Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
—1 Corinthians 9:24–27
It is a Sunday afternoon in early September and the San Diego Chargers have six minutes before they take the field. Now in full uniform, with their bodies taped and black under their eyes, they are laser focused when defensive end Jacques Cesaire calls out, “Pray It Up.” Between twenty-five and thirty players put away their iPods and give pictures of their children a final kiss. Their cleats click-clack as they march into the tiled shower room, their shoulder pads bump as they gather together, the smell of sweat permeates the space. Then team chaplain Shawn Mitchell leads them in prayer.
It is here that some of the greatest athletes of our time will pray to God for protection from injury, for the safety of their adversaries, for the strength and ability to execute and play to the best of their God-given talents, and to do it all in the name of the Lord.
This scene is played out in locker rooms around the National Football League every Sunday outside the view of television cameras, opponents, and critics. It is a rallying moment for the men as they clasp hands and make final preparations, players say.
“They have been preparing all week and there is this sense that, ‘OK, here it comes,’” says Mitchell. “Prayer is not a rabbit’s foot or a superstition. We are talking to a God who cares for every facet of our lives. If it is important to them, it is important to God.”
The adrenaline is running high. The players are emotional. It’s difficult to discipline themselves to quiet down for Pray-Up.
“What I like to tell the guys is, ‘Pray like everything depends on God because it does, and then perform like everything depends on you,” says Mitchell.
While the players continue shuffling into the confined space of the shower, network television analysts sit in a small room at the top of the stadium updating viewers on injuries, weather conditions, and key matchups. The singer who will perform the national anthem is pacing near the end zone, sipping water and whispering the song. Field crews are checking the sidelines to make sure medical kits and water bottles are in place. And fans at home are making their final runs to the refrigerator, stacking an extra hot dog on their paper plates, opening a beer, teasing their brother-in-law about his fantasy league picks.
And in that moment when the outside world is enjoying the company of family and friends, enraptured by the pageantry of what has become a rite of fall, thirty men dressed in armor like modernday gladiators stand together, holding hands in the bowels of the stadium, awaiting a final moment with the Lord before the game. Then, silence.
“Father, we thank You for this opportunity where we can come together as one . . . ,” Mitchell prays.
“We bow our heads together for what is before us and, Lord, You have made it clear that apart from You we can do nothing, but with You all things are possible . . .
“Lord, we expect big things from You, so today we go out to attempt great things for You . . .
“Our desire is to lift You up to glorify You . . .
“We ask that You keep both teams free of injury . . .
“And we ask, Lord, that we can go out there and perform to the greatest of our God-given ability . . .
“We pray for the strength of Samson, the speed of Jehu, and give us awareness and instinct . . .
“We go forth from here in Your name, use us now, we thank You in advance, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
For all that the National Football League represents to the millions of fans who watch the games around the world, the role faith plays in the lives of the players has been largely overlooked by media outlets that don’t want to offend nonbelievers, see faith as a personal choice, or don’t want to be used by false Christians looking to shine up their public image.
When Mitchell concludes Pray-Up with “Amen,” the players march back out of the shower to the locker room, though some stay behind for an additional minute to get a word or a personal prayer with Mitchell. Sometimes players recite lines of Scripture to reaffirm their faith and calm themselves before entering the stadium. Other times, they just speak to God straight from the heart.
PREGAME PRAYERS
Some of the sport’s biggest stars are also some of its most faithful. Players like Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu, Tennessee Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, to name just a few.
Each player prepares for the game in his own way.
In San Diego, as Mitchell’s prayer concludes, Chargers offensive tackle Jeromey Clary keeps his head bowed and prays, “Allow me to glorify You in all that You’ve done. Protect me and allow me to play with strength and confidence, yet stay humble. The glory is Yours.”
In St. Louis, Rams quarterback Sam Bradford has prepared spiritually for games dating back to his college years at the University of Oklahoma by reading the story of David and Goliath about a young boy who slays a battle-tested warrior with a slingshot. In 1 Samuel 17:45–46, David declares, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head.”
In Tennessee, Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck gathers with the team’s other passers in the stadium tunnel minutes before they take the field for what they call the Quarterbacks Prayer.
