Religion In Sports In America

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Sports in America have always been a part of our nations culture. It has grown massively in the past 15 years. We have experienced religion whether it was with a sports team or you have seen it displayed at a game or on your television. There are so many athletes who display their glory to when they either, hit a home run or score a touchdown, or even post-game interviews giving glory to their God. We see this every weekend resulting there must be something behind this. I believe religion in sports is very important, and it keeps our sports very diverse with multiple religions and cultures attached to it. The first intangible I want to look at is the statistic of religions on an NFL football team. Sports Illustrated conducted a study on …show more content…
There are not as many Catholic high schools in Iowa, but there are many religious colleges like Grand View or Central College. I attended Waukee High School so I never experienced how the culture was through sports at a Catholic high school. So, I asked my teammate Steve Sarcone, who attended Dowling, he explains, “During football season we would pray after every practice, also before and after games. We would have mass before the game in our chapel. We would pray before team meals. After we got back to school after a game, the team would meet by the statue of Mary, and we would say the Hail Mary before we leave for home” (Sarcone). As you can see, in catholic programs the religious portion during sport is expressed a lot more than a public high school like Waukee. Grand View being a Lutheran college, does not really express the religion at all during football. I believe it comes down to the coach, and how much he believes religion is important through that sport. I wish our team would pray a lot more. I truly believe it would bring us together as a team because God looks out for …show more content…
God forgives everyone, and if you have a bad game God forgives you. The togetherness prayer can bring a team is undeniable and gives me chills just thinking about it. After going to war with your brothers and sisters, and remembering why we play this game by coming together in prayer. A lot like the book Imaging by Mark Mattes, he explains in the reading “One is never more alive than when participating in such a sport, with only one goal in one’s mind” (Mattes). The image is showing the competitiveness between the bikers as they chase for one goal a lot like any other sport. That goal is assisted by God, everyone including the Lord giving us strength to achieve this goal in mind. So why is prayer so important in sports? Reason being, God is the reason you are playing, and the reason you may excel into college on a scholarship to play sports. Not every high school player gets the chance to play college ball, and that shows that God has a calling for each one of