While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
—matthew 17:5
It’s a Thursday morning in late September when a group of Arizona Cardinals wives gather by the pool at offensive tackle Levi Brown’s home for their weekly Bible study. Kicker Jay Feely’s wife, Rebecca, has made her famous scrambled eggs. And Lynette Brown, the hostess, ordered coffee, cinnamon rolls, and muffins from a nearby Paradise Bakery. Dreama Graves, the wife of Cardinals general manager Rod Graves, is leading the study, and as wives stroll in a few minutes before 10:00 a.m., it dawns on her that at forty-three, she’s closer to the age of the wives’ mothers than their girlfriends.
This Cardinals gathering isn’t unique. All throughout the NFL, teams hold Bible studies for wives and girlfriends, separate studies for couples, and sometimes a third study just for the players.
It’s the women, though, who form some of the most extraordinary bonds during these spiritual gatherings.
While their lives may appear glamorous, even privileged when their pictures appear in the paper or when they attend a social event outfitted in diamonds and the latest fashions, that’s hardly the reality of the life of an NFL wife.
Many are forced to give up promising careers and small businesses to follow their husbands from one city to the next. When they are not packing the house or pulling their kids out of school, they are nursing their husbands’ broken bodies and helping them rebuild their bruised egos. They struggle with self-identity issues, grapple with the insecurities of nonguaranteed contracts, and take calls from family members seeking financial support, as well as friends asking for game tickets. And oh, don’t bring up the groupies, the ones who linger at every training camp, team hotel, restaurant, wine bar, and ice-cream parlor.
It’s at these Bible studies where the wives and girlfriends can let their hair down, share their problems with women in similar circumstances, and seek the spiritual and emotional support they need to keep their children and their marriages on the right path.
Graves chose a book titled He Speaks to Me: Preparing to Hear the Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer as the text for this year’s wives’ Bible study. It’s about opening yourself up to God so you can hear Him speak to you. The group was instructed to read two chapters before their meeting and to be prepared to share their insights into what it means to hear God.
This particular week, Dreama’s group is focusing on scripture in 1 Samuel 3 about a young boy who hears God speaking to him. Children face many unknowns in their lives and can be manipulated because of their innocence, but it also gives them certain advantages. Rather than just ignoring the voice in their heads, they freely explore it without judgment or cynicism. What child says to herself, “Ah, that’s crazy. I’m hearing voices”? Instead, children start walking toward the sound to discover the source. The takeaway from the wives’ conversation was that we should have a childlike relationship with God that allows us to be open to what He is saying to us.
The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.
One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.
Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them. Therefore I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’”
Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli called him and said, “Samuel, my son.”
Samuel answered, “Here I am.”
“What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me.
May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.” So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.”
The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. (1 Samuel 3)
Graves, who tries to keep the study to ninety minutes because some of the wives have children in school for half a day, asks the group what it thought of the passage and what each of the wives was doing to hear God in her own life.
Rebecca Feely, the mother of three girls aged three to ten and an eight-year-old boy, was a premed major at the University of Michigan before dropping out to pursue a modeling career in Chicago. “It was a meat market,” she said about her time in the city. She returned to Ann Arbor to finish her degree in kinesiology and was applying to medical school when she met Jay, the Wolverines’ kicker, who would sign a free agent contract with the Atlanta Falcons two years later. At thirty-five, she is one of the elder stateswomen in the group and also one of its most devout Christians.
“There is a spiritual dynamic in every situation we encounter, and we need to be able to discern that,” she says in response to Graves’s question. “God has a purpose and plan for all the good and bad that we are going through. Football, our careers, that’s not God in our lives. That’s just a job that can be used for a greater good that impacts others. Or we can use it selfishly and let it draw us away from God to make bad choices. We need to be open to hearing from Him.”
The study has come at a good time for Rebecca, who is going through a difficult time in her personal life. Her parents, Jack and Edie Dawson, are staying at their daughter’s home because Jack had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and needed surgery in Phoenix. There were complications when a blocked kidney became infected. Then, just after Rebecca had left Bible study the previous Thursday, her father developed sepsis, went into shock, and nearly died. Rebecca had spent two days going back and forth from home to the intensive care unit and was exhausted from the emotional drain when her mind turned to what she was learning in Bible study.
“I was like, ‘OK, God. What are You trying to accomplish in this? I need to hear something from You to help me discern why our family is going through this,’” Feely says.
There is never a good time for a family member to fall ill. While fans have this image of professional athletes as healthy, famous, and rich, personal tragedies often go unnoticed. The Cardinals started the 2011 season 1-3, and Jay Feely, who was sharing his wife’s pain, converted just three out of six field goals.
Rebecca was looking after the kids, keeping the house together, and rushing back and forth to the hospital. The stress was building up as concerned family members waited and prayed for good news. In recent years, walls had been built between Rebecca’s siblings and their parents, and Rebecca and her mother. There had been disagreements over the years that were never resolved. But her dad’s near death experience shattered those walls as each family member realized “we could actually lose him.” Rebecca and her mother brought up subjects that had been buried for years and began working through them.
Rebecca was her mother’s sixth child, her father’s third, and the only child between them. Her older sister Pam died of a brain aneurysm at the age of eighteen when Rebecca was two. Her twenty-four-year-old brother Steve was murdered in Texas when she was seven. And her sister Roberta died after being born prematurely. “There was a lot of dysfunction. I found God in college and was able to heal from a lot of the trauma,” she said.
Now that her dad was gravely ill, “Mom and I were able to work things out that we never would have brought up had he not been that sick,” Feely says. “I shared this with the girls. You might look at every situation you are going through and ask, ‘Why me?’ But when you allow yourself to step away from that situation and see there is a greater purpose, and when you find that purpose, it becomes a beautiful thing and a stepping-stone to a closer walk with Him.”
