The Grandfather of FCA Michigan

Published on October 30, 2025

Mickey Seward

The year was 1964.

Beatlemania had invaded the United States, the first Ford Mustang hit showrooms (and cost a whopping $2,400) and the Cleveland Browns were an NFL powerhouse. It was also the year Bruce Oosterhouse joined a young ministry called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Six decades later, the Fab Four is a distant memory, the Mustang is nearly unrecognizable (and costs 20 times its original price) and the Browns are, well … the Browns. But to this day, Oosterhouse, 81, remains a steady, reliable fixture with FCA. From his days as a football player at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, to his hall of fame career as a teacher, baseball and football coach and basketball referee, to his current, longstanding role as a state and local FCA Board-member — as long as FCA has been active in Michigan, Oosterhouse has been right there with it.

"He has done anything and everything in the ministry," said Brian Broekhuizen, FCA Director for Kent County, Michigan. "He is simply the pioneer and grandfather of FCA, not just in Western Michigan, but the entire state."

A LIFELONG BOND WITH FCA

While Oosterhouse was playing at Hope in 1964, his coach told the team he was starting something on campus called FCA. It was the first time Oosterhouse had heard of FCA, and it started a lifelong relationship with the organization that has changed countless lives among coaches and athletes across Michigan.

A few years later, with a degree in hand and while teaching at a high school, Oosterhouse contacted FCA’s new State Director, the first in Michigan. The director invited Oosterhouse to join the state Leadership Board, which was gearing up for its first meeting, and lead FCA in Western Michigan. The young coach learned from fellow board members like Watson Spoelstra, a writer for The Detroit News who later started Baseball Chapel, and Stanley Kresge, a leader in the S.S. Kresge Company (later Kmart Corporation) and the Kresge Foundation.

“I was 24 years old,” Oosterhouse said. “I didn’t know anybody. I couldn’t help but think, ‘Man, this is so exciting. We’re going to start FCA in the state of Michigan.’”

In 1969, he began a streak of attending FCA Camps that hasn’t stopped. But Oosterhouse’s attendance streak isn’t the only thing about the Michigan FCA Sports Camp that has grown through the years; so has the number of participants. About 150 people attended that first camp. This year, there were close to 800. The camp has made as profound an impact on Oosterhouse as it has on the students.

“I was exposed to other coaches,” he said. “Some were college coaches, some professional coaches, and I just fell in love with this because I could see how it was impacting people. It really changed me and impacted my life.”

That first camp was also where he was encouraged to start an FCA Huddle at Kenowa Hills High School in Grand Rapids, where he taught and coached before being inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame. He’s also a member of the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.

“Our first meeting, we had one kid,” he remembered. “So we went from there. But it caught on, and I led that Huddle for 40 years."

Along with the school Huddle, Oosterhouse also started an FCA adult chapter in 1974 that continues today.

FAITH AND FELLOWSHIP THROUGH COACHING

Oosterhouse said he was attracted to FCA as a young coach because he felt it would be an easy vehicle to share his faith with other coaches and athletes. Through the years, he’s found that coaches have poured into him as much as he has into them.

“I have met people who, when we sat down and talked, it wasn’t about X’s and O’s,” he said. “It was about friendships. College coaches would ask me how they could pray for me, and I would be taken aback. I’d think, ‘I ought to be praying for you.’ The ‘F’ in FCA is so important. It’s important for coaches to be around other coaches and to have that fellowship.”

It was through relationships with coaches — and a lot of prayer — that Oosterhouse made a crucial decision about whether he wanted to focus on pursuing success in the world or be 100% committed to the Lord. He said it took him a while, but he finally concluded that winning and success were good, but nothing compares to living fully for God. It’s a message he routinely shares with other coaches and athletes.

“Without the Lord, none of this makes sense,” he said. “There’s more to life than winning and losing. It’s about helping kids through winning and losing. It’s about helping kids build their lives around what’s essential and really important. There’s nothing in this world that will satisfy you and give you peace other than the Lord. I try to help the coaches and students I talk to have a full understanding of what God’s sovereign plan was for me in my life, I try to help them understand that God has a sovereign plan for their life and to put their faith and trust in God, no matter if times are good or bad.”

LESSONS FROM THE COURT AND BEYOND

Not that all the times have been good for Oosterhouse. Along with his teaching and coaching days, he also spent 33 years as a high school basketball official. Wearing zebra stripes for that long doesn’t endear you to everyone.

"I want to tell you, a lot of people have yelled at me," he said. "People would ask me how to handle it when you’re refereeing and people are screaming at you. I tell them, ‘You just keep going.’”

He said the game doesn’t stop, so you do the best you can and keep moving forward. There’s no time to be worried or embarrassed about the game as you call it. There was one thing, however, that made him feel awkward. But it happened away from the court.

“I never missed a Leadership Board meeting, and the one time I did, the rest of the Board did this without my knowledge,” he said.

The offense? They established the Coach O Award in his honor. It is presented annually by Kent County FCA to someone who displays FCA’s Values of Integrity, Serving, Teamwork and Excellence.

“Frankly, I was a little embarrassed at first,” he said. “But they insisted they were going to do it. One of the awards went to one of my former players who was a Huddle coach. He gave me a big hug and said, ‘Coach, this award means so much to me.’ I have to admit, it made me weep a little.”

REFLECTING ON DECADES OF IMPACT

When Oosterhouse, who, with his wife, Mary, has five children and 15 grandchildren, looks back on his six decades of serving the Lord through FCA, he sees significant changes that have led to ministry growth in full-time leadership and participants. But even today, it’s a ministry based on volunteerism — business people, coaches, parents and others who have been 100% committed to the Lord and to reaching coaches and athletes with the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Through all the changes of the past six decades, Oosterhouse has remained a steady fixture in FCA in Michigan. His commitment to faith, fellowship and the next generation of coaches and athletes is a reminder that while the world may change, some legacies stand the test of time.

“It’s pretty incredible as you look back and see the impact that it’s had on hundreds of thousands of kids who have gone to camp or had an FCA experience at school, or even the coaches we’ve reached through coaches clinics,” he said. “I get to see kids’ lives change. I get to see coaches’ lives change. And that’s what it’s all about.”

-FCA-

Photos courtesy of Bruce and Mary Oosterhouse