Head baseball coach Skip Johnson knows how to build a strong baseball team. The University of Oklahoma Sooners won the NCAA College World Series in June. Coach Johnson doesn’t just recruit the best athletes. He tests new players by giving them a daily exercise. He tells them to make their beds. 

Players must take pictures of the final project. They send him the shots. What do neatly tucked sheets have to do with baseball?

Coach Johnson says players who do this mundane chore well learn to pay attention to details. 

That skill was needed this year. The team went through a slump. Players had to understand where they needed to improve. They also had to build each other up to recover.

The most outstanding player in the College World Series was Oklahoma’s shortstop Jaxon Willits. He drove in seven runs. He says, “Whether we were playing well or not, we believed that we had the talent in the room to go out and win.” 

Pitcher L.J. Mercurius says he’s learned a vital lesson in his three years of college baseball. Teams have two choices. “It’s either you kind of split apart when things aren’t going well or you come together.” 

He says even when Oklahoma was losing games, players kept having fun and pulling for each other. 

Skip Johnson was named the 2026 National Coach of the Year. The award came days after he led the Sooners to their first national championship since 1994. Coach Johnson says the season sharpened his players. They learned to pick each other up. 

“And it shows you what kind of character they have when they became selfless.” 

Why? It takes more than physical skill to be a winner. Stellar athletes are also disciplined. They band together during challenges, and they serve one another. (See Philippians 2:3-4.)