Rebecca’s story opens up the group emotionally. One at a time, they begin sharing their stories. One player’s wife says her father-in-law has been diagnosed with cancer, and it is affecting their family too. Another wife admits to having a hard time fitting in with her new community after her husband was traded. A third speaks of financial struggles. “I know how it is to feel lost and wonder, ‘Why are we here? Why do I feel so alone? What’s the purpose in it?’ But you have to listen to God,” Feely says, reemphasizing the day’s Bible study lesson.
KIDS, SPOUSES, STRESS
Feely’s sick father serves as a reminder that the rich and famous aren’t any different from the rest of us, at least not in God’s eyes. For most NFL chaplains, Bible studies are an important opportunity to reach players on a personal level and help them get through some of the most challenging moments in their lives. It has nothing to do with catching a deep pass or getting around a three-hundred-pound blocker. That’s kid stuff. That’s the part of the players’ lives they are most confident and knowledgable about. Now, getting a baby to sleep because daddy has practice in the morning, or being confronted by a two-year-old who says no to everything, or getting your wife to see it your way— that’s more of a challenge. NFL marriages undergo the same trials as those of any other couple, no matter the size of the house or the bank account. And their kids may be well dressed, but that doesn’t mean they don’t throw the same tantrums like everyone else’s child. This is why Bible studies can play an important role in the growth of the player, not just spiritually, but in everyday, practical ways.
The purpose of Bible study is to receive spiritual education and enlightenment, but team pastors provide services well beyond that. Their job is to serve the needs of their players in the same way they tend to the needs of their congregation at church. This group is young, well-known, and rich by most standards. But the players and their wives are also inexperienced, usually far from home and in need of someone they can trust with private matters. Most come from communities where the notion of hiring a psychologist, marriage counselor, or child development expert is humorous. That’s the preacher’s job.
In 2011, Brett Fuller entered his ninth season as the Washington Redskins’ chaplain. He was one of the founding members of Grace Covenant Church in Chantilly, Virginia, when it started in 1982 with twelve worshipers meeting in church basements, high schools, hotels, and community centers. Today, they have their own building and need five weekend services to cater to their 2,500 parishioners, including retired Redskins greats Darrell Green, Art Monk, Charles Mann, and Ken Harvey.
A naturally gifted speaker, Fuller uses Bible study to introduce subjects like: How to be a good husband or wife. What expectations can you have of your spouse? What does it mean to “train” your children?
Child rearing is one of the most popular topics at his couples Bible study, given the age of his audience. Most families are just starting out and are dealing with toddlers, though a few have older children. In most cases, there is still time to influence their children’s lives, and Pastor Fuller and his wife, Cynthia, parents of seven children, spend hours answering questions from young NFL parents.
One subject he spends a lot of time addressing is the difference between raising children and training them, he says. Remember, these are the children of wealthy celebrities. That comes with a whole set of social advantages and entitlement expectations that most parents don’t face.
“There are a lot of people who raise their children and believe they just need to provide an umbrella of safety so nothing harms them; to nurture them with love and provide for them with food, clothing, shelter, and education,” Fuller tells the couples. “But they don’t train their children to be the kind of people they want them to be when they get older. In other words, they don’t work on character development. They don’t teach them how to share when they are young or how to restrain their desires.
“What does it mean to say no to something you really want, in deference to something you really need? Parents ought to be involved in the training of their children. We’re not talking about manipulating them so the children become what the parents want. We’re talking about getting down on the inside of their souls, spending quality time on a regular basis so the parents can mold who they are supposed to be in God’s way,” he says.
There is no instruction manual on raising a child. Fortunately NFL couples can ask the pastor and his wife questions without the second-guessing that comes from asking for advice from a parent, sibling, or close friend.
TRUST, SEX, AND MARRIAGE
Chaplains say another popular Bible study focuses on how to build better relationships and marriages. Just as many NFL couples are new to parenthood, so, too, are they new to marriage. In 2010, the average age of an NFL player was just 26.4 years, and wives are usually a few years younger.
In the early years, marriage isn’t that unlike two single people living together. Both parties still think about their own needs and desires first. Arguments are to be won, without regard to the impact it will have on the spouse who suffered the defeat. And huge arguments can be overshadowed by great sex that only serves to obscure and delay the uncomfortable discussion that needs to take place.
“Every couple comes into a marriage with expectations about what the other party ought to be for them, and generally speaking, when that doesn’t happen, the ‘love’ they had diminishes,” Fuller tells the players and their wives. “It never happens consciously. But that is when we begin to define love. Love doesn’t have anything to do with feelings. It has everything to do with the decisions we make. Rather than come into a relationship based on what the other party can do for me, I have to decide that the other party is not supposed to be anything for me. I am supposed to be something for them,” Fuller says. “As soon as I expect them to be what I need them to be, then I am almost demanding that they become that. And if they are not, then I am going to become disappointed in them, disillusioned, and generally more distant.
“So rather than have an expectation,” he continues, “choose right now to concentrate on yourself. What do I need to be for them? It’s not 50-50 any longer; it’s 100-100. I give 100 percent to them, and they give 100 percent to me. I don’t expect anything from them, and they don’t expect anything from me. Now, is that hard to do? Yes. Almost impossible. But when we make an effort to do so, we are less disappointed and are always focusing on ourselves when something has gone wrong rather than blaming them.”
Of course, NFL players don’t have ordinary relationships. And that’s something most men, but especially their wives, are unhappy to discover, Fuller observes.
