college football

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Family, faith, sickness and fame: Volunteer Trey Smith fights to keep his many commitments

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Family, faith, sickness and fame: Volunteer Trey Smith fights to keep his many commitments

As a teen-ager, Trey Smith kept praying that he would reach 6-foot-5 -- the right height for a blue-chip lineman coming out of high school and then a college star who would rise high in the National Football League draft.

His mother Dorsetta -- a preacher's daughter -- had dreams of her own, including that her son would honor his academic commitments and, after picking a good university, earn his degree. This was something they talked about while young Trey watched his mother wrestle with congestive heart failure and then die at age 51.

All of that was on Smith's mind when he won the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Award. The NCAA version of the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year award, it goes to a student leader who has exhibited "exceptional courage, integrity and sportsmanship both on and off the field."

Smith apologized and asked the audience at the Dallas Cowboys practice facility in Frisco, Texas, to give him a moment as he wrestled with his emotions. Then he thanked God, his family, teammates, coaches, academic advisors and the medical specialists who -- literally -- have helped keep him alive, as well as in the University of Tennessee offensive line.

There was a moment last year, he said, when doctors treating him for blood clots in his lungs told him, "You know man, hang it up, hang it up. You're done playing football. This is it.' …

"Something you dream about as a kid. A promise you made to your mom on her deathbed. Hearing that it's done? You know, it's devastating … I kept thinking … it's not over yet. God put a vision inside of me that night and that whole week, saying, 'I don't care what they say, I've got more glory, I have more honor for you.' God had a bigger purpose for me."

The spotlight on Smith's fight to keep playing has allowed fans everywhere a chance to watch a dramatic case of the mental, physical, emotional and, often, spiritual challenges student athletes face season after season, said Chris Walker, a former Volunteer defensive end who is the UT campus director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.


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Year in review: Ten religion stories that stuck with me in 2019, including one of my own

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Did Santa bring everything you wanted for Christmas?

I hope so.

As we head toward a new year, I wanted to pull a few items out of my gift bag.

Here, in no particular order, are 10 of the most memorable religion stories that I read (and one I even wrote) in 2019:

1. As his daughter lay in a pool of blood in an El Paso Walmart, a pastor held fast to his faith, Los Angeles Times

In an Aug. 8 post, I praised Times national correspondent David Montero’s front-page feature on the parents of an El Paso, Texas, shooting victim. I described it as “emotional, heart-wrenching and maybe the best religion story you'll read all year.” I stand by that statement.

Here (in no particular order) are 10 of the most memorable religion stories that I read (and one I even wrote) in 2019:

2. “Slavery and Religion: 400 years,” Religion News Service.
RNS national correspondent Adelle M. Banks’ compelling series focused on slavery and religion as Americans commemorated the 400th anniversary of the forced arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia. Datelines included New York City, Montgomery, Ala., and Jamestown, Va.


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Who would Jesus cheer for? S.C. paper explores the evangelical ties of Dabo Swinney’s Clemson Tigers

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The College Football Playoff games are this weekend.

My No. 4 Oklahoma Sooners (12-1) are two-touchdown underdogs to the No. 1 LSU Tigers (13-0). But OU coach Lincoln Riley said, “We are going to go ahead and show up.” So, friends, feel free to go ahead and pray for a miracle!

In the other semifinal, the No. 3 Clemson Tigers (13-0 and defending national champions) face the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes (13-0).

In advance of Clemson’s fifth straight CFP appearance, the Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., wrote about “How Dabo Swinney’s Christian evangelism boosts Clemson recruiting.”

The piece opens this way:

CLEMSON — The journey from high school football stardom to Clemson passed through NewSpring Church for some of Dabo Swinney’s latest recruits. Visits started not in the head coach’s office or the Tigers’ $55 million training facility that includes a bowling alley and miniature golf course, but in a church parking lot 2 miles away.

Cars parked, players and their families then boarded a shuttle to the facility, where, many say, God’s presence was clear. 

“Before we do anything, we’re going to pray,” said Sergio Allen, a highly rated linebacker from Fort Valley, Ga., who signed Wednesday as part of Clemson’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class.  “Somebody’s going to pray, whether it be coach Swinney, one of the staff members, another coach. It might even be us. We’re going to pray.”

