does the university of south carolina require the sat essay

University of South Carolina: Acceptance Rate and Admissions Statistics

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The University of South Carolina is a public research university with an acceptance rate of 69%. Located in the state capital of Columbia, the University of South Carolina is the flagship campus of the South Carolina university system. With 324 bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs in 15 colleges, the University of South Carolina offers wide-ranging academic opportunities to students. UofSC is nationally known for its pioneering work with first-year college students. The university has a chapter of the prestigious  Phi Beta Kappa  academic honor society for its strengths in the liberal arts and sciences, and it is also home to one of the country's top honors colleges for high-achieving undergraduates. In athletics, the University of South Carolina Gamecocks compete in the NCAA Division I  Southeastern Conference .

Considering applying to the University of South Carolina? Here are the admissions statistics you should know, including average SAT/ACT scores and GPAs of admitted students.

Acceptance Rate

During the 2018-19 admissions cycle, University of South Carolina had an acceptance rate of 69%. This means that for every 100 students who applied, 69 students were admitted, making UofSC's admissions process somewhat competitive.

SAT Scores and Requirements

The University of South Carolina requires that all applicants submit either SAT or ACT scores. During the 2018-19 admissions cycle, 65% of admitted students submitted SAT scores.

This admissions data tells us that most of University of South Carolina's admitted students fall within the top 35% nationally on the SAT. For the evidence-based reading and writing section, 50% of students admitted to UofSC scored between 600 and 680, while 25% scored below 600 and 25% scored above 680. On the math section, 50% of admitted students scored between 580 and 690, while 25% scored below 580 and 25% scored above 690. Applicants with a composite SAT score of 1370 or higher will have particularly competitive chances at the University of South Carolina.

Requirements

The University of South Carolina does not require the optional SAT essay section. Note that UofSC participates in the scorechoice program, which means that the admissions office will consider your highest score from each individual section across all SAT test dates. SAT Subject tests are not required for admission to UofSC.

ACT Scores and Requirements

The University of South Carolina requires that all applicants submit either SAT or ACT scores. During the 2018-19 admissions cycle, 35% of admitted students submitted ACT scores.

This admissions data tells us that most of University of South Carolina's admitted students fall within the top 22% nationally on the ACT. The middle 50% of students admitted to UofSC received a composite ACT score between 25 and 31, while 25% scored above 31 and 25% scored below 25.

Note that University of South Carolina does not superscore ACT results; your highest composite ACT score will be considered. UofSC does not require the optional ACT writing section.

In 2019, the average high school GPA of University of South Carolina's incoming freshman class was 4.0, and 80% of incoming students had average GPAs of 3.75 and above. These results suggest that most successful applicants to UofSC have primarily A grades.

Self-Reported GPA/SAT/ACT Graph

The admissions data in the graph is self-reported by applicants to University of South Carolina. GPAs are unweighted. Find out how you compare to accepted students, see the real-time graph, and calculate your chances of getting in with a free Cappex account.

Admissions Chances

University of South Carolina, which accepts approximately two-thirds of applicants, has a somewhat selective admissions process. Admission is based primarily on high school courses, grades, and standardized test scores. Minimum course requirements include four units of English and math, three units of laboratory science and social studies, two units of the same foreign language, one unit of fine arts, and two units of academic electives. UofSC only requires letters of recommendation from applicants to the South Carolina Honors College.

In the graph above, the blue and green dots represent accepted students. Most students who got in had high school averages of "B" or better, combined SAT scores of 1100 or higher (ERW+M), and ACT composite scores of 22 or better. The higher those numbers, the better your chances of acceptance. Very few students with "A" averages and strong test scores were rejected from UofSC.

All admissions data has been sourced from the National Center for Education Statistics and University of South Carolina Undergraduate Admissions Office .

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Which Colleges Require the SAT Essay?

Tests can be intimidating. And for some students, adding a timed essay is downright terrifying. So as you sign up for the SAT, it’s easy to look at that optional essay and say “fuh-getta-bout-it.”

I mean, who in their right mind would willingly sit for a fifty-minute essay?—Well, maybe you.

Before you immediately say no—or yes—to the optional essay portion, you need to consider which colleges require the SAT essay. Your decision will depend upon where you plan to continue your education.

Table of Contents

Why Some Colleges Have Dropped Essay

Several colleges have dropped the SAT essay as a requirement. One of the main factors behind this decision is concern about creating financial hardship or extra stress for students. Many school districts are providing in-school testing for high school students free of charge. But it does not always include the essay section. This means students who want to take the essay may need to sign up and pay for it on their own.

If your high school does not offer the essay portion as part of testing, you can visit the College Board registration page to find a testing center. Registering for the SAT essay portion is an additional $17. The SAT costs $47.50 with an allotted time of 3 hours. If you choose to add the essay, you will pay $64.50 and be given an additional fifty- minute session to end the day. There are fee waivers available for students who qualify due to financial hardship.