“Wow, these wives have no idea what they are getting into when they marry a ballplayer,” Fuller shares. “The ballplayer can provide in unusual ways and that’s great. And they love that, and it’s beautiful. I’m glad. And the wives usually genuinely love the man. But when they marry him, they forget that everybody else thinks they have a piece of him too. So when they show up at an event together, the wife will barely be noticed. Hardly anybody says, ‘And you? Your name?’ They only want to meet him. So the wife is often ignored, and being ignored is hard to become comfortable with.
“So the expectations the NFL wife must have of her husband are: ‘Sweetheart, are you going to make sure I’m introduced? Are you going to make sure I’m right there with you, and I’m treated well and respected everywhere I go?’ The husband does the best he can, but sometimes he forgets and sometimes he’s so inundated that he can’t. And that’s when she has to be understanding and forgiving. And that’s not always easy either.”
Most women can deal with being a little ignored as long as they get the one-on-one time they need with their husbands later. But that’s not the part that creates the biggest worries and insecurities . . . it’s the other women.
Imagine your husband, an accountant for ACME Inc., is really good-looking and has such a great body that even your best friends tease you about it. And imagine he travels for weeks at a time on business and another ten weekends a year to an accountant camp, where you know for a fact that there are accountant groupies. Yeah, I know, a little far-fetched, but . . . and the accountant groupies are usually eighteen to twenty-four years old and very aggressive. How would that make you feel sitting at home dealing with a child going through the terrible twos?
“There is a lot of travel and the woman has to understand that not only do people want the personality, but there are women out there pulling on this guy and he has to be nice without being attentive and that’s a hard balance,” Fuller says. “He can’t misrepresent the organization by ignoring them, but he can’t violate the relationship with his wife by being too interested.”
Fuller ministers the players on setting boundaries. As a group, they create a list of things players should and shouldn’t do in the way they treat and interact with other women.
“He shouldn’t receive communications from different ladies via text messages,” Fuller cautions. “His wife can take his cell phone and look at his messages, and even if it’s innocent, how will that make her feel? It will create doubt.
“He should not talk to women outside of business. Sometimes a player will go to a luncheon. Even if his agent employs female lawyers that will accompany him, he should only meet that person at a public place—not the team hotel before a game.
“We say to the players, ‘Listen, this is what you’ve got to do. You want trust? You want confidence in your relationship so every time you come home your wife doesn’t have to question where you were or why you were ten minutes late or who that woman was on your text or ask to see your cell so she knows who called you today? If you want the kind of confidence where those questions are not an issue, then you have to keep these boundaries.’”
Fuller acknowledges it’s hard for the players because they feel that they are being accused of something horrible when they’ve done nothing wrong. They feel that their wives or girlfriends are restricting them from living freely. It can lead to resentment. But Fuller is clear that the responsibility falls on the player because he is traveling away from home and is often being chased by women. He encourages each player to ask himself: How must it feel from the other side where my wife is sitting at home?
“Once they make these changes, in my experience,” Fuller says, “they like it when they come home and their wives trust them and all the tension disappears.”
GOD SPEAKS
Back in Arizona, the wives have been laughing and sharing for an hour when Graves asks the group what other issues are affecting their lives. The wives come from all walks of life. Some are from the inner city, while others are from the countryside. Some are barely out of college, while others have attended their children’s high school graduations. More important, some are new to Christ or returning after a long absence, while others have been on their walk for many years. What bind them are their desire to know God, their growing friendship, and the fears and insecurities that come with being an NFL wife.
Cabrina Womack has been married to her husband, Cardinals offensive lineman Floyd Womack, for three years. She met him at a nail salon, which usually gets a few laughs. Floyd is 6-foot-4, 328 pounds and was the biggest man in the building, she says. As she signed in at the front desk, she looked him over from head to toe, and he just took her breath away. “It was love at first sight,” she shares.
Cabrina grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, across the street from her family church, which she attended mostly for the friendships. When Cabrina became pregnant at sixteen, her mother decided to start a new career in Jackson, Mississippi, about ninety miles north, packed her bags, and left. Cabrina was left alone to raise her baby and finish school. Her parents were divorced, and she would take her father’s child support check, buy groceries, pay the electric bill, and “do whatever needed to be done.
“When Mom left me, there was a lot of emptiness, and it was like I was backed into a corner,” Cabrina says. “It felt like I had no one. The only thing I felt could help me was God. And once I took it serious and started to build a relationship with Him, I was like, ‘Wow, all that time I was hurting and going through all this pain, the answer was right there.’ From that point on, I took my faith very seriously and I just knew that God was my provider, and I didn’t have to look to my mom and my dad and my grandmother and my friends and my family. I always went to Him first.”
She moved to Jackson a year later to attend Jackson State. Her mother remarried in 2003, and her stepfather, Dr. Steven Hayne, a pathologist for the state of Mississippi, offered Cabrina a job at the morgue. She quit college and began working with him on autopsies: taking photos, typing up reports, labeling toxicology. It could run well past 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. She’d been working there four years when she met Floyd, and a year later he asked her to move with him to Seattle where he was playing for the Seahawks.
During the wives Bible study, Cabrina tells the women that she was confident she wasn’t turning a deaf ear to God. She has been through so much, she says, that when God is trying to get her attention, she’s sure she hears Him. And when things start going wrong for her and Floyd, they take a step back and try and evaluate what the Lord is saying.
“When I have a serious feeling about something that’s on my heart, I know that’s God speaking to me,” she says. “Any little feeling, any little thing on my heart, I don’t take it lightly.”
Floyd has had trouble with nagging injuries throughout his career. He was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth round of the 2001 draft. At the beginning of the 2011 season, he injured his shoulder during training camp and went on injured reserve, sidelining him for the entire season. At thirty-two, it could be the end of an eleven-year career.
