F3 Cardinal and the victory of broken hearts

He died after collapsing in the gloom. But that was only the beginning of the story.

Left to right: KickFlip, Skeletor (holding photo), Bobbitt, Piston
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They sat in the waiting room—F3 Skeletor, F3 Feeny and F3 Bobbitt. Their F3 brother, Cardinal, had collapsed during a workout near Knoxville that Wednesday morning, and somewhere in the hospital, doctors tried to save his life.

Cardinal’s wife, Andrea, sat with them. Bobbitt introduced himself as Kevin Gray, his name everywhere but the gloom. That did Andrea no good. Many F3 men don’t know their F3 brothers’ real names. There’s no way a wife would. “What’s your F3 name?” she asked.

“When I said ‘Bobbitt,’” he says, “she flashed a genuine, knowing smile.”

A nurse called Andrea to another room.

The F3 men heard her sobs. They pretended they came from someone else.

Soon the nurse came out and shared the news. Taylor “Cardinal” Phelps, 36, husband, father of two, pastor, had died.

“We just slumped. It didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem possible,” Bobbitt says. “The nurse came back out with cups of water for the three of us and was in tears herself.”

They were too stunned to leave. Where would they go? Was there somewhere this horrible news wasn’t true? Maybe if they stayed the truth would change. Skeletor turned to Bobbitt and said, “I feel like we’re still waiting on some different news.” 

The news did not change, but in the coming hours and days it was transformed. Out of tragedy came a tidal wave of support. Out of grief came a groundswell of grace. Out of the deep loneliness of that hospital waiting room came such a deluge of community-inspired love that the men who experienced it will never be the same.

“Iron sharpens iron,” says Dan “Steam” Henson, who runs communications for F3 Knoxville, “has never felt so real.” 

‘A brotherhood of men’

Dave “KickFlip” Greer, F3 Knoxville’s nantan, worked out elsewhere that morning. When he got to his truck, he found “call me immediately” messages on his phone. He headed toward the hospital. Bobbitt called. He’s the leader of the location where Cardinal collapsed, so it fell to him to deliver the devastating news. Says KickFlip: “I’ll remember his words and the sound of his voice for the rest of my life: ‘We lost him.’”  

Word spread from the small circle of Cardinal’s Ramparts AO into the wider Knoxville F3 community and then beyond. The response started local. It did not stay there. It went national, then international, and became impossible to keep up with.

Someone posted Cardinal’s workout—the first he ever led—on Slack and encouraged the men of F3 Nation to do it in his honor. KickFlip started a GoFundMe account with what he jokes now was a “profoundly uninspired” goal of $1,000. The men of F3 Nation have donated more than 100 times that—$100,458. To donate, click here.

And it wasn’t just the money. It was the love, in the admittedly strange form of men wearing red shirts and doing Cardinal’s workout—the highlight of which was 100 burpees spread throughout 45 minutes. Cardinal put in the burpees because he was taking part in MABA—Make America Burpee Again—a challenge in which participants complete 100 burpees per day in January.

The color of the shirts told a deep story about F3 and fellowship. Cardinal’s nickname was Cardinal because he hates the Louisville Cardinals, rivals of his beloved Kentucky Wildcats. He took the sarcastic moniker in stride and knew the men who laughed about it were laughing with him, not at him. Still, he made it clear with his Slack avatar—a Kentucky Wildcat choking a Louisville Cardinal—that he was not converting no matter what everybody called him.

The sea of red in his honor marbled funny and sad together. “It’s a lovely tribute in the truest fashion of good-natured F3 ribbing,” Bobbitt said. “I’m sure he’s in heaven humbled by all of this but also shaking his head at us.”

When pictures from those workouts from Kenya to Kansas and everywhere in between started showing up on Slack, Instagram and Twitter, Davis “Blindside” Bodie did what he does best: He created a Google form, which he used to track the numbers. He tried to keep up with the updates in real time and couldn’t. Nobody could. They came in too fast and in too big of numbers.