Should You Take the SAT Essay?

There are some schools that will not consider the SAT essay with your application. California Institute of Technology and Georgetown University are two well-known schools that have recently announced your essay will not be considered with your application—they won’t even look at it. However, as grandma always said—don’t put all your eggs in one basket. In other words, you may want to leave your options open by writing that essay.

If you decide not to take the SAT essay you are limiting the schools that you can apply to. Yes, many schools have dropped the requirement. But if you decide not to take the essay, you limit your college options. Even if the schools on your current college list don’t require it, things can change. Finding the right college is a process. You may discover your ideal school does require the essay.

Several schools that no longer require the SAT either recommend it or make it optional and will consider it with your application. If a school recommends the essay, they are politely telling you that it will be a factor in your application. Schools that consider the essay optional or even those that say it is not required still look for evidence of your academic abilities.

Most colleges, even those that have dropped the essay requirement, have stressed that evaluating writing skills continues to be an important part of their selection process. They will seek a writing sample in some form. The SAT essay is a good opportunity to display your writing skills. And, because the prompt and format is always the same, you have opportunities to practice so you go into it well-prepared .

Top College SAT Essay Requirements

In the chart below, I have compiled a list of the top-ranked U.S. colleges and their SAT essay requirements. If you don’t see your school here, check the College Board SAT Policies page. Remember that colleges and universities often re-evaluate and make changes to their policies. Use this as a guide, but always check your prospective school’s admissions page for the most updated requirements.

As you look at which colleges require the SAT essay, it is clear that many of the top schools have dropped the requirement. But essays continue to be considered if you submit them with your application. My best advice—and your least limiting option—is to sign up, prepare for, and take the essay portion. It is a well-spent $17 and fifty minutes of your time when compared to your future.

• https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2018-09-10/colleges-drop-sat-act-essay-what-students-should-know
• https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/#tab:rank
• https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/application-process/application-requirements
• https://admissions.yale.edu/standardized-testing
• https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/freshman/testing.html
• https://mitadmissions.org/apply/firstyear/tests-scores/
• https://admission.princeton.edu/updated-application-requirements
• http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/apply/first-yearfreshman-applicants/standardized-tests
• https://admissions.upenn.edu/admissions-and-financial-aid/what-penn-looks-for/testing
• https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/apply/first-year-applicants/standardized-tests
• https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/glossary-term/sat
• https://today.duke.edu/2018/07/duke-makes-sat-essay-act-writing-test-optional-applicants
• https://admission.williams.edu/apply/
• https://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/firstyear/preparation
• https://admissions.cornell.edu/standardized-testing-requirements
• http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/examination-requirement/index.html
• https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/apply/first-year/testing
• https://www.amherst.edu/admission/apply/firstyear
• https://www.bowdoin.edu/admissions/our-process/test-optional-policy/index.html
• https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/contact/faq
• https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/apply/application-overview
• https://admissions.northwestern.edu/faqs/high-school-courses/
• https://admissions.nd.edu/apply/evaluation-criteria/
• https://record.umich.edu/articles/admissions-office-drops-requirement-act-sat-writing-components
• https://www.hmc.edu/admission/apply/first-year-students/application-materials/
• https://www.swarthmore.edu/admissions-aid/standardized-testing-policy
• https://apply.jhu.edu/standardized-test-information/
• https://www.cmc.edu/admission/first-year-application-instructions
• https://westpoint.edu/admissions/steps-to-admission
• https://admission.rice.edu/policies/standardized-testing
• https://www.bates.edu/admission/optional-testing/
• https://admission.usc.edu/apply/first-year-students/#/checklist
• https://www.usna.edu/Admissions/Apply/index.php#fndtn-panel1-Steps-for
• https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/quickguide/
• https://admissions.tufts.edu/apply/first-year-students/sat-and-act-tests/
• https://admission.virginia.edu/admission/testing
• https://admissions.wustl.edu/apply_site/Pages/Frequently-Asked-Questions.aspx

University of South Carolina | USC

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What Is the SAT Essay?

College Board

• February 28, 2024

The SAT Essay section is a lot like a typical writing assignment in which you’re asked to read and analyze a passage and then produce an essay in response to a single prompt about that passage. It gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your reading, analysis, and writing skills—which are critical to readiness for success in college and career—and the scores you’ll get back will give you insight into your strengths in these areas as well as indications of any areas that you may still need to work on.

The Essay section is only available in certain states where it’s required as part of SAT School Day administrations. If you’re going to be taking the SAT during school , ask your counselor if it will include the Essay section. If it’s included, the Essay section will come after the Reading and Writing and Math sections and will add an additional 50 minutes .

What You’ll Do

• Read a passage between 650 and 750 words in length.
• Explain how the author builds an argument to persuade an audience.
• Support your explanation with evidence from the passage.

