Christianity, Discipline, and Football

This was something of a draft I had for a while. Decided to finish it today. It’s my equivalent of an Arthur word splurge. Faith and football. Hope y’all enjoy.

What is football?

This is such a fundamental question, and not really a difficult one for those who have played, coached, or even watched it for any certain amount of time. It’s got its complicated aspects, but it’s not entirely difficult to understand as far as the rules. However, what is it at its core? I’ve decided to leave the best and brightest to explain what the sport is in their own words.

Tom Brady— Widely Considered the Greatest QB of All Time, if not even Athlete.

”I encourage everyone to play football for the simple reason that it is hard... Life is hard.”

”To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.”

Knute Rockne, One of the Greatest Minds of the Early Years of the Sport.

”Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.”

”The essence of football was blocking, tackling, and execution based on timing, rhythm and deception.”

”Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.”

”The secret of winning is working more as a team, less as individuals.”

”I don't like to lose, and that isn't so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective.

I don't want a football player who doesn't take defeat to heart, who laughs it off with the thought, ‘Oh, well, there's another Saturday.’

The trouble in American life today, in business as well as in sports, is that too many people are afraid of competition. The result is that in some circles people have come to sneer at success if it costs hard work and training and sacrifice.”

I could go on with more— from Nick Saban, Lou Holtz, or Bobby Bowden— from Tim Tebow, Walter Payton, or Patrick Willis or Ray Lewis. They all say generally the same thing.

The essence of football is hard work, which necessitates discipline. It also necessitates sacrifice. Whether it’s time, your body, your personal glory- all for the common goal and end of the team’s success.

Everything above characterizes football without talking about holding calls, touchdowns, or tackles for losses. Football is much deeper than the rules and getting the ball from one side of the field to the other.

Why is conservatism prevalent? Among athletes and coaches. Why is there a higher presence of Christianity and self-professing Christians?

To answer this question, I feel it somewhat goes back to the essence of football. Combat sports also have a high prevalence of conservative and religious people. There’s certainly overlap between the two categories. I don’t mean necessarily republicans. But instead, people who by and large embody conservative principles when it comes to social morality.

Unlike boxing or say MMA, there is not much ‘me’ in football. To quote Nick Saban, football is about the hunting dogs, not the show dogs. He also said today’s game— because of NIL and the player pay— many players have opted out of service to the common goal of victory for the team and program, and instead chosen their own personal gratification. The showdog is prevalent in combat sports.

This isn’t to say you don’t have amoral people in football. This isn’t to say you don’t have egotistical people. However, it does mean that to a great extent- if you played 4 years at an institution, and worked underneath other players for three years— having to wait your turn for glory. Working your tail off for those three in the weight room just to not even be necessarily guaranteed playing time come Saturday night your senior year— it builds a self-sacrificial nature. It becomes very akin to the military. There isn’t ‘me’, but instead we. I win when the team wins. That’s the mindset in football.

Even today, in the days of NIL, what personas are offensive linemen building? These players only really see glory when they get end of season commendations or awards. For most of the season, you only know of them when they fail.

None of this addresses the prevalence of conservatism in football or combat sports. But if I were to posit a reason: I’d say it is two-fold. Demographics and competition.

Why demographics? Well, first and foremost, the sport is probably give or take— depending on the level of ball about 60% African-American men and 35% White American men. African-Americans have a higher percentage of church attendance than most Americans. As for the White-Americans, Midwest Germans have a high representation in linemen, and have Protestant Lutheran or Roman Catholic roots. That also ignores the fact many are just from the Bible Belt, and may be White or Black Evangelicals.

And to build further on demographics, men of every race are more likely to be conservative than women. So in a sport that’s 99.9999% male, and specifically is made up of Black and White Americans on the whole— it somewhat reflects them. Especially those areas where the sport is biggest, like the Midwest and South, but also many competitive areas of the West Coast and East Coast.

What about competition? Well, it should be discipline and competition.

Football doesn’t reward you for letting your friend win your rep. It may reward and praise you for helping him up after beating him, but not for losing. At the end of the day, someone wins— someone loses. Like Rockne highlighted: whether it’s just laziness or apathy, you dont succeed in football without hard work, pursuit of excellence, or discipline. This could mean denying yourself another meal when coach told you to lose weight. It could mean getting two extra reps when your legs are already wanting to give. It could mean:

”Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make that linebacker pay.” Walter Payton

Hence why I said football reminiscent of the military. Which I’d say also has a similar natural conservatism. Does this mean the top brass are voting republicans? Maybe not. But it does mean the culture and nature of the sport/profession and demographic make-up of it, lends itself to conservative mindsets.

ittedly, football doesn’t inspire individualism. Certainly we see intensely famous celebrity football players. Usually this is on the big time college or professional level. How many of these are offensive linemen? Or defensive linemen? Not all that many. How many are quarterbacks, receivers, or defensive backs? Most are. There are obvious outliers. But how good would the running back or quarterback be without his linemen? Not very good. How many tackles would the linebacker make if the offensive linemen blocked him every play— running right past the defensive linemen? Not very many.

