Podcast Interview and Book Cover Reveal

I really enjoyed chatting with Maria Harris, founder of the National Sports Spouses Association. Maria has launched a podcast titled Athletic Spouses Talk and she was generous enough to spend some time learning more about my book releasing later this summer.

You can listen to our podcast interview here.

As promised, my email subscribers will always be the first to hear everything. I’m excited to share my book cover on my website for the first time here!

Lessons from the Sidelines front cover final

Does this photo look familiar? Back in March, I wrote a blog post titled The Value of Being Present and reflected on how this photo represents our ministry so well. Ordell and I haven’t always been perfectly in sync, however, we’ve always understood the calling on our marriage was about more than coaching football.

We’ll celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary this month and as we’ve edited the copy in the pages of my book we’ve also reflected on our shared history. We talked about the different ways God confirmed our prayers, went before us, protected us, moved us, and how what felt confusing then makes so much more sense today.

My publisher generously let me try designing the book cover. We discussed a few directions to consider and then I created a few mock-up ideas. I pulled photos to represent the different sections of the book Calling, Relationships, Playbook, and found myself shuffling images around on the page over and over.

Harmony recalled this photo and suggested I include it in my mix of photos. Finally, with every combination exhausted I sent a few of my favorites to my boss Ryan who immediately identified this image as the only photo to focus on and from there I handed the project to our graphic designer at SMA Marketing who took my very vague instructions and created a book cover that I absolutely love.

When my publisher opened the email he called so I could hear his voice. He said he wanted me to hear how much he loved the cover. I could and it was at this moment after over two years that I finally started to say “my book” rather than “this project.”

I hope you’ll continue take the time to listen to my interview with Marie from athleticspouses.org and check back soon for more book news!

Lessons from the Sidelines front cover final

As the wife of a football coach, Beth Walker encourages women whose families are in the public eye to pursue their own callings even as they support their husbands’ careers and ministries. Through her personal stories as well as interviews with other women who are also living just outside their husbands’ limelight, Beth shows it’s possible to do both.

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