Sports Chaplaincy

Trends, Issues and Debates

Andrew Parker, Nick J. Watson, John B. White, Andrew Parker, Nick J. Watson, John B. White

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317050971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Cristianismo

This ground-breaking book provides an in-depth analysis of the theory and practice of sports chaplaincy in a global context. Written in an accessible style, yet based on academic evidence and theory, the contributors include those leading major national chaplaincy organisations located in the UK, US, Australia and Continental Europe, as well as chaplains and sport psychologists working in elite and amateur sport and those involved in teaching pastoral theology. Providing a rich and informative source of knowledge and inspiration for practitioners, athletes, academics and those interested in the general relationship between sport and faith, contributors also address the provision of sports chaplaincy at sporting mega-events, including the Olympic Games. This much needed overview of chaplaincy provision in sport across a range of national and international contexts and settings, including both catholic and protestant perspectives, is the first collection of its kind to bring together leading scholars in sports chaplaincy with a view to providing professional accreditation and training amidst the fast-emerging field of sports theology.

Part I
International perspectives

1 Sports chaplaincy

A global overview

J. Stuart Weir¹

Introduction

Sports chaplaincy should not be regarded as a homogenous entity. On the contrary, there are a range of models, frameworks, approaches and practices which fall under this generic heading. In turn, a variety of related roles have evolved over time, these include chaplains being associated with local sports clubs or teams, chaplains working with national teams, sports chaplains in colleges and universities, chaplains to particular sports (nationally or internationally) or sporting ‘tours’ (for example, a golf or tennis tour) and chaplains at major sports events.

The modus operandi of a sports chaplain can vary considerably from conducting pre-game chapel services – a mainly North American activity – to a less high profile pastoral role involving one-to-one support. One chaplain may stress the evangelistic nature of the role; another may see their primary function as that of Bible teacher. Others may speak of being a ‘pastoral safety net’ while others still may use the term ‘sports mentor’ (Lipe, 2006). For some, conducting weddings and funerals can be a significant part of the job and a means of establishing credibility through practical acts of service in a sporting environment. Most chaplains serve as volunteers, but some are paid. Since the origins of sports chaplaincy, chapel services or team Bible studies have been a significant part of the role, particularly in North America. The justification for chapel services is clear. With players travelling a great deal to compete nationally and internationally, they cannot be part of a local church every Sunday. Chapel is about bringing Church to the players.

Moreover, the way that sports chaplaincy has developed in the US or in Australia is not the same as in the UK. In this chapter I uncover the origins of sports chaplaincy and examine the different models which have emerged over the last 40 years. At the same time, I identify some of the key issues which have arisen from the development of sports chaplaincy as a practitioner field. The individuals mentioned in this chapter are to be considered pioneers in this field in that there was no existing model of sports chaplaincy for them to draw upon and replicate. For them it was a case of adopting and adapting existing practice from church, military and hospital chaplaincy (which had existed since the eighteenth century) to see what worked (Tyndall, 2004).

North American models of sports chaplaincy

The acknowledged pioneer of American professional sports chapel services was Ira ‘Doc’ Eshleman, who in 1950 was founding pastor of Bibletown Church, Boca Raton, Florida, now known as Boca Raton Community Church. As a sports fan, Eshleman was struck by the fame and potential influence as role models of NFL players, whose pictures he had seen on breakfast cereal packets and whose profiles he recognized as ‘an untapped reservoir of spiritual witness’ (Fisher, 1969: 44). Eshleman asked himself a simple question: Could these football players be reached for Christ? While Eshleman was not the pioneer of Christian ministry to NFL players, he was the first to do it in a systematic way, building on the earlier work of Bill Glass of the Cleveland Browns, Buddy Dial of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Norm Evans of the Miami Dolphins all of whom held Sunday morning chapel services for teammates in the early and mid-1960s (see Glass, 1971, 1974, 1981; Ladd and Mathisen, 1999).

