If Jesus Was a Linebacker

“If Jesus was a linebacker you would know when he tackled you.”

Earlier this year football players at a private Christian high school told me that the above statement was uttered by a defensive coach. At the time, I was working on a book titled “Does God Really Care Who Wins?” and this quote raised more questions than the ones I was already struggling with.

I’ve prayed over and thought about the above statement, and I think I understand the point the coach tried to make. He believes that if Jesus played linebacker, or any other position in athletics, Jesus would give outstanding effort. He would do things the right way, including being willing to hit hard for the sake of victory. In an ESPN.com article by Robert Lipsyte, the late Reverend Jerry Falwell was quoted as saying almost the same thing; “If kicking butts is part of it, that’s part of it. Jesus was no sissy. If he played football, you’d be slow getting up after he tackled you.”

However, in attempting to reconcile with these two statements, my struggles began with what my brain couldn’t imagine. For some reason, when I read the Gospels, or think of Jesus, I can’t seem to picture him as a linebacker. I don’t see him coming across the middle of the field and leveling a running back. I can’t see him chasing down a quarterback and driving his facemask into his chest to record a sack. I’ve tried to picture it, but the Jesus in my mind always stops short of nailing the opponent to the turf. Then he tells him a parable he won’t understand before walking on.

I do live in Texas, where football is the religion of choice. So maybe the Jesus of the Bible Belt does run a 4.5 40-yard dash and can bench press 350 pounds. But I still can’t picture it.

My biggest struggle in writing the book, besides picturing Jesus as a linebacker, is in identifying God’s role in sports. Some people believe that God plays a large role. Others believe that God doesn’t play a part at all. I was torn for the longest time.

And one of the main reasons I was torn was the visible contradictions in the lives of so-called Christian athletes. Too often Christian athletes contradict themselves and their relationships with the Almighty, which causes confusion for some and false hope for others. Some athletes point to heaven after a homerun, but inject their body with illegal substances in order to break records. Other athletes take part in pre-game chapel services, then post-game adulterous affairs. Certain baseball players cross themselves before an at-bat, then receive an X on their hand at a gentlemen’s club later that evening. One football player in Texas regularly praises God in victory and thanks him for his talent, but then verbally abuses his coaches and quarterbacks, refuses to play for a team he was traded to, and draws attention to himself by doing sit-ups in his driveway.

I know there are genuine athletes who live the Christian lifestyle, but then there are others who make you cringe when they praise God or point to heaven. I don’t claim to know every athlete’s faith, but maybe there are some athletes out there who only believe in God for good luck. I do know there are athletes like Eugene Robinson, formerly of the Atlanta Falcons, who learn from an awful mistake and grow from it, so praying for the hearts of athletes should not cease because change is possible.

The question then becomes: What should we pray for? Other questions I struggle with in discovering God’s role in sports revolve around winning and losing. What happens when two athletes compete against one another and both pray to God for victory? Who will win? Is winning what’s important? I’ll get to that answer momentarily.

I’ve been employed in professional sports, college sports and high school sports and have seen the gamut of athletics and different types of athletes. At one time the college football team I worked for participated in four consecutive bowl games. One day before the fourth bowl game a fan of our team informed me she was going to wake up early the morning of the bowl game to pray for the team to win.

“Why so early?” I asked.
“I want to get to God before someone from the other team does.”

I thought she was joking. Turns out she wasn’t.
We lost the game by more than twenty points. A few weeks later I told her, “You need to get up even earlier next time.”

Joking aside, why didn’t God answer her prayer? Why didn’t he allow us to win by more than twenty points? Never mind the fact that the opposing team had more talent, better coaching, better facilities to train in, and more lucky bounces during the game; we prayed to God for victory. Shouldn’t that be enough to guarantee a win?