It started when he played in Seattle alongside fellow Christians Trent Dilfer and quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn. The prayer isn’t scripted, Hasselbeck says, but it goes something like this:
God, there are so many people counting on us today: our teammates, our coaches, our families, the people in the stands. I pray that we wouldn’t look for their approval. I pray that we look for Your approval; that we play for an audience of one today. And knowing that we’ve worked hard and prepared, I pray that You’d slow things down and give us a peace that can only come from You, and take that pressure and burden off us so we can go out and play knowing that at the end of the day, win, lose, or draw, You did that. We pray that we make the most of our God-given abilities. God, I need Your help. Please walk with me today. In Your name. Amen.
Prayer isn’t the domain of offensive players. Some of the nastiest hitters in the NFL stop to worship God before taking the field.
In East Rutherford, New Jersey, New York Giants Pro Bowl defensive end Justin Tuck takes a knee at the end of the bench before kickoff to ask God to protect him from injury.
In Washington, safety Oshiomogho Atogwe reads passages from the Twenty-third Psalm and prays: “God, I thank You for allowing me the week of preparation. Let me be confident in what I’m doing. Let me lead my teammates and encourage them. But more than that, let me glorify You with the way I play, with my attitude, with my energy, and let me give You my all.”
And in Baltimore, Ray Lewis’s mother, Buffy Jenkins, has been sending a line of Scripture for her son to read before games since he entered the league in 1996. It usually has something to do with the moment, Lewis says. One example comes from Psalm 16:1–2: “Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’”
Back in the Chargers locker room, players now have a few minutes to adjust their equipment before strength coach Jeff Hurd enters the room and shouts, “Two minutes!” It’s coming now. Now! The intensity in the locker room ramps up. This is it. Coach Norv Turner barks out: “OK, men, let’s gather around.” The players take a knee, everyone grabs a teammate’s hand, and Turner leads the group in the Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen. (Matthew 6:9–13 KJV)
There is a pause afterward, and then Turner gives a short pregame speech meant to inspire the players and send them onto the field focused on key strategies. Much is at risk, and the players know it. For some, it’s about keeping their place on the team. For others, it’s about accomplishing some personal or team goal, maintaining their income, making their families proud, or using their skills to glorify God. No matter their motivation, one thing is certain: time is running out. The average NFL career lasts 3.5 years, according to the NFL union, and if the players are going to make it in this game, they’ll have to do something big in the next few moments.
BUILDING BETTER TEAMS
No doubt, there is a lot riding on what happens Sunday afternoons. But game day only highlights a small part of an NFL player’s or coach’s religious life. Faith plays a role in everything from the draft to retirement, from single living to marriage, and from the time they are injured through their recovery.
For NFL teams, the chapel services, Bible studies, and religious instruction are both supportive and self-serving. The teams are providing a way for men of faith to attend chapel and continue their religious education year-round. But it’s also an inexpensive social service that provides the sort of counseling and therapy that keeps players mentally and emotionally at the top of their game and ready to compete.
“I think that having a chapel service or an organized way of worshiping is a good thing,” says Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. “Your chaplain or pastor associates with players throughout the year, providing a very significant service in times of need and with other private issues. I don’t think there’s any question it’s an asset to have a program in place, as long as everybody knows they are going of their own volition and the team isn’t requiring they attend a particular service. I’m very sensitive about that.”
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder, who has one of the most involved chaplains in the league in Pastor Brett Fuller, agrees with Jones. While the decision to worship rests with each individual player, Snyder sees it as his responsibility as an owner to ensure religious guidance is available for those who desire it. It’s part of team building, he says.
“My philosophy as an NFL owner has always been to provide support to the coaches and players both on and off of the field,” Snyder says. “Having strong spiritual advisers is a key aid in the success of our team.”
Religious services vary from one team to the next, usually depending on the coach. Cleveland Browns chaplain Tom Petersburg says Sam Rutigliano, who coached the team to two play-off appearances between 1978 and 1984, was so happy his players were meeting for Bible study that he would send them pizzas.
Other coaches, though, even those who were devout Christians, were afraid religion would divide the locker room, and they would limit Petersburg’s access to the players. Each team’s religious practices are a reflection of the coach, chaplains say, and because eight to ten clubs fire their head coach each year, faith-based offerings vary from one season to the next.
