Pro spiritual advisers
Bryan Chu - Express-News
One hour before tip-off at every Spurs home game, Rich Garza admits he often gets nervous.
In the bowels of the AT&T Center, Garza sits in a designated room. NBA players begin to funnel in. They sit down, and all dip their heads. Garza begins.
“I usually bring a devotion, a talk from the Bible,” Garza said. “Then have a short pray time with the guys asking if anyone has specific needs they might have us pray about.
“They travel a lot, and I pray that God will put the right people around them, and protect them and their opponents.”
For the past 12 seasons, Garza has been a sports chaplain for the Spurs.
It's a job that goes beyond just selecting and reading a Bible verse. A chaplain has to learn to be in the backdrop while still trying to be there for the athletes.
“Not everyone agrees with what you're doing, not everyone wants chapel,” said Garza, who also speaks the word of God to athletes at the high school level. “It's one of the things where it's discouraging at times.”
While chaplains for the Spurs, Silver Stars and Missions have chapel on game days, the American Hockey League does not.
“They're just not sold on the whole package,” Rampage chaplain Don R. Varney said. “There's a lot of humility, staying in place and waiting our turn.
“You can't force anything on them.”
That's what makes reaching out to athletes difficult. During a given Silver Stars game, there are a dozen or so athletes. The NBA, only a handful.
The Rampage and Missions chaplains would be lucky to get a handful of players to come. Sometimes no one shows up.
“You meet with one or two once a week, and then they're out of town for a couple weeks,” Missions chaplain Bobby Kohler said. “It's hard to build relationships, and you don't really get to know them.
“(But) when you get to know one to two guys in depth, those are the neat things. Sometimes you get to hang out, have Bible study.”
In the NBA and WNBA, both teams attend chapel together.
“It was shocking to me,” Garza said. “It's kind of wild that these guys bang on the court and are in chapel together.”
Amenities differ from team to team, too. For the Spurs and Silver Stars, chaplains have a designated room, replete with leather sofas. The Rampage are on a whatever-room-is-available basis. For the Missions, near a shed will have to do sometimes.
There are also times athletes meet with chaplains outside, like some of the Silver Stars do with chaplain Jamye Carrell on Wednesday evenings as sometimes players host bible studies at their home.
“It's a place to give time and energy for those women who feel the pressure of their sport, and I'm there as a support system,” she said. “They all know I will be there for them. They have my cell. If they need me, I'll be there.”
Sports chaplains, who are mostly former athletes themselves, differ from the television made ones.
They don't go into a locker room, take a knee and go on a monologue. They don't wear robes and have white collars (some wear business casual and others sweat suits). They don't typically go to seminary school, either. In San Antonio, the chaplains are affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and were recommended by board members, had background checks and were interviewed for the position. Thoughts and prayers, typically include: “sickness for a family, pray for a loved one or a friend,” Garza said.
They do, however, field questions surrounding Christianity.
“These guys are 19 or 20-year-old kids,” Varney said. “You have questions of ‘Why? What's the purpose? I don't get it?'
“The hardest things are when I realize they're not getting it, they don't see the benefit or they don't understand it, and they don't come back. (But) I'm just trying to do the best with what I can do.”
Chaplain lineup
RICH GARZA
Age: 50
Occupation: Spurs chaplain (12th season); minister for FCA; public speaker for Sports World, Inc.
College: Temple (four-year letterman at Temple, played for the Eagles and Broncos, and started every game in the USFL as a player for the Gunslingers and Philadelphia Stars).
JAMYE CARRELL
Age: 51
Team: Silver Stars chaplain (entering fifth season);
Occupation: Physical Education instructor at Thousand Oaks Elementary
College: Baylor (played shooting guard from 1976-1977)
BOBBY KOHLER
Age: 49
Team: Missions (entering 11th season)
Occupation: Area spokesperson for the FCA (talks at middle school, high schools, find coaches for FCA le sponsors).
College: Texas Tech (1979-1982, second team All-American shortstop '80, '82)
DON R. VARNEY
Age: 62
Team: Rampage (second season)
Occupation: Professional speaker (varneyspeaks.com), business consultant and chiropractic centers
College: Southwest Texas State (played right end for the San Antonio Stampede).
Interesting...athletes need spiritual and psychological guidance to put them over the edge and creaty "lucky" situation which can be translated into situational or accidental good things which comes their way. I never know such position exist to be honest with y'all
no Manu jokes please.
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