“Floyd will tell you when he’s not giving God the time he should,” Cabrina says. “[God] uses football to bring him closer. Injuries. I told Floyd, God is trying to get your attention and you need to listen and you need to pray and ask God, ‘What do I need to do?’”
Cabrina is thankful for the team Bible study because it keeps her connected to her faith during the season when she is away from her home church. She says each meeting teaches her something new about what God expects out of her as a woman, a wife, a mom, and a friend. “Sometimes it’s about being patient or being trustworthy or being a good friend or a supportive wife. That’s why I attend Bible study. It’s a place to meet women like myself, where I can learn and grow. It’s an important part of my life.”
MODEL BUSINESSWOMAN
Though Bible study is a great place to share and learn from one another, it’s not the only place NFL wives get an education. Some women of faith develop relationships at a local church, away from the team. Or they and their husbands simply get together with like-minded teammates and their wives every other week over dinner or an evening out. This is where NFL wives and families have a chance to learn about the pitfalls of the NFL from those veterans and their wives who are willing to look out for the newbies and transplants.
Octavia McDougle, vice president of the NFL Players’ Wives Association, a nonprofit group of current and former wives whose goal is to raise funds for charitable organizations, has participated in NFL union-sponsored business classes in recent years. She’s an example of a savvy businesswoman who saw early in her husband’s career that she needed to prepare for a life after football.
Octavia met Stockar McDougle when they were both freshmen at Deerfield Beach High School in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He was her first boyfriend. The couple married after high school graduation, and then he left for the University of Oklahoma where he’d earned a football scholarship. The couple had their first child a year later and maintained a long-distance relationship with Octavia making frequent trips from her home in Florida.
Octavia started a hair salon with her mother called Beauty Explosion and used the profits to support the family. This independence gave Octavia a degree of motivation and self-confidence that’s rare at such a young age. It was a life skill that she wouldn’t relinquish easily.
McDougle, a 6-foot-6, 335-pound offensive lineman, was selected by the Detroit Lions in the first round of the 2000 draft. The family threw Stockar a draft party, but Octavia was throwing up all day from the excitement. Or so she thought. A few days later, Octavia learned she was pregnant with the couple’s second child.
McDougle signed a five-year, $7 million contract that summer and was ecstatic. After all the sacrifice, he would finally be able to take care of his family. It was four years before he’d saved up enough money to buy his wife a simple wedding band. And now, he could finally tell Octavia that her long hours working at the salon were over. He wanted her to quit and move with him to Detroit.
It was probably a blissfully proud moment for him. But Octavia had a business that was thriving. And anyone who has met her knows that Octavia is outgoing—a real people person. She wasn’t the type to sit around a mansion admiring her jewelry or watching the help wax the Mercedes. But Stockar’s offer was more ultimatum than request, so she decided to quit her business and give the housewife thing a try.
It didn’t work.
“I had to give up everything I had worked for,” she said. “My whole identity.”
It wasn’t just that she was used to being around people and she was suddenly isolated. Or that she missed the interaction with customers or the sense of satisfaction that came with doing a good job and seeing the appreciation in her customers’ eyes. It was deeper than that.
“At that point, my whole life revolved around Stockar and his new job,” she said. “I had nothing to do, so I started looking to him to fill a void in my life. I’d get up in the morning and say, ‘OK, what am I going to cook for dinner today? What does he like to eat?’ And I’d clean the house, and all I was trying to do was try to keep him happy because I had nothing else to do.
“So my expectations for him were, ‘OK, I’ve been home all day. When you get off work, come straight home and let’s do something together. Let’s watch a movie. Whatever. Just get home after work.’ Well, for him, he’s excited he’s playing pro football. He’s got new teammates. So after work, he wants to hang out with his friends or maybe he wants to stop at the mall or maybe he’d come home and drop off his stuff and say, ‘Hey, I’m going out with the O-line tonight.’ And I’m like, ‘What? What about me?’ So it came to where we’d have petty arguments over stupid stuff like I would call his mom, who is a culinary art teacher, for his favorite recipes, and he’d come home and say, ‘It doesn’t taste right.’ And I’d be devastated, and it would lead to an argument like, ‘You ungrateful . . .’ And the next day, I wouldn’t want to cook anymore, and he’d come home and be like, ‘Didn’t you cook?’ Arghhh!”
Octavia was talking to a close friend one day who told her point blank: “Octavia, you need a life.”
Octavia agreed. She had made an honest effort to be a housewife. But it wasn’t enough for her. “I learned early on that I can’t just wait on him to make me happy,” Octavia says.
For McDougle’s first five NFL seasons, the family lived in Florida for six months and then moved to Detroit for six months. Octavia took her friend’s advice and began taking real estate classes online and eventually got her license. She opened her own real estate office in 2001. Some of her first clients were the people she knew best—other NFL families. And this gave her invaluable insight and proved a great benefit to her family.
When players enter the league, she says, they buy five-bedroom, four-bath, four-car-garage homes that cost millions of dollars and have big mortgages. Octavia was getting their business on the back end of their NFL careers, usually a year or two after they were forced to hang up their cleats and they couldn’t afford the payments any longer.
“They buy these big fancy homes, and then after the game, when all the fame is gone, there is a lot of strain on the family and on the marital relationship,” she says. “After seeing the struggles older NFL couples were going through . . . I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t want to be like that.’”
It gave her an idea.
McDougle decided to specialize by working with athletes and their families and formed the Certified Sports and Entertainment Specialist designation to train Realtors so they understood the lifestyle transitions professional athletes go through.
