Football, Church Help Sustain Higgins Family after Tragedy

By Jake Sutherlin 

Several years ago, Trevor and Jeri Ann Higgins had planned for Trevor to step away from coaching in 2022. Their oldest son, Evan, would be around 7 years old and starting to participate in his own sports and activities, and neither parent wanted coaching commitments to get in the way of some of those early moments.  

But in January 2023, the family announced that Trevor would return as head football coach of the Pana High School Panthers in Pana, Ill., where he has a 62-12 record with four conference titles and six playoff berths.  

A lot had changed in a few years. 

On July 28, 2019, 4-year-old Evan passed away in a swimming accident outside the family’s home. And a year later, Trevor accepted a full-time worship ministry position at First Christian Church in Moweaqua, Ill., ending a 14-year tenure as physical education teacher at Pana Junior High School. The couple also have two younger children—daughter Madilyn and her older brother, Owen.  

With such upheaval in their lives over the past several years, and the added strain of being a coach’s wife (which she’s been for 18 years now), Jeri Ann was ready for the coaching gig to be over, and it seemed like Trevor was, too.  

But in mid-October 2022 that started to change. 

On Friday night, Oct. 14, Trevor’s Panthers were hosting rival North Mac High School (Virden, Ill.) in a late-season conference-title decider. North Mac was heavily favored to win—but that’s not what happened. Pana outslugged North Mac 42-21 and beat Carlinville the following week to claim a share of the South Central Conference championship, the Panthers’ third consecutive conference title. 

Pana senior quarterback Max Lynch recalled Coach Higgins “running down the sideline and jumping into the air and doing a 360” after Lynch threw a touchdown pass against North Mac. 

Jeri Ann chuckled as she remembered that game. 

“That’s when the ‘When I’m done coaching’ became the ‘If I’m done coaching,’” she said. 

A SPECIAL BOND 

Lynch and his 2023 graduating class share a special bond with the Higgins family. They were entering their freshman year the summer Evan passed away—two weeks before the start of the football season.  

“They’ve been with us through the thick of it,” Jeri Ann said. “We always said, ‘We can’t leave before this team graduates.’” 

In a culmination of that bond, this past year the team’s seniors gifted Coach Higgins a Bible at their team banquet—a surprising gift for a public high school football coach. 

The Bible has the Panthers’ logo and Trevor’s name on the front, and this message inscribed on the back: “Thanks for teaching us more than football.”  

“His goal for us is more than football,” Lynch said. “He wants us to be hard workers and fathers and followers of God. He didn’t push that onto us, but he was always available to talk about it.” 

About a year ago when the Higgins shared their testimony at a local church, three pews were filled with players, coaches, and families from Pana High School—a ringing endorsement of the family’s impact on the community. 

“They’re an inspiration to this town, to really all of Central Illinois, to anyone who hears their story,” Lynch said. 

The outpouring of love and affirmation from the outgoing seniors is a big reason why Trevor decided to remain coach, despite living 25 minutes away in Moweaqua, where he serves with FCC.  

“We looked at the seniors’ gift with our family and the church eldership, and we felt like we were trying to close a door that God wanted to keep open for now,” Trevor said.  

“Even the eldership recognized that he does more ministry on that field throughout the week than he could . . . on a Sunday morning,” Jeri Ann added.  

Trevor sees his football coaching job as ministry. It’s the opportunity to influence 50-plus kids along with their families and friends and to glorify God all the while.  

And Trevor is grateful to be able to both coach and serve full-time in ministry, even if the latter position was a long time coming. 

A SLOW PATH TO MINISTRY 

“Even back in high school, when I decided to go to Lincoln [Christian University] to get into ministry, I was the less obvious of the two of us who should be in ministry,” said Ryan Baker, lead minister at FCC, the church where both he and Trevor grew up. Baker called Trevor his first friend. They went to preschool together and were in the same small group back in high school, and Baker was there for the Higginses in the immediate aftermath of Evan’s death. 

And Baker is who finally convinced Trevor to try ministry.  

Three years ago, after almost a year of counseling after Evan’s death, Baker texted Trevor and asked him to swing by the church building.  

“We thought he was probably just checking in on us,” Jeri Ann said. 

Minutes earlier, Trevor told their counselor he had been praying for a new door to open. That was precisely what Baker had in mind. 

“We sat down with the elders a little while later, and everything just went smoothly,” said Jeri Ann, who said she doubts her husband would have felt equipped for full-time ministry if not for the events of the preceding year. 

“When his son died, it was devastating and changed a lot,” Baker said. “It influenced his perspective. I’ve seen him grow in his eternal perspective; his urgency for heaven is off the charts. It’s literally what he’s living for. He works it into every conversation and thing that he does.” 

“The experiences in my life have led me here,” Trevor said. “I wish I could say it’s always been that way.” 

