In this episode of The Flotline, host Rick Hughes opens up about his past, sharing candid insights from his childhood, his aspirations of football glory, and the transformational moment that changed his life’s trajectory. Rick discusses the power of faith, the strength in adversity, and the joy of sharing his message across numerous platforms. A must-listen for anyone seeking inspiration and motivation to embrace life’s potentials.
welcome to the flatline with your host rick hughes for the next 30 minutes you’ll be inspired motivated educated but never manipulated now your host rick hughes good morning and welcome to the flatline flot flatline yes it’s rick hughes with the flatline heard every sunday morning here at this radio station same time same place
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. I promise you 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, but absolutely no manipulation. No solicitations. We’re not here to raise money. We’re not here to convince you or con you. We’re just here to give you accurate information. Information that I trust will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And hopefully, if you would like to do that, you can orient and adjust to the plan. but it all starts with the great news that jesus christ the anointed son of god has redeemed you and me out of the slave market of sin thus our debt to god was paid you and i are now free from the penalty of death free from the power of sin there’s a lot to talk about here a lot to say about that but before we get too far into this let me make a few announcements today we have now 66 radio stations across america and 30 plus states playing our show Many major cities like San Francisco, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, heck on into San Antonio, Phoenix. I can’t keep up with all of them, but they’re growing tremendously. Thank you for your prayer support. Thank you for your encouragement as we continue to give the word of God out in these areas. It’s an awesome responsibility and a great privilege to do this. And before I go too much further, I want to make sure that our new listeners at least know who Rick Hughes is. I am Rick Hughes, the host of this show, and we have been doing it for 15 years, but however, maybe not in your area. 15 years of the Flatline started many years ago when I was in Birmingham speaking at a radio station making a commercial for the Bass Pro Shops. I love to bass fish, and I could have been a professional angler, but I’m not. I didn’t go that direction. But they asked me to make a commercial for the Bass Pro Shops, and I did that. And the technician at the radio station said, you’ve got a good voice for radio. You could have a radio show. Well, one thing led to another, and we did start a radio show in the Birmingham market, and it expanded to Jackson, Mississippi, and on across the southeast, and now it goes from California all the way to New York. And I never thought I’d be doing a radio show. For the past 50-plus years, I’ve been traveling, speaking to schools all across America. In the early 70s, I spoke in many public schools, but that’s all gone away. Now we speak predominantly in private schools. And not Christian schools, but private academies that will allow you to come in and give the Word of God to their students. But let me back up. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, in a single-parent home. I never met my father. I really have no idea who my father was. I heard various reports. But my mom raised me in a single-parent home in a federal housing project. in the Birmingham area due to the crime and the problems in the federal housing project she would send me off to live with different guardians people I really did not know and people I did not really care for I think she would pay something like $50 a week, and I would get on the streetcar. They called it the bus and ride out to this person’s house on Sunday night, and I would stay there until Friday night. And then on Friday night, I would come home and stay with my mom on Friday night and Saturday night and then go back to another guardian. Well, that went on with several different guardians. And when I was 13 years old, I ran home. I didn’t run away. A lot of people say, I ran away. I didn’t run away. I ran home. I went home and told my mom that I was not living with any more strangers. I was going to stay with her. And she allowed me to do that. During this time, I graduated from elementary school and went into high school at a place called Woodlawn. I think they even made a movie about it called Woodlawn. You can look it up. Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, Alabama had 2,500 students, grades 9 through 12, and I entered it as a freshman and not really an athlete, although I had athletic ability. It was through a coach at a swimming pool who would see me, and he would see me swimming and hanging out at the swimming pool during the summer times, and he recruited me to come play football. And eventually I did. His name was Coach Johnny Howell. Coach Howell was really probably one of the closest things to a mentor that I had. And so it was through him that I started playing football for Woodlawn High School. And also, as I grew and got a little bigger, I got involved in track and field, throwing the shot put and the discus. The football arena was fun. The track arena was fun. However, in the football arena, they have scholarships, you know. You get offers to go to school and play football. And so one of the schools that recruited me was the University of Florida. You know, the Florida Gators down in Gainesville, Florida. And one of my friends and I went down there, and we visited. We got on an airplane, flew down, flew back, and I liked it. And we both decided we would sign with the University of Florida and become Florida Gators. But there was one problem, and that was my academics. I wasn’t stupid, I was just dumb because I didn’t apply myself. And I got plenty of brains, I just wasn’t using them at the time. And so my friend, as we went to take the SAT test, he passed with flying colors, I got the letter back from Florida that said your academic scholarship is denied due to your academic credibility. Athletic scholarship denied due to your academic credibility. I went to my coach and I said, what does this mean, coach? What’s gonna happen? And of course he was very frustrated and he said, I can tell you what’s gonna happen, big boy. You’re gonna die. And I’m thinking, die? I feel great, coach. You know, I’m 6’2″, 235 pounds, quick as lightning. Going to die? What do you mean die? He said, son, there’s a war in Southeast Asia and people are dying in Vietnam and you’re going to get recruited and you’re going to get drafted because you’re not going to college. And he said, if I was you, I’d get up to those teachers and do some apologizing and try to get some help and get those grades up and take that test again and see if you can’t pass it. Well, that didn’t sound like too bad an alternative, die or try to get my grades up. And I could see myself. I’m a big guy. I could see myself trying to hide behind a piece of bamboo in Vietnam. It wasn’t going to work. Somebody going to shoot me. So I went to my teachers and I said, look, if you’ll help me, I will apply myself and I’ll do better and I’ll get my grades up. And you know, the thing that’s amazing is they all said we wanted to help you all along. You’re just too dumb to listen. I mean, all I thought about was football and girls and goofing off and I didn’t pay attention. When I started applying myself, my grades came up. Not to A level, but definitely up to B’s and C’s. And I was able to take that test again. This time I passed the test. And it was at this time that another college took an interest in me since I had not been committed or decommitted from the University of Florida. And that was the University of Alabama. And so I signed a four year grant and aid scholarship to play football for the University of Alabama. under the direction of coach Paul Barabright, one of the meanest, toughest old football coaches you could ever play for. I mean, he was tough as nails. I played along with Joe Namath, the famous Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania quarterback that led the New York Jets to the Super Bowl championship. I was a freshman with Kenny Stabler, who led the Oakland Raiders to the Super Bowl championship. They called him the Snake. We were all there in the athletic dorm together at the University of Alabama in 1964 and 65. And then, uh, before I got to Alabama, we got into track season at my senior year at high school, throwing the shot put in the discus. I was able to do well with that and set state records in both events, throwing the high school shot put almost 60 feet, which was the third furthest throw in the nation that year for a high school student and throwing the discus about 170 feet. This was all without any weight program, no weightlifting. We didn’t have weightlifting in those days. And so I had some other offers to go on a track scholarship to some other schools as well, but we stuck with football and in 1964 we reported in the fall of 64 to the University of Alabama as a freshman football player. Boy did I get my eyes opened up. You see at my school I was the toughest guy on the team. But when I got there, I found out they had the toughest guy from over at this school, the toughest guy from over at that school, the toughest guy from over at this school. And you had to prove yourself all over again because now as a freshman football player at Alabama, you were the low man on the totem pole. I wish I could say I went on to be an All-American in Alabama because I did make All-American in high school. However, I quit. I left. After one year at the University of Alabama, we got out for the summer and one of the alumni got me a job. And I was making some money. I never really had any money. My mom and I were just low-income sort of people living in that federal housing project. So as I got some money, I got a car and got a job and started partying and goofing off and playing around. And when it came time in August to report back for two days, I called up Coach Sam Bailey at the University of Alabama and told him I wasn’t coming back. He knew a lot of expletives, that’s curse words, so he let me have it and told me they were counting on me to be a starting offensive tackle. that I needed to get my fanny back down there where I belong. However, if you’re arrogant like I was at that time and probably still can be today, you don’t see yourself as you really are, you see yourself as you think you are. Arrogant people always justify why they’re right and everybody else is wrong. And in my arrogance, I wouldn’t listen, because I mean, I had an apartment, I had a car, I had a job, I had some money, I had a girlfriend. What did I need school for? Is that not dumb or what? And so I meandered off down what we call the my way highway. Maybe you’ve been on that road before, the my way highway. And for about three years, it was my way. But, you know, I was unhappy when I left school. I wasn’t fulfilled. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t really willing to pay the price that needed to be paid to be the kind of athlete that they needed because I was just too lazy. And after three years on the my way highway, I saw what a mistake I had made. You know, the Aborigines in Australia have a boomerang and they throw it out. And if it hits the animal they’re trying to get for dinner, well then it’ll knock it down and they can run and get it. But if it misses, it’ll return to them. My mom bought me a boomerang one time and I immediately threw it and it went up on the roof and I never saw it again. But anyhow, my life boomeranged from misery and unhappiness to triple the compound misery and unhappiness. I mean, I had the car, I had the apartment, I had the different girlfriends, I had the money, I had the job. But inside, there was this searchlight that would go around in my soul. And this searchlight would show me all the stupid things I’d done. And I knew, I knew inside that I was just such a loser. And I didn’t have any peace with God. I didn’t even think about God. I never went to church my whole life. Nobody in my family really went to church. And so I didn’t go. I think maybe once when I was 11, my mother sent me to a camp, a church camp in Mississippi called French Camp Academy. And she got rid of me for three months and I went down there and I heard about God. Yes, I did. But I didn’t get enough information clearly to understand it nor to actually come to know him through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that summer, I guess three years out of college, I was at Panama City with some friends, goofing off. we would all go down there in the summer and hang out at a play and go to a place called the hangout and that’s where of course we would drink beer and chase girls and fight fight on the beach you know fight and you know after a while that got old and then some reason another i got tired of it and i got in my little sports car my little mustang 390 cubic inch mustang and a came back to Birmingham, which is about 250 mile trip from the Gulf Coast back up to Birmingham. My roommate wanted to know, what are you doing home? Why did you come back? What’s wrong? And I said, I don’t know, man. I’m just sick of it. And it was just nothing was adding up. Nothing was adding up. And so he said, well, tell you what, let’s do. Let’s go to the river and let’s get the boat. He had a little boat and We could get the beer in the boat and ice it down and go to the river and park it on the sandbar and watch the girls ski up and down the river. That was our objective on Sunday. However, Saturday was a different story. On Saturday I wandered into a shopping area and ran into an old girl. A girl I knew in high school named Jane and she had been a cheerleader. And Jane saw me and I saw Jane and we were talking and I was trying to flirt with her a little bit as I would have done with any beautiful girl. And I said, would you consider going out with me? And she said, well, where would you like to go? And I said, well, how about, you know, we go to the drive-in, go to the drive-in. Drive-in theater was big in those days because we’d park on the back row and fog up the windows, make out. And she wasn’t for that at all. No, we’re not going to the drive-in. And I said, okay, well, how about I pick you up and we go get something to eat and maybe go cruising? No, not that. Okay, well, give me the phone number. So I got her phone number. Next day was Sunday. On Sunday, we went to the river, got the boat loaded up with beer, launched the boat, parked a truck at the top of the hill, went back down the hill, and the boat floated off, sunk, and all the beer left. I forgot to put the plug in the back end of the boat, and it sunk. Well, my roommate wasn’t too happy about that, but that was that, so we had to come back home early on Sunday afternoon. And it was on that Sunday afternoon that I called Jane back up again after seeing her on Saturday. And I said, Jane, it’s Rick. And would you consider going out with me tonight? And she said, yes, if you’ll go to church. And I went, what? Go where? Where? Church. listen don’t laugh now I hear you laughing right now listen when you get hard up for a date you’ll take church so I said okay I’ll go to church so I picked her up in my little Mustang and went over to this little church and she wanted to go down to the front row and I’m like no way uh uh sat in the