This was in the Detroit Free Press recently ...
ON A MISSION FROM GOD: Believe!
Lions develop winning unity with faith-based football
September 23, 2007
BY SHAWN WINDSOR
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Maybe
it's the dozens of coaches and players who pack hotel conference rooms
for chapel on
Saturday night, or the players and families who cram into
a basement for Bible study on Mondays, or the ever-expanding circle of
prayer after practice on Wednesdays. And Thursdays. And Fridays.
Or
maybe it's Jon Kitna, the starting quarterback, who overcame a
concussion last Sunday to lead the Lions to victory and then called his
return a miracle, who decorated his locker with drawings of the cross
and prints of scripture, who is absolutely convinced that his presence
in Detroit is not a happenstance.
But a mission.
From God.
"(Kitna) has a way of touching people," said his coach, Rod Marinelli. "You can feel it all over the field."
A lot of his teammates can, too.
There is a spiritual movement bubbling in Allen Park. The quarterback is the conduit.
"I'm
not naive enough to think that my life is about football," Kitna
explained this week. "God uses football to shape me. But he also uses
it to give me a platform to speak, to proclaim the gospel."
Kitna
concedes that in an NFL locker room, not everyone is going to live for
Christ like he does. Still, in Jesus, he said, there are teachings for
everyone, and through those, the Lions are finding common bonds and
developing unity, between Christian and non-Christian.
"I've
never seen anything like it," said receiver Mike Furrey, who attends
the spiritual gatherings and considers himself a devout Christian.
Furrey
suggested last week that part of the reason the Lions are 2-0 is
because the team is more Christian-oriented than it was a year ago. Not
that he wanted to suggest God was decreeing victories. Instead, he
said, the spiritual lessons have helped to heal a fractured team.
"Used
to be offense versus the defense," said Roy Williams, one of the team's
more notable members of the prayer circles. "Everybody is here to help
everybody now."
Williams wouldn't talk about the change in his faith. He said it was too private.
But
Furrey and others said the Pro Bowl receiver's role on the team is more
inclusive this season. "He's a completely different person from last
year. He would admit that," said Furrey. "He's a leader now."
Many players say the team has changed, too, both in the locker room and on the field.
"Each
team will take on its own personality," Marinelli said. "It's my job to
create the environment to allow that to happen. If a team is
fragmented, players don't take ownership of the team."
Marinelli said that once the coach lays a foundation, the players start framing. Kitna led that process.
"You've
got to have something special to get people to follow," Marinelli said
of his quarterback. "I've seen this guy come in and do it. You can feel
it. And he's tough. You see what I'm saying?"
Less bickering, more unity
Most
football coaches will tell you that a winning team has to find an
identity. Some teams take on the personality of their coach. Some teams
become an amalgam of their most dominant players. And some teams
discover themselves an unexpected event that provides a sense of
purpose.
Before this season, the last time Dave Wilson saw that
purpose in Detroit was 1991, when offensive lineman Mike Utley was
paralyzed. The Lions' team chaplain has been offering his spiritual
services for 22 years.
"That team was united over a tragedy," Wilson said. "This is the first time I've felt that kind of unity since then."
Wilson
is also the pastor at Kensington Community Church in Troy. When he
isn't preaching, he is coaching, at Rochester Adams High School, where
he works with quarterbacks.
He said he sensed this year would be
different early in training camp. He especially felt it as he walked
the sidelines in Oakland two weeks ago during the season opener.
"And
we were losing. It was the fourth quarter. In years past, there would
have been bickering, division," said Wilson. "But this team welcomed
the adversity. Everybody was walking around, saying, 'Somebody is going
to make a play.'
The question is, how did this happen? How did a team mired in self-immolation begin to find its way back?
"That's
a good question," said Boss Bailey, an outside linebacker who struggled
with injuries early in his career. "I can't answer that."
What he will say is that "God is doing wonderful things in this locker room. It's a beautiful thing."
He
said what's happening now reminds him of his college days, when he
played for Georgia in the Southeastern Conference, where religion is a
more publicly acknowledged part of the game.
His role in this
revival extends to Monday nights, when Bailey and his wife hire
babysitters and use their house as a de facto day-care center. His
teammates and their wives drop their children off and head to Kitna's
basement for an hour of Bible study.
Normally, on a typical NFL
team, said Kitna, "you get six people, maybe eight. But last year when
we started this here, we got about 20. When we started out 0-2, then
0-3, then 0-5, our worldly minds were thinking: 'We better start
winning, or people are going to bail.' "
The opposite happened. And by the end of the season, some 40 people were showing up. Players wanted help coping.
"We had guys getting saved, guys getting baptized," Kitna said.
He said 18 people in the group were baptized, a mixture of players and friends and family.
"It was exciting to be around," Kitna said.
Even those members who don't consider themselves born-again Christians think the spiritual movement is good for the team.
Defensive
coordinator Joe Barry is one such. He finds himself drawn to the
popular Saturday night chapel services led by the team's chaplain.
"It's inspiring," he said.
Kitna insists that he and the more
evangelical minds on the team aren't out to "sneak-attack anybody." He
said he is more interested in helping to change the part of NFL culture
that spits players into the post-football world bankrupt or divorced or
worse.
It is part of his mission. It is also part of his mission
to help purge franchise demons. This is why, he said, God sent him,
along with a handful of others -- including devout Christian Calvin
Johnson -- to Detroit.
"This is not a coincidence to me," he said.
He
is aware of how such thinking is viewed. He knew it when he told the
media last Monday that a miracle had healed his concussion. He knows
there are those who find it laughable to suggest God is interested in
football, let alone the Detroit Lions.
But in Kitna's view, why wouldn't God be?
"He is omnipresent," Kitna said.
No guarantee of success
Perhaps no other sport in America intertwines so easily with religion. It is brutal. It is violent. It is full of risk.
"The
more danger, the more people tend to seek Christ," said Kitna. "I've
been in a baseball clubhouse five minutes before the game and everybody
is having fun. In a football locker room, there is a lot of
self-reflection."
And praying. For the will to run across the
middle, for the strength overcome pain, for the resolve to continually
hurl one sculpted mass of muscle into another.
Faith found a
place in football, said Wilson, because players "looked around and
said, 'I need something a little bit bigger than myself.' "
From that basic search, a more charismatic approach sprung. A locker room can be fertile ground for those looking to save souls.
Still,
said Jason Hanson, the Lions' longtime placekicker and a self-described
Christian, "there is no pressure to be part of this. Every team in the
NFL has a group of Christian guys. What happened here is that we have a
larger group of Christian guys being vocal."
He credits Kitna for finding a way to lead without turning non-Christians away. Besides, he said, the message is universal.
"It
isn't a guarantee of success, but maybe a character check for how you
run your life," he said. "We aren't winning because of expanded prayer
groups and Bible studies. But those attitudes are showing up in the
locker room."
A room, many neutral observers agree, that has been a pretty miserable place until recently.
For the moment, faith, winning and a 35-year-old quarterback have changed that.
"Is that a guarantee we will be in the playoffs?" said Marinelli. "No. But you have to believe."
Contact SHAWN WINDSOR at 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com.
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So cool, that Jon Kitna did our message at New Community this past Wednesday night~ so uplifting to have this faith-filled man of God share his thoughts, feelings and wisdom with us. So encouraging to have a super-star athlete who knows what's really important stand strong in his faith.
And so cool that Sara got this on her camera phone from our seat front and center : )
--------> Watch Jon at Kensington here: Daniel 3 | Jon Kitna
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