He said his mother’s death from cancer in 2010, along with his son’s death in 2019, created in him a whole new understanding, motivation, and urgency.  

“I’ve been at rock bottom, and without God I don’t know if I’d be here today,” Trevor said. “When you hit rock bottom, your faith is tested . . . and you have a decision to make: stay mad or angry and say life means nothing and that you’re done, or put your faith into action and trust that God knows what he’s doing.” 

“Our life circumstances forced us to dig deep,” Jeri Ann added. “We were in the Word a lot the year after our son’s passing, poring over the Bible. During that time, we had to fill our minds with something, and if it wasn’t the Bible or worship music, it was going to be very dark. Worship music was like oxygen in our home; we needed it during that time.” 

SERVING ON CHURCH STAFF 

Trevor served as youth minister his first year on staff at FCC, but when the worship minister role opened, he slid right in. It’s a position Jeri Ann always imagined for her husband.  

Baker said Trevor is a gifted guitarist and musician who led worship during their junior high years. Trevor credited the energy, excitement, and movement of Christ In Youth bands with inspiring him to worship with greater sincerity.  

And that sincerity and authenticity have come to define his Sunday morning worship sets. He tells his volunteers and worship teams that when they are obedient to God in their daily lives, their worship on Sunday will be an overflow of that faithfulness. It won’t feel like a performance or a show. 

Jeri Ann works as a radiology supervisor, and her extra efforts help to free up time for Trevor to serve in his dual roles as high school football coach and worship minister. And for his part, Trevor, with help from his assistant football coaches, is planning a more deliberate and tactical approach to leading his football squad. Practices will sometimes be shorter (if all the work can be completed quickly), and sometimes Trevor (who also serves as offensive coordinator) will stay home with family if a practice is solely focused on defense. Additionally, coaches will rotate in their weight room duties, which will free up some time. 

“Faith, family, friends, and football,” Jeri Ann said. 

When Trevor first got into coaching, his wife wasn’t sure he’d always be able to keep those priorities straight, but Trevor has done a good job with it. 

LIVING OUT THEIR FAITH 

Trevor sees faith and family as integral parts of football. Coaching the sport is an opportunity to reach students and families who would never enter a church building. 

And while Trevor has never been brash or forceful about what he believes, people have always known where he stands and what he values.  

“Kids know how important [faith] is to him without him saying it because he lives it,” Jeri Ann said. “It’s not like we go to games and sit in the stands and read our Bibles, but it’s evident in our schedules and priorities. They really had to see it a few years ago.” 

The family makes it to just about every home game. And little Owen’s growing love of football was another reason for returning for another year of coaching. His older brother had been a huge football fan. 

“Evan used to refer to the team as his football players, not his dad’s,” Jeri Ann said. “‘My football players,’ he’d say.”  

Some of those players served as pallbearers at Evan’s funeral and carried the banner made in his honor out onto the football field before games. Evan’s legacy lives on through the “Love What Matters” scholarship the Higgins family sponsors for two graduating seniors every year. 

Through his faith and his family, Trevor rediscovered a love for football last year, evidenced by his touchdown celebration last October.  

And his love and commitment to his players and coaches is a big part of what has made his family’s impact on the football culture in Pana so strong and so successful.  

“He’s everything you could ask for in a coach,” said quarterback Max Lynch. “[He’s] a nice guy who is understanding of situations on and off the field, the type of man you want to lead a team. He’s always respectful and calm. He wouldn’t yell at us if we messed up; we’d just stop and walk through the plays until we found what we needed to change.” 

FOOTBALL FAMILY + CHURCH FAMILY 

Leaving that culture and those connections felt impossible for the Higgins family at the end of last season. Pana and its high school football have become a family for them. 

And Trevor’s immersion into full-time ministry also is bearing fruit. 

Baker said Trevor’s vulnerability helped facilitate deeper conversations and staff connections at a recent FCC retreat. 

“He was willing to address the elephant in the room,” Baker said. “You could tell it was hard, but his transparency was contagious.” 

His deeper level of trust in God also is evident in the way he prepares for Sunday worship services. A note on his desk reads: “Lord, this is your worship service. Please plan it how you want it.” 

And he finds great joy in enabling others to serve and lead during worship.  

And through it all, the Higginses feel they have had two different families—the Pana football squad and First Christian in Moweaqua; both are blessings from God who have helped them make it through the past few years. 

“He knew we’d need two families to make it through,” Jeri Ann said. 

She admits that balancing these families is tough and life can get crazy at times, with Trevor losing his voice on a Friday or Saturday night and croaking through a worship song on Sunday morning. But the Higgins family is continuing to serve—confident that God will continue to honor their lives through both the hills and valleys. 

Jake Sutherlin earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. He lives in Colorado.