Bradford Begins with the Big Boys

Lord Jesus, you call us to strive to be per­fect like our heav­enly Father. Inspire us to do our best in all things, and remind us to rely on your strength. Amen.

Quar­ter­back Sam Brad­ford signed this sum­mer with the St. Louis Rams for a huge sum of money ($78 mil­lion), but there have been sev­eral times in his career when he was not sure if he would even get a chance to play.

In high school Sam played in sev­eral sports: bas­ket­ball, foot­ball, and golf. He did very well in all of them, but chose to play foot­ball for college.

Sam had cho­sen to play at the Uni­ver­sity of Okla­homa, but he was not even the top fresh­man prospect for the quar­ter­back posi­tion. Another young man had been recruited more heav­ily than Sam and was con­sid­ered a sure fit for the quar­ter­back position.

Sam did not play at all his fresh­man year (Fall 2006). This was tough for Sam, and he strug­gled with self-​​doubt.

After a while he began to real­ize that, even if he did not suc­ceed at foot­ball, he needed to keep grow­ing in his rela­tion­ship with Christ. He began to spend more time in per­sonal prayer and in read­ing the Bible, look­ing for strength and inspi­ra­tion. He also worked hard on his stud­ies (account­ing and business).

Addi­tion­ally, he began to seek out friend­ship and sup­port from other com­mit­ted Chris­tians on cam­pus. He knew it was stu­pid to face dis­ap­point­ment and fail­ure alone, espe­cially since there were so many fel­low Chris­tians on cam­pus who were will­ing to help him. He became more active in an orga­ni­za­tion called the Fel­low­ship of Chris­t­ian Ath­letes, an orga­ni­za­tion he had already joined in high school.

As he prayed, a deeper con­vic­tion began to mature in Sam’s heart: God was in charge. He might never become a star, but God still had a plan for his life. He should just do his best and leave the rest to God.

Sam did get a chance to play in his sec­ond year in col­lege (Fall 2007), and was sur­prised at the results. In tech­ni­cal terms he was a ‘red­shirt fresh­man’ that year, because it was really the first year he actu­ally played in a game. In his very first game he imme­di­ately began break­ing school records for pass­ing yards and pass­ing touchdowns.

Dur­ing a game with Texas Tech in Novem­ber 2007 Sam suf­fered a con­cus­sion that made him leave the game. His team lost the game 27-​​34. Brad­ford came back the next game and led his team to victory.

By the end of the Fall 2007 sea­son Brad­ford had set an NCAA record for the most touch­down passes by a fresh­man. His team won the Big 12 Cham­pi­onship. The Soon­ers were ranked #3 in the nation at the end of the reg­u­lar season.

Still, he was dis­ap­pointed when his team lost 28-​​42 to West Vir­ginia in the Fiesta Bowl. Their national rank dropped to #8 after the loss.

His third aca­d­e­mic year in col­lege (Fall 2008) he broke all the school records for pass­ing yards, and became only the sec­ond sopho­more in col­lege his­tory to win the Heis­man tro­phy. (For sport eli­gi­bil­ity, he was a “red­shirt sopho­more” because, as we said ear­lier, he did not play his fresh­man year.)

At the end of the 2008 reg­u­lar sea­son his team was ranked #2 or #1 in the nation, depend­ing on which poll did the rank­ing. They had a chance to guar­an­tee the #1 spot by play­ing in the BCS cham­pi­onship game against Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators. The Soon­ers lost to Florida 14-​​24 in a very excit­ing game. Brad­ford had 256 yards pass­ing, two touch­downs, and two interceptions.

Hav­ing a strong rela­tion­ship with Christ does not guar­an­tee suc­cess in sports, but it does give us peace in the midst of the strug­gle: the biggest vic­tory is assured, the vic­tory of Christ over sin and death. We are not alone. In the midst of the crazi­ness of life and the inten­sity of com­pe­ti­tion Christ walks with us and offers us his friendship.

Sam’s walk with Christ began when he was in mid­dle school. “I didn’t start going to church when I was really young. My fam­ily started going when I was in the fifth or sixth grade.”

“Orig­i­nally I was just going with my par­ents, to what I called ‘big church’ at the time with the grownups (the main Sun­day morn­ing ser­vice). But then my friends started invit­ing me to go to the ‘mid­dle school min­istry’ (Sun­day school class), and when I got con­fi­dent enough, I started going to that. I had a blast with that, and I came to know the Lord as my Sav­ior when I was in sev­enth grade.”

What does Sam mean when he says “I came to know the Lord as my Savior…”?

He means that he made a per­sonal, con­scious com­mit­ment to accept Christ’s gift of sal­va­tion and to put Christ num­ber one in his life at that moment. He “accepted Jesus as his Lord and savior.”

