Sports have increasingly become a pulpit for expressing an athlete’s religious beliefs. Whether it’s the baseball player who points his index finger skyward after hitting a home run or the running back who kneels in the end zone after scoring a touchdown, God appears to have joined many professional, collegiate and high school teams. But what do we make of this religiosity in what is otherwise a secular game?

Praying Fields explores the interaction between sports and religion by inviting coaches and athletes to talk openly about their faith -- or lack of faith -- and how their beliefs have affected them on and off the field. In conversations with sports people from all levels -- professional, college, high school and youth -- we’ll try to answer whether religion plays a greater role in riskier sports, whether God is a fan of [your team name here] and whether the winner-take-all mentality agrees with religious teachings.

I have been a sportswriter for nearly 15 years, most recently at The Washington Post, where I covered the Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl-winning season and the Maryland women's basketball team's run to an NCAA championship. Raised a Methodist, I consider myself a “submarine” Christian, surfacing at Christmas and Easter. I hope these discussions lead to a better understanding of how people come to believe what they do.

How do you comfort an organization when someone dies? Sean Taylor’s unexpected death reverberated through the Washington Redskins this week, leaving players, coaches and team personnel grieving. And as they mourned, many of them turned to their faith to help them cope with their loss.

The three men at the forefront of the grief counseling, team chaplains Lee Corder, Brett Fuller and Jerry Leachman, did their best to ease sorrow and make sense of the tragedy. Yet this cadre – most teams have one not three chaplains – was not enough to alleviate the organization’s collective ache.

“I have felt completely inadequate because there are things that man just can’t do,” Fuller said

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Darrell Green collected a lot of accolades during his 20-year career with the Washington Redskins. The cornerback, who was Washington’s top pick in the 1983 draft, went on to win two Super Bowls and to be voted to seven Pro Bowls. He also won four NFL “fastest man” competitions. In his first year of Pro Football Hall of Fame eligibility, Green is one of 26 semifinalists, and some think a potential first-ballot inductee.

Yet, Green wants you to think of him as more than a guy who could run fast and intercept passes. In our conversation about his faith, he talks about how God told him to remain in Washington, how Marty Schottenheimer tested him and how Joe Gibbs facilitated but didn’t lead Christian fellowship at the Redskins.

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Many people who watched the Heisman Trophy ceremony earlier this month were bewildered when reading their newspapers the next morning. In the countless articles that were printed about Florida quarterback Tim Tebow winning the award, few cited his religious beliefs even though he clearly made several references to God in his three-minute acceptance speech. His opening remarks – "I’d just like to first start off by thanking my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who gave me the ability to play football” – didn’t appear in any mainstream news stories.

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Those who have read Joe Gibbs’s book “Racing to Win” written with Ken Abraham will find an uncanny similarity between his first retirement from the Redskins and his most recent one.

In the book published in 2002, Gibbs writes: “When the boys [J.D. and Coy] were young, I used to tuck them into bed each night, read a bit from the Bible, talk with them about what it meant, and pray with them before turning the lights out. Then one night I went up to read and talk, and my baby, Coy, was already asleep. I leaned over to give him a kiss and reared up in shock. Oh my gosh! My boy has a beard! I looked closer and saw to my surprise that my youngest son weighed 220 pounds!

“What had happened? I realized that my sons were growing up with an absentee father, even though we were living under the same roof. I was a football recluse, spending far more time with the Redskins than with the people who mattered most in my life, my wife and children. I was time to make a change.”

Those words were as true today as they were in 1993. In both cases, Gibbs’s desire to be with his family led to the decision to retire. Yet, many people were shocked that he would walk away from such a high-profile, lucrative career, especially now that the Redskins seem to be headed in the right direction.

Redskins chaplain Brett Fuller wasn’t surprised.

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Alan Veingrad spent seven seasons in the NFL as an offensive lineman, playing for the Green Bay Packers (1986-90) and then the Dallas Cowboys (1991-92) where he won a Super Bowl ring. Veingrad played nearly every position on the line, blocking for Emmitt Smith and protecting Troy Aikman. Smith presented Veingrad with a Rolex watch after the running back won the NFL rushing title.

Veingrad played alongside many Christians in the NFL and at East Texas State University in the heart of the Bible belt, but few of his teammates shared his Jewish heritage. As he put it: “In the rough and tumble environment of an NFL team, a Jew is an outsider.” Though he always considered himself a Jew, Veingrad didn’t embrace Orthodox Judaism until after he left professional sports.

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Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams had some advice for Jimmy Patsos when he was hired at Loyola College in Baltimore four years ago. Williams, who had coached at Boston College, one of the oldest Jesuit universities in the country, knew that coaching at a Catholic school had its own set of challenges.