“These guys are young, they don’t have any formal financial background, and they have people giving them business ideas, investment opportunities. It’s all so fast,” Octavia says. “When their career comes to an end, what’s going to replace the income or that lifestyle you had before? So you got a first-round guy, he’s famous, everyone knows and loves him, and now it’s over. What’s he going to do with himself? What’s he going to do to get that same respect from the community? When you are done, how are you going to pay your bills?”
Octavia was born in London and moved to America when she was nine. Her father passed away of an unknown heart ailment, and her mother thought it best that Octavia move to America to live with her grandmother, Gloria, until she could bring the rest of the family over. Gloria was very faithful, and that’s where Octavia was first introduced to Christianity. Before long, she was a regular Sunday worshiper and member of the church choir.
She admits it was her faith in God and her desire to live a Christlike life that helped get her through the difficult times when she was apart from Stockar and later in her marriage when the challenges of living with an NFL player surfaced. Though they went through periods when they stopped going to church, or only attended sparingly, they never disconnected. Later, they decided to get more serious about their faith and saw it as an opportunity to take a spiritual journey together.
“You are always going to have trials and tribulations, no matter how much you try and follow the Word of God,” Octavia shares.
They both relied on their faith to get them through some difficult times. They told God about their troubles, asked for His guidance, and worked at it.
“I had a lot going on,” Octavia says. “I had my business, my kids, and now my husband comes home and he’s demanding everything from me. There were times when our relationship was strained because he was used to being catered to hand and foot. He’s a professional football player, but I don’t look at him like that. I look at him as, ‘Hey, you’re my high school sweetheart. You’re my best friend.’”
Octavia isn’t just telling her story. She’s telling the story of countless women all around the NFL. And perhaps corporate America too. Give a person enough power, celebrity, and adulation, and he or she is going to expect some of that at home as well.
Danisha Rolle, wife of former Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowl defensive back Samari Rolle, worked in parenting intervention at Catholic Charities in Nashville and later earned a master’s degree in clinical science and child therapy at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She wasn’t a kept woman who needed a meal ticket. She was a self-starter and today is a successful publisher of SET magazine, a glossy quarterly publication that targets female sports fans and can be seen lying around athletes’ lockers.
Though everyone likes a pat on the back, she says, some professional athletes have been getting a kiss on the behind as far back as elementary school.
It starts good-naturedly with proud parents showing support for their child. Then it expands to relatives who drive across town for a game and brag about their sweet little Walter Payton. High school coaches who want to build their own name on the backs of their teenage phenomenon follow. By ninth grade, the girls have discovered their sexual powers and start strutting their stuff for the school stud, and classmates learn that having an athlete drop by the house can make the lamest party really cool. “Stop by, whenever you want,” they say. College recruiters follow, and the schools provide dates that masquerade as “campus escorts” for the boys. There is the rush of 70,000 to 100,000 fans screaming out his name after a big catch or a punishing tackle. More women . . . It’s all free, right? More party invites. He gets tutors to help with his homework. NFL agents knock on his door, promising they’ll get him the millions he deserves and the life he’s always dreamed of.
It takes a strong person to remain grounded. It has nothing to do with education, race, or culture. Who among us wouldn’t begin to feel entitled? It’s not that the rest of us are better, more godly people. Most of us are just uglier and less talented.
This is where you can hear the echoes of coaches like Tony Dungy, Marvin Lewis, and Brad Childress talking about the importance of having men of faith on their rosters. These players understand there is something bigger than themselves and realize that someday they’ll have to answer for their actions. The result is oftentimes a greater sense of humility, a willingness to think about the team over themselves, and the realization that their talent isn’t their due, but rather a gift from God to be used for His purpose.
“As a football player, you have so many people feeding your ego and so many yes-men and cosigners that don’t want to be cut off from the payroll,” Danisha says. “That’s where some of the stronger wives come in and say: ‘Honey, now that you have a family, you can’t pay for all of your friends’ drinks and dinner anymore.’ And because the wife is now the bad person who is pulling their banker away and cutting off the free rides, you get enemies real quick. It creates tension and disagreements because they are his friends and family and you are the bad woman he got hooked up with.”
Cabrina Womack admits to having experienced the same pain and resentment. Former high school coaches were calling and asking Floyd for money. And she has a strained relationship with her own mother, partly because she wasn’t willing to meet her mom’s financial needs.
“The money is nice, but it puts an obligation on you,” she says. “Because you have the money, you are supposed to help people out of their binds. A lot of players don’t have relationships with their family members because of money.
“There was a time when Floyd’s sister would vent at me. He was paying all her bills, and she was twenty-eight. And I told Floyd, ‘Hey, it’s time for her to be an adult.’ So it breaks up relationships.”
Corwin Anthony, Athletes in Action’s pro ministry director, has heard these stories before. He says that of all the people who want something from an athlete—autographs, pictures, a jersey, a financial investment—none are as devious as family and friends.
“Almost every week in our couples Bible study we had to stop and counsel another couple who were expressing the pain and suffering that come from Momma wanting a new car, an uncle asking for money again, brothers trying to move into their house,” Anthony says. “I remember talking to a rookie at camp once, and he got a phone call. He looked at the phone and recognized that the area code was from his hometown, and his head just dropped. Then he gathered himself, shook his head, and put the phone down. ‘It’s just somebody from my hometown wanting something again,’ he said. He’s trying to make the team, and he’s burdened when he sees a call from home. That’s not right.”
Anthony knows it is hard, but a player has to learn that no matter how much he loves them, his mother and father’s job ended when he left home. He should honor his parents, Anthony acknowledges, but he is not obligated to support them for the rest of their lives.
These stories are legendary among the players. And the more money the player makes, the more the family expects him to pay its bills. It’s like the family just hit the lotto.
