Posts tagged ‘NCAA’
Final Four: Faith touches the hardwood
NCAA college basketball is closing one of its most suspenseful seasons in scenic San Antonio with a Final Four of college basketball royalty: North Carolina, UCLA, Kansas and Memphis.
Saturday’s two semifinal games will match UCLA against Memphis and Kansas against North Carolina. The two winners play Monday night for the 2008 NCAA Championship.
Among the crowds in San Antonio will be a sizable representation of coaches and players who, on the basketball court and beyond, see Jesus Christ as life’s ultimate champion. (more…)
Top 12 Evangelicals in Sports
You can stay home on Sunday to watch football, skip Tuesday night prayer meeting for the baseball game of the week, and miss Saturday’s church retreat in favor of a pro golf tournament–chances are, you’ll still hear about Jesus. Evangelical athletes populate the major sports, and many of them enjoy the chance to be outspoken about their faith–thanking God for that winning field goal, late-inning homerun, or 18-foot putt.
We’ve scanned the sporting world to come up with a gallery of some of the most dominant athletes and coaches working today. Each of these men and women work hard, as their Bibles tell them, “to win the prize,” both in their sports and in their faith. (more…)
Leader of the Pack keeps faith in God
For more than 30 years, women’s basketball coaches have stood on the shoulders of Kay Yow. An undeniable legend in the sport, her bio reads like an excerpt from “College Basketball’s Most Desirable Accomplishments.” But when thumbing through the pages of that biography, note that Yow’s fiercest competitor hasn’t been on the court.
Three times the North Carolina State head coach has been diagnosed with breast cancer, most recently stage IV in November 2006. But likened to any other rival, she has shown up for cancer’s game, determined to fight.
STV’s Susie Magill: You have been through a lot these past two years with a cancer relapse and extensive chemotherapy. What has God taught you through this battle?
Kay Yow: He is definitely working on my character to a deeper degree. There is no question about that. You have a chance to become a stronger person—a more Christ-like person—while you are going through it. And on top of that, you turn around and you are being blessed in so many ways. (more…)
Bowden: “Nothing else in the world that is everlasting, except Jesus Christ”
Louisiana College athletics director Tim Whitman said the LC football program will make “between $50-75,000″ from LC’s inaugural Football Celebration Friday evening that featured longtime Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden and LSU running back Jacob Hester.
Whitman said he made the wide-ranging guess at the revenue generated from the program without having seen all the figures, especially from the silent auction.
Neither of the featured guests required a speaking fee, Whitman said, and he noted different people donated the money necessary to pay for their flights in and out of Alexandria.
“Coach Bowden normally charges $25,000 to speak, but he did it for us at no cost because of his relationship with our people,” Whitman said. “It was wonderful to have two great figures who spoke on our campus about putting God first in their lives. It was great for our town, our football team and our college.” (more…)
Top College Prospect Plays For Jesus
Autographed photographs of Matt Leinart and Colt Brennan hang on the wall in Bruce Rollinson’s office at Mater Dei High School.
In their inscriptions, Leinart and Brennan thank Rollinson for his guidance during their high school careers. They are among nine quarterbacks he has coached who went on to play in college during his 19 seasons as the coach at Mater Dei.
Yet of all the quarterbacks to play at the Catholic school, the best could be the 17-year-old junior Matt Barkley. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Barkley is rated as one of the top recruits for the class of 2009. Last month, he quietly committed to Southern California, where his father, Les, played water polo in college.
He chose U.S.C. over U.C.L.A., California, Oregon, Florida and Notre Dame. (more…)
Colt McCoy tries to be ‘strong, Christian influence on others’
Source:
This article is from September 8, 2006:
The roster of the defending national champion University of Texas Longhorns reads a lot like the college ministry roll at the nearby University Avenue church in Austin. No. 96 Lokey, Derek No. 12 McCoy, Colt No. 8 Shipley, Jordan For those who need a program to keep up, those would be, in order, the 2006 squad’s starting defensive tackle, quarterback and wide receiver. When the No. 2 Longhorns take on the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday, plenty of attention will be focused on McCoy, a redshirt freshman making just his second collegiate start. Ohio State fan Nolan Rutter, minister at the Clinton, Mo., church, said he’ll pray that McCoy and his teammates are spared injury, but not a regular season loss. Ohio State 35, Texas 30 is his final score prediction. Brad McCoy, naturally, is predicting a Longhorn win. He said his son is approaching the game with a strong faith in God, reliance on prayer and on his teammates, especially those who are also his brothers in Christ. “The decisions he had made through his life, all the sacrifices to become a great football player, most of those are Christian sacrifices, too,” said Brad McCoy, a member of the Eastside church in Graham, Texas. “Socially, he was always making sure he was a strong, Christian influence on others.” (more…)
Vandy’s Earl Bennett asked God to guide him in right way
Below is part of the transcription of Earl Bennett’s Jan. 10 press conference announcing his decision to forego his senior year at Vanderbilt and declare himself eligible for the 2008 NFL Draft.
