It took a few decades, but with Josh Lawson’s appointment as Bethel College’s new head football coach, he’s made it to his top career goal thus far.
Lawson was serving in an assistant coach position at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich., when he got a call from Bethel’s athletic director, Tim Swartzendruber.
“Tim had called the [Calvin] head coach about another person on the staff,” Lawson says. “The coach told Tim that person wasn’t ready to move on from where he was, ‘but I have a guy who’s ready.’”
Lawson talked with Swartzendruber on the phone, then went through a Zoom interview. “After four days hearing nothing, I assumed I didn’t get the job. My wife Meredith and I were driving to Alabama to visit family for Christmas, and Tim called and offered it to me. We said Yes immediately.
“I was excited – and then it hit me to where I had to pull over. After 41 years, it finally happened.”
Lawson grew up in western Alabama coal-mining country, where his dad was “a huge [University of] Alabama fan. We’d listen on the radio when I was little to Eli Gold, the voice of the Crimson Tide. That’s how we spent our Saturdays in the fall.
“I’m too young to remember his career, but we’re still in the shadow of [legendary head football coach] Bear Bryant. I grew up admiring everything about Alabama football, listening to the stories everyone told about Coach Bryant.
“And when I was four years old, I told my family: ‘When I grow up, I want to be a head football coach.’”
At his small-town high school, Lawson played three sports, including basketball and football. He was “too small for football,” so he went on to Bevill Community College in Fayette, Ala., with a basketball scholarship.
After an injury, he transferred to the University of Alabama, with a career goal of coaching basketball. But he didn’t forget that childhood declaration, and as an undergraduate in secondary education, and then an M.A. student in human performance (sport management) at Alabama, he served as a student assistant and then a graduate assistant in recruiting for Crimson Tide football.
Not that it was easy – it took more than just wanting to be part of Tide football. A chance encounter on a golf course with a current member of the coaching staff gave Lawson a toehold with Charley North, then director of football operations at Alabama.
Lawson “had to call every day for 30 days,” leaving messages until North finally picked up and asked him, “Who are you and why do you keep calling me?”
“He said to come for an interview, and then for two-and-a-half days, I sat outside his office, until his secretary finally told him, ‘You have to at least talk to this guy.’” North took him on as a volunteer – “I made 0 dollars in my first two years in football coaching.”
But that was the start. Lawson went from Alabama to a high school assistant football coach position in Jasper, Ala., and from there to assistant coach jobs at Idaho State University, University of Alabama-Birmingham, Southern Arkansas University, Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, Texas), Arkansas Tech University and finally Calvin, before starting at Bethel Jan. 2 of this year.
Lawson has “hit the ground running,” according to Bethel President Jon Gering, following the abrupt resignation of former head coach A.B. Stokes, which led to a number of players not returning after Christmas.
“My goals are, short-term, to build the culture of the football program. We’re meeting three times a week for responsibility training – training on what our standards will be.
“Medium term, to recruit about 70 players in order to have 130 by August. That’s important, to get [the number] where it needs to be, for our program and for the college as a whole.
“Longer term, to have a better season in 2025. And the longest term, to be the standard of the KCAC. We have to be champions in everything – the classroom, the community, the field. We have to do everything step by step, and not skip any steps.”
Lawson says, “Football has become transactional [in many ways] – ‘What can this do for me?’ I want college football to be transformational.
“In a lot of cases, these players are still kids, 17 or 18 years old. I want to grow them into people that can be open and honest about their faith and be proud of it, who can be great in the community.”
And maybe also to let them know that sometimes childhood dreams can come true.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel was the first Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see https://www.bethelks.edu