You won’t be asked to agree or disagree with a position on a topic or to write about your personal experience.

The Essay section shows how well you understand the passage and are able to use it as the basis for a well-written, thought-out discussion. Your score will be based on three categories.

Reading: A successful essay shows that you understood the passage, including the interplay of central ideas and important details. It also shows an effective use of textual evidence.

Analysis: A successful essay shows your understanding of how the author builds an argument by:

• Examining the author’s use of evidence, reasoning, and other stylistic and persuasive techniques
• Supporting and developing claims with well-chosen evidence from the passage

Writing: A successful essay is focused, organized, and precise, with an appropriate style and tone that varies sentence structure and follows the conventions of standard written English.

Learn more about how the SAT Essay is scored.

Want to practice? Log in to the Bluebook™ testing application , go to the Practice and Prepare section, and choose full-length practice test . There are 3 practice Essay   tests. Once you submit your response, go to MyPractice.Collegeboard.org , where you’ll see your essay, a scoring guide and rubric so that you can score yourself, and student samples for various scores to compare your self-score with a student at the same level.

After the Test

You’ll get your Essay score the same way you’ll get your scores for the Reading and Writing and Math sections. If you choose to send your SAT scores to colleges, your Essay score will be reported along with your other section scores from that test day. Even though Score Choice™   allows you to choose which day’s scores you send to colleges, you can never send only some scores from a certain test day. For instance, you can’t choose to send Math scores but not SAT Essay scores.

Until 2021, the SAT Essay was also an optional section when taking the SAT on a weekend. That section was discontinued in 2021.

If you don’t have the opportunity to take the SAT Essay section as part of the SAT, don’t worry. There are other ways to show your writing skills as part of the work you’re already doing on your path to college. The SAT can help you stand out on college applications , as it continues to measure the writing and analytical skills that are essential to college and career readiness. And, if you want to demonstrate your writing skills even more, you can also consider taking an AP English course .

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What Colleges Require the SAT Essay?

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If you’re going to be applying to college soon, there’s a good chance that you’re already thinking about the SAT. Most colleges still require standardized test scores, and millions of students across the country tackle this exam each year. 

As you begin your college search, it’s important to understand the exact standardized test requirements of the colleges on your list. Some will be test-optional . Others require scores from the SAT or ACT. In addition, some will require that you submit scores from the optional essay portions of these tests. There may also be schools that require or recommend SAT Subject Tests. Knowing the exact testing policy at each school you’re considering will help you plan your test taking strategy, and begin test prep well in advance. 

If you’re planning to take the SAT, you won’t want to miss this complete overview of what colleges require the SAT essay. 

What is the SAT Essay? How is it Scored?

Before we dive into which schools require it, let’s take a closer look at what exactly the SAT essay is, and how it is scored. 

On the SAT Essay, students are provided with a written argument that they must read and analyze. Students have 50 minutes to read the passage, plan the essay, and write their response. Most successful responses stick to the standard five-paragraph essay format. To see an example prompt and scoring rubric, check out the Essay Sample Questions on the College Board website. 

It’s important to note here that the SAT Essay score is separate from your overall composite SAT score. It does not impact the score ranging from 400-1600 as reported on your score report. Instead of being included in your composite score, it is provided in addition to it. 

The Essay is scored on a scale from 2-8 in three areas of evaluation—Reading, Analysis, and Writing. Each essay is reviewed by two scorers, and scores between 1-4 are awarded in each dimension. These scores are then added together so that you’ll receive three scores for the SAT Essay—one for each dimension—ranging from 2–8 points. A perfect score on the essay would be 8/8/8, but the mean score on the essay is a 5 for Reading and Writing, and 3 for Analysis. This means if you can achieve any score over 5/3/5, you have scored above average on the essay. For a more complete look at how the test is scored, don’t miss our post What is a Good SAT Essay Score?

Should I Take the SAT Essay?

First of all, the SAT essay is technically an optional section, so no, you are not required to take it. That being said, some colleges do require applicants to take the SAT with Essay. If you choose not to take the essay portion of the test, you will not be an eligible applicant for any of these schools. 

The SAT Essay used to be required at many top colleges, but it has become optional at many schools. Now, among elite schools, only the University of California schools require the Essay. Other selective colleges like Duke University, Amherst College, and Colby College recommend the Essay, but it’s not required. 

Take a look at the colleges on these lists, and see if there are any you plan to apply to. Also be sure to double-check on your schools’ webpages, as these policies can change. 

If you think you might change your mind about which schools you want to apply to, you should take the SAT Essay to leave those doors open. This is why we generally recommend taking the essay, regardless of whether or not it’s required. After all, you can’t go back and just take the SAT Essay if you decide to change your mind and apply to a school that requires it—you’d have to retake the entire SAT.

