Faith and Basketball

Defining Sarah-Jo Lawrence as simply a basketball player would be too limiting. The senior guard is an explosive scorer with the No. 17-ranked George Washington women’s basketball team. She carries a 3.85 grade-point average in her double major of communications and sociology. She is a member of Athletes in Action, a Christian group for student-athletes, and president of the Jackie Robinson Society, a student organization that sponsors discussions about Robinson and participates in community service projects. She has twice won the Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar Award, given to outstanding minority student-athletes around the country, and she is one of the 10 finalists for the senior CLASS award, presented annually to one men’s and women’s senior basketball player. (CLASS is an acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School.)

Last summer, Lawrence was selected to play for the U.S. team in the William Jones Cup, an international tournament named after one of the founders of FIBA and held annually in Taiwan. It was the first year the U.S. team was sponsored by Athletes in Action. In an online diary about her experience that she produced for GW’s Web site, Lawrence wrote: “Every day we have Bible study and learn new things about God and how we should be as Christians. Our goals in Taiwan are to witness to as many players, staff or people of Taiwan we can about Jesus and his love, as well as to bring back the gold medal for the US!!! We pray before practice and team time, and while we are on our 12-hour plane ride to Taiwan, we will write our testimonies about our lives and how we came to know Jesus Christ.”

Lawrence shared her thoughts on her faith and how that trip to Taiwan strengthened her spiritually.

Q: Tell me about your faith.
I was raised in a Baptist church, but I always go to different kind of churches, nondenominational. I’m just a Christian.

Q: Do you go to church regularly in college?
We go to Monday night Frontline [a ministry of McLean Bible Church]. They have a service geared toward college students. They hold it at the Rosslyn [Spectrum] Theater. We just go to the Metro in Rosslyn and attend that on Monday nights. But this semester I have a class on Monday nights so I may not be able to go regularly. [Former teammate] Kenan [Cole] goes to the same church and with Athletes in Action, we all kind of go together. [Teammate] Ivy [Abiona] goes to church a lot. Every Wednesday night we have a Bible study get-together for Athletes in Action. We bring snacks. We have guest speakers come in and talk. We get into the Bible most of the time. We usually have practice on Sundays so I couldn’t go on Sunday, which when I first got here was hard because I couldn’t go. . . . When I joined Athletes in Action, I started going to church with them.

Q: Were you always spiritual?
I did get baptized when I was 9. I was always spiritual because my mom would read the Bible every night to us when I was little. Then the AIA trip to Taiwan really helped a lot because seeing other people like you, other Christians that play your sport, that have the same passion that you do, it really motivates you to want to integrate them. It really was a turning point and help further where I’m at.

Q: How does your faith help you?
Oh, my goodness. Whenever I am in a slump, a shooting slump, it could be anything, if our team, if something’s going wrong with our team, that keeps me grounded. I know if nothing else I can talk to God. He’ll be there. Basketball, if you care about it so much and it doesn’t yield the results that you want, you just would get really down. I know a lot of friends and I know a lot of people that has happened to and it does continuously. It happens to me too with any little thing because you want to be great. When you don’t get the results that you want, it’s very hard to take, and I don’t know if I didn’t have that relationship I don’t know how I would get over it. I’d be depressed all the time.

Q: Is it prayer that gets you through those tough times?
It’s definitely prayer. Talking to Him helps you to keep things in perspective. You’re all sad and you’re praying about basketball and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so many other things that are terrible in the world and I’m worried about this. Are you kidding me? There’s stuff happening in Africa, people who are homeless, and I’m at George Washington University getting my scholarship paid for, and I’m upset because I’m in a shooting slump.’ It puts everything into perspective. My teammates always come to me about those issues and they’re sad. I always tell them, ‘You’ve got to put things in perspective, and you’ve got to do it through prayer.’ It really does keep you grounded. What am I really here for? Is it just to be a basketball player? Who’s going to remember that I was a four-year basketball player at GW? Nobody. It’s about you and your relationship with God and what He wants in your life. It’s more than just basketball.

Q: Being a Christian in college and an athlete, do you ever find that difficult?
It’s always difficult as a Christian to, you don’t really know what level you can talk to somebody about faith. Rejection is so scary, whether it is religion or just talking with someone and getting rejected. It’s always a factor. You’ve got to know that [God is] always going to be there. He’s always going to be looking out for you. If that person does reject you, then obviously you weren’t meant to talk to that person. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough if people did have views other than mine, it’s OK. We just have different views. We can still be friends. We don’t have to mock each other or any of that. Fortunately, the people I’ve been around have been that way. A lot of my teammates go to AIA with me and have the same beliefs.