To fully understand the impact religion has on NFL teams, one has to understand how coaches and chaplains view the role of religion and why it is so important to the clubs.
Former coach Tony Dungy, who led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl championship after the 2006 season and now works as an analyst for NBC Sports, never hid his strong religious beliefs from his players, his owner, or the public. In fact, he said that he could no more separate his beliefs in God from his job coaching a football team than separate his head from his body. His faith dictated how he led his life and how he built his roster.
That included choosing players who were a “good fit” for the franchise. Sometimes, those were “character guys” rather than the most talented players on the training camp roster, he says.
“I had to do what in my heart was the right thing to do, and my Christian beliefs were going to guide those decisions,” Dungy says. “The Bible clearly says you are living in the world, so you can’t expect to have an all-Christian team and staff. You have to do what’s best for the team and draft the best players. But because of my beliefs, that’s not always about taking the most physically talented guy. We took a lot of guys off the draft board because we didn’t think they would fit in with what we were trying to do,” he says. “I told the team, ‘We are not going to sit here and pray about everything, and I don’t expect you all to believe exactly what I believe, but here is how I’m going to make decisions, and what I am going to do with my life.’”
Coaches point out that faith is a steadying influence in a league where careers, marriages, friendships, and self-identity can be shattered by one wrong twist of a knee or one bad season. The newly rich, self-confident, and celebrated NFL players posing for pictures with their adoring fans are far more insecure and vulnerable behind closed locker room doors than they appear in public, coaches and team chaplains say. Many turn to their religious upbringing for greater balance in their lives. Others like the way it brings them closer to their fellow teammates and builds camaraderie.
“I thought it was interesting when I got into the league that we started and finished every game with the Lord’s Prayer,” says Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. “Growing up in the evangelical Christian church, it’s not something that you really learn as a kid, so I kind of learned the Lord’s Prayer on the fly as a rookie.
“I enjoy the intertwine of sports and religion,” he says. “A lot of guys come from religious backgrounds, so there’s that familiarity there, and it is fun to be able to pray with your teammates before and after games.”
Current and former NFL coaches, including Dungy, former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, and Minnesota Vikings coach Leslie Frazier, agree that team ministries can play a crucial role in building a winning franchise. Most teams offer chapel services, Bible studies, couples Bible studies for players and their wives or girlfriends, and one-on-one counseling sessions for anyone in the organization who needs help with a personal problem.
Team chaplains often come to teams through their relationships with nonprofit groups like Athletes in Action or Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Some chaplains are provided with an office and midweek locker room access, while others appear only on game days. It differs from one coach to the next, with some wanting a chaplain to provide religious guidance, while others see faith as a personal issue to be dealt with on a player’s own time. Though team chaplains are usually Christian, most clubs offer to contact a rabbi, cleric, or other religious leader if a player requests one. The help these chaplains provide goes way beyond the on-field product fans see on Sundays.
“One of the greatest impacts our chaplains have on the NFL is when we help players understand how to be solid husbands and fathers, and how to protect their families,” says Corwin Anthony, national director of pro ministry for Athletes in Action. “When you have stability at home and are at peace with the way you are living your life, it really makes a big difference.”
Many coaches, like the Buffalo Bills’ Chan Gailey, remark that a chaplain might not get drafted number one, but his function within the team can be just as important.
“I think they do a good job of keeping guys down to earth,” says Gailey. “When things get bad, they are able to regulate that by reminding them there are other things in life to be positive about. And when things are going good, it keeps them level-headed.”
According to Cleveland Browns chaplain Tom Petersburg, off-the-field troubles can ruin a player’s career as much as a torn knee ligament or broken ankle. “I [Petersburg] had a player come to me once and say, ‘My marriage is a mess, and I’m a mess. I cannot perform on Sunday unless I get straightened out here. What do I do?’” Burdens occupying the players’ minds can include money, women, pressure to perform, family demands, friends wanting to borrow money, or injuries they don’t want to reveal to the team out of fear their coach will replace them in the lineup.
And it goes even further than that.
