"there has only ever been one perfect man, the Lord Jesus, and we killed him. I only missed a putt."
More than a game
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Joe Smalley, Here’s life, 2010 ISBN 0866050302
The book is the story of the vision for and formation of the Athletes in Action basketball Team which played games against US college teams and preached to the spectators at half time. The team was the vision of Dave Hannah In the 1960s. It is an important book in that it documents a significant development in the story of sport and faith.
Dave Hannah is quoted speaking in similar vein to Don McClanen, the founder of FCA and Doc Eschleman. A pioneer chaplain, “that athletes are used to sell everything from candy bars to cars why not have them tell the message of Jesus Christ”. Still sounds unbelievably crass to me!
When Hannah first shared his vision for a ministry to sport with Campus Crusade’s founder and President, Bill Bright, the response was remarkably positive: “I've been praying for a long time that God would raise up someone in our ministry to begin working with athletes”.
The concept was simple: A Christian team that would play basketball against the top colleges in the nation and used the half time break to tell its audience how they came to know Christ personally. The team had to be competitive. The concept was: the better we are, the more people will watch us the more people who watch us, the more we reach for Christ. And as the project developed, Hannah’s vision grew more: if the team was “good enough to put on TV we could reach more people in one night than we've reached in the last eight years”.
Athletes in Action has been criticized in some circles for proclaiming a shallow message – decisions rather than disciples. People of that opinion will find evidence to support their concerns. There is a reference to an early game where “over 300 people indicated decisions for Christ”, to a game in Philippines where the team met several boys in the Philippines and “several of them invited Christ into their lives”. Similarly it was said that through the first TV contract “millions of people could be reached for Christ”.
Hannah was a remarkable man of vision who succeeded in putting his vision into practice. Opinions will differ of the effectiveness and significance of the team in the story of sports ministry.