Eshleman began to work with these teams and approached others. In 1968 he found himself ‘on the road’ for 18 weeks, travelling 100,000 miles and speaking at NFL chapels on consecutive Sundays. According to Fisher, Eshleman had a clear spiritual and evangelistic purpose: ‘My mission to the pro is to help him establish a personal and meaningful relationship between himself and God, and then urge him to share his faith with others’ (cited in Fisher, 1969: 54). At the same time he began to take on a pastoral and counselling role as players, learning to trust him, sought his advice on personal and family issues. He believed that a player could not ‘be at his best on the field, if he goes out there worrying about an unfaithful wife, a rebellious child, or if he holds a grudge against one of his team mates’ (cited ibid.). Yet Eshleman appeared to have a great sensitivity in ministry, realizing that players were ‘quick to detect those who move among them for personal or selfish reasons’ (cited ibid. 63). Without intention and unbeknown to himself, he created a blueprint for sports chaplaincy which others would follow.

The pattern in baseball was similar to that in American football. Bobby Richardson, who played for the New York Yankees (1955–66), started Sunday services for teammates in the mid-1960s at a time when chapel services were also taking place for the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs (see Richardson, 2012). These informal gatherings of a few players reading the Bible and praying together at a team hotel or venue moved to more formal arrangements through an initiative by Watson Spoelstra, a Detroit sportswriter, who in 1973 approached baseball commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, with the idea of organizing a chapel programme for every major league baseball team. Kuhn granted approval and Baseball Chapel was created. By 1975 all of the major league baseball teams had a chapel programme.

In his professional ice-hockey playing days, Don Liesemer had a real passion to reach his teammates with the gospel. While playing for the Muskegon Mohawks, he enlisted the help of his church pastor, Bill Dondit, whose friendship was appreciated by the players. When Liesemer retired from professional ice-hockey in 1975 he worked as a school teacher and undertook NFL football chaplaincy while maintaining contact with hockey players that he knew. In 1977 he felt called to resign as a teacher and founded Hockey Ministries International (HMI) in order to encourage and meet the spiritual needs of the hockey world.

John Tolson, who had played basketball for Arizona State College and William Carey College in the 1960s, was one of the men who pioneered chapel services in the NBA starting with the Houston Rockets in 1978. Tolson initially went to a Rockets practice session, introduced himself to some of the players and enquired as to whether they ever prayed before games. On learning that such things were non-existent in the NBA, he offered to pray with players before the next game. The practice became established and chaplaincy had started. Tolson then contacted ministers he knew in other cities where there were NBA teams and encouraged them to become chaplains. In 1979 Joel Freeman became chaplain to the Washington Bullets (now the Washington Wizards), and in 1981 Bill Alexson became chaplain to the Boston Celtics where he served for 20 years. Alexson also travelled to other cities to meet players and teams and to introduce chaplaincy to them. In 1983 Pro-Basketball Fellowship was established to coordinate NBA chaplaincy and to network existing chaplains.

As part of his critique of North American sports chaplaincy, Krattenmaker (2010) raises two key concerns. First, he berates the commissioners and the management of the major leagues and the teams themselves for allowing ‘one-sided’ chapel services which are conducted in a way that ‘denigrates legitimate religious alternatives’ (p.103). He goes on to argue that chaplaincy should reflect the religious diversity of society rather than simply the leanings of evangelical Christianity. While the predominance of evangelical Protestant chaplains in North American sport may be seen to reflect the more pro-active organization of evangelicals with regard to an engagement with sport, there are questions to be answered here as to whether a proselytizing style of chaplaincy is appropriate within this context. Krattenmaker’s second concern – echoing that of Deford (1976a, 1976b, 1976c) – is that, as one observes modern-day North American sport it is easy to see the vagaries of commercial excess – obsession with winning, racial and gender discrimination, unprecedented wealth, gratuitous violence, serious injury and the exploitation of sex – yet it is rare to hear a chaplain speak out prophetically against such ‘evils and injustices’ (see also Hoffman, 2010; Watson and White, 2007). Krattenmaker accepts that chaplains may be reluctant to jeopardize their position by criticizing their team or sport and, to this end, may choose to ‘turn a blind eye’ to such moral issues in order to preserve their status (p.103). All of which raises a series of further questions about the responsibilities of the chaplain within this environment, the expectations underpinning this role, and the kinds of tensions and dilemmas which may arise when sports chaplains are contractually bound and financially remunerated.