Some colleges don’t require the essay, but do recommend it. In these cases, we always direct students to do what the college recommends. 

That being said, there is currently no option to withhold your essay score if you do terribly on it. Your essay scores will always be reported with your other test scores from that day, even to colleges that don’t require them. 

What Colleges Require the SAT with Essay?

There colleges request scores from the SAT with Essay in order to apply.

Schools that Require the SAT Essay:

• All of the University of California schools
• Benedictine University
• City University London
• Delaware State University
• DeSales University
• Dominican University of California
• Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
• Howard University
• John Wesley University
• Kentucky State University
• Martin Luther College
• Molloy College
• Schreiner University
• Soka University of America
• Southern California Institute of Architecture
• Texas A&M University—Galveston
• United States Military Academy (West Point)
• University of North Texas
• West Virginia University Institute of Technology
• Western Carolina University

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These schools do not require the SAT Essay, but do recommend that students submit it. At CollegeVine, our best advice is to always follow a college’s recommendations. 

Schools that Recommend the SAT Essay:

• Abilene Christian University
• Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• Allegheny College
• Amherst College
• Art Institute of Houston
• Augsburg University
• Austin College
• Caldwell University
• California State University, Northridge
• Central Connecticut State University
• Central Michigan University
• Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
• Coastal Carolina University
• Colby College
• College of Wooster
• Colorado School of Mines
• Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
• Corban University
• Cornerstone University
• Dallas Christian College
• Duke University
• Eastern Illinois University
• Eastern Nazarene College
• Easternn University
• Endicott College
• Five Towns College
• Gallaudet University
• George Washington University
• Georgia Highlands College
• Greenville University
• Gwynedd Mercy University
• High Point University
• Hofstra University
• Holy Family University
• Husson University
• Indiana University South Bend
• Indiana University Southeast
• Indiana Wesleyan University
• Inter American University of Puerto Rico: Barranquitas Campus
• Juilliard School
• Keiser University (West Palm Beach)
• Lehigh University
• Madonna University
• Manhattan College
• Marymount California University
• Massachusetts Maritime Academy
• McMurry University
• Mercy College
• Modern College of Design
• Montana Tech of the University of Montana
• Morehouse College
• Mount Saint Mary College
• Mount St. Joseph University
• National-Louis University
• New Jersey City University
• Nichols College
• North Park University
• Occidental College
• Ohio University
• Oregon State University
• Purdue University Northwest
• Randall University
• Randolph-Macon College
• Reading Area Community College
• Rowan University
• Rutgers University—Camden Campus
• Rutgers University—Newark Campus
• Saint Michael’s College
• Sciences Po
• Seton Hill University
• Shiloh University
• Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
• Silver Lake College of the Holy Family
• Southern Illinois University of Carbondale
• Southern Oregon University
• Spring Hill College
• Sul Ross State University
• SUNY Farmingdale State College
• SUNY University at Stony Brook
• Tarleton State University
• Texas A&M International University
• Texas A&M University
• Texas State University
• The King’s College
• United States Air Force Academy
• University of Evansville
• University of La Verne
• University of Mary Hardin—Baylor
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
• University of Minnesota: Twin Cities
• University of New England
• University of Northwestern—St. Paul
• University of the Virgin Islands
• University of Toledo
• University of Washington Bothell
• VanderCook College of Music
• Virginia Union University
• Wabash College
• Webb Institute
• Webber International University
• Wesleyan College
• William Jewell College

If any of the schools you are considering appear on either of the lists above, we recommend taking the SAT with Essay. In fact, we recommend that most, if not all, students take the SAT essay since it leaves more doors open in your college search. However, if you’re absolutely sure you won’t be applying to colleges that require or recommend the SAT with Essay, you can skip it.

Regardless, as you consider which colleges to add to your list, you’ll want to be certain you know what colleges require the SAT essay so that you can plan ahead for this part of your test. 

For help figuring out which schools might be a great fit for you, don’t miss our customized and innovative Chancing Engine and School List Generator . Here, we use a proprietary algorithm backed by over 100,000 data points to develop a school list based on your real admissions chances and preferences.

Want to know how your SAT score impacts your chances of acceptance to your dream schools? Our free Chancing Engine will not only help you predict your odds, but also let you know how you stack up against other applicants, and which aspects of your profile to improve. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to gain access to our Chancing Engine and get a jumpstart on your college strategy!

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Does the SAT Essay Matter? Expert Guide

In days of yore, the SAT Essay was very different. For starters, it was a required portion of the exam, scored as part of the writing section. You had a measly 25 minutes to give and support your opinion on such deep philosophical issues as the importance of privacy or whether people perform better when they can use their own methods to complete tasks.

Things are very different now. Along with the SAT itself, the SAT Essay has been completely revamped and revised. Among other things, it is now an optional portion of the exam. In light of this SAT Essay renovation, many schools will no longer require that students take the SAT Essay when they take the exam.