FAMILIES, TEAMS SHARE CORE VALUES
Every coach asserts that he wants great athletes who are good citizens and team players. Who wouldn’t? Oftentimes, though, great talent comes at a cost to the player and, ultimately, the team, by way of pride, ego, greed, and selfishness. And to a point, teams have to tolerate those character traits in order to build winning teams and fill stadiums. Is it any different in a corporate sales office or executive locker room where bad citizens are tolerated because they are rainmakers?
Dungy says that he tried to impart the same wisdom and advice to his players that he gave to his own children. Many of those pep talks were based on Dungy’s religious beliefs and Christianity’s core values of sacrifice, self-restraint, and helping others. Those qualities don’t just build better people, he says; they build better teams. He noticed that players who believed in the tenets of the Christian faith often exhibited the qualities he was trying to instill in the franchise as a whole.
“I believe you win by sacrificing,” Dungy says. “By saying there are some things I could do, but for the good of the others on the team, I’m not going to. People who do that in life will probably do that on the football field for you. So if I tell a receiver that I’ll need him to do a lot of blocking this week and he might only catch one ball, it’s my experience that a person who I’ve seen sacrifice in other areas of his life is more likely to do it on the football field too.”
Not every coach agrees with Dungy’s religious perspective. With all due respect to his 139-69 regular season record, nineteen postseason appearances, and Super Bowl championship, some think a bolder line of demarcation has to be drawn between religion and football.
Buffalo Bills coach Chan Gailey says that he has a strong faith in God, but that he doesn’t want to confuse the players or leave them feeling that they might be treated unfairly.
“If a guy wants to know about Christ and he walks in my office, I’ll be happy to tell him. But I’m not going to beat him over the head with the Bible,” Gailey states.
While most Christians would agree that they wouldn’t want a Muslim boss trying to convert them every day, doesn’t the Bible call for God’s disciples to spread the Word?
We read in Matthew 28:18–20: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”
Coaches believe it’s a personal call. Some decide to keep religion and football separate, while others quote directly from the Bible.
Leslie Frazier, a former defensive back for the Chicago Bears and now the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, points out that coaches have often reached into the Bible for help getting their teams through difficult times.
He remembers one occasion in 2007 when he was an assistant to then Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress. The rival Green Bay Packers had beaten the Vikings 34–0, dropping Minnesota to 3-6 on the season and creating a city full of doubters.
With seven games remaining in the regular season, they still had a shot at the play-offs, though you’d never know it by the level of public criticism.
Frazier was in Childress’s office after the loss, and the two men discussed the role prayer would play in trying to get the team through the difficulties it faced. They decided to focus on Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which he wrote during his imprisonment in Rome, encouraging Christians to be united in one another and think of themselves not as individuals, but as being united in the body of Christ and belonging to each other.
“We focused on finishing the race together,” Frazier recalls. “It would be a race of perseverance, and we both prayed in his office that Monday, before he went down and talked to the team. We just wanted to make sure we were both in the right frame of mind before going down there because we felt like our season could go either way.
“He talked about perseverance,” Frazier continues, “and the fact that we were going to go through difficult times, much like Paul had in the Scripture and like we were experiencing then.”
Childress told the team: “Paul finished the race and that’s what we have to do, and the only way is if we unite as a group. It doesn’t matter what the media is saying about us right now or how people are picking us apart. We have to join together as one and persevere through a tough storm.”
The club reeled off five consecutive wins, before losing its final two, to finish the season a respectable 8-8, though not good enough to make the play-offs. Minnesota would go 10-6 the following season and 12-4 in 2009, qualifying for the play-offs both years. Childress was fired following a 3-7 start to the 2010 season. He was 40-37, including 1-2 in the play-offs, in four and a half years as the Vikings head coach. His best season was 2009 when he guided the team to the NFC Conference championship before losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, 31–28, in overtime.
“I really believe that’s kind of where we found out who we were as a team,” Frazier says. “We were a team that was going to persevere through an embarrassing time and not let that one loss define us. Scripture helped us get through that moment. It was because of faith and prayer as opposed to saying: ‘We’re going to roll up our sleeves and fix this.’ It was relying on God to show us what direction we needed to take, what words we needed to speak to our players to get them motivated and in the right frame of mind so that we could persevere.”