UK models of sports chaplaincy

The first chaplain to be officially appointed to an English professional football club was John Jackson in March 1962. The appointment came about when Jackson, who was minister of Harehills Methodist Church in Leeds at the time, met the Leeds United general manager, Cyril Williamson, and suggested that the club might consider appointing a chaplain. Initially Jackson was asked by the team manager, Don Revie, to concentrate on helping the junior players at the club to adapt to life in the ‘big city’. In an article for the Methodist Home Mission, Jackson described his role as one through which he was simply able to be of service: ‘I do not go to the ground to take Christ there since I remember that he is there before me. I just go in case he needs an errand boy’ (1984: 34).

Michael Chantry became chaplain to Hertford College, Oxford in 1961. Shortly after Oxford United were promoted to the Football League in 1962, Chantry was invited to be their club chaplain, a position he held until his death in September 2003. The club may have chosen Chantry because of his experience of chaplaincy in his university post. Mike Pusey became chaplain to Aldershot in 1973. When Pusey came to speak at St James Road Baptist Church in Watford in 1977, he shared his passion for football chaplaincy with the then student minister, John Boyers. Boyers, who became chaplain to Watford FC in 1977, went on to play a leading role in the development of football chaplaincy, organizing the first English football chaplains conference in the UK under the auspices of Christians in Sport in the mid-1980s. In 1991 Boyers founded SCORE (Sports Chaplaincy Offering Resources and Encouragement, later Sports Chaplaincy UK) and worked full-time in sports chaplaincy through SCORE until his retirement in 2014. Currently 59 of the 92 English Premier League and Football League clubs have a chaplain, a small number of whom have documented the everyday nuances of the UK sports chaplaincy model (Boyers, 2000, 2011; Heskins and Baker, 2006; Rushworth-Smith, 1985; Wood, 2011).

The traditional pattern of chaplaincy in English professional football has been for a local minister to contact a club with a request to act as team chaplain, often assisted in this approach by SCORE/Sports Chaplaincy UK. In the North American context, the chaplain will seek to organize and speak at a team chapel service. Andrew Wingfield Digby’s role as spiritual advisor to the England cricket team represents a totally different model for a number of reasons. Firstly, his appointment was at the invitation of the Test and County Cricket Board (renamed the England and Wales Cricket Board in 1997). Secondly, it was an appointment to a national team and not to an individual club. Thirdly, there was no formal religious aspect to the role. Wingfield Digby a Minor Counties (semi-professional) player and director of Christians in Sport, was a regular on the professional cricket scene and known to a significant number of professional players. Ted Dexter, Chairman of the England cricket selectors invited Wingfield Digby to be involved with the England team in the early 1990s. Dexter had been a contemporary of the Reverend David Sheppard in the England team in the late 1950s and had found it helpful to have a Christian influence around the dressing room.

Wingfield Digby, who was appointed in June 1991 and served until 2000, saw his role as offering spiritual support to anyone who sought it. The current England team do not have a chaplain, but players have access to sport psychologists. An important difference here is that a chaplain is independent of the team hierarchy while sport psychologists often report directly to management on issues relating to player welfare and performance.