But what do all these changes mean for you? Is the SAT Essay important? Read on for a breakdown of the new SAT changes, information on which schools continue to require the SAT Essay, why schools do and don’t require this portion of the exam, and how to figure out if the SAT Essay is necessary or important for you.

UPDATE: SAT Essay No Longer Offered

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In January 2021, the College Board announced that after June 2021, it would no longer offer the Essay portion of the SAT (except at schools who opt in during School Day Testing). It is now no longer possible to take the SAT Essay, unless your school is one of the small number who choose to offer it during SAT School Day Testing.

While most colleges had already made SAT Essay scores optional, this move by the College Board means no colleges now require the SAT Essay. It will also likely lead to additional college application changes such not looking at essay scores at all for the SAT or ACT, as well as potentially requiring additional writing samples for placement.

What does the end of the SAT Essay mean for your college applications? Check out our article on the College Board's SAT Essay decision for everything you need to know.

The New SAT Essay

The SAT was revised in March 2016. The aspect of the exam that is most changed is the essay. Instead of writing a 25-minute opinion piece, you will have 50 minutes to analyze how the author of a given passage constructs his or her argument.

Additionally, instead of having the exam integrated into your composite score, you will receive a separate score for your exam that does not affect your 1600-point score. The new exam is graded out of 24 points - 8 points each in “Reading” (essentially reading comprehension), “Analysis,” and “Writing” (writing style). See our breakdown of the new rubric here .

Finally, the new essay is a completely optional portion of the exam. You don’t have to take it, and you’ll still get your 1600-point score. In this way it’s a lot like the ACT, which also has an optional essay. If you wish to register for the SAT Essay, you’ll pay an extra $11.50.

Because the essay is now optional, colleges have the option of not requiring students to send SAT Essay scores. Thus, many colleges have dropped this requirement. So who still requires the SAT Essay?

Let this creepy happy pencil guide you through the SAT Essay!

Who Requires the New SAT Essay?

According to a Kaplan poll in which 300 schools were surveyed, most schools will not require the optional SAT Essay. However, some still do recommend or require it, particularly in the most selective tier of institutions.

Notably, elite schools like the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, and the University of Chicago are divided on the issue, with some requiring the essay and some neither requiring or recommending it. In the Ivy League, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale will continue to require the SAT Essay, and Columbia, Cornell, UPenn, and Brown will not.

Big state schools are similarly divided: for example, the University of California system and the University of Michigan both require the essay, University of Illinois and Purdue University recommend it; and Penn State, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Indiana University neither require nor recommend the essay.

For the most up-to-date information on a school’s position on the SAT Essay, check the College Board . If the school isn’t on the list, check their admissions website. Those schools that do require the essay have gone on the record with specific reasons for doing so; I’ll break those down in the next section.

Schools are divided, like this egg.

Why Do Schools Require the SAT Essay?

Given that so many schools won’t require the essay going forward, you may be curious about those that do still require it. What’s their reasoning? Based on public statements from school officials, it seems to boil down to three main reasons:

#1: More Information Is Better

Some colleges seem to feel that all of the information they can get from applicants is helpful in painting a complete picture of the applicant. Certainly the SAT Essay presents a somewhat unique data point in that there are no other standardized elements of a college application that would include specific information on an applicant’s timed writing skills. It makes sense that schools that value having all the information that it is conceivably possible to obtain about a student would require the SAT Essay.

#2: The Revised Test Is Similar to College Work

The old SAT Essay involved a fairly arbitrary task and bore no resemblance to any work students do in college. However, the revised essay engages a student’s rhetorical analysis skills and requires the kind of analytical thinking students will perform in college. Thus, some colleges require the new SAT Essay because they feel it gives valuable insight into how a student might perform with college-level work.

#3: Sending a Message on the Importance of Writing

Institutions may also require the SAT Essay simply because they wish to telegraph to the world that they believe writing is important. This was part of the rationale given by Yale as to why they would continue to require the essay.

That’s why schools require it—but what about schools that don’t require the essay? What’s their reasoning?

Cats or dogs: another hot-button issue at elite institutions

Why Don't Schools Require the SAT Essay?

There are four main reasons that schools have given for not requiring the SAT essay going forward:

#1: Consistency

Many schools already do not require the optional writing portion of the ACT. So now that the SAT Essay is also optional, it makes sense to not require it, either. This simply makes testing guidelines consistent for those schools.

#2: The Essay Is Redundant

Some schools feel that they already have sufficient evidence of an applicant’s writing capability through application essays. This is particularly true at institutions where multiple essays are required as part of the application.

#3: The SAT Essay Does Not Predict College Success

In the past, the old SAT essay has been shown to be the least predictive element of college success on the SAT. While there is not yet data on the new SAT essay’s predictive capabilities, schools have taken this opportunity to shed what they feel is basically dead weight in an application.

#4: Requiring the SAT Essay Presents a Burden to Underprivileged Students

Columbia’s primary concern is that the extra cost of the essay may be a deterrent to underprivileged students.   University of Pennsylvania has made similar statements —minority and underprivileged students are least likely to have a “complete testing profile.” So, they’ve eliminated the SAT Essay requirement in the hopes of attracting a more diverse applicant pool.

A diverse tomato pool.

So Does the SAT Essay Matter to Your College Chances?

I’ve gone over how and why schools use or don’t use the SAT Essay. But what does all of this mean for you?

There are two main questions you need to answer to determine how important the essay is for you: first, should you take the SAT Essay section, and second, how important is your score?

Should I Take the SAT Essay?

This comes down mostly to whether or not you are applying to schools that require or recommend the SAT Essay. (In college applications, I would generally err on the side of treating recommendations as nicely-worded requirements.)

If you are truly not interested in a single school that requires/recommends the essay, and you don’t see yourself changing your mind, go ahead and skip it.   However, if there’s even a chance you might be interested in a school that does require/recommend the essay, you should take it.

And if you’re applying to highly selective schools, definitely take the essay portion, because around half of them require the essay. So if you change your mind at the last minute and decide you’re applying to CalTech as well as MIT, you’ll need that essay.

I advise this because if you don’t take the essay portion and then end up needing it for even one school, you’ll have to take the entire test over again. If you’re happy with your score already, this will be a big four-hour drag for you.

You might also want to take the essay portion if you are particularly good at rhetorical analysis and timed writing. Even for colleges that don’t require the essay, a stellar score will look good.

How Important Is Your SAT Essay Score?

This is a little more complicated, as it does depend to a certain extent on the schools you are applying to. I spoke to admissions officers from several schools, and some themes emerged as to how important they consider your essay score to be, and how they use it in evaluating your application:

• The general consensus was that the essay was the least important part of the SAT overall. Admissions offices will look much more closely at your composite score.
• The SAT Essay is primarily looked at in combination with your other writing-based application materials: your admissions essay and your high school English transcripts are also used to determine your writing and language skills. Essentially, it’s a part of a facet of your application.
• That said, bombing the essay would be a red flag to admissions officers that you might not be fully prepared for college-level work.

Overall, I would advise you not to sweat your essay score too much. The most important thing is that your essay score is more or less consistent with your other test scores. It certainly doesn’t have to be perfect—if you get a 1600 and an 18 out of 24, I wouldn’t stress too much. But if you, say, have a 1500 and get a 9/24 on the essay, that’s a little more concerning, as it may cause concern among admissions officers that you aren’t prepared for college-level work.

In general, then, schools really look at the score, but it’s not one of the most important parts of your application or even your SAT score.  Your best bet if you are interested in a given school that requires the essay and you want more specific guidance how they use the essay is to call the admissions office and ask. To learn more about what a good SAT Essay score is, check out our guide to the average SAT Essay score.

Not this kind of score!

How Can I Succeed on the SAT Essay?

Luckily, it’s very possible to learn the skills to hit the SAT Essay out of the park every time. Here are some general tips:

• Learn specific persuasive and argumentative techniques that you can reference in your essay. If you can’t identify what devices authors can use to make arguments, how will you write an essay about it?
• Make sure you have a clear thesis that can be defended with evidence from the passage.
• Include an introduction and a conclusion. This will help “bracket” your great points and show that you know how to structure a solid piece of writing.
• Rely on evidence from the passage to build your argument.
• Don’t give your opinion on the issue! The new SAT essay is not opinion-based.
• Make sure you use correct grammar and academic language. (No “This passage, like my brows, is on fleek.”)
• Write at least a page.

Also see this guide to getting a perfect SAT Essay score and this one on improving your score.

Tips to success: don't fold up the Essay section into origami boats.

Final Summary and Actionables

With the new SAT making the essay section optional, many schools have chosen to neither require nor recommend that students take it. Most schools will no longer require the essay, but highly selective schools are divided on the issue.

Among those schools that do require the SAT Essay, many have gone on the record to say that they feel the essay provides a valuable additional piece of information on an applicant’s potential for college-level work. They plan on using the essay as a way to further evaluate an applicant’s writing skills, although for most of these schools it is considered the least important part of the SAT score .

At schools where the SAT Essay is not required, the essay has been eliminated for a variety of reasons: for more consistency with ACT requirements, because the Essay seems redundant or poorly predictive of college success, or to attract a more diverse applicant pool.

What does all this mean for you? If there’s even a chance you’ll apply to a school that requires or recommends the essay, take the SAT with Essay. If you don’t and end up needing it later, you’ll have to re-take the entire exam.