The military and football both don’t reward or selfishness. It’s actively beaten out of you.

Am I saying to some extent that leftism is more “individualist” or free thinking? That conservatives are close-minded and don’t think outside their bubble? A little. You certainly have your intellectual conservative minds. You also have your left-wing intellectuals. But it’s undeniable that conservatism thrives on the rural working class— not so much the philosophy student with three degrees. Left and right would agree to this fact. It’s observable science. What it means— is more debatable.

But what about individual athletes and servicemen? Are they not licentious? Over-indulgent? Throwing money at whatever they set their mind on having?

Of course.

The lack of discipline is however the exception and not the rule— at least in season. Johnny Manziel famously, from the above picture, didn’t care for the pros. He just wanted the college party lifestyle. For the pros, you see the commercials and the indulgent designer clothes or cars, but you don’t see the in-season routine or off-season grind. You won’t win if your locker room culture is laid-back. You will lose your position if you choose to miss that position meeting or not watch film.

Famous story of the #1 Draft pick, Jamarcus Russell from LSU.

He put on about twenty pounds in his first year and was known for the story where his coach gave him film to watch. It was blank. The coach asked him what he thought, and he was quickly out of the job after poor field performance and poor effort off the field when he told coach about the things he saw— on a blank film.

You can be as indulgent as you like out of training. Same goes for soldiers on their free time. Any servicemen in this amino knows how the barracks can be. The bar visits, the porn, and even drug use by some of the servicemen— but in training, the drill sergeant will scold and (likely) do more than that should that same servicemen not show up to training the next day because he was up all night.

As for Christianity in football, it’s interesting.

I don’t really have any guesses. Some recent football examples have been nothing short of revival level. The same sport that once gave penalties for prayers on the field in some states now has athletes every other day giving thanks to Christ or actively being involved in campus Christian movements. The picture below shows only a few of the public Christians on the Ohio State football team participating in baptisms on their campus, and even baptizing students themselves.

One of my favorite programs and teams have brought back team mass famously at Notre Dame under Coach Marcus Freeman. I don’t really have any explanations for all of this. Maybe it’s Black Christian culture. Maybe it’s the lack of direction for young men more generally leading to a new interest in Christianity. Who knows. While evangelicalism is dying in many places in the country, Christianity— of a very nondenominational nature— thrives in football programs. Y’all are welcome to speculate in the comments.

It’s fascinating and only makes me love the sport more. I saw it very much in my personal experience with football. I will explain further in the following paragraphs before I conclude.

I played football on two small Christian college teams. What was it like there?

For starters, I’d like to acknowledge two things. I didn’t play football in Massachusetts or Washington. I played football in Louisiana and North Arkansas. I started off at a liberal/mainstream Presbyterian campus. I finished my college career at a Southern Baptist college. This school hosted a few conservative Christian thinkers from the Alliance Defending Freedom— and Mike Johnson. I can post a picture I got with him if y’all like, lol. Multiple people in my family know him personally and I can speak to his personal moral disposition if y’all like. But that’s beside the point.

What did I notice in my time playing college football? Well, a lot of things. Most of my teammates weren’t really politically inclined. Of the few that were, most were Republican. But I don’t think we had any open “social liberals.” We’d joke about the weird blue-haired girls. Nobody was really going to correct someone if they called another player a pussy, and say how this was insensitive. Is this conservative? No, wouldn’t say so. It just isn’t politically correct by any means. We weren’t a safe space.

We had just about every type of person, from any type of place— northern, southern. Chicago, New York. New Orleans, Dallas. The nature of college sports today is that anyone from anywhere can get recruited to any place he or she is willing to drive to or fly to. My best friends my Freshmen year were from Southern Illinois, Dallas, Missouri, and Baton Rouge. Certainly not isolated just to Louisiana or Arkansas by any means.

Of our usual conservations, we were more likely to debate our favorite anime or show at the moment and who was strongest out of some strata of character as we were to discuss the latest sports. I’ve had teammates just as likely to have a beer or a t and still go to team church the next morning. Are they hypocrites? Sure.

But I also had teammates who would correct this behavior when they saw it. Who would preach the gospel when they had the chance to. They weren’t told to screw off. Some people talked behind their back about how they were annoying. Some would say how that same person used to be indulgent or licentious like them. But as a team, we didn’t shun those who were Christian. In fact, many of our athletes had the greatest Christian testimonies.

That’s some rambling about my personal experience and anecdotes. As a final thought, I’d say there are far more fervent and observant Christians on a campus who are athletes than say frat boys. Maybe not as many as there are in the campus ministry.

But certainly more than the average student at the school. When they posted #blessed or a Bible verse in a bio, they tended to mean it more often than not. Mind you, you had just as many going clubbing, drinking, or smoking weed. But that’s true of the general population. Many of those same people still would go to church, mind you.

Theres probably an argument to be made that football represents current trends in young men. To some extent, I’d say it represents something of the upper cusp of men— certainly in physical performance, but other ways as well. These are going to be people who may have lacked structure in their life (like I would say I did and many of my teammates have itted as much)but found it in the sport.