Swinney, an evangelical Christian, is reluctant to elaborate with reporters about his faith; he declined an interview request for this story. But in the moments after Clemson’s 44-16 win over Alabama in the College Football Playoff national championship game Jan. 7,  he made a bold statement in front of a global audience.

“We beat Notre Dame and Alabama. We left no doubt. And we walk off this field tonight as the first 15-0 team in college football history,” he said. “All the credit, all the glory, goes to the good Lord.”

For those paying attention, the faith emphasis of Swinney and his team isn’t exactly breaking news.


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Note to sports writers: America magazine's Notre Dame football feature required reading this fall

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College football is celebrating its 150th season this fall. As a result, there have been many retrospectives looking back at some of NCAA’s best teams and players. You can’t look back at the last century and a half without mentioning Notre Dame.

That takes me to a recent issue of America, a weekly Jesuit magazine, and the great job they did at looking back at Notre Dame football in the context of what the success of a Catholic school meant in a primarily Protestant America. Under the headline, A Fighting Spirit: The place of Notre Dame football in American Catholicism, the result is a wonderful reflection of how important religion, football and immigration are to the American experiment. It also manages to be nostalgic and at the same time wrap in the current realities of the clerical sex-abuse crisis and other issues plaguing the church.  

The piece starts off with how the Notre Dame mystique got its start in the 1940s and what that meant to Catholics around the country. This is how writer Rachel Lu, a contributing writer for America, summed up that feeling: 

U.S. Catholics embraced the Fighting Irish with enthusiasm. When the leaves started turning each September, people who had never set foot in the state of Indiana would be decked out like frat boys, raising the gold and blue for Our Lady’s loyal sons. In parochial schools across the nation, nuns led Catholic schoolchildren in prayers for Irish victory. Notre Dame was the first school in the U.S. to have a nationwide following of “subway alums,” devoted fans for whom a radio dial represented their only connection to the university. It was said in those days that every priest in the U.S. was a de facto recruiter for Notre Dame.

In the minds of their fans, Notre Dame’s stars were much more than football players. They were warriors, fighting for the honor of Catholics across the nation.

Despite living a more secular world, Notre Dame’s Catholic roots and traditions are very much a story. I made a similar point about a year ago when Notre Dame was vying for a national title. A year later, Notre Dame isn’t anywhere close to a national championship — No. 1-ranked LSU is the favorite for now — but that doesn’t mean sports writers can’t be reminded how important religion is to the school and football in general.


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A reader asks: Is there a religion ghost in story of man arrested for popping 'Baby Trump' balloon?

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“Baby Trump” met his demise in Alabama over the weekend. Not for the first time, though.

Who, some might ask, is Baby Trump?

According to Heavy.com, he’s an “iconic” balloon that is “widely known as a symbol to protest the President.” Evidently, not everybody is a fan of Baby Trump. And perhaps, just perhaps, a holy ghost haunts the latest news involving the big balloon. More on that in a moment.

First, though, let’s meet Hoyt Hutchinson. ABC News reports:

A few dozen people were gathered in Monnish Park protesting the president's visit to the Alabama-LSU football game a half-mile away and holding various anti-Trump signs when a disapproving man approached the helium-balloon with a knife and slashed an 8-foot-long gash in its back. There were still two hours to kickoff in the college town when "Baby Trump" quickly deflated out and the balloon-stabbing suspect attempted to flee the scene, organizers said.

Tuscaloosa police said in a statement that officers witnessed the incident which led them to arrest Hoyt Deau Hutchinson, 32, and charge him with felony first degree criminal mischief. He was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail and held on a $2,500 bond. The slashing appears to have been premeditated as Hutchinson posted a Facebook Live video just hours before the incident saying he was "going down [there] to make a scene ... I'm shaking I'm so mad right now," he said. "I'm fixin’ to pop this balloon, without a doubt."

The Alabama Media Group adds more details to the story today, noting that the Baby Trump stabber gave a radio interview in which he cast his action as a case of “good vs. evil.”

“Seems like a ghost or two here,” said a reader who shared that link with GetReligion. “What church does he go to? What do they think?”


