Feature story by Kimberly Garlick

McGillivray sees God's providence in his life at Cedarville

By Kimberly Garlick

The moment you walk into his office, you see a man who is creating a legacy. On the walls are pictures of his various sports teams from years dating back to the 1970’s. He can remember records and scores from decades ago. But more importantly, if you ask to see the pictures, he can recall the names of a majority of the players because he has built relationships with them and continues to do so with his current players.

John McGillivray has been coaching at Cedarville University for 38 years. During that time he has held many different roles and impacted hundreds of students, something he hoped he would be able to do because it would combine his passions of sports and working with young people.

“I didn’t see myself sitting in an office behind a desk,” he said. “I saw myself being active.”

And looking back on the years he has spent at Cedarville, one common trend emerges from his work with athletes to his personal, home life — God’s providence at work.

McGillivray spent his first year of college at Ohio University. Soon after, he married his high school sweetheart, Bonnie, and considered transferring to the Dayton Campus, which is now Wright State. However, McGillivray said God had another plan.

He instead transferred to Cedarville College, where he graduated with a degree in teaching in 1970 with two different fields of focus — general science and  health and physical education. During that time he was exposed to the gospel, which he said led to his true confirmation of accepting Christ as his personal savior.

After graduation he accepted a teaching job at a middle school. He hoped that one day he would be able to return to Cedarville to coach in some way. Though he anticipated that being 10 or 15 years down the road, he said God’s providence worked to bring him back in 1974.

At that time he accepted the position of men’s soccer coach, which he said could only be providential considering only months before he “did not know how many guys were on a team.” Still, McGillivray, who goes by Coach Mac, took the job, which also entailed teaching some service classes such as golf, tennis and archery. In his first year as coach, the men’s soccer team went to the NAIA Nationals and finished sixth in the nation.

It was not long before he began helping Elvin King with coaching track and field, an area where McGillivray had some experience. Though remaining under King, he became the women’s track and field coach for the first five years of the team’s existence. In the 38 years that he has been coaching at Cedarville, he said he has spent somewhere between 30 and 35 years working with the track and field team in some way.

Then in 1998 he left coaching men’s soccer to fill in for coaching women’s soccer, which was in its second year of existence. This was a position he said he did not plan on holding for more than a few years. But, again, he said God’s providence kept him there, and that is where he is today.

Not only has he seen God’s providence in his years at Cedarville, but he has also been able to look back and see God’s hand early on in his life.

McGillivray said that a few years back there was a girl who played club soccer in the area. Though she showed some interest in Cedarville, she ultimately decided to go elsewhere to play Division I ball. Later, McGillivray learned that this girl had been died in a tragic fall in which alcohol played a role. It was not until that time that McGillivray realized that God had protected him from what could have been a similar situation by means of his friend back when he was at Ohio University.

“I look back at that girl and it hit me that there was a time when God protected me, and I had no clue that His hand was watching over me,” he said. “Sometimes God reveals things to you later in life.”
He said he now likes to include that story whenever he gives his testimony. But God’s providence has showed up in other every-day ways in his life as well.

He and his wife married young, and they had three children by the time he was two weeks out of college. This young start is something Bonnie McGillivray would not recommend for others, though she sees how they were fortunate to have had the support of family as well as friends at Cedarville.

“We have so much to be thankful for. It’s just like God held us there in His hand when we did not deserve it,” she said. “We made a lot of mistakes, and we were such kids — kids raising kids.”

The McGillivrays have five children, and though he was away a great deal with his coaching jobs, McGillivray had the opportunity to spend some unique time with his oldest daughter, Beth, who was the national high jump champion three straight years. He said he enjoyed being able to spend that time with her while acting as her coach.

And now he has a similar opportunity with the oldest of his grandchildren, Megan Kuhn, a sophomore at Cedarville. Though the McGillivrays do not push Kuhn to come over, they said they enjoy the time they spend together and she does as well.

McGillivray said that he thinks he may coach four more years, though he is not sure what his plans are for teaching in the future. No matter how long he remains at Cedarville, McGillivray will always have the same joy in interacting with students, because that is what he sees as being important.

“You like to win championships. You like people to say, ‘Wow, your team is awesome,’” he said. “But bottom line is when kids come back and talk about the friendships, how they’ve grown in Christ here, how God’s used them, those are the things that get me most excited.”