This story was originally published on SECCountry.com.
Jill Freeze hadn’t even finished her answer to the first question on stage and her husband was in tears.
On Wednesday, former Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze made his first public appearance since resigning as the Rebels coach in July amid an NCAA investigation and evidence of personal misconduct.
It was a talk in front of the student body of Liberty University, where Freeze faced the fact that he had “not honored” his wife head-on during a speech by admitting his mistakes and asking for forgiveness from the crowd.
But it was the words of his wife that followed his speech that pulled out the most raw emotion of the afternoon.
“I can remember that moment of just screaming in my head,” Jill Freeze described in reference to her husband’s 2016 confession to her. “My prayer was this very eloquent prayer– ‘God, help me.’ That was it. And immediately it was like, are you going to focus on your hurt or are you going to focus on your healing? And I was like, ‘I want healing.’
“Immediately in that I was able to see him. His heart. I mean, I’ve lived with [Hugh] for 25 years. This man is the godliest man that I have ever known. I am who I am in Christ because of this man and the impact and influence he has had on me.”
The camera panned to Hugh Freeze, who was visibly moved to tears by the words coming from Jill Freeze in front of a crowd said to be in the neighborhood of 15,000 people.
“I know this man and I know his heart,” Jill Freeze continued. “I know he’s going to do what it takes to get right with God. And so for that, it was easy enough in that moment to say ‘I forgive you.’ Like, immediately. That was the beginning of my healing and it was instant forgiveness for him. It led me to ‘I can see that he had some bad traits. You know? He had some bad traits.’ And God, in his greatness, instead of me focusing on [Hugh’s] bad traits he said ‘Jill, what are your bad traits?’
“I’ve got a whole lot of bad traits, and he’s forgiven me way more than I’ve had to forgive him over 25 years.”
The couple’s private matter became public in July when it was revealed that Hugh Freeze had used an Ole Miss phone to place calls to escort services.
“Pride wants to keep you from being in that broken spot,” Hugh Freeze said after his wife shared her thoughts in front of the Christian university’s crowd.
“I’ve struggled with: ‘Why did a private matter between Jill and I– that I believed that I was handling the right way– have to go public and then take so many different lives of its own?” Freeze admitted. “And the real answer I keep getting in my spirit is so I could experience true brokenness.”
It was reported that Freeze visited with Nick Saban earlier this month about the offensive coordinator position with the Crimson Tide, but Saban ultimately decided to promote Mike Locksley in that spot.
You can watch Freeze’s appearance at Liberty University here:
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