Jeff's Story
Jeff is an associate professor of urban ministry at Cedarville University, but there is something that sets him apart from many professors, especially here at Cedarville—his connection to tattoos.

Jeff says there is a drive within him that pushes him to do things that seem to be beyond his capacity.

“When I was in the Army, I didn’t want to just be a soldier; I wanted to be a paratrooper. So when I got into education, I didn’t want to just go to college; I wanted a doctorate. At middle age I started running, but I didn’t just want to run; I wanted to do a marathon.”

And Jeff found something new to strive for by accident when he injured his hip while running. He says that while he was cross-training on bikes to rehab his hip, he thought to himself that if he just added swimming he could do triathlons. And when he got into triathlons, that same innate drive compelled him to work toward doing an Ironman triathlon, which involves swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running 26.2 miles.
 

Like many people who have finished an Ironman, Jeff decided to get a tattoo to mark his achievement.

“It’s just a way to kind of identify as part of an elite group. In the same way, if tattoos would have been more popular I would have probably gotten Jump Wings when I was in the Army as a paratrooper.”

But Jeff’s ink is not his only connection with tattoos. He also has a connection in that his son, Josh, is a tattoo artist for a well-known shop in the Dayton area, Truth & Triumph Tattoo. Josh specializes in script tattoos, and I have put a link to his portfolio below. I hope you will check it out because it is impressive!
http://www.tattooedtv.com/joshcook.html

Josh did his dad’s Ironman tattoo, but even Jeff admits that his tattoo pales in comparison to the tattoos Josh does on a regular basis.

“It’s like somebody who writes novels, and he wrote a sentence for me,” Jeff says.

I hope you enjoyed that story behind the ink. I had such a great time learning about it myself. I hope you all will meet me back here next week for more. Let me know what you think. Thanks!