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Sports Illustrated reports on Freedom From Religion Foundation's complaints about Clemson football

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Hey, guess what? It really is possible for a journalist to report on the Freedom From Religion Foundation in a fair, insightful way.

In a post earlier this month, I made the case that “regurgitating the anti-religion group’s talking points as if they’re the gospel truth is not great journalism.”

Leave it to a sports writer, of all people, to show a better way of handling a story involving the FFRF.

I missed the following Sports Illustrated piece when it came out a few weeks ago, but it’s a terrific read — both for college football fans and those who follow religion news. I’m talking about Tim Rohan’s deep dive into “Faith, Football and the Fervent Religious Culture at Dabo Swinney's Clemson.”

GetReligion readers may recall that we noted in January, “Yes, there's a Jesus angle — and a Chick-fil-A one — in Clemson's football national title.”

In his SI feature, Rohan sets the scene this way:

On a hot, muggy day in August 2012, as Clemson football practice came to an end, coach Dabo Swinney gathered everyone for his closing remarks. Some players noticed a few Rubbermaid troughs stationed about and figured they were heading for the cold tubs. Instead, Swinney announced that one of their teammates, star receiver DeAndre Hopkins, would be getting baptized on the field. Everyone was invited to stay and watch.

Few players or coaches left, if any. They gathered around one of the tubs, which was filled with water, and Hopkins climbed in, still dressed in his jersey and pads. Jesus is the most important thing in my life, Hopkins said, and I want you guys to know I’m living for him. A pastor from NewSpring, a local Baptist church, baptized him, and the crowd cheered.

One assistant coach was so moved by the scene, he snapped a photo of Hopkins in the tub and tweeted it out. The photo caught the media’s attention and made national headlines. After that, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a nonprofit organization that promotes the separation of church and state, received at least three complaints about the Clemson football program. The following year, in the fall of 2013, The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote a story examining Clemson’s religious culture, highlighting Hopkins’s baptism again, and the FFRF received two more complaints. They were coming from alumni and people in the Clemson community.

At that point, Patrick Elliott, an FFRF attorney, opened an investigation and, in April 2014, sent Clemson a letter noting that the First Amendment prohibited the school, as a public institution, from supporting, promoting or endorsing religion. The letter asked Clemson to stop its team prayers, Bible studies and organized church trips.

Charles Haynes, the founding director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum Institute, a nonpartisan organization that educates the public on First Amendment issues, recently reviewed the FFRF’s claims against Clemson. “I don’t think this is a close case,” he says. “Clemson University is clearly violating the First Amendment.”


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Touchdown! Oklahoman scores with smart feature on Sunday Sooners game combining two faiths

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If you follow college football, you probably know that Oklahoma opened with an impressive win Sunday night, highlighted by 508 yards of total offense by Alabama transfer quarterback Jalen Hurts.

One game into the season (a small sample size, no doubt), it even seems possible that a different Sooners QB could claim the Heisman Trophy for the third straight year.

To which I say: Boomer Sooner!

Here in Oklahoma, The Oklahoman offered readers a special treat on the front page Sunday: a smart news-feature by longtime sports columnist Jenni Carlson on the Sooners playing on what many consider the Lord’s Day. (FYI: Carlson recently celebrated 20 years with the newspaper, which sparked a tribute column by colleague Berry Tramel.)

I loved the headline, which captures the storyline perfectly:

Why the Sooners playing on Sunday combines two religions — football and faith

Carlson sets the scene this way:

NORMAN — Joe Castiglione knew playing a home football game on a Sunday might cause a crimson and cream kerfuffle.

He understands, after all, where he is.

The Bible Belt.

Before deciding to move the season opener against Houston to Sunday, the Oklahoma athletic director talked to faith leaders, devout Christians and Sooner fans about a home game on a holy day. Would it be OK? Or would it be sacrilege?

During his conversations and his research earlier this year, Castiglione came across one tidbit that helped ease his mind — three years ago, Notre Dame played on Sunday.

“OK, now,” he remembers thinking, “this throws me off.”

The most predominant Catholic university in America played football on a Sunday, and it didn’t cause wailing and gnashing of teeth. Castiglione would know; he’s Catholic.

“I probably made some assumptions on what I had always heard, always thought … were the concerns of the day,” he said. “And then found they really weren’t.”