“We had one mom who told her son, ‘If your wife doesn’t have to work, neither should we,’ meaning herself and her other children.
So this one guy was supporting five households because he felt obligated,” Anthony says. “The players must understand the difference between helping and enabling. You are not helping them when you are enabling them to make poor choices with their money by replenishing the funds. And people wonder why these athletes end up bankrupt in retirement.”
The demands of playing pro football, dealing with family and friends, the money, and the celebrity can really weigh on a player and his wife. If the couple doesn’t work at the relationship and see it as a gift from God with its own set of trials, it can fall apart quite easily.
Octavia said that she would argue with Stockar even on the way to church sometimes, but that worship always helped them find a way to make up and keep their relationship strong.
Non-football couples find this to be true too.
“You might go in there with aggravation and frustration, and you’re fussing at each other on the way there, but you go to the altar and you put your needs and wants before God and you say, ‘Hey, Lord. Help me be a better spouse, more understanding, a better mom. Forgive me for being so difficult to deal with sometimes.’ If you are really faithful, you can’t walk out of there with those same issues in your heart,” she says. “I also learned from going to church that when you say, ‘OK, honey, I forgive you,’ you have to truly forgive. You can’t be like, ‘Yeah, I forgive you,’ but keep bringing it up every five minutes. Stockar and I are committed to one another and to going through this journey together.”
Stockar’s career lasted seven seasons and ended in Jacksonville when he ruptured his left Achilles tendon during practice in August 2007. Ironically it happened the same day his younger brother, Jerome, a first-round draft pick out of the University of Miami, ended his career with the New York Giants after tearing his triceps muscle during a preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens.
Since Stockar’s retirement, the McDougles have undergone a complete role reversal, with Stockar at home supporting Octavia’s career. The family has the real estate business and recently opened a vocational school called Beauty Anatomy as a community service initiative. According to Octavia, “It’s a health, wellness, and cosmetology school and ties back to my early days when I was a hair dresser.”
Stockar seemed to be adjusting to his life of leisure pretty well until one day he looked at his wife and said, “You know what? I’m bored. I need to get a job.”
Octavia hesitated for a moment and said, “Why don’t you be my assistant?”
Stockar thought about it. “Are you going to pay me?”
Octavia laughed at the irony. “Yeah, I’ll pay you a salary.”
Stockar paused to weigh the benefits—working from home, making his own hours, getting to kiss the boss.
“OK, then,” he said.
GAME DAY
Game day is a big event for the entire family. Wives, children, grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews make preparations to watch their homegrown star play on Sundays.
For the wives, though, it’s often a juggling act.
Samari Rolle ended his eleven-year career with 385 solo tackles, 31 interceptions, and 9.5 quarterback sacks. For Rolle’s family, Samari’s performance had been a subject of discussion and excitement for more than two decades, beginning with his high school years at Miami Beach High School, then to college at Florida State University, and finally to the pros where he was selected by the then Tennessee Oilers in the second round of the 1998 draft.
The Saturday before the home games, the Rolles usually had family and friends over to their house. Samari would be there until he had to leave for the team hotel, and then Danisha was on her own. She’d have everyone up and fed by 11:00 a.m. Sunday, and they’d be out the door by 12:15 p.m. for the 1:00 p.m. start.
“Samari would call me before he went into the locker room or on the team bus, and we’d pray over the phone together before the game,” Danisha says. “We would pray that God would protect all the players from both teams, and that He would allow Samari to have a great game. And we’d thank Him for Samari’s gifts and talents, and we’d ask the Lord to use him however He saw fit.”
The Rolles could afford a luxury suite and a driver by the time he signed a free agent contract with the Baltimore Ravens in 2005. After the game, the driver would take the family home while Danisha waited for her husband.
“We’d drive home together and discuss the game and how he played. That would be our time to recap, and he’d get calls from friends.”
REALITY CHECK
When the players and their wives are outside the spotlight, they are usually the first to tell you that while celebrity has its moments, it’s not the Cinderella tale it’s made out to be.
Samari and Danisha were married in November 2003 in a beautiful ceremony at the Vine Street Christian Church in Nashville. Samari had one child from a previous relationship, and the following year, Samari and Danisha had their first child together, a little boy named Jamir. It was a blessed event, as all births are, and the Rolles were delighted with their growing family. Twelve weeks later, Daddy was fired.
Ka-Blam! Just like that.
“I’m dealing with just having a baby,” Danisha says. “I’d gained almost eighty pounds and had body image issues. We had one set of parents that were close to divorce. He’s dealing with all these pressures to find a new team. And we couldn’t communicate. Let me tell you, it doesn’t matter how much money you have or how big a star your husband is, that’s a tough time.”
The couple had arguments. One turned into a fight where Samari’s watchband broke and cut Danisha’s eye, sending her to the emergency room. The hospital contacted police, and Rolle was arrested on a charge of simple assault, a misdemeanor.
“We had to learn from that experience,” Danisha admits. “It was during that period that we really had to rely on our faith in God; that He would provide for us and get us through our troubles. What we learned is that you can’t close one another off. Many men will close off instead of talking; they won’t tell their spouse what they are thinking and feeling. [Women] withdraw and essentially do the same thing.
“We spoke with many couples, friends and . . . you come into marriage with this idea of ‘happily ever after’ where you love one another and never argue, and then once you’re married you realize that’s not the case.