Tour chaplaincy

Being a chaplain to a club or team which is based in one location or city for at least half of its games is one thing, but providing spiritual support to a group of sportsmen or women who are rarely, if ever, in the same place – perhaps not even in the same country — for more than a short amount of time is another matter altogether. Fritz Glaus, who had been a college tennis player and then coach, served as chaplain to the men’s tennis tour for 12 years (1980–92), spending ten months a year travelling and watching an estimated 21,000 tennis matches in that time. However, he was not the pioneer of tennis ministry. Ramsey Earnhardt and Eddie Waxer (arguably the godfather of Christian ministry to sport), had previously travelled to a small number of tennis tournaments and led some chapel services for players. For some of the 12 years that Glaus was active, Jenny Geddes and Carol Fullerton carried out a parallel ministry among women tennis players. According to Glaus (2012: 17), the job involved (amongst other things) ‘conducting twice-weekly Bible studies, meeting one-on-one with players, forming friendships in the locker rooms … [and] organizing housing for players with Christian families’. Given the early stage of the development of sports chaplaincy Glaus started his work with a remarkably clear job description which he and Waxer drew up in 1980. Glaus was to disciple existing Christian players on the men’s tour, follow up new Christians on the tour, make himself available to a growing number of players who expressed an interest in spiritual matters, cultivate relationships with non-Christian players, identify key Christian leaders in the international tennis community who could speak to players about Christ in their mother tongue, recognize the broader spiritual needs of players, and explore ministry opportunities worldwide. The work was entirely unofficial with no recognition from the tennis authorities. Glaus (2012: 72) was sensitive to possible charges of what some might call inappropriate evangelism: ‘The last thing I wanted to do was push my beliefs on anybody. Ask anyone who was in the men’s tour in the 1980s, and they’ll tell you I was out there to be a friend to them’.

Professional golf in the US has always been one of the most Christian of sports, with up to 60 players attending a weekly Bible study on the men’s PGA Tour and 30 women involved in similar gatherings on the LPGA tour. Tournaments run from Thursday to Sunday, making conventional church attendance impossible, so the players ‘do Church’ on Wednesday evenings. The first PGA Tour Bible study was held in 1965 with golfer Jim Hiskey the main instigator. In 1981 Hiskey invited Larry Moody who had been running chapel services for the Baltimore Colts NFL team since 1978 to be the PGA Bible study leader. Moody started in 1981 and at the time of writing is still serving in the role. Originally he went to around 10 tournaments a year but over time that increased to more than 30. As provider of chaplaincy to the travelling golf community, Moody aimed to be all the things that a minister would be in a local church – pastor, counsellor, Bible study leader and encourager – but in a different city each week.

Cris Stevens offers an equivalent ministry in women’s professional golf. She attended the US Open in 1980 as a spectator and over the next two years got to know some of the players. She was invited to become their Bible study leader in 1982. Travelling to 30 tournaments per year, Stevens is there to help Christians on the tour to grow in their faith and to give other players the opportunity to think about the claims of Christianity. While she leads Bible studies and organizes events, she sees one-to-one relationships as the key to her work. Bruce Gillingham began chaplaincy to European Tour golf in 1989 before handing over some years later to Mark Pinney of Logos Golf. Liz Wilson supported players in European women’s professional golf for a number of years. Gillingham, Wilson and Pinney largely followed the US golf chaplaincy model.

Like golf and tennis, athletics and motor sport bring with them large amounts of travel and transient lifestyles. In turn, they present a series of disparate and diverse tensions and pressures for those performing at the highest level. Mark McAllister worked as an unofficial chaplain to the British athletics team between 1989 and 2002, travelling to major sporting events – Olympics and World Championships – as well as five domestic events a year, this in addition to meeting athletes one-to-one out of season. At major championships daily Bible studies were not uncommon with McAllister estimating that about 60 British athletes attended at least one such event during that period.

Motor Racing Outreach (MRO) was founded in 1988 when Pastor Max Hilton met NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip who told Hilton that he found it difficult racing on Sundays as this meant that he was unable to attend church. Hilton responded by resigning from his church in Los Angeles and moving his family to Charlotte, North Carolina, where the headquarters of NASCAR racing was situated and founding MRO. As the name suggests, MRO has an evangelistic emphasis but it also seeks to offer pastoral support to the racing community. In association with MRO, Alex Ribeiro, a former Formula One racing driver, spent three years (1999–2001) driving the medical car at F1 races in exchange for the opportunity to minister to the sport’s wider community. He ran chapel services on race day and talked to racing people one-to-one.

Major event chaplaincy

Chaplaincy is an established feature of the Olympic and Paralympic Ga...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part I International perspectives
• Part II Conceptualizing sports chaplaincy
• Part III Sports chaplaincy: practice and praxis
• Index