“I was working through the #mumblechatter, #1stF channels, and Twitter and I looked up and it had been an hour and a half,” he says. “I was literally just scrolling-->right click-->save as -->scrolling-->right click-->save as ... over and over again. Ninety minutes straight—and I was only about a third of the way through.”

Blindside’s Google doc shows 3,854 men have done Cardinal’s workout. They posted at 295 AOs in 132 regions—and those totals creep up more every day. “The sheer numbers and volumes of men across the world have floored me—all for a man they never met,” Blindside said.

Blindside wrestled with the same issues of loneliness that Cardinal had, and he found the same solace in F3 that Cardinal did. In the gloom he finds men who love him. “The tributes and memorials for Cardinal need to be shouted from the mountaintops,” he says. “Not just because we need to honor and remember him and his family because we ABSOLUTELY NEED TO, but because men all over the country, all over the world, need to see that this is more than a workout. This is more than getting up before the sun and working out in a parking lot or local park. This is truly a brotherhood of men from every walk of life, from every moment of their journey of life, and from every possible background.” 

‘Something healing was happening’

The men of F3 Knoxville spent the few days after Cardinal’s death running on eye-clearing adrenaline while simultaneously pushing through a dense fog of grief. There were texts, calls, Slack chatter, a prayer vigil, somber workouts, rucks where little was said, lunches where food was moved around more than it was eaten.

Plans were made for a Saturday morning workout to complete the beatdown Cardinal started but didn’t finish. Soon it became clear: This was going to be huge. They made plans to feed 200, marshaled a team of photographers, parceled out responsibilities.

The sun still a rumor, they arrived in trickles at first. As the workout’s start time approached, the trickle became a flood. Dozens of shovelflags representing AOs from across the region fluttered in the breeze. They formed a circle of 160 men, many of them with red eyes to match their red shirts.

Andrea, deep with exhaustion and grief after losing her father the Friday before, stood with Clay, one of her and Cardinal’s two children. KickFlip stepped to the center of the circle and addressed the men. “Three days ago, our brother Cardinal stood here and started to lead his first F3 workout. Sadly, he would not finish. Today, Cardinal is rejoicing in Heaven—he is with his Savior whom he loved and served in this life. We are back to complete what he started. Those who were closest to him will lead us in the workout that he intended for us to do. We do this as a tribute to his memory and to the brotherhood that we shared with him.”

Piston, who first invited Cardinal to F3, led the workout. It opened with five burpees. Piston paused there—the point at which Cardinal collapsed—for a moment of silence.

Everyone knelt.

Bobbitt burst into tears.

“Biohack put his arm around my shoulder as the moment passed,” he says. “Then the work began. I dried my tears, moved back to my group and got to it. It was freeing. We talked while we worked. There was laughter. I told a couple of Cardinal tidbits to guys who hadn’t had the honor of meeting him. There was something healing happening.”

Every F3 workout ends in “name-o-rama,” in which each participant says his real name, his age, and his F3 name, then the group repeats the F3 name out loud. It usually takes a minute, if that. This one took 9 minutes. Usually the leader of the workout—the Q in F3 parlance—fist bumps everyone along the way. This time, Bobbitt did the fist-bumping while Skeletor carried a framed picture of Cardinal.

They came upon Cardinal’s son, Clay, who had participated in the workout. Technically, he did not have an F3 name. Under normal circumstances, he would say FNG for his nickname, which stands for friendly new guy. But these were not normal circumstances. Bobbitt watched this young boy, sensed he had something in mind to say.

He stepped forward.

“Clayton Phelps,” he said.

“12,” he continued.

Did his eyes twinkle?

What did he have in mind?

With a voice soaked with sadness and echoing with strength, he shouted, “Cardinal Junior!”

The men erupted in response.

“CARDINAL JUNIOR!” 