Earl Bennett
First of all, I’d like to thank all of you for coming out and sharing this moment with me. After thinking weeks and weeks about the situation, talking it over with my family, talking it over with my coaches, my friends, close relatives, and mainly just talking to God and asking him to guide me the right way and keeping me under his guidance throughout this process; throughout the weeks, I went through deep consideration, deep evaluation, talking the whole process out with Coach Johnson, analyzing different strategies and things, so with that said, I’ve decided to skip my senior year and make myself eligible for the 2008 NFL Draft. It just came out that I had a great three years at Vanderbilt; there’s nowhere else I’d rather have been in these three years, and I just thank Coach Johnson and his staff for continuing to recruit me even when I was committed to Kentucky, thanking them for the chance to let me come into this program and continue to build on it.
What were the pluses and minuses that you went through?
I mean, I was just weighing out different options. If I come back, I always risk getting injured. There were a lot of pluses and a lot of minuses, and I felt like just talking to God and asking him to guide me in the right way, I can’t go wrong with the decision whether I came back or whether I left. Vanderbilt is a fine university, you have great teammates, great players, and Vanderbilt’s gonna do great things next year, and I just sat and talked to God and asked him to guide me in the right way. That was the ultimate factor. (more…)
Ray Rice says good-bye to Rutgers
“First I would like to thank God, my family, and Coach Schiano for everything he’s done for me in leading me this far,” Rutgers’ all-time leading rusher said. “After the last few days, me and Coach Schiano sat down and what I did was just evaluate what was best for me and my family. And I’m always going to be grateful for what I’ve done here at Rutgers and for what Rutgers has done for me. After sitting down with Coach, Rutgers has really made me into a man and I’m proudly glad to be able to say that.
“I’m humbled here today just to say that I’m always going to be a part of the Scarlet Knight family.”
Rice spoke of the chance to play in the NFL as something he could not pass up.
“I’ve always dreamed of playing in the NFL – that’s something I’ve dreamed of as a child,” said Rice, who intends to return to Rutgers at some point to get his degree. “The opportunity came knocking , so I’m going to take it forth from there.”
Mississippi State’s Alexandria Hagler’s overcomes abortion, homosexuality, and depression by God’s grace
Have you ever fallen into the pit of despair, landing in a pool of your toxic mistakes and filthy sin? There in the depths you gaze in doubt at the slippery walls of consequence that rise 20 feet above you on all sides. “I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold,” describes the psalmist in 69:2 (NIV).
We’ve all been down there—we’ve all experienced deep anguish. But, if you read further, you find that the psalmist escapes. “Praise the Lord, O my soul,” he shouts, “who redeems your life from the pit!” (103:2-4, NIV).
The story told in the Psalms is familiar to Mississippi State senior Alexandria Hagler. Plagued at one time by sexual sin, homosexuality and abortion, Alex’s pit became deep and slippery. But just like the psalmist, Alex now shouts for joy that her Savior redeemed her life from the abyss. Her story reminds us no sin is too great for God’s grace.
I grew up in a Christian family that went to church on Sundays, but I was never surrounded with people who had a fiery zeal for knowing Christ. We attended church, but didn’t really read the Bible or seek after the Lord.
Things were difficult for me and my brother. Our father was a hard man, emotionally and physically abusive to my mother, brother and me. And when I was 5 years old, my parents got divorced. From that point on I became especially protective of my brother, and we became close as we shuffled back and forth between visiting our mother and our father.
We continued to go to church, but the older I got, the more I went in my own way. I began to stray from seeking the Lord because I didn’t have anyone around to lead me in the right direction. (more…)
Football has given Tadman platform to witness
Playing football at Boise State University, Marty Tadman has made such a name for himself that someone else has it.
“I have a kid named after me, Tadman. It was (by) some random fan. It was kind of weird, surreal,” Tadman said.
A 5-11, 185-pound senior safety from Mission Viejo, Calif., Tadman was named first team All-Western Athletic Conference this season, Boise State’s defensive player of the year and helped lead the Broncos to a 10-3 record.
With 83 regular-season tackles, 10 pass break-ups, two interceptions and two career-high games of 12 tackles (Southern Mississippi and Louisiana Tech), Tadman was described on national television as the best defensive player on the team. (more…)