If you do take the SAT Essay, don’t stress too much about getting a perfect score, but do prepare enough that you are confident you won’t get a very low score compared to your composite.

What's Next?

If you're thinking about test scores and college, check out my article on the minimum SAT score for college.

Ready to get started with practice essays? Check out our thorough analysis of the SAT essay prompt and our complete list of prompts to practice with .

Aiming for a perfect SAT essay score? Read our guides to get strategies on how to get an 8/8/8 on your SAT essay .

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Ellen has extensive education mentorship experience and is deeply committed to helping students succeed in all areas of life. She received a BA from Harvard in Folklore and Mythology and is currently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University.

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Does University of South Carolina not have a supplemental essay?

I stressed out for months about completing it and i got to the end and I’ve noticed there’s no supplemental essay it’s needing me to fill out. Am I missing something?

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7 Doing Sports God’s Way

• Published: August 2024
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This chapter analyzes the development of the Christian athlete movement in the 1980s and 1990s, after it had formed a stable organizational infrastructure within sports. The chapter discusses conflicts and tensions as leaders of the evangelical sports subculture worked to set the boundaries for how those within their movement should interpret and understand Christian teachings in light of the cultural and social questions of the day. These included issues like women in sports, gender roles, gay rights, the rise of the Christian Right, and more. Persecuted (in its eyes), powerful (in the eyes of critics), by the end of the twentieth century the Christian athlete movement’s view of doing sports God’s way often mirrored the polarizing cultural trends in the United States. Yet this was always done with ambiguities, nuances, and dissidents from within who sought to articulate alternative ways of being Christian in the world of sports.

Frank Deford’s 1976 Sports Illustrated series was the first major investigation of the Christian athlete movement, but it was far from the last. Every few years after Deford’s series, another journalist from a media outlet would tackle the blending of sports and Christianity.

James Baker, a history professor and a frequent contributor to the Christian Century , told one such reporter in 1982 that he saw the infusion of evangelical religiosity within sports as a fad that “had a good decade run” but would not “be around much longer.” 1 Close He was wrong. The organizational infrastructure of Sportianity, embedded within the sports industry through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Athletes in Action (AIA), Pro Athletes Outreach (PAO), and Baseball Chapel, ensured that evangelicalism maintained a steady presence in the lives of coaches and players long after Baker’s prediction of decline. In many ways its influence grew. Pick any big game in college or professional football, baseball, and basketball after 1980, and there was sure to be a cadre of self-identified Christian athletes and coaches on both teams—and probably a team chaplain or sports minister, too.

At the same time, there were important changes within the Christian athlete movement, as well as jostling for leadership and influence—for the right to determine what it meant to be a “Christian athlete” or how to “do sports God’s way.” Leaders of the evangelical sports subculture constantly worked to set the boundaries for how those within their movement should interpret and understand Christian teachings in light of the cultural and social questions of the day. What to do about women in sports? How about gender roles and the growing movement for gay rights? What was the relationship between evangelical sports ministries and a predominantly white Christian Right political movement aligned with the Republican Party? How could athletes combat the worrisome trends evident among young people, who were supposedly veering out of control with an appetite for drugs and alcohol, sex and money, and rock and rap music?

Those questions hovered over the Christian athlete movement as it grew in strength in the 1980s and 1990s. Persecuted in its eyes, powerful in the eyes of critics, by the end of the twentieth century the Christian athlete movement often mirrored America’s larger cultural trends—yet always with ambiguities, nuances, and dissidents from within.

The basic architecture of Sportianity, in place by the 1970s, was filled in throughout the 1980s and 1990s as players, coaches, chaplains, and sports ministry staff spread out into the nooks and crannies of the sports world. Much of this growth could be attributed to two simple strategies: presence and availability.

For AIA, this involved its field ministry on college campuses and its chaplaincy work in pro sports. By 1984 full-time AIA staffers served thirty-five college athletic programs and fourteen strategically selected pro cities, numbers that grew in the years ahead. 2 Close Like nearly all Campus Crusade staff members, they raised their own salaries through financial gifts from friends, family, and other supporters. This enabled them to provide their services free of charge, which in turn helped to secure and maintain their access within an increasingly guarded sports industry.

FCA leaders did not prioritize sports chaplaincy in the same way—at least not until the 1990s, when they began to train staff members to serve as “character coaches” on college sports teams. 3 Close Instead, FCA staffers tended to see themselves as representatives of a particular civic community or geographic area, with much of their work focused on leading and directing a robust system of volunteers. Because of the FCA’s orientation toward civic identity and community leadership, it maintained a strong presence in the South and portions of the Midwest where public expressions of evangelical Protestant religiosity were prominent.