This idea of “accept­ing Jesus as Lord and sav­ior” comes from a cou­ple of pas­sages in the New Tes­ta­ment, espe­cially the fol­low­ing: “If you con­fess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Protes­tant Chris­tians take this pas­sage very seri­ously, and they are right. It is very important.

As Catholics we should fre­quently make a per­sonal com­mit­ment to Christ a sour Lord and sav­ior. We received Christ’s gift of sal­va­tion when we were bap­tized as infants, but we have to renew that com­mit­ment and make it more per­sonal as we grow and face new chal­lenges. In fact, we should renew our com­mit­ment to Christ as our per­sonal Lord and Sav­ior every time we receive Com­mu­nion. In the time of quiet prayer after Com­mu­nion we should really talk with our Lord as our best friend and our savior.

And we know that when we make a sin­cere Con­fes­sion (sacra­ment of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion) we are also renew­ing our per­sonal com­mit­ment to Jesus. In Con­fes­sion, Christ saves us from the sins we have com­mit­ted since our last Con­fes­sion and enters into our hearts more deeply.

We all need strong moments of per­sonal con­ver­sion and com­mit­ment. And there can be cer­tain moments in our lives that can be true “born again” expe­ri­ences. Prayer and the sacra­ments help us live those moments.

Speak­ing of con­tin­u­ing our rela­tion­ship with Christ, Sam talks about keep­ing up his faith as he went through his teen years.

“I went through Con­fir­ma­tion (classes that teach you the foun­da­tional beliefs of the Chris­t­ian faith) with a bunch of my friends, and stayed involved in church as I went through high school.”

As we men­tioned above, even though he strug­gled both with faith and foot­ball at the begin­ning of col­lege, Sam con­tin­ued to live his faith and grow stronger.

“Prob­a­bly the biggest things I’ve learned are just the power of patience and per­se­ver­ance, and know­ing that every­thing God does, He does for a rea­son. He knows what He’s doing. It’s not our job to ques­tion what He’s doing with our lives. He has a pur­pose for it, and we just have to trust Him and know that His plan is the right way.”

That trust that God is in con­trol was tested again his junior year (Fall 2009). His shoul­der was severely injured in a game, and the doc­tors were not sure he would ever be able to play again.

“A lot of ath­letes, when things are going good, feel like God’s doing the right thing. But then, all of a sud­den, when things go bad, they feel like God’s pun­ish­ing them. But, really, they just need to know that God has a mas­ter plan for all of us, and to just be patient and real­ize that every­thing is going to work out.”

Sam doesn’t mean that God is going to always make us suc­ceed in sports or other things, but that God can do tremen­dous good in our lives whether we have earthly suc­cess or not. God is going to work through us if we let him, whether we are the super­star or the guy who sweeps the stadium.

Sam was lucky (or blessed, if you pre­fer). His shoul­der healed com­pletely after his oper­a­tion. He also worked hard on the phys­i­cal ther­apy, and impressed the pro scouts at the spring tri­als this year. He was cho­sen in the first round of the draft and given a fan­tas­tic contract.

So how is he per­form­ing in the pros? His team, the St. Louis Rams, does not have the best receivers in the league, and the offen­sive line is weak sometimes.

So far, Sam has done amaz­ingly well. He was not expected to be a starter until late in the sea­son, but an injury to the start­ing quar­ter­back dur­ing pre­sea­son gave Sam a chance to show his stuff. After two pre­sea­son games in which he did not play that well, Sam had a third game that left every­one in the NFL hap­pily sur­prised and impressed. His poise in the pocket, his accu­racy, and his abil­ity to make good deci­sions under pres­sure impressed even his biggest doubters.

Now that the reg­u­lar sea­son has begun, the Rams and Brad­ford have had moments of glory and moments of defeat, but things are going bet­ter for the team than they did last year. Even though they do not have as many tal­ented play­ers as other teams they are doing much bet­ter than peo­ple expected.

Many sports writ­ers are already singing praises for Sam Brad­ford as a pro. They say he is already show­ing an abil­ity to per­form under pres­sure and make the right deci­sions that only the best vet­er­ans show.

The sea­son is far from over, and Sam’s sit­u­a­tion could change in an instant.
Another injury could put him out for the year, or he could begin to lose his touch under the heavy pass rushes the oppo­nents will surely try more often, now that he has shown how dan­ger­ous he is.

And there are plenty of chal­lenges wait­ing for Sam’s faith walk as a pro­fes­sional ath­lete. How will he han­dle all the money and fame now that he is on his own and doesn’t have his col­lege bud­dies and coaches watch­ing him closely? Will he become con­ceited and super­fi­cial? So far, the signs are that he is stay­ing hum­ble and work­ing hard to live up to his Chris­t­ian values.

Keep your eyes on this guy. He could be really going places, and doing a lot of good as he goes there.