One can’t underestimate the value that faith in God has in shaping a player’s life and ultimately his NFL team. When a young player starts his pro football career, he’s not just establishing himself on the field; he’s determining how he is going to live the rest of his days. Who is he as a man? Is he the guy who will spend his evenings partying with women he never establishes a loving relationship with? Will he invest his money in endless rounds of high-stakes poker games or get-rich-quick schemes? Will he be the guy who believes parties are a rite of passage in the NFL, or will he be the guy who returns home to read to his children before their bedtime? What vision of himself does he aspire to? Oftentimes, coaches have said, the answers to these questions will also dictate who he becomes as an NFL player. How long he stays in the league. And what his life looks like when his career ends.
Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis believes faith is so important in the development of a young player that when he signs a rookie or free agent, “I’ll basically mandate that everyone goes to chapel at least once because I want them to have the experience of it. I’m not going to force my beliefs on them, but it’s important for them to know it’s not a bad thing; it’s a good thing. Then I’ll leave it alone. They can’t feel pressured. We want the environment to be comfortable to them, but not overbearing. They have a choice.”
Like many teams, the Bengals have a chapel service throughout the year, including minicamps and rookie camp. They also offer a Bible study with potluck dinners at players’ homes, and they hire a baby-sitting service to watch the kids while the players and their wives attend the meeting. Lewis said he wants the environment to be comfortable and fun rather than overbearing or pressured. But most coaches think that chapel and Bible study are about more than fellowship. It all ties back to their careers and the kind of people they are as players.
FEARLESS, CONFIDENT, TRUSTING
Take injuries, for example. Coaches have noticed that players of faith are often better at responding to personal crisis because they see it as part of God’s plan. In any business, coaches say, the best employees aren’t the ones who perform like champs during the good times, but instead, those who refuse to quit or dwell on the negative, and who find ways to succeed in the bad times. Where do the inner strength and discipline come from?
“When a player of faith is injured,” says Lewis, “and I mean a serious season-ending injury, they’re more likely to see it as being part of God’s plan and believe, ‘There has got to be something good that will come out of this for me.’ That’s a different way of thinking about an injury or any setback for that matter.”
Former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick comments that it’s only natural for an injured player to be afraid of being reinjured when he returns. But it’s exactly that fear and insecurity that is the worst thing for a player because if he’s timid or protective of the injury, it actually increases the likelihood of reinjury as he tries to protect himself.
Billick says when players who have turned their lives over to God return from injury, they are oftentimes fearless because it is not in their hands. It is in God’s hands, and that is a big relief. Former Vikings coach Brad Childress recalls that is exactly the type of response he received from cornerback Cedric Griffin, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the Vikings’ overtime loss in the NFC championship game. Griffin spent that spring and summer in rehabilitation.
“Cedric’s a faith guy,” declares Childress. “That’s how NFL coaches refer to players who have strong religious beliefs. They’ll say, ‘He’s a faith guy.’
“He could be a sourpuss right now, a woe-is-me type, asking God, ‘Why would You do this to me?’ But I know he is a believer, and that’s not the box he is going to put himself in. He’s going to work his tail off and have faith. No excuses. No crying. That’s not uncommon with these guys,” Childress says of players of faith.
It goes beyond just injuries, though.
Chan Gailey coached the Dallas Cowboys in 1998 and 1999, guiding them to the play-offs both years. He was fired and landed at Georgia Tech (2002–7), where he became the first coach in school history to lead the Yellow Jackets to bowl games in his first six seasons. After a stint in Kansas City as the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, Gailey was hired to coach the Buffalo Bills in January 2010.
“God is in control of the big picture. Your responsibility is to take the talent and ability you have been given and do the best you can with them each and every time you walk out there on the field,” Gailey says. “That’s it. That’s all you’re responsible for. Having that faith really helps guys through the ups and downs.”
It’s not just the players who benefit. It’s the coaches too. According to Gailey, his experience coaching college and professional football has convinced him that his belief in Christ has allowed him to remain in the profession and stitch together a successful career.
