TAMPA, FLORIDA – JANUARY 15: Offensive Coordinator Dave Canales of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers looks on prior to the NFC Wild Card Playoffs against the Philadelphia Eagles at Raymond James Stadium on January 15, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
New Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales is a man of many talents, and one of them has nothing to do with football.
Canales is also a published author. He and his wife Lizzy Canales, co-wrote a deeply personal, faith-based book called “This Marriage? The Question That Changed Everything.”
The book was published in September 2022 while he was still an assistant coach with the Seattle Seahawks. it spoke about a number of things that included him having multiple affairs earlier in his life and how the couple worked through his constant infidelity.
Canales also brought up the addictions he once had to both pornography and alcohol. He no longer has those issues with porn and has stopped drinking. That has gotten his marriage to his wife to become stronger than it has ever been.
“A huge part in the severed intimacy that I was experiencing with Lizzy was because I was addicted to pornography,” Canales wrote. “It was like a gateway drug for me, creating pathways in my brain that allowed me to use sex coldly for my own benefit. It was a secret, silent struggle that I had years before I was married.”
“I was living a secret life,” Canales wrote, according to The Charlotte Observer.
“No matter how hard I tried by going to church, reading my Bible, and praying … I always had a secret, dark place that was just mine.”
Canales admitted to having multiple affairs, and he first cheated on his wife at his bachelor party.
“From the start of our relationship, I was binge drinking and going out with friends, without Lizzy,” Canales wrote. “Before I was ever unfaithful to her, I was already there in my mind. Bad habits combined with addiction made it hard for me to resist temptation. It was a pattern I knew well before we started dating.”
The couple said they wrote the book to help other couples struggling with marriage.
“We wanted other people to feel safe starting this journey toward a vibrant marriage by helping them see they are not alone,” the couple wrote in the book’s preface.
They also wrote in the foreword, per The Charlotte Observer: “Welcome to our mess and the beautiful way that God has worked ALL THINGS together for us.”
The couple said writing the book was like going through another round of counseling, but it helped them “find renewed healing and hope through a stronger understanding of what happened.”
The Panthers were well aware of his book before they hired him.
His hiring with the Panthers reunites Canales with new Panthers general manager Dan Morgan, recently promoted from an assistant GM role, as the two worked together from 2010-2017 with the Seahawks.
During his time in Seattle under longtime coach Pete Carroll, Canales worked directly with nine-time Pro Bowl QB Russell Wilson, who posted some of his best numbers during Canales’ run as passing game coordinator.
Carolina is hoping he can do the same by helping 2023 No. 1 pick Bryce Young.
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