“When I took this job, [Williams] said, ‘Let’s go over a few things about coaching at a Jesuit school,’” said Patsos, who was Williams’ assistant at Maryland for 13 seasons and helped the Terrapins win a national title in 2002. “It’s hard to pinpoint what the differences are, but there are differences.”

For Patsos -- a Catholic who had gone to a Jesuit high school in Boston and played basketball at Catholic University in Washington -- going to Jesuit Loyola wasn’t as much of a departure as going to Boston College had been for Williams, who isn’t Catholic. Yet even though Patsos is very comfortable in a Catholic setting, he recognizes the subtle distinctions between religiously-affiliated schools and secular ones.

“I do think at religious schools you do have to conduct yourself just a little bit differently, not a ton differently,” Patsos said. “You’ve got to be yourself. . . . I’m trying to follow the mission of the college, and I think I’ve done a good job of that.”

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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.)

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It’s easy to dismiss what happened in Kansas recently between a private religious high school and a female referee as misogynistic. When Michelle Campbell showed up to officiate a boys’ basketball game at St. Mary’s Academy, she was told the school did not allow women to referee boys’ games. Campbell did not officiate the game nor did her male counterpart, who refused to work the game out of loyalty to Campbell.

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I once had a colleague who was keen on putting together a men’s basketball tournament involving only Catholic schools, sort of the Catholic version of March Madness, having Jesuit colleges battle Franciscan schools for Catholic sports supremacy. Nothing ever came of the idea, but it was fun to contemplate.

This year, when the NCAA men’s basketball tournament rolled around, I began thinking about my co-worker and his Catholic tournament.

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Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, Michael Redd always had Christ in his life. But since he was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2000, the 29-year-old shooting guard has developed a stronger faith. Not long after he arrived in the NBA, Redd famously declared he would remain celibate until he married his wife and, by all accounts, kept that promise.

Then after signing a six-year, $91-million contract in August 2005, the NBA all-star used part of the money to help his father purchase a church. Redd’s father, the Rev. James Redd, is pastor of the Philadelphia Deliverance Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. Before his son’s generous gift, the congregation worshiped in storefront and basement churches. At a time when NBA stars are glorified for their wanton lifestyles, Redd stands out as one who puts his faith first.

I talked to Redd about faith and basketball.

Have you always been spiritual?
Growing up in a household that included parents that were pastors and people that were involved in ministry, that’s all I’ve ever known. It wasn’t until I left home that I really developed a personal relationship with Christ. For so long as a teenager and a kid, you piggyback off mom and dad. They’re ministering, they’re pastoring, so I think I’m automatically getting a pass to heaven. And that wasn’t the case at all, I found out. I had to develop my own personal relationship with Christ and begin to communicate with Him on a deeper level pretty much when I left home to go to the NBA.

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When it comes to spreading the word of God through sports, the Catholic church lags behind other Christian groups. Evangelicals have been much more enterprising in using athletes to spread their message. That may be changing.

At the behest of the late John Paul II, an office was set up at the Vatican called Church and Sport in 2005. That year, the Pontifical Council for the Laity also held its first international symposium on the global phenomenon of sport. One of the 50 participants from around the world invited to the conference was Robert Feeney, a religion teacher at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington and author of “The Catholic Ideal: Exercise and Sports” (Ignatius Press, 2005).

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Juashaunna Kelly

When Juashaunna Kelly is feeling stressed, anxious or worried, she goes running, and almost like magic her troubles slip away.

“Running, it makes me feel good,” she said. “I solve everything by running.”

Running can’t solve everything, unfortunately, for the senior who attends Theodore Roosevelt High School in Northwest Washington. Sometimes, it causes more problems than it solves. Back in January, Kelly was disqualified from the Montgomery Invitational track meet because of her uniform. In keeping with the teachings of Islam, Kelly, a Muslim, wears a spandex unitard that covers her arms, legs and head. The meet officials refused to allow her to compete because they said her clothing violated the rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations.

The ensuing uproar – the story appeared on the front page of The Washington Post and drew national attention – brought to the forefront the difficulties some athletes face when trying to follow their religious beliefs while competing in their sport.

Kelly, who converted to Islam when she was 5 years old, has kept her arms, legs and head covered ever since she started running in sixth grade. At first, she wore her jersey and shorts on top of the clothing she wore to school that day. But running in pants and a headscarf proved a challenge.

“The shirts that I wore under my uniform, they were big,” Kelly said. “When I ran, the wind would just blow and my scarf would sometimes slip back like it was going to come off and I would have to go like this [she puts her hand on top of her head]. . . . Running with pants, I can’t lift my legs or anything like I want to.”

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