“When we were dating, I’d hear other men say, ‘Oh, I love her, but I hate her sometimes too.’ And I would think to myself, I don’t believe this guy could really love his wife if he thinks that way. But that’s not reality. When you are dating, it’s easy to say, ‘I’m outta here,’ and leave. But when you’re married, you can’t just walk out on your husband and children and the life you’ve made and quit. It takes the strongest couples to say, ‘Listen, you can’t respond to me this way when you are angry.’ And when you have children, you can’t throw things and get upset and walk out. This is part of growing up and maturing, and it hits us at a time when we are earning a lot of money and in the public spotlight. So mistakes get noticed.”
Danisha, one of eleven children, was introduced to her faith through her parents, who were very active in their church in Evanston, Illinois. She met Samari at Florida State, where she earned a degree in psychology. Family has always been a big part of Danisha’s life. Samari and Danisha now have four children, two boys and two girls ages five to eleven.
In Samari’s final years in Baltimore, they would attend Bible study in a small room at the Ravens training facility, where they would talk about the accountability they had in their walk with Christ and about being a champion of the faith.
Danisha liked couples Bible study because they could bounce ideas off one another, because they could apply the lessons of the Bible to what they were facing in their daily lives, and because it provided reinforcement at a time when the distractions and temptations of life could be overwhelming. Without friends or co-workers to share experiences with, Danisha admits that it can be easy to get off track and return to ungodly ways.
“You go through life and you pick up little things that will strengthen your faith, but to go to Bible study and hear it and see people nodding in agreement and to see that they have the same questions you do, it feels good to be in that environment and have the understanding of other people.”
THE GLUE
Dionne Boldin met her husband, Anquan, in high school when they went to rival schools, and the relationship continued at Florida State University where they dated on and off. “He had a name in sports, but he was just a quiet, humble person, and that intrigued me,” she says. As is the case with many people, both of their relationships with God were up and down during college as they fought to battle the pressures of young adulthood and still tried to maintain their faith.
She led the Ravens’ wives study in 2010 and assigned the book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver, about balancing one’s hectic life while spending time with God. The takeaway was that you have to make time to worship.
Boldin says a number of women confided that they suffered from depression and identity crisis. After giving up their own careers to follow their husbands, they lost their self-confidence and sense of purpose. One woman had gone to law school, but she never took the bar exam. She’d expected to be a practicing lawyer with kids. Instead, she was hopping around from team to team with her husband.
When Boldin hears other wives talk about giving up promising careers to follow their husbands, she understands. She has a bachelor’s and master’s in psychology and was ready to begin working in the school system. But she never did. “I was passionate about it. I loved it. But it never worked out,” she shares.
“That was something I struggled with. Who was I supposed to be? There was a point where I felt like it wasn’t enough to be his wife and the mother of two kids. I had these dreams, and they kind of disappeared.”
Another issue that affected the wives in her Ravens group was depression caused by the husband’s infidelity and the resulting “What’s wrong with me?” issues. There were also women in the group who were engaged to players they couldn’t get to the altar. Child rearing was always a topic of consternation. And sometimes, finances and the team’s pecking order were discussed. That’s something Rolle had experienced too.
“There is a point where you want to keep up with the Joneses,” she admits. “There is a certain pressure to look like a status symbol, whether that means buying the latest limited-edition bag or not living in a townhouse. Some of that pressure can be alleviated by the teams. Some clubs encourage the guys to hang out together and they supply the teams with a list of telephone numbers and addresses so you can get together and you invite teammates for birthday parties. Other organizations operate very differently. You have a millionaires’ row in the locker room. That extends to the way families are perceived.”
Boldin knows she lives a good life with many of the perks other women—and men for that matter—wish they had. But she could do without the scrutiny and criticism. Sometimes she wonders what life would be like if she could swap all the fame and fortune for a little normalcy.
“There is a part of the public that feels you are living the dream. And others think, Oh, you are just hanging on to his coattails. I get a little of both. It would surprise a lot of people how much the wives depend on our faith to work through our problems while being so much in the spotlight,” she says. “I think that 99 percent of us, if we could just have a normal life where nobody cared about us, we’d be happy with that.
“By growing with Christ, I have come to realize that if my role at this point is to be a mother and to raise two boys, so be it. My husband is not around a lot. Down the line, I aspire to other things. Right now, I’m comfortable with being the glue.”
THE FAMILY PSYCHOLOGIST
Jasmin Stuckey was living in Philadelphia when a friend introduced her to Chansi Stuckey, a New York Jets wide receiver two years her junior. He opened doors, had a good sense of humor, asked her opinion. He didn’t carry himself with the “I’m the big man” cockiness that some young athletes have, and that was attractive to Jasmin. She had seen a lot in life and wasn’t a pushover for a jock. She had earned a finance degree from St. John’s University in Queens, New York, was the mother of a small child from a previous relationship, owned a home, and had held jobs in real estate, finance, and fashion writing.
After their marriage in October 2010, life became a whirlwind of change.
Chansi was selected by the New York Jets in the seventh round of the 2007 draft out of Clemson University. He spent the season on injured reserve with a foot injury, but bounced back in 2008 with 32 receptions for 359 yards and 3 touchdowns. In 2009, he was traded to the Cleveland Browns four games into the season. And the following year showed promise, finishing third on the team with 40 receptions for 346 yards.
It was a good time for Stuckey to be entering free agency. In the summer of 2011, he signed a two-year, $3.5 million free agent contract with the Cardinals that included a $700,000 signing bonus.
The young couple had been looking to buy a place in Arizona and were talking about having a baby the morning she met the other Cardinals wives at Lynette’s house for their Thursday Bible study.
Now, two years into the NFL lifestyle, Jasmin says one of her most important tasks is supporting her husband and helping him keep the right emotional state of mind. Stuckey had a nagging hamstring injury early in the 2011 season and finished the year with just 4 receptions for 39 yards and no touchdowns.