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Calling all sportswriters: Don't forget the 'Catholic angle' in those Notre Dame football stories

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December can be lots of things to different people. For Christians, it’s the season of Advent that culminates with Christmas. Jews have Hannukkah. Sports fans have … lots and lots of college football leading into the bowl games that really matter.

The College Football Playoff introduced just a few years back has added that extra layer of excitement to the Bowl season and Heisman trophy contest that highlights the end of every season. The quartet of teams vying to be national champions this year are Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma and Notre Dame.

While Alabama is ranked No. 1 and the heavy favorite to win the title, the team that stands out from this group for reasons not at all associated with sports is Notre Dame. For sportswriters out in the field covering games and feature stories (and, more importantly, the editors who dictate that coverage), let’s not forget what can be called the “Catholic angle” to any Notre Dame team.

To cut to the chase: There’s more to this team than its iconic golden helmets, deep-blue uniforms and movies like “Rudy.”

That’s not to say the Catholic rituals and traditions associated with the school’s football team have been totally overlooked over the year. Michael Leahy, author and award-winning writer for The Washington Post, wrote a column in 2013 about the Catholic connection to the Division I school in South Bend, Indiana. Here is an excerpt from that piece:

If there is a single reason for Notre Dame’s enduring mystique, it is that — putting aside the perspectives of its alumni, students, professors and administrators — the place exists in the American psyche solely as a football team. The school has a top-notch faculty and notable graduates who never played a down, but who in Ann Arbor, Los Angeles or Tuscaloosa cares about that? To them, Notre Dame is the locker room where Knute Rockne exhorted his troops before they stampeded the opposition. It is the Four Horsemen. It is Ronald Reagan as George Gipp. It is a place where greatness, reality and fable mingle, and few know where one ends and the others begin.

For most of the 20th century, the adoration of Notre Dame also reflected the relatively favored status of Catholicism in American culture. Despite unfounded fears over whether a Catholic president could escape the Vatican’s influence, films from the era demonstrate a largely benign perception of Catholicism. The most memorable priests from the period’s major movies possess the same saintly qualities ascribed to Notre Dame: rectitude, hearts of gold and the righteous power to knock out a foe.

Leahy’s commentary is spot on. It captures a snapshot of the school’s religious and cultural relevance to American society like few pieces about Notre Dame ever have previously or since its publication. It is the backdrop and larger context for nearly every story regarding the Fightin’ Irish‘s football program.


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Chicago Tribune reporting on Wheaton College hazing incident seems solid, but pay close attention

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Infuriating.

That's the only way to describe the reported circumstances of a hazing incident involving football players at Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical college in the Chicago area.

I say "reported circumstances" because we don't know all the facts at this point.

But what do know makes one's blood boil: Let's start at the top of the Chicago Tribune's front-page story, which seems extremely solid:

Five Wheaton College football players face felony charges after being accused of a 2016 hazing incident in which a freshman teammate was restrained with duct tape, beaten and left half-naked with two torn shoulders on a baseball field.
A DuPage County judge signed arrest warrants and set $50,000 bonds against the players — James Cooksey, Kyler Kregel, Benjamin Pettway, Noah Spielman and Samuel TeBos — late Monday afternoon. Prosecutors charged the athletes with aggravated battery, mob action and unlawful restraint.
They are expected to turn themselves in to authorities this week.

Keep reading, and here is the part that doesn't make sense to me: The accused are still playing — or have been playing — football for Wheaton:

The victim, who the Tribune is not naming, left the conservative Christian school shortly after the incident and now attends college in Indiana.
"This has had a devastating effect on my life," he said in a statement to the Tribune. "What was done to me should never occur in connection with a football program or any other activity. ... I am confident that the criminal prosecution will provide a fair and just punishment to the men who attacked me."
The college released a statement late Monday saying it was "deeply troubled" by the allegations because it strives to provide an educational environment free from hazing and reflective of the school's religious values. The school said it hired a third party to investigate the allegation last year and took "corrective actions," but officials declined to provide details on any punishment, citing federal privacy laws.
Sources told the Tribune that several players were required to perform 50 hours of community service and write an eight-page essay reflecting on their behavior.

Over at the American Conservative, Rod "Friend of this Blog" Dreher opines:


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