Athlete GIG at UNH

I was a basketball player at the University of New Hampshire, and I was a Christian. Most of the time, I felt very alone in my faith, especially as a freshman. As a student athlete, my schedule was extremely full. The demands of practices, lifting, and school in general did not leave me with a lot of time to go to InterVarsity events where I could meet Christian friends. Many times the basketball team had its own social events and, after a while, I felt like I had two different worlds to choose from: my athlete friends and my Christian acquaintances. Since basketball felt so consuming, it was even more difficult to find things in common with the Christians I had been meeting; they just didn’t understand the pressures I faced. I found myself jealous of them for the free time they had. So my prayer all through college was for God to bring Christian athletes to the university. But God had a bigger plan.

A few years after college, the Lord called me to join InterVarsity staff. During my first year, I didn’t work with athletes, but I met a man whose job was “Life-Skills Director” in athletic administration. The NCAA encourages this position in athletic offices at all major universities. His job was to meet with all the teams and offer them mandatory and optional programs to improve their overall experience as student athletes at UNH.

During my second year on staff, he offered a Bible study to all the teams. He had the athletes sign up right there and over 60 athletes signed up. At our first meeting, I invited them all to commit to a five-week GIG (Group Investigating God) and half of them signed up! After our fifth week we were down to fifteen, but all of them wanted to continue. This study was filled with athletes starving for spiritual nourishment. Now we are moving toward a thriving fellowship of 30 to 40 people!

Since we started, we’ve seen God working among the athletes and teams. When the captain of the women’s crew team was killed in a car accident, some of the rowers started coming to Bible study with honest questions. A young basketball player had his picture in the paper for being involved with a stabbing on campus. When a friend invited him to church, he became a Christian, and excitedly told our group about the change in his life. Kate is a swimmer who wasn’t interested in Bible study until a silly comment by a teammate helped her decide that she wanted to explore what she believed. The first few weeks she was skeptical until she read about Jesus on her own. The next week she brought two of her teammates to our Bible study and now we have a GIG with all of them!

Ministry to athletes is a challenge, but it is also very rewarding to see student athletes become all that God intends them to be in body, mind and spirit.

—Pamela Drayton married the Life Skills Director at UNH in August 2001. She enjoys kayaking, rock climbing and basketball.