The contract is a lot of money by regular-people standards, but it’s not a huge commitment for an NFL team. A club that invests big money in a player is going to give him every opportunity to succeed. It’s not just the money. Some executive put his name and reputation behind the draft pick or big-money signing, and he doesn’t just want the player to succeed—he needs him to succeed for the benefit of his own career. Those guys get second and third chances.
That’s not the case with Stuckey, who has bounced from one team to the next, never quite convincing his coaches to make a longterm financial commitment. Every day, every practice, every catch is a reminder of what he’s capable of, and every drop puts him that much closer to the waiver wire. It can drive you a little nuts.
“I have to be his psychologist, emotionally ready and stable to deal with whatever he’s coming home with,” says Jasmin. “I was surprised by how much emotional support they require. It’s not only him; it’s the million-dollar guys and their wives too.”
She thought it would be different in Arizona. The Cardinals had shown interest and paid Chansi a nice signing bonus. She’d finally be able to take a deep breath and relax. Or so she thought. The offer meant they were interested. It didn’t mean they were entering a committed relationship. This is the NFL, as in Not For Long. They could cut Stuckey the day after he signed his contract and the only thing the team would lose is the signing bonus. The “sweet ride” she imagined when Chansi signed the agreement, according to Jasmin, changed once he got to camp.
“Even though he signed a two-year deal with a bonus, we still felt like we were trying to compete and make the team even after all of that. And it wears down on your self-esteem and self-confidence,” she shares. “So when he is coming home and he is unsure, immediately that makes me anxious and that makes me get scared to death, but I can’t be that way. I have to be the strong one. And that’s when a lot of the prayer comes in. We pray every night together.”
Jasmin said the couple asks God for clarity in their lives so they can make the right choices, and they reassure Him that they will maintain their faith no matter what His plan is for their family.
“There is no job security from one day to the next,” Jasmin says. “If you have a regular job, unless you throw the stapler at your boss’s head, chances are that you are still going to have a job come Monday.”
The NFL is a tough place. And while the insecurity provides tremendous motivation, it also changes people. The way a coach says good morning is rerun in a player’s mind over and over.
Did he seem happy to see me? . . . Was it a disappointed hello, like he had to say hi because we were the only people in the hall? I think he avoided eye contact. Crap. I’m going to get cut.
Sometimes an unenthusiastic coach is just constipated. Or maybe he caught his daughter making out with her boyfriend on the sofa. Or he didn’t sleep well, or . . . who knows? This isn’t something that’s exclusive to the NFL. It happens in factory lunch rooms, corporate gyms, and everywhere else that workers and managers interact all over America. The difference is that most of us have a little more job security, whereas the NFL is a day-to-day commitment. When they call you an at-will employee, they aren’t kidding.
“Chansi has a tendency to overanalyze,” Jasmin admits. “He gets worried about how the guys upstairs are perceiving him. He wants to make sure he is putting his best foot forward, and that they know he is giving 100 percent every day. He’ll start picking stuff apart, and I’ll say we can’t really worry about it; we have to pray about it.
“Let me tell you, there have been days where he fumbled the ball, and I have cried in front of the television. But I got all my cry out and had a smile on my face when he came home. I can’t show him that I’m afraid,” she says.
“He’s a new husband, but he’s also a new father. So he’s a new leader for the household. That’s also something he deals with—being the man and taking care of everything, so I don’t want to make him feel inadequate if I’m scared. I don’t want him to feel like he’s not enough for us. So I pray on these things and support him as much as I know how.”
ASKING FOR HELP
The Cardinals’ wives-only Bible study is winding down. And Jasmin is telling the story of how she spent much of her early childhood living at her grandmother’s home in Camphill, Alabama, about twenty minutes from Auburn University, where she attended church most Sundays.
When she returned to live with her mother in Philadelphia during her high school years, Jasmin strayed from her religious foundation.
“Throughout my life, I’ve always heard God telling me one thing, and then I just do what I want to do. I do what makes me happy. So what I got out of our Bible study was the idea of obedience. When you are a child, you are obedient to your parents. Right now, it means coming to God with a childlike attitude and submitting to Him.”
The wake-up call that sent Jasmin back to Christ eight years ago was the birth of her daughter, Kiersten, in April 2004. It forced Jasmin to look at the decisions she’d made in her life. She went to her grandmother for advice and was told that when we are not listening to God and we are living by our own wants and desires, He will put us in a situation that sends us running back to Him.
When Jasmin was pregnant, she was all alone. Who else could she go to other than God? she shares with the wives.
“When I was in college, I had this belief that you needed to get your life together before you could go back to church. I thought I needed to work on myself. I had it totally screwed up. You go to church so you can get your life together. When I had my daughter, that’s when I really focused on getting back to God. And I’ve been going to church regularly.”
BETTER MOTHERS, FRIENDS, SIBLINGS
Dreama Graves concludes the Bible study by asking the women to start a journal so they can write down their thoughts on the book and the lessons they are learning about hearing God. In addition to the readings, she asks the ladies to read Proverbs 31:10–31, where the Bible describes the qualities of a wife with noble character:
A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
Every week they read part of the book and discuss a few chapters. “The goal by the end of the season,” Graves says, “is that we will be hearing from God in a bigger, clearer way, feeling confident that we are hearing Him and obeying what we are hearing.”
Each year, the Graves family performs community outreach. One year they supported families with loved ones in Iraq by inviting them to a Cardinals game. Another year, they contacted shelters that specialize in helping battered women. The Bible study group adopted Dreama’s cause in 2011 and dedicated some of their weekly Bible studies to working with women at the shelter.
“We want to hear from God, and we want to be better wives, better mothers, better siblings, better friends. We want to be more complete women by the end of the season,” Dreama says.