No. It shouldn’t. Winning might not be as important as we often make it out to be. I believe what matters to God is how an athlete plays the game, behaves on and off the field, and uses their abilities and position in life to bring glory to his name. That’s what matters; not Lombardi Trophy’s, gold medals or Stanley Cups.

Don’t hear me wrong, competitive junkies; I’m not saying that God loves a loser more than he loves a winner. The Apostle Paul often compared the life of a Christian to the life of an athlete. He said, “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” (1 Corinthians 9:24). The prize he spoke of could be eternal life, heavenly rewards, or the hope we have as Christians. The prize for the athlete in his analogy was probably a perishable wreath given to the victors of the Isthmian games. What I take from his statement is that he didn’t say you had to get the prize, he merely said put in the effort to try and get the prize. Effort, attitude, and joy seem to mean more than actual victory.

If winning was all that mattered, wouldn’t Christian athletes win more? I once heard a pastor say, “Sometimes Johnny Christian loses the game and Paul Pagan scores the winning touchdown and goes home with the homecoming queen.”

It is easy to discern that Christians don’t always win in athletics, or in life. Sometimes we even lose badly. For every John Wooden there is a Ritchie McKay, a college basketball coach who has been publicly ridiculed for sharing his faith with his players and recently fired from the University of New Mexico.
Another example is the 2006 Colorado Rockies. Members of their front office made a public display of affection for Jesus, tried to fill their roster with baseball players with character, and released a high-priced pitcher because of his problems off the field. They didn’t even allow pornography in the locker room, which is almost unheard of in professional athletics. Apparently most of the Rockies’ players don’t even read the articles. Despite their efforts the team and front office were not rewarded with baseball success. After all the great things they did to share Jesus, the Rockies finished the 2006 season 76-86, fourth in the NL West.

I know that struggles produce character, and maybe losing is what this group of men needed, but I look forward to the day when a professional championship team opts not to pour champagne all over each other, and instead, reads Scripture to the reporters and prays together in the locker room. Now that would be cool. That might win souls to Christ. But I’ve never seen it, or heard of it. God must have other plans than to use a team full of Christians to win a World Series. Maybe he’d rather see us working together to end poverty and genocides in Africa, or homelessness and abortion in America.

God can use whatever he wants to bring glory to his name. Athletics and athletes are no different. Sports are regularly on the big stage in America, and there are plenty of great examples of Christian athletes who use that stage to glorify God.

Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith both used Super Bowl XLI as a springboard to share their faith in Jesus Christ. Days before the game, Smith said, “God has given us a perfect stage to confess our faith in Jesus Christ.”

In a Yahoo! Sports article Mariano Rivera admitted that there are bigger saves out there than the ones he records as the closer of the New York Yankees. His status as arguably the best relief pitcher of all-time is secure, and so is his faith. “While I want to be a good closer here, I want to be the best closer in the kingdom of God, he said.”

Former NBA great of the San Antonio Spurs, David Robinson, began a foundation that bears his name and he uses his fame and money to bring glory to God. He said, “My career as a sports figure has been exciting, but its main purpose is to provide a platform for me to impact people’s lives in a positive way.”

2005 National League MVP Albert Pujols and his wife oversee the Pujols Family Foundation. The mission statement is “To live and share our commitment to faith, family and others.” The vision Statement is “To promote awareness, provide hope and meet tangible needs for families and children who live with Down syndrome.”

More examples include John Smoltz, Mike Sweeney, Shaun Alexander, Kurt Warner and Dwight Howard. All of these athletes seem to strive to maintain the proper perspective. They want to win and diligently train their bodies to be great at what they do, but they also know that in terms of the grand scheme of God’s plan, there is more to life than being successful at sports. But they also know to use their success at sports to further the kingdom of God.

So if Jesus was a linebacker would he hit an opponent so hard that snot ran out of his nose? Maybe. He could have if he wanted to. But he might also pray with the opponent after the game, share his faith in the locker room, and use his money and fame to further the kingdom of God.