First, I’d Like to Thank God

After the Baltimore Ravens had just triumphed over the San Francisco 49ers to capture the Super Bowl XLVII trophy on February 3, 2013, CBS reporter Jim Nantz wanted a sound bite from Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. He asked him to describe how it feels to retire as a champion.

Clutching the Lombardi Trophy, Lewis uttered, “It’s simple: when God is for you, who can be against you?” between deep, labored breaths. “There’s no greater way to go out as a champ.” He would go on to invoke God many more times in his subsequent post-Super Bowl interviews. Lewis even cited God as the reason that he had such a successful career, despite being taken to trial on murder charges 13 years earlier.

Why did Lewis seem to believe God played an especially prominent role in this, a mere sporting event in a world full of much more significant events? Generally speaking, we often hear athletes mentioning a higher power when explaining their amazing athletic feats. It seems as though many of the world’s top athletes are guided by a belief in something greater than themselves.

On the other hand, we aren’t accustomed to hearing water cooler chatter along the lines of the following:

“You were on fire last month! What happened?”

“My faith – I just have to give credit to God for that last month. Without Him, I would have never sold that many shower curtain rings.”

Employees in a corporate office do not freely proselytize in the manner that athletes do. The culture of sport, by comparison, hints that belief in a higher power may be not just accepted, but encouraged and freely discussed. We frequently see baseball players crossing themselves before an at-bat and pointing to the sky after a home run, football players kneeling in prayer after a touchdown, and basketball players displaying prominent religious tattoos on their body. So why does this avid belief system seem so prevalent in sports?

One theory, suggested the self-proclaimed “Greatest” boxer in the history of the sport, Muhammad Ali, is the belief that the lord chooses his athletes. As Ali put it, when discussing his underdog status against George Foreman in a 1974 prizefight, “How can I lose when I have Allah on my side?” Some of the most fundamental religious followers believe their religion to be the right one, and according to their beliefs, followers of all other religions are doomed to a lesser existence. But in a win-or-lose competition, something, or someone, has to give. There are myriad believers in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism who have proven themselves to be champion athletes. All these belief systems have core beliefs which conflict with each other, so we can go ahead and scrap the theory that any particular religion makes the best athletes – with all due respect to The Greatest.

Another idea is the thought that those athletes who are blessed with a religious or spiritual upbringing have the advantage of a strict, disciplined lifestyle over those who were raised in a secular household. While there is some evidence for this , we have seen many supposedly religious athletes who have been known to stray from the righteous path – and have maintained or returned to top form. For proof, see Buddhist Tiger Woods or Christian Michael Vick. No doubt, discipline is a helpful virtue for an athlete. But we can see here that being part of a religion does not necessarily translate to strict discipline in one’s everyday life.

There is also the notion that religion provides individuals with a sense of community. This community atmosphere can imbue a person with the feeling that (s)he is needed, whatever role they may play in others’ lives. This sense of belonging may translate into self-confidence. One’s church group, synagogue or mosque can provide someone with a network of individuals who share the same belief system. It is generally accepted that the closer are our social ties, the more confident, happy and successful we are. Motivation researchers Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan cite relatedness – that is, our ability to feel socially connected with and accepted by others – along with autonomy and competence, as a universal psychological need. Without all three, Deci and Ryan find that we are susceptible to becoming unmotivated, unhappy, and less productive. The claim that a place of worship is needed for social connections, though, can be rebutted by the fact that there are many other means through which we may attain deep social connections: school, book clubs, chess clubs, tornado chasing groups, and, well, team sports. There is a great deal of evidence for the benefits of the social aspect of religion, but religion is not the only way to become part of a social community.

A fourth theory posits that professional athletes are so talented that they must feel as if they are blessed by some greater force. This is the argument made by Eric A. Storch, associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of South Florida, who has done considerable research on this subject. In the National Basketball Association (NBA), for instance, there are 450 players among the league’s 30 teams. It is generally agreed that athletes in the NBA comprise the basketball world’s cream of the crop. That means that an NBA player could reasonably think of himself as one of the 450 best performers in his field on this earth of seven billion. Anybody in the NBA would reasonably feel very fortunate – blessed, perhaps – to be counted among these 450 “chosen ones.” Furthermore, he might feel as if he were touched by Midas himself…or some other higher power. One of baseball’s greatest relief pitchers, Mariano Rivera, once stated that his cut fastball, the pitch that helped turn him from a mediocre pitcher into a legendary one, was taught to him not by any coach, but by God himself. However, much more often than not, the faith in the lives of these athletes started before they became professionally successful in their sport. For every born-again Christian who credits faith in God as part of a successful career turnaround (such as Josh Hamilton), there are dozens of other athletes who have consistently followed a faith prior to finding success in sport (such as LeBron James).

Finally, there is the theory that belief in a divine force gives athletes a psychological edge over nonbelievers. There is a growing field of evidence suggesting this to be the case. As former table tennis Olympian and award-winning journalist Matthew Syed states, “[T]he stats [unequivocally state that] religious belief bolsters performance. And it does not matter which god you are praying to, so long as the belief is sincere.” That is, as long as you strongly believe in that higher power – someone who unconditionally has your back through thick and thin – you will be safeguarded against feelings of failure. This is the point of view that I have found to be most convincing, and for which I will argue in this book.