First Baptist Church of Glenarden held its annual Men’s Conference under the theme “Decision Maker 24,” on June 22, and one of the main speakers was University of Maryland head football coach Mike Locksley.
Even though the Terps posted a winning season and a Bowl Game victory, Locksley mainly talked about overcoming a series of setbacks ranging from being fired as a head coach to coping with the fatal shooting of his son.
Despite trials, Locksley, the son of a D.C. firefighter and graduate of Ballou High School, blazed a trail of success that included winning a national championship as an offensive coordinator at Alabama and posting winning seasons at the University of Maryland for the last two years.
Locksley posted on a big screen a list of negative headline stories that included him allegedly punching an assistant coach, harassing someone, and finally being fired. Then, on September 3, 2017, his son Meikel was fatally shot.
But after working under Nick Saban, Locksley was hired by Maryland in 2018 after the university’s head coach was fired following the death of lineman Jordan McNair, who died of heat stroke.
“I lost a son (but) I inherited a team that just had lost a brother,” said Locksley. “Broke people help broke people.”
The Men’s Conference began with a praise and worship service led by Brian Courtney Wilson followed by a message from the Rev. Kelvin J. Cochran, former chief of the Atlanta Fire Department.
The event concluded with a testimony from Inky Johnson, a former cornerback from the University of Tennessee. Johnson, who suffered a significant injury to his arm in college, is a motivational speaker nationwide today.
As Alabama racked up wins toward a national championship, Locksley tried to understand what happened to his son. Then came a job offer from the University of Maryland.
First Baptist Church of Glendarden has hosted a Men’s conference for the last 14 years, but this time was different.
“In the past, we have done the conference by partnering with other organizations, but this was the first time in 14 years that we had the conference singularly, and we had about 1000 men,” explained the Rev. John K. Jenkins, First Baptist Church of Glenarden’s pastor.
Jenkins said Locksley’s message “was very influential.”
“He addressed mental health, which troubles a lot of families today,” Jenkins said. “I loved his talk about how failure is not the end. That was very, very powerful. They may have had some failures, but it is not the end of the story.”