back and I didn’t pay attention I didn’t listen I was looking around at all the weird people and thinking you know if I get out of here I’m not coming back it was really strange because I’d never been there before And the preacher, I guess he did a great job. He didn’t yell and scream or anything like that. But at the end, they gave an invitation and they asked people to come forward. And she looked at me and grabbed my hand and she said, would you like to go forward and talk with the pastor? And I said, nope. And she said, well, I’m going to go down there and pray for you. So Miss Jane left me and peeled off and went down to the front of the church, took the pastor by the hand, and they knelt at the altar, and they were praying for me. I left. I got outside, cranked the car up, and I thought, if that woman doesn’t come on, I’m going to leave her here. Well, while I was out there idling in the little hot Mustang, this dude comes up to me, fellow football player named Larry, and he said, aren’t you Big Rick? Aren’t you Rick Hughes? And I said, yeah, how do you know that? He said, I’m Larry, and I play football at Alabama. And I was a freshman in high school when you were a senior. I used to look up to you. And he said, I was surprised when I got to Alabama and you weren’t there. What happened? Where did you go? Well, I didn’t know what to tell him. I just beat around the bush. And then Larry told me something unbelievable. He said, I’ve met somebody that changed my life, and you need to meet him. I thought he was talking about a football coach or another friend or something, an investment. I said, well, who is it? And he said, it’s Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and you really need him, Rick. While he said that, I sat there stunned, and about that time, Jane came out of that church and jumped in the other side of the car on the passenger side, and she said, come on, we’re gonna go to a house party. And so I drove over there, and it wasn’t what I thought it was. It was a Bible study. And most of the kids were younger than me. Actually, I was 22 and most of them were like 18, seniors, 18, 19, 17. And we sat down and a gentleman from South Africa named Winston got up and began to speak and he would call on people to stand up and tell their testimony. And one after another, so many of those young people stood up and said they knew if they died, they would go to heaven. They knew if they died, they would go to heaven. Well, that was the one thing I knew. If I died, I was not going to heaven. I was sure of that. And I sat there that night and listened to these people, and it began to dawn on me that maybe I should talk with Winston. I mean, I just never talked to people about stuff like that. I didn’t even own a Bible. But when it was over, I went up and introduced myself and shook his hand. He wasn’t very big. I could just crush his hand and mine and I said, can I talk to you for a minute? I don’t even know what I wanted to talk about. But we went in the back and he produced a Bible and he began to read scripture to me. And he asked me that question, if you died today, would you go to heaven? And I said, I don’t think so. He said, would you like to go to heaven? And I said, yes, everybody wants to go to heaven. He asked me, did I know how? And I said, well, you know, straighten up, fly right, quit cussing, quit drinking, quit fighting, and, you know, maybe God will let me come in. And he just laughed, and he said, no, that’s not the way it is. And he read a verse to me that said, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God, not of works, unless someone would brag about it. And he said, Rick, you can be saved here today, not by trying to be good, but by being obedient. Then he read where it said, whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And he asked me, did I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God? And I said, well, yeah. I mean, everybody believes that, don’t they? Sure. He said, well, would you be willing to accept him as your Savior? And I said, yes, I would. We got on our knees in this house, and he led me in a prayer. I think they called it the sinner’s prayer. I don’t remember the words exactly, but I said something to the effect that, Father, I know I’m a sinner. believe your son died for me and I’m willing to accept him as my Savior I didn’t feel anything no flashing lights no trumpets no harps I just prayed the same prayer he led me in and when he got through he said did you mean that and I said yeah a minute and he said then where do you think Christ is now And I just involuntarily said, I guess he’s in me. He said, yes, he’s in you. He showed me the verse where he says, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. I give unto them eternal life and they will never perish. Neither shall any man ever pluck him out of my father’s hand. So that was the day that I accepted Christ as my Savior. My girlfriend Jane, the girl I went with, was just thrilled about that. A lot of people ask me, did you marry Jane? The answer is no, I married Lydia from Baton Rouge. But anyhow, Jane was instrumental in that night. And as we went back to her house, her little sister was there and she