Skeletor held Cardinal’s picture high and shouted. “Taylor Phelps, 36, Cardinal.”

The men erupted again.

They gathered in a giant circle around KickFlip. Wanting to give Cardinal the final word in this workout dedicated to him, he had looked through Cardinal’s sermons to find just the right quote. Fittingly, it was about hope, which seemed lost on Wednesday and now rained down upon them.

I wanted to take a minute to talk about searching – looking for something. I don’t like looking for anything – and I spend most of my life looking for my keys, my wallet, and my cell phone. 

And so, I have those three things that I’m constantly looking for. I’ve tried everything in the world. I’ve put them in the same place. I’ve put them in a basket by the door. I’ve hung them on the key rack. And it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m always looking for those three items. 

Maybe you find yourself that same way.

We can spend our lives looking and searching for something. And we can drive ourselves crazy searching for… HOPE. 

Hoping the New Year brings new life.

Hoping the New Year brings something different than last year. 

We can hope and search for something - but if we know Jesus, we have already found that something. 

In John Chapter 1, John the Baptist had just baptized Jesus and Jesus was teaching on the lamb of God, coming to be the sacrifice. And he notices that two of the disciples were following him after his teaching.  He looks at them and asks a simple question. “What are you looking for?” 

When we are looking for something … what are we looking for? 

Are we looking for hope in a New Year? 

Are we looking for hope in a president? 

Are we looking for hope in something that is beyond our control? 

Or are we searching for Christ? 

What are you looking for? 

Are you following, Jesus? 

Are you hoping in Him?

Are you resting in Him?

Are you seeking Him?

My prayer is that you are doing that today.”

Bobbitt’s role was to say a closing prayer. He and KickFlip had an agreement that if Bobbitt choked up, KickFlip would step in. No need. Bobbitt opened his mouth and gratitude and grace poured out. “Though our hearts are heavy, our hearts are full because of what You’ve done among us,” he said. “We thank You that we can stand here with broken hearts and continue to stand here in victory at the same time,” he said. “God, only you can do such a thing.”

I-Beam presented Andrea and Cardinal Jr. with a shovelflag, which are typically planted to mark where a workout begins and ends, with Cardinal’s name on it. “This flag represents the lives of men being changed,” I-Beam said. “Men who are moving from being passive participants in life, to being present—present in our families, present in our places of work and worship, present in our communities. When you see a shovelflag planted, know that the men of F3 are close by and ready to support whatever is in front of us. We present you with this special shovelflag so that you will always know that we are there with you.”

Cardinal Jr., as he will be forever known, expressed his disbelief and gratitude for all the tributes and honors shown to the man whose F3 name he now carries.

The physically and emotionally exhausted men looked around at each other as if to ask, now what? How do you end something that you don’t want to end—that you never wanted to start in the first place?

Someone started to sing.

It was quiet at first.

Then all 160 joined in.

“Praise God through whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.” 

Moving in unison

Cardinal’s funeral was Saturday, and his burial was Sunday, where one of the pastors who spoke was a friend of his. “I want to say thank you to the F3 guys, the support and the love that you've shown this family has just blessed my heart,” he said. “Taylor, or Cardinal, as y'all call him, kept telling me I need to come work out with you … and seeing how kind you’ve been almost makes me want to, but not quite, not yet.”

The Monday after the burial offered the first chance for the men of F3 Knoxville to return to normal. Could all of that really have happened just since Wednesday? They know a long road of grief awaits them. But they also know they can traverse it together and only together, and that the way to do that is by showing up for workouts like normal, even if they are anything but that.

Bobbitt pulled into his parking spot on Monday worried it would be lonely. It wasn’t. There were men there who shared his suffering. “The fist bumps and check-ins carried much more behind them,” he said. “I glanced over to the scene of the previous week’s horrifying events. I thought about Card wanting us to keep our regular routine that he loved so much. Feeny called the first exercise, and we began again to move in unison.”