Nicholson, a monster of a young man my husband lovingly calls ‘Big Cat’, stepped up to the plate. Colton, our 1st baseman, rocketed the pitch into the left field over the outfielder’s head, scoring his teammate Chase Neneman.
I’m pretty sure I had a heart attack.
These boys faced 22 innings of baseball in one day, nearly 7 hours of playing, with a teammate sent to the hospital in between. They never gave up on one another. They believed. And in that moment, as Colton shot his fist into the air and our stands erupted in tears and screams, it felt like all of that hard work and the GOODNESS of this team was being rewarded. All we had heard leading up to that day was ‘there’s no way you’ll beat Skutt.’ It felt like we were the USA beating Russia in 1980.
That moment has since gone viral online, garnering thousands of likes and views across multiple social media platforms (47,000 views on X alone), and Colton was named an Honorable Mention on the Omaha World Herald Class B All State team.
When Brian got home that night, the boys and I were ready. I played ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey on full blast, and we congratulated him by jumping up and down, cheering and basically assaulting him with hugs. It was just a great, great day we will never forget.
#JobsNotDone. We had made it to the state championship but had 7 more innings of baseball to play. None of the coaches washed their clothes. (Bad luck.) I wore my bejeweled Griffins jean jacket (the only time I hadn’t worn it the whole game? That first round loss at UNO.) Easton and I sat in the exact same seats at Werner Park we had the previous Monday when we won in the 2nd round. Brian didn’t even go to the community send off for the team because the last time he had, we lost.
Baseball superstitions run deep, folks. And guys, I’m a baseball nerd. Brian knew this when he married me. When my junior high girlfriends had subscriptions to Seventeen and Glamour magazine, I had a subscription to Chop Talk to get farm club details and stories on my Atlanta Braves. So yes, I’m biased, but I also have game street cred when I say the defense exhibited in the 2025 Class B State Championship was stellar – for both teams. We played Bennington, throwing one of our aces, York University commit Austin Copeland. Both Cope and Bennington’s pitcher thew complete games that day, with minimal hits. The defense on both sides was simply jaw dropping. We struck first; Chase Neneman, who scored our winning run in that nailbiter against Skutt, delivered a 2-run RBI in the 4th inning. Chase is only a SOPHOMORE.
Bottom of the 7th inning. I clutched a rosary in my sweatshirt pocket, praying. YES, I realize that God has better things to do than answer prayers about baseball, but I pleaded to Him that day that this was more than a game. This was about recognizing the character of this team. Boys who played for each other. Boys who never gave up. Boys who played the game the right way. And this was for Brian – because after everything he’d been through the last few months, he NEEDED this. I wanted this so badly for him – a bright spot amid so much frustration and worry.
When Cope pitched one final time, and the batter popped up to our Colton Kuhl in right field, I didn’t cheer – I sobbed. I put my face in my hands and my body shook as I cried and thanked God. I opened my eyes and just watched Brian and tried to sear that beautiful moment into my memory. At one point, we could see him looking for us in the stands. Easton and I jumped up and down, pumping our arms into the air so he could see us – and I saw him break down.
After all the hugs, all the photos, and yes, more tears, I got in my car at Werner Park.
Don’t Stop Believing was playing on the radio.
You can’t make this up.
We still remember the names of all of his favorite players over his nearly 20 years of coaching, some now grown men with kids of their own. Casey Gillaspie. Evan Porter. Alex Mortensen. Jack Wilson. Jordan Ritzdorf. Sean Fisher. Brian told me the night of the championship that what made this year so special was this team felt like ‘I had a whole team of those guys – the really special ones.’
Trevor Cox, who saw three little boys waiting outside the dugout after the final game of his high school career, and dug into his backpack to find them baseballs to take home.
Those same boys? They came to Werner Park on their last day of school, and stayed in the pouring rain, to watch and cheer for Nolan Green, their next-door neighbor.
Jensen Albers, who missed his entire season due to injury but was still at every practice, every game, trying to make Brian laugh.
Easton Leahy, who didn’t play in the state championship because of that pitch to the head 48 hours prior. He must have been gutted to not play, but channeled that into passion and support for his teammates in the dugout.
Colton Nicholson and Nolan Iverson, who also play football and have since ‘adopted’ our son Easton, giving him rides every day to and from summer training.
Three Griffins were named to the All Nebraska State Baseball Team. Three were named to the Class B All-State Team; five more named Honorable Mentions. Five were named All-Conference athletes; five more as honorable mentions. The team was honored as an Academic Excellence Award winner with a cumulative team GPA of 3.30 during the Spring semester. Four have committed to collegiate baseball programs around the Midwest.
22 young men, all special, that Brian got to coach to the first baseball state championship in the history of Gretna East High School.
Had Brian gotten a call about a job in January, or February, or March, he would have missed all of this. He would’ve missed this last year with nine of those young men who just graduated and are ready to begin their next chapters. He would’ve missed that piece of history, winning that long coveted and hard-earned state title. He would’ve missed being part of such a special team of kids and coaches to get the job done. But God had a plan for him, something we could not see or understand, that is crystal clear now.
This was my daily bible verse on May 23, 2025, the day Gretna East won the state title.
“My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Colossians 2:2-3
Everything happens for a reason. And I hope this post not only reminds us of that, but takes us back to a week in our lives we will simply never forget: a sunny respite in what has otherwise been a pretty cloudy stretch. And in the interim, as we watch and wait for the career opportunity we know will come, Brian has started coaching boys in our neighborhood, finding that same purpose and joy in working with kids, helping them pursue their own passions.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6
Maybe you, too, are waiting.. wondering.. and frustrated, feeling like you just can’t win.
Maybe you keep getting ‘first runner up’; for the next promotion, you’re always the bridesmaid and never the bride, you’re always one step from stardom but never the headliner.
Maybe you’re battling a chronic illness or injuries and can’t find answers or support.
Maybe you just feel abandoned, beaten down, lost and hopeless, like no one is listening to you or cares about you.
Don’t give up. Keep the faith. God is listening and has a plan for the journey you are on and the challenges he’s giving you. Keep pushing forward, watching for opportunities to see all you should be thankful for. The outcome of the game is already determined, but how you play it may totally change your experience along the way.
Don’t stop believing.
Thank you for reading! And thank you to 402 Blog Sponsor: Wendy Welch!
For information on becoming a 402 Blog Sponsor, please email me at brandipaul7@gmail.com.
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God is good! All the time!
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YES!!!! Thanks for reading, Jason!! ❤️
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