was crying and she said, I’ve never been saved. And I said, well, why don’t you do what I did? And we got down on our knees together and I prayed with her the same prayer that guy prayed with me and Jane’s little sister accepted Christ. It wasn’t long after that that Larry had an invitation, the football player at Alabama, remember the guy that came up to the car? He had an invitation to go speak in a little small Methodist church in a place called Sandusky, Alabama. He asked me would I ride with him and I said, sure. And we went out together. And when he got up to speak, after he was through, the pastor issued an invitation and no one really came forward. So the pastor called on me and he said, would you like to say anything, sir, before I close the service? And I don’t remember what I said, but whatever it was, it appealed to those who were there because we had an altar full of people when I got through. And we didn’t know what to do. We just went around praying with each one of them individually, asking them if they died, would they go to heaven, and When we left that church, Larry looked at me and he said, God’s got his hand on you. Something’s going on with you. Later that week, we’re in a Bible study, and we’re about 10 of us sitting around reading a Bible, and my verse was this. This was the verse I was supposed to read. Pray for me that utterance may be given unto me to open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I’m an ambassador in bonds. And everybody just kind of looked at me and said, do you know what you read? Yeah, I don’t know what it means, but yeah, I know what I read. I had to make a decision about college. I had an opportunity to go back to the University of Alabama and finish my football career with eligibility still left. But I decided to enroll in Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham. And it was through Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham I began to work with Youth for Christ International hosting bible study clubs in various high schools across birmingham and it was through those bible study clubs that i had my first opportunity to speak to a high school assembly that was banks high school in birmingham in 1968 and there must have been maybe 1800 students in the gym 900 on one side 900 on the other side and Big Rick in the middle down there under the goal post trying to talk, and they listened reverently and politely. My old high school coach was actually the principal of that school by that time. When it was over, several students came up to me and told me they had committed their life to Christ while I was speaking. Things began to happen really fast after that. I was speaking at a school in Mississippi. Three men heard me over there and they said, if we could get the permission from the governor, would you go to every school in our state? And I said, yeah, sure. And so in 1971 and 72, In 72 and 73, I spoke in, I think it’s around 430 high schools across that state. It was three assemblies a day, 15 assemblies a week, week out, week in, week out, week in. I don’t really know how I did it. It took a lot of energy, but I was young at the time, so I was able to handle it. And we had thousands of students who had told us they had accepted Christ. But one thing led to another, and eventually all of these assemblies turned into spiritual emphasis weeks, where we would then, instead of going for one 15-minute show, we would go for one week, five assemblies. I found out it was much more effective to stay there over a long period of time, and it was just by accident because one of the schools invited me to be their spiritual emphasis week speaker. And when I did that, I saw this is what I need to do. That’s who I am. That’s how I started. That’s what I’ve been doing for years. I just returned from a school in Mississippi a couple of weeks ago and now we’re headed to Texas this weekend to speak for a Wounded Warrior Convention in Texas. I hope I’ve brought you up to date. I hope I’ve let you know who I am. This is me and I am the host of The Flotline. My objective is to give you information that will help you verify and identify God’s plan. We also have a podcast. You can always check us out on the podcast on Spotify or Apple iPod or anything like that by looking for The Flot Line. The Flat Line. And if you go to our website, rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, that’s plural, and you’ll find all sorts of books and material we’ve written and we give away everything absolutely free. There’s never a charge for anything from this ministry because I believe if God’s in it, he will always pay for it. So I hope you’ll check us out. I hope you’ll come to the website, drop us a note, order some books, order whatever you’d like. And I hope that you will continue to listen to the radio show now that you know who I am, because we’ll be back next week at the same time on the same station with a little bit of a different message now that you know who I am. So I appreciate you listening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. It’s been my great honor, and I look forward to being with you next week. So until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
