First, can you let me know what you’ve been doing with yourself as of late?
Well, I’m just back from my 50-year anniversary cruise, so I am totally relaxed!
I’m still working full-time at the New Community Church. I was the founding pastor but in ’98 I decided to step down and lead the pastor discipleship at the church. i was going in too many directions and wanted to get back to what I was doing when I was with the Steelers and Pirates.
I still work with some of those guys I worked with then and started a citywide discipleship forum to raise awareness on how to train pastors and ministry leaders on the best strategies. We just finished our first year and I work closely with Leo Wisnewski – he’s a local guy who want to Penn State. I also work with Tunch Ilkin and Jon Kolb but they don’t have as much time to give – they have so many other things going on.
How did you get started with the Steelers in 1974?
I came to Pittsburgh in 1974 as part of the staff for Athletes in Action. It was called Crusaders for Christ – but no one liked the Crusades word so it was given another name!
I was 24 or 25 at the time. I spent three years working in college athletics when they picked me to help launch the Pro Sports Ministry. There were few chapel programs in pro sports then but they saw the need for guys to get ministry help on a more consistent basis. So we helped pioneer that program and the timing was perfect! I can’t take credit for it but I got there just when they started winning Super Bowls. You couldn’t write a better script. They didn’t want to rock the boat I’m sure- sports especially being so superstitious! So I got in on the ground floor and grew with it. I did that for 15 years.
I spoke with J.T. Thomas and Tony Dungy who spoke so highly of your contributions to the team – including on helping with the racial divides of the time. What did you do to help with that then?
I know JT Tells this story and makes me out as if I were the Martin Luther King of racial reconciliation then. But to be honest it never crossed my mind.
Win, build and send. That is the great commission of Matthew 28. Most think of it geographically but we were challenged to think of it vocationally.We were called to penetrate every vocation – entertainment, sports. – to win guys to Christ. That’s how I was thinking about it. The fact that black and white players were brought together was a by-product of that. I think that’s what happens when Christians come together in faith.
Of course you could see that many of the black guys were more sensitive to things then. JT told me stories of when he grew up that I just couldn’t relate to, being a white man who grew up in Ohio. I remember going to Florida and seeing white and colored restrooms and thinking how strange that was. He told me stories of how he was chased by police cars and had his head smashed into the ground I think for drinking out of the wrong fountain – he still has the scar on his lip from that. So they were more sensitized and wary about coming together at first than I was.
How did the process start?
We started the chapel service on game days then had Bible study during the week. We’d gather in Bradshaw’s apartment at first but would meet in many different places. We also went to events and brought guys together to expose them to the best Bible teachers and speakers.
We did high school assembly programs – like the superstar assemblies where athletes competed in activities not related to their sports. I can’t imagine in this day and environment being able to do those. We’d have players compete with other coaches and students in things like tug-of-wars, volleyball, Wiffle Ball…I’d be the MC and would interview the players during the contests and they’d offer up testimony on Christ at times, and we’d let the students know that if it made sense to them and they wanted to learn more, to come talk to us and let us know so we could get them more information.
We did these all over Western PA, Eastern Ohio and even in New York. We’d have Steelers players and guys from Pitt and West Virginia to help supplement the numbers – guys who were around in the offseason.
We also held a camp at Geneva College – that may be the best thing we did. Jon Kolb held the camp – Athletes in Action – and we’d have eight to 12 players from the NFL, some Pitt and West Virginia players – and about 150 high school kids attend. It wasn’t a hit and run thing. We stayed with the kids for four-to-five days, with Bible discussion groups, Bible studies, and competed in different events. During the day they train them on football skills and weight training.
Do you still talk to those guys?
It’s funny. I have pictures of all of those times and showed them to some of those older guys. They reminisced about how those days were so important to them. They saw how they could use football as a platform. It set the tone for them today – and many are still involved in Christian ministries. It was stunning how emotional they got looking at those pictures. I had someone put them on disks and sent them to those guys. I have no idea how to do anything like that myself!
Did Chuck Noll or the other coaches talk to you at all about the program?
I think the longest conversation I had with Chuck lasted three seconds!
That sounds about right…
Ha – others tell me that too. I used to think I had to walk on eggshells around them. I wasn’t an insider. I would walk down the halls to the locker room and the coaches knew who I was but didn’t say anything. George Perles once nodded and said “Good morning father – how are you today.”
But once Noll spoke to me in the cafeteria line at Latrobe. They’d allow me to come into the cafeteria with the team and one day I realized I was on one side of the line and Noll was across from me. I thought he was going to tell me to get out of there! But he stopped me and told me he wanted to thank me for my investment in Ernie Holmes. I was stunned and told him he was very welcome.
I think he was glad for anyone who could keep Ernie in good mental health for even 30 minutes. I had a great relationship with Ernie – he even ended up becoming a pastor later on in life.
I told Kolb what Noll said to me. Kolb said, well, three seconds is about right. Jon told me he may have spoken to Noll the longest, for 20 minutes, and that’s when he was interviewing for a job! And he was there for 15 years!
You weren’t a bad athlete yourself in your day?
I was a good athlete – I played ball at Otterbein College and broke some tight end receiving records before transferring to West Virginia. But my career kind of flamed out there. But it gave me a good frame of reference for working with athletes.
Anything you remember most about your work with the Steelers?
The importance of relationships in ministry with athletes. The nature of what they do – they are like celebrities and so are guarded at times. It can be hard to get close to them. They have to learn that they can trust you – that you aren’t there for autographs or tickets to games. That you care for them as people. That is really the key for effective ministry and what I teach people now. You have to set aside your own personal things and care for them.
The most poignant insight I have is that when I was growing up Christianity in the NFL was rare. Few if any had chapel programs. I got to be part of a wave that pioneered pro sports ministry. Now every professional team in every sport has a program. Now it’s a reality for every team. Now you see guys in circles praying together before and after games. And guys thanking God in interviews with sportscaster – who you can tell when they hear that that they are thinking “Here we go again!”
I wanted to close it out by asking – why you think religion and Christianity in specific is so important and prevalent today with NFL players?
I think there is a spiritual hunger in all people, some just pursue other venues to find satisfaction. NFL players – these guys got to the top of the ladder. They are elite athletes. Many of those Steelers players won Super Bowls, but it wasn’t enough they realized. They weren’t fulfilled. They still had hunger in their heart. It’s almost easier for them to come to Christ, though they have unique challenges too. But they experienced everything people told them they needed to to fulfill them but they still felt unfulfilled.
When some of the Steelers players I worked with looked at the Christians on those Steelers teams, they’d say there was something different about them. They tried to fill a vacuum through football, but they still needed more. I think that’s at the core of it.
Read more by former Steelers via the book Steelers Takeaways: Player Memories Through the Decades. To order, just click on the book:
