Episode 232: Choosing Calling Over Career: Rocky Seto (Reprise)

[00:00:00] But all of a sudden we're playing the San Francisco 49ers.

[00:00:07] Those New Jersey girls were in San Jose.

[00:00:10] And she calls me and goes, I think we're supposed to do this.

[00:00:13] This is the last regular season game.

[00:00:15] I'm like, are you sure?

[00:00:17] I just, we just hung up and we played the game again.

[00:00:20] And then we won that game.

[00:00:22] We were in the playoffs.

[00:00:23] I waited for another week or so. Football is America's passion while baseball is America's pastime. Thank you, Rocky, for this great nugget of truth on American sports. It's time to get excited again to cheer for your alma mater or perhaps your favorite team, as American football is about to begin another season. Joining me today is someone who's quickly become a good friend, coach Rocky Seto.

[00:01:44] I met Rocky while out in California taking classes for my doctorate. conversation. Well today it is my privilege and honor to have a friend of mine coach Rocky Sito though I think I should probably call you pastor Rocky Sito as you have transitioned from the coaching world from University of Southern California as a defensive coordinator,

[00:03:01] defensive backs, line backers, I don't know someone's name he would just call them buddy and uh... coach rick to of course went on to do great coaching at university of georgia and then it may be an is all my mother

[00:04:20] when he came to saving faith he went into go talk to coach bowden and I think God used football to really get a hold of me. And let me explain it. Just like you, Jonathan, my parents are immigrants and they're immigrants from Japan and we were a blue collar family. And so we grew up in Southern California. My dad's been a gardener. He's retired now for maybe 45 years, 50 years as a gardener.

[00:05:42] And so we would work.

[00:05:44] We would work when we'd have school

[00:05:46] and summer vacations, wasn't vacation. I, my dad impressed that upon me, you don't want to do this for a living. And I thought to myself, there's nothing more nobler for me to do than to get into the role of football. And fast forward, I get into high school. My whole goal was to get to the university of Southern California, to be a football player there. And that was sort of the mecca of that for me.

[00:07:03] That was that was a height of what in my little mind, I thought.

[00:08:02] at the time, I would keep adding that. Then I went to junior college,

[00:08:03] Mount San Antonio Junior College.

[00:08:06] And the reason why I chose that junior college

[00:08:07] because coach Bill Fisk was an all American at USC.

[00:08:11] I thought to myself, maybe if I do good enough,

[00:08:14] he might put a good word in for me.

[00:08:16] I spent three years there

[00:08:18] and eventually transferred to USC.

[00:08:22] But there was a problem.

[00:08:23] They accepted me academically, Jonathan,

[00:08:25] but I didn't get any confirmation that I was on the team.

[00:08:28] Right. Robinson and the second story and I'm like, wow, this is my opportunity. Yeah, I hid behind the corridor, waited for him to come back and I accidentally bumped into him as it feels an accidental thing. I said, Coach, my name is Rocky Sato. You don't know me from anybody, but I got accepted into the school.

[00:09:43] Can I talk to you, please? And that's the moment of truth. What is he going to say? Coach John Robinson at the Rose Bowl. My friend Ed Ojaran was coaching at the LSU Tigers and they're playing the UCLA Bruins. So Coach Ed Ojaran invited me to come to their walkthrough and look at this picture here. I know our fans won't be able to understand that, but I ran into Coach Robinson on the

[00:11:02] field at the practice and I said, Coach, field as a walk on line backer and I think this is great. It's happened. It's happening. I thought to myself as I'm running across a 50 yard line

[00:12:25] There's got to be more to it than this because in two years. I want to graduate what am I what am I gonna be about right? Right and sure enough

[00:13:25] me was I couldn't stop reading the book of John. I mean, the gospel, John, you know, I mean, I knew how to study for things, but I didn't necessarily like to read things, right, you know,

[00:13:28] but now other than read things about like famous sports people and famous coaches, but now I'm

[00:13:34] reading the book of John because I want to learn more about Jesus Christ. And I think that was a

