Adam Frank ’15 is a non-denominational co-leader of the Dartmouth chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a religious group that aims to connect students — athletes and non-athletes — to their faith through athletics. Frank, a member of the baseball team, has been involved with FCA since his freshman year. He said he sees competing as an opportunity to share his story with others.
“I’m not really playing for myself,” Frank said. “I’m playing for a higher purpose, and I’m under the belief that God has blessed me with the opportunity to play at a high level, and I just use that to the best of my ability.”
The question of balancing faith, aggression and competition arises when thinking about faith in the context of identity. How can you be truly competitive and successful while also living a faith-based life?
Frank said his faith helped him pull through a difficult time in his baseball career — in determining what role his faith would play in his competitive life. After a successful freshman year as starting pitcher for the Big Green baseball team, Frank saw a decline in his performance his sophomore and junior years. Junior year was especially difficult, as Frank had wanted to be drafted to play professionally in Major League Baseball.
“I pitched probably four times all year,” Frank said. “It was a big shot to the ego.”
Frank decided to either put more time and effort into baseball — at the cost of his academic career — or give up. In hindsight, he said he realized his pride prevented him from seeing the “big picture” — that God meant for him to finish his time at Dartmouth. Frank said he decided to let go of what he wanted and accept what God planned for him. Now, he is looking forward to his senior season.
Sportsmanship is the first word that comes to mind when I think about the intersection between athletics and faith. For 12 years I played basketball and attended Catholic school, where I was taught that sportsmanship was what set me apart from other teams and players. I learned that respect and consideration for opponents was how to put my faith into action. I imagine that quite a number of people associate faith with courtesy and respect. I hope everyone is taught the “golden rule,” and it is one of the principal teachings I can remember from Catholic school.
The intersection between sportsmanship, faith and athletics has inspired many before me, religion professor and department chair Randall Balmer informed me. Balmer said the “Muscular Christianity” movement of 19th-century England influenced many sports, and even basketball creator James Naismith incorporated the idea of sportsmanship when inventing the game.
You’ve probably heard a rumor about that one class the entire football team is taking. Just like a rumor, it’s based in fact, but exaggerated. Each day almost 300 students — athletes and non-athletes — get ready for their religion course. Titled “Sports, Ethics and Religion,” Religion 65 has the highest enrollment in the department this fall. The course’s popularity far exceeded the expectations of Balmer, who designed and teaches the course. Balmer thought about the course for years before designing it to garner interest in the department, and to get students to consider sports and religion in a different context.
The class includes debates and a segment that Balmer likes to call “men behaving badly, or boys will be boys?” where he shows a clip of a sports current event and asks students to discuss the event’s ethics. Despite this rather unsporstmanly conduct, upon talking to Christian student athletes about how their faith influences them, the issue of sportsmanship didn’t come up.
Anthony Anzivino ’16, a Catholic FCA leadership council member, shares the idea that playing a sport is merely a facet of a greater purpose. Anzivino is a member of both the cross-country team and the track team, making him “in-season” in the fall, winter and spring.
“God’s given me a gift,” Anzivino said. “On the surface, when I’m going to practice, it’s because I want to get faster for the next race. But I want to get faster for the next race, because I want to use this gift to the best of my ability.”
So yes, sportsmanship can be a measure of living a faith-based life, but the same thing can be said for those not involved with faith. Why is there a connection between sports and faith at all? For Anzivino, the answer is simple. When he looks at running in the context of his faith, it’s easier to run with his faith then without it. With his faith, Anzivino is relieved of the pressure to run a certain distance or time. He struggles with this, as it’s easy to fall into the “trap” of focusing on the small things like the time and winning. But when he’s able to let go of the pressure, “it’s the most freeing thing,” Anzivino said.
For FCA leadership council member Sarah DeLozier ’15, the connection is similar. She sees her faith as an influence on the “big picture” of her life, though this wasn’t always true. DeLozier is a “technically Episcopalian” member of the cross-country and track teams, but she doesn’t feel strongly affiliated with her denomination. DeLoizer said she is still working out how God influences her life.
“I honestly believe that God put running in my life... to challenge [me] in ways I might not have gotten otherwise,” she said, agreeing that sports serves a higher purpose.
These students and countless others consider their faith an essential part of life on campus. Yet when I was thinking of students to interview for this article, I found myself at a loss for whom to contact. I was sure I had friends involved in faith-based groups, but I realized that faith was rarely a topic of conversation. How can such a fundamental part of student life take a back seat to other aspects of our lives? Student athletes must selectively choose how to spend their limited amounts of free time, and a number of these athletes choose faith and religion. So why don’t we hear more about it?
DeLozier said she feels that it’s not her place to bring up a topic that seems to make others uncomfortable. She said she thought the discomfort people feel is interesting because her faith is “harmless,” but she would love to talk about her faith with others. This could be due to propriety or politics, but it reflects campus culture. It may be time to think about how we interact with each other. How can students truly feel at home if they minimize a crucial part of their identity?
Clearly, my belief that sportsmanship is the only connection between faith and sports is elementary at best. I’ve got plenty of time to figure things out, according to DeLozier, who says that faith is definitely a process.
“God loves me for who I am right now ... and he knows where I am in each moment,” she said.
DeLozier said she tries to live her life with a strong connection to God, but struggles with it every day. She added that FCA helps in the effort, as a way for her to target her week in a faith-filled direction.
According to Balmer, we all might be a little “religious,” or mystic, in terms of sports. The focus of his course looks at religion through a different lens. Is a sport any less sacred than a religion? Obviously a vast difference exists between St. Peter’s Basilica and Fenway Park, but the essence and the feelings they evoke in people could be comparable. The space itself is important, but not as much as the experience. The same could be said for sacred rites and rituals, or sacred beings. Religious, athletic, both or neither, we’re all essentially the same.
“[We’re] just stumbling through things that everybody’s dealing with,” Frank said. “Nobody’s perfect, and nobody’s trying to be ... we’re just trying to get a little bit better every day.”