“I’ve learned through years of experience that your belief in Christ is the thing that allows you to go to work every day because if you didn’t have that, you’d be trying to please too many people and you’d be blown by the wind or you’d make decisions based upon popular opinion or something else that’s not what is right and good for everyone involved on that day,” Gailey says. “If your faith is strong, the job isn’t pressure packed. That’s the point. I’m going to get up today and do the best I can. I’m not worried about pleasing fans or pleasing players. I have to please Him, and that’s the only thing I’ve got to do. You can get caught up in all the other stuff. Yeah, the pressure is hard, but all it can do is kill me. If the worst that happens to me is they kill me, I’m all right; I’m going to heaven. They can’t hurt me. I worry more about somebody saying something to my family than what they say about me.
“I pray that I will honor God with my life. That’s what I pray for. I want His wisdom and His strength and His power and His discernment to filter through me, and if you have a close enough walk with Him, it will.
“Sometimes I mess it up, but He doesn’t. And I just pray that I would honor Him with my life, and the only way you honor Him is you listen to His Word only, you obey His Word only, and you look for approval from Him only, and if I can do that on a daily basis, then I think I have a chance to make quality decisions for everybody involved.”
When a player is a “faith guy,” it’s usually pretty obvious. He tends to be less self-centered, and coaches and teammates tend to see him in chapel and Bible study. Sometimes, though, players use faith to deceive, and nothing burns believers more than that.
Childress says he would use a player’s religious beliefs as a test of his character and honesty. If he lies about something as personal as his faith, can he be trusted on the field? Can he be believed when there is a problem in the community?
So when Childress would meet with his players during the off-season, he would have them write down their values as a way of understanding the player and what’s important to him. Typically, Childress says, guys are going to list their faith and their family as numbers one and two. They also might say building wealth or developing a good reputation or being a good friend.
“I tell them, ‘All right, but don’t put those things down there because Coach Childress wants to hear those things. Tell me the truth. What are your values? Is it honesty? Is it being tough-minded? Is it having fun? Is it being a good father and provider? There are all kinds of things when you talk about what your values are. What’s important is: Are you who you say you are? You can’t put down faith and family if you are a married father with a couple kids and you are spending a whole bunch of time in a strip club.’ And I give them that example. ‘Don’t put that down,’ I say. ‘You are not trying to inspire me.’ I have a whole stack of three-by-five cards on my desk over here, so I know when a guy comes in and he has said faith is one of his values. I say to him, ‘How are you doing in your walk [with God]?’
“I think we have a culture of truth here. If you want to know where you stand, I don’t have any problem letting you know. But you have to be honest with me too. And I’m listening and paying attention, and I’ll follow up to see if you are living the life that you say you are. That’s a measure of a man’s character. And when you have been beaten on, and you are so tired you can barely lift your legs and the fans are booing and it’s late in the game and we are trailing and need to pull it out from somewhere deep inside, that is when a man exposes his character. I need to know what I can expect from him.”
Coaches are ultimately responsible for creating faith-based programs like chapel and Bible study and for recognizing them in a way that encourages players to participate without feeling put-upon or forced.
The rest is left to the team chaplains, who must walk a fine line between the players and team management.
LIFE CRISIS
Most coaches instruct their chaplains to help the players spiritually and emotionally and to keep their conversations private unless the health or the life of the player or his family is at risk. They are not to become a distraction to the team or question managerial decisions.
Bengals chaplain Ken Moyer understood this role immediately. The 6-foot-7, 297-pound former offensive lineman played five NFL seasons with the Bengals and had firsthand knowledge of the stress players face every day.
This is a tremendous help to Marvin Lewis, who says the employee/employer relationship isn’t any different in the NFL than it is at IBM or General Motors. You don’t want your boss to know about your personal problems because you’re afraid it could have a big impact on your work and career.
“Players go from starting to not starting,” Lewis says. “They are having the season of their career, and then they get injured. They have spousal relationship issues. There are deaths. So there are a lot of things they are really more comfortable sharing with Ken.”
During the 2009 season, Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer’s wife, Vikki, died suddenly, and according to Lewis, it affected some of the assistant coaches and players. Then, Bengals receiver Chris Henry fell out the back of a truck and died from injuries he sustained in the fall. “When Chris died, I can’t put my finger on where each of those fifty-three players’ relationships was with Chris, but Ken could,” Lewis admits. “And he could help them deal with that.