In college, it’s always hard because of the college atmosphere. It’s definitely hard. I’m not saying that I’m the ideal person. Everyone has those issues, including me. That’s what keeps me grounded. If I do step out, cross that line, the line where I don’t want to be, then having that relationship [with God] always takes me back to the right place. By no means am I [perfect]. Sometimes, in college especially, people can really get down about anything. I wonder how would I deal with things if I didn’t have the relationship I have with God. Where do you turn to? Sometimes you can’t turn to people because they’re not always going to be there to help you. I’m so thankful that I have that relationship, and I have my mother who understands and other people I can turn to and talk to about issues. It’s really beneficial having that.

Q: Does God have a role to play in sports?
I know what you’re getting at, but I think it’s more of you can use basketball as a way to impact others, to let them, because if you’re on a team like I am you form relationships with people that are really close. You’re together all the time pretty much and that’s just an avenue to tell them about your faith and let them know what’s going on. You can only play five people at one time. There’s six or seven people on the bench. They obviously don’t want to be there. It’s hard dealing with that, and you have people who really get down on themselves. You can use that as a way to say, ‘Hey, maybe you should try this, try prayer to help you with what’s going on. It may not all of a sudden turn you into a starter, but it may help you to put things into perspective and it may help you to get through what you’re going through to know that somebody’s there for you to talk to even if you think He’s not listening. He always is.’ I think that’s where God comes into the game.

It’s not like God is in the game, but sometimes it is like that. I felt at the Texas A&M game that, I don’t know where that came from, but it was [there]. I felt like there was somebody with me there because I was just in a zone. [Lawrence scored a career-high 29 points against then-No. 10 Texas A&M and sank a three-pointer with 4.3 seconds left that sent the game into overtime. GW upset the Aggies, 66-65.]

Q: You really felt like God was with you in that game?
Yeah, it might sound weird, but I don’t think I was alone.

Q: Can you describe what that felt like?
I couldn’t believe it. After the game, I couldn’t believe that that game just happened. I don’t know. I just felt like, ‘Was I really there? Did that really happen? Did we just win that game in overtime and play that hard?’ It was just amazing. I don’t know if I can put it all into words.

Q: Do you pray a lot? What do you normally pray for or about? Just whatever in my life at that time I think I need to [pray for]. There’s people I think need God and I’ll pray for them. Or there might be situations that are happening that I pray for.

Q: Do you ever pray for wins or to shoot the ball really well?
No, not those kind of things. Too shallow. There’s some things that need to come from you, that need to come from your own ability, your own passion and drive. Leave the big things for Him. I can control [the other things].

Q: What’s been your most spiritual moment?
Spiritual. That’s a tricky word. That’s a hard one.

Q: We’ll skip it and come back to it. What are some aspects of your faith that you think people don’t understand?
That being a Christian is all about rules and what you can’t do. And restrictions, and it’s kind of like a big, weird thing. Religion, like, oh man, what does she think? Higher power, this and that. It’s really so much more positive than negative. It’s so much more of having someone there with you all the time, having a foundation you can always lean back on, having the word that when you need direction gives you direction. And it’s not, a lot of people think of religion, you think a lot of negative thoughts, and it’s so much of an asset to have really. But I think as Christians a lot of non-Christians think that we’re judging them when we’re exactly the same. The mistakes that are made by non-Christians a lot of Christians make those same mistakes because we’re all sinful. We just have that foundation. We know we’ve crossed that line, and we know when we need to come back. We’re no different than everybody else who makes mistakes, and we’re not here to judge anyone. We’re just here if you want to come in then we open the door for you.

Q: Your most spiritual moment.
With AIA, when we were in Taiwan, we were doing a Bible study and one of our coaches just came out and voiced what he was going through. He broke into tears and was talking to us. We were all there. We were able to bring that out of him. He was like, ‘I know where I need to be and I’m not there.’ We were all there for him, and we prayed. It just felt like we bonded at that moment. The whole team just bonded together. We’re all here for each other, and so even to this day, even though every one is spread out, we all come back and it will be the same way, like we never left. We’re that much together. . . . It was a very spiritual because we felt like at that moment anything, we knew that anything we needed we would all be there for each other.

By Kathy Orton  |  February 21, 2008; 9:14 PM ET  | Category:  Praying Fields
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