[00:13:38] distinguishing mark that was different in my life? Well, no longer was football my validation in life because it was man. That's how I felt special. I mean as a immigrant kid, I mean blue collar family. I mean, trying to earn your dad's sort of love and respect. Trying to earn my dad's love respect and

[00:15:01] it was all tied the past, and

[00:16:23] they've put it behind them. But it's funny that yours is quite to do that. I mean physical therapy is a phenomenal and noble profession, but that wasn't in my heart I didn't want to do that for all the materialistic reasons of getting a doctor degree Making my mom and dad happy, you know, and I went to the coach coach Paul Hackett at the time who I love and Grateful because he gave me a scholarship the next year, you know as a senior, but I

[00:17:42] said coach I

[00:17:44] Think I wanted to go into coaching is there anything I could do on the team

[00:18:43] Linebackers coach and then become the defensive back coach and finish up in

[00:18:50] 2009 as a defensive coordinator at USC and God just kept it open up door after door after door and

[00:18:55] There's just God's kindness that all these things are happening, but to answer your question I

[00:18:59] saw a ministry there to in the marketplace

[00:19:03] teaching people and

[00:20:20] They were teaching me as well other Christians so do it to God's glory and look, to evangelize, look, to disciple, edify other Christians

[00:20:25] that's been brought in front of you.

[00:20:26] And that's kind of the most Christian sport. Right. Is it Christian? No, but it's culturally. Notice that that well, you know, and easily and compared to I've talked to other people where they may be in industries such as Microsoft and the tech world or different type of industries where that may be a forte learned reading the Bible today. It just becomes a natural thing. And the thing about it is that, I mean, you know what I look like. I mean, I'm Japanese American. They're not many Japanese football coaches at Division I or NFL.

[00:24:22] All right.

[00:24:23] So what was interesting, Jonathan is whether I was holding his Bible constantly. I mean, just what else do I expect from him? Right? And so in some ways, I would say for Christians out there working in the marketplace, just be the greatest worker, the most loyal, the most trustworthy, most joyful, live it out. And then to speak about Christ matter of fact, this is what I did this week and

[00:25:40] I went to church. This is what my wife and Christ got ahold of me somewhere around 1998. And my identity in Christ was growing. There was a tension within me, there was sin within

[00:27:00] me on Jonathan were in my heart and mind. I and I was like nah but all of a sudden in 2010 at the top of 2010 the rumor seemed to see my real yeah yeah he decided to leave for

[00:28:22] the Seahawks and he calls me into and says hey rock as a yeah coach and I got a job for you and Keep in mind now Jonathan. I was a defense coordinator at USC Yeah, I was and he goes I like you to be the quality control coach here at the Seahawks That's the entry level coaching position. I'm like that. I'm like I was you're insulting me. I'm thinking you know

[00:29:44] I can't believe you're calling me and

[00:29:46] But you know what praying about it divine self-help book. If you're in the Bible, I could learn how to be a better leader, be better husband, be better coach, be a better father. And as long as I know the teachings of the Bible, I'll be a good and effective person. And I think I genuinely blew the gospel door with Jonathan. But when I got there to Seattle,

[00:31:02] I was broken. I was mad. I was love for the word and I was up in the office at four or five and thinking man I got into scriptures for about an hour man I got to start work now I'm like I want to keep studying it and yeah yeah so that kind of that seed was planted within me like man I want to

[00:32:23] study the scriptures full-time and and kind of a similar route like you said from USC to the Seattle Seahawks and during that time as I love Seattle I grew to love the people of Seattle I love the Northwest I grew a

[00:33:42] deeper relationship with coach Carroll I love coaching pro football and we want All of us. Okay. So there's now a big transition in your life coming and you're about to walk away from the coaching ranks, which you've done for how many years now at this point? 18 years. 18 years. Walk us through that. So the seed's been planted. You know, again, it seems to go against all, you know, what we would call reason, right?

