By Michelle Martin
Staff writer
When Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Goebel skated off the Salt
Lake City ice Feb. 14, the quick Sign of the Cross that he made
didn’t go unnoticed.
“I remember I thought ‘There’s our boy,’” Valerie Zemko, Goebel’s
former physical education teacher and principal at St. Colette
School in Rolling Meadows, told the suburban Daily Herald. “You
can tell he got a good Catholic school education.”
Goebel, who had his medal blessed by Bishop George Neiderauer
of Salt Lake City Feb. 17, isn’t the only athlete praying in public
these days. Both of his fellow Winter Olympics medalists, Alexei
Yagudin and Evgeni Plushenko, made religious gestures after their
routines. American speed skater Derek Parra also made the Sign
of the Cross Feb. 19 after setting a world record in the 1,500
meters—a record which brought him a gold medal to go with the
silver he won in the 5,000-meter race. Tara Lipinski, the figure
skating gold medalist at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan,
says she has a special devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux.
Caps and T-shirts reading “John 3:16” popped up in locker rooms
in all sports a few years ago, and professional baseball and football
players have long given public credit to the Lord after winning
championships.
For Mary Frohlich, a spirituality professor at Catholic Theological
Union, the displays of faith demonstrate a human impulse to look
to God at times of great stress, like just before or after an
athletic event where years of training could lead to great success,
failure or injury.
“People in that situation are facing a kind of crisis, not necessarily
negative, but in terms of the intensity of the moment,” Frohlich
said. “I think it’s a natural response.”
Who, after all, has not thanked God for a disaster averted or
an opportunity seized at some point in their lives? The difference
for elite athletes is that they perform—and pray—on a very large
stage, and taking their spirituality to work can mean bringing
it into viewers’ living rooms.
That’s why such a natural and appropriate response can seem like
it’s done only for show or being flaunted in the faces of the
losers when done by the winners.
For Catholics especially, Frohlich said, praying in public can
seem to violate Jesus’ injunction against praying on street corners.
“Specifically in the Catholic tradition, we haven’t done a lot
of public prayer,” she said. “Maybe in some other traditions,
there is the use of public prayer as witness.”
Indeed, the nondenominational Fellowship of Christian
Athletes (FCA), proclaims itself “an influencing ministry,” using
athletics as its platform and coaches and athletes as its
role models.
“FCA has chosen the powerful medium of athletics as its avenue
to impact the world for Christ,” according to the “Who We Are”
statement on its Web site. “Specifically, FCA has targeted the
athlete and coach because of their great influence. The athletic
focus is further refined by our school orientation; we are on
junior high, high school and college campuses. FCA focuses to
draw the athlete, the coach, and all who are influenced.”
The organization is active in 7,700 mostly public schools across
the United States, involving as many as 500,000 junior high, high
school and college students. Many members are Catholic, although
the Scripture-based focus probably seems more familiar to evangelical
Christians.
Members meet at one another’s homes, or as non-curricular, voluntary
clubs at school. Those who belong—called “teammates”—are encouraged
to be active in the church of their choice.
A Web site for a group called “Catholic Athletes for Christ” based
in Columbus, Ohio, exists, but it hasn’t been updated since last
summer.
Groups like the Catholic Youth Organization and Catholic schools
can be more specific in their approach to prayer and appeal to
student athletes’ spirituality.
At Loyola Academy in Wilmette, for example, football teams attend
special Masses every week during the season, and Jesuit Father
John J. Foley leads prayers before and after games, win or lose.
The players pray to do their best, play hard and serve as worthy
representatives of their school and its traditions, said John
Hoerster, the school’s
athletic director. He expects many of their opponents say similar
prayers.
“We train and we practice to win,” Hoerster said. “Everybody does.
We don’t pray to win. God has other priorities.”
Prayer also can help keep athletes focused on the important things
that are more important than winning, Hoerster said. “This is
all part of the educational process,” he said. “We’re trying to
teach them goals and objectives, values and virtues, that they
will take with them when they leave here and bring to their own
families. We’re trying to reinforce a lot of things that you’re
trying to teach on the field itself.”
To that end, athletes are encouraged to participate in retreats
and other campus ministry offerings, Hoerster said.
Scalabrinian Father Nicholas Marro, pastor of Santa Lucia-Santa
Maria Incoronata Parish in Chicago, long has served as the unofficial
Catholic chaplain to the Chicago Bears, celebrating Mass before
all home games and the away games that he can drive to. Priests
from the host cities say Masses for Catholic players and coaches
before other away games.
“When they say prayers, it’s not to win,” said Marro, whose association
with the Bears started with a request to say one Mass in 1984.
“Most of their prayers are of thanksgiving. They’re thanking God
for their health, for their families, for making the team.”
In 18 years of ministering to athletes and coaches, the one thing
Marro has observed is how like the rest of his parishioners they
are. The young players are concerned about the same things as
most youths; as they get older, marry and have children, their
concerns change.
And often, as players matured, they became more open about thanking
God for their gifts or even asking for blessings before they took
the field, Marro said.
“We all like to know that we’ve got this little extra blessing
or prayer,” he said.