“I think that Ken, being a former player, realizes that faith has its place, and we talk about faith and family and football and you can’t screw that order up when it’s convenient for yourself. In my mind, that’s how we are going to operate here. Faith is number one, their family and then football, so when they have a decision to make, I want them to make their decision based on that.”
Team chaplains minister to a young, wealthy, and sometimes troubled flock. At the start of the 2011 season, the average NFL player was 26.4 years old and was paid an average of $2.25 million annually, according to the National Football League and its players union. Chaplains say they consider themselves part minister, psychologist, family counselor, and father figure. In private, they address issues from drug and alcohol abuse to infidelity, domestic violence, parenting, financial issues, injury fears, job stress, and conflict resolution with coaches, managers, and wives.
Lewis’s experience wasn’t uncommon. Joe Gibbs had won three Super Bowls and been voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but nothing had prepared him for the day in 2007 when Sean Taylor, a twenty-four-year-old Pro Bowl safety nicknamed “Meast” because teammates said he was half man, half beast, lay dead in a mahogany coffin at Florida International University, the victim of a robbery gone bad.
Gibbs, a devout Christian, in his second stint coaching the Redskins, was widely known and respected as a man of faith. He’d told the story in countless community meetings of how his egotism and near financial ruin had brought him closer to God. He’d even started a Christian video blog from Redskins headquarters where he used Scripture to provide lessons on the team’s struggles in blog postings titled “Avoiding Self-Pity” and “When We Feel Alone” and had given away thousands of Bibles through his website.
But even for him, Taylor’s shocking death was hard to handle. Taylor, who’d had his share of personal problems, was beginning to mature. His life changed after he became a father, and he started connecting more with coaches and teammates. He’d even sought out the team’s minister. In the days after his death, the team was distraught. “Our chaplains met nonstop with our players and coaches,” Gibbs shares. “Sean was strong and athletic and full of life, and then he was gone. Why? And where was he now? Our young players were very uncertain. It forced them to reevaluate their own lives and their own vulnerabilities. It made them, probably for the first time in their lives, ask, ‘If something were to happen to me, where would I spend eternity?’ They were questions that required deeper thought, and many of them turned to our chaplain.”
AS THE CLOCK EXPIRES . . . PLAYERS GATHER FOR PRAYER
The role that faith plays in the NFL cannot be understated. Even though it is one of the most underreported elements of building a good team, it plays a vital role in franchises from San Diego to Washington.
The Chargers started the 2011 season 4-1. Pundits were saying it was time for Coach Norv Turner—who had amassed a 41-23 regular-season record and three AFC West division titles in his first four seasons—to either deliver a Super Bowl or step aside.
As the game in San Diego winds down, fans start gathering their belongings and slowly heading for the exits. On television, the broadcasters begin their wrap-up, running through the stars of the game and thanking members of their crew. And kids are running into their backyards, hoping to play touch football between the hedges before it gets dark and their mothers call them in for dinner.
When the game clock ticks to zero, players of faith from both teams begin assembling around the 50-yard line to say a postgame prayer. Some know one another from when they played for other franchises or from their college days, though many only know one another from their postgame worship. They take a knee, sometimes clasp hands, and bow their heads in prayer.
The purpose of the gathering is to draw attention to themselves, to use the platform they have in front of the tens of thousands of fans still lingering in the stadium to promote their belief in Christ. The hope, says Corwin Anthony, is that some little boy or girl will turn to his or her father and ask: “Daddy, what are they doing?”
Chargers tackle Jeromey Clary, father of a two-year-old son named Cannon, signed a four-year contract shortly after the owners and players negotiated a new labor agreement in the summer of 2011. The 6-foot-6, 320-pound tackle from Mansfield, Texas, won the Ed Block Courage Award in 2010, given to one player on each team who exemplifies commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage. It was quite a year. Money, notoriety, respect, and there he was, the epitome of the modern-day pro athlete living out the childhood dreams of millions of ordinary fans . . . down on a knee.
“We’ve been blessed with talent to play a game for a living, and we use that moment right after the game to thank God for allowing us to do what we do,” Clary says. “We thank Him for our health. And we ask Him to watch over the visiting team on their trip home. It’s really just a moment after it’s all over to take a minute and give thanks to Him.”