[00:35:03] Reason would say you've worked your way up in the ranks and now kind of take advantage most amazing journey of a lifetime. It was like, this is beyond my expectations, walking on from Mount Sac, however many years ago, right since in 1997. And this is way beyond all that. Yeah. And we were thinking about this, I was thinking about it since 2010. And here comes 2016,

[00:36:20] August, the church that we were part of in Southern California, the pastor calls me and to

[00:37:22] I'm like, are you sure? And we just hung up and we played the game.

[00:37:25] And then we won that game.

[00:37:27] We were in the playoffs.

[00:37:29] I waited for another week or so.

[00:37:32] And we're playing the Detroit Lions in our first round

[00:37:34] of the playoffs.

[00:37:35] And I tell Coach, I talked to Charlotte again, my wife.

[00:37:39] And I sure, she goes, yeah.

[00:37:42] And then I told Coach, I'm going to the ministry

[00:37:45] as a preacher after this season. I tried to convince her the more fighting we did. So I just said, all right, Laura, I just start pouring. Change your heart. Yeah. And sure enough, she's the greatest coach's wife. She's the greatest pastor's wife and she's been nothing but amazing. And so she really was the big final period on the calling.

[00:39:01] I mean, I looked to the scriptures.

[00:39:03] I had this internal desires.

[00:39:05] I looked for scriptures.

[00:39:06] The qualifications of Timothy and Titus. Obviously, some guys would have understood. Other guys probably were curious what that was all about. What did that kind of look like as you broke the news? It's interesting, before making that final announcement, I asked my dad, who were in L.A. playing the Rams. We went out to eat dinner. I said, Papa, that's what I called him.

[00:40:22] I'm thinking about becoming a pastor.

[00:40:24] What do you think? That's kind of how it was. When I talked to the team, Coach gave me an opportunity to address the team. That was an amazing opportunity. I was staring at a bunch of men that I admired, bunch of men that are just amazing. And I started breaking down when I talked about leaving Coach.

[00:41:41] And by the same time, I preached a gospel to them.

[00:41:44] I thought, I said, this is the greatest thing

[00:41:46] I've ever shared with you. Right. And to receive that calling to say no would have been the greater, you know, disappointment, regret. Right. Within your own soul, right? Because at that point you feel like you'd be letting down your master versus the outside world who says football is to be prized or these positions of notoriety and fame and

[00:43:01] et cetera, et cetera.

[00:43:03] There's more glory in that.

[00:43:04] You want to say, you know what, it's not about me.

[00:43:07] Right.

[00:43:08] I think you and relate to me. I would say this, this for our listeners to kind of understand. It's hard that I thought it would be

[00:44:21] three of my years as a senior pastor,

[00:44:24] two of them were with coronavirus.

[00:44:27] Right. Balancing the budget isn't necessarily a metric of success or running certain amount of programs isn't necessary success. Because as we all know, you could collect a room for non-believers. You could do to very public achievements. Here, my life is still public in the life of the church, but the achievements aren't necessarily visible. It's kind of like, all right, this is what the Bible says and the Master knows if you're being faithful or not. I mean, someday we'll find out, right?

[00:47:01] That's kind of in a nutshell. and Savior. In my old world of American football, the Super Bowl is a pinnacle of success. And I like to say this, whatever your Super Bowl is, Jesus is better than that. And you need to know Him if you don't know Him as your Lord and Savior. But if you do know Him, I would encourage you

[00:48:22] drive deeper into knowing Him through the Word, through fellowship with other brothers and sisters and make it count for God's glory and know that someday it may not pay off right now, but someday in eternity our God will reward you and me. Not for our salvation, because he did it all, but in terms of hearing well done,

[00:49:40] going to faithful servant, you know,

[00:49:41] and that's what we want to hear at the end of the day

[00:49:44] and by God's grace.

[00:49:45] So anyway, that's just faithfulness to the gospel brother. And it's nice to know that on the other coast or other side of the country, there are men like you who are faithfully preaching the word. And I'm gonna try to do my best from Southern California,

[00:51:02] you in the South, you keep doing that.

[00:51:05] And I look forward to seeing you at our next module, okay?