The heart of the FCA’s ministry was focused on younger athletes and their coaches, and football remained king. The annual breakfast at the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) convention served as an anchor point, with coaching conferences providing another important source of influence. Each year new generations of football players and coaches experienced the FCA and found meaningful connections between the high-stakes sport they played and their Christian faith. In 1994, when FCA member and recently retired Baylor football coach Grant Teaff was named executive director of the AFCA, the long-standing links between the FCA and the football coaching community were further enhanced. 4 Close

FCA coaches offered variations in style and approach even as they represented a broadly shared vision for American society. Tom Osborne, head coach at the University of Nebraska, exemplified the middlebrow mainline roots of the Christian athlete movement. A Methodist from the Midwest who attended his first FCA conference while he was a college athlete in 1957, Osborne possessed a thoughtful, irenic posture and published books like More than Winning (1985) that advanced “true success” ideas. Bobby Bowden at Florida State embodied the Southern Baptist ethos. Born and raised in Alabama, he got involved in the FCA in the 1960s and was a strong supporter of Billy Graham, seeing soul-winning evangelism as his central purpose. At Colorado, meanwhile, the Catholic-turned-evangelical Bill McCartney symbolized a more aggressive and militant evangelicalism shaped by the growing culture wars and a surging Pentecostal/charismatic movement. 5 Close

The ongoing success of the FCA’s work with football coaches inspired similar efforts in other sports. The FCA hosted breakfasts at annual meetings for baseball and basketball coaches, and, as its women’s ministry grew, softball and volleyball coaches as well. These events helped recruit new members and strengthen existing relationships among coaches who saw themselves as part of a shared Christian sports movement. 6 Close

Within pro sports, meanwhile, a series of annual events were tied to All-Star and championship games. In the 1970s, Baseball Chapel began hosting a gathering at the MLB All-Star game. In the NBA, an All-Star Chapel Service was launched in 1981, with Philadelphia 76ers executive Pat Williams—closely connected to all evangelical sports ministry happenings—providing early leadership. 7 Close AIA received approval from the NFL office to host a breakfast during Super Bowl week. They launched it in 1988 and in the following year began presenting the Bart Starr Award to a player who exemplified character and leadership (Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Steve Largent was the first recipient). In 1997, AIA replicated this model in men’s college basketball, inaugurating a “Legends of the Hardwood” breakfast to be held in conjunction with the Final Four, where a John Wooden “Keys to Life” award was presented. 8 Close

Crucially, these events occurred within the structures of big-time sports. More than simply projecting a message of Christian faith out to the general public, they provided opportunities to strengthen relationships inside the sports industry and to build networks of mutual support and concern.

At the same time, the leaders of Sportianity did not ignore public displays of faith. Those increased through the 1980s and 1990s as well. The cable television wave and the launch of ESPN, with its around-the-clock sports coverage, brought more games and highlight packages to TV screens, helping to popularize new scripts for Christian witnessing. 9 Close Jerry Terrell, an infielder with the Kansas City Royals and a regular with Baseball Chapel and Pro Athletes Outreach, highlighted this strategy when he was interviewed after a game in 1979. “I don’t get interviewed much, so I’d like to take this opportunity to give credit to Jesus Christ,” Terrell told the reporters. “He is number one in my life.” Variations of Terrell’s comments became increasingly common in the years to come, with the phrase “I’d like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” emerging as a popular way for Christian athletes to begin an interview. 10 Close

Symbolic gestures increased as well. Two especially prominent examples in the 1970s came from Black athletes, highlighting the infusion of African Americans into Sportianity. 11 Close In 1977 Philadelphia Eagles running back Herb Lusk took off on a seventy-yard touchdown run and then knelt on one knee in the end zone. “You know what he’s doing right now? Praying,” the play-by-play announcer declared during the television broadcast. 12 Close In 1979, Baltimore Orioles outfielder Pat Kelly pointed his finger to the sky after hitting a home run in a playoff game against the California Angels. Reporters initially took his gesture as a sign of disrespect aimed at the fans. But Kelly set the record straight. “I’m a Christian and a child of God. I was pointing to my Savior in the sky,” he explained. 13 Close

Building on symbolic in-game gestures, Christian athletes also developed collaborative postgame prayer rituals. In 1989, NFL players with Philadelphia, Washington, and San Diego began huddling on the field after games to pray, with players from both teams invited. While college football had featured interteam prayers before, they were not part of the culture of the NFL, which frowned on fraternization between opponents. 14 Close

The next year the practice continued with the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers. Before a highly anticipated Monday Night Football matchup in December 1990, the chaplains for the two teams, AIA staffers Pat Richie and Dave Bratton, hatched a plan for a postgame prayer. After talking to their chapel regulars, Richie and Bratton found several players eager to participate. Following the game—a 7-3 defensive battle—two Giants players joined six 49ers in the prayer huddle. For the rest of the season, culminating in a Super Bowl win, Giants players gathered at midfield for prayer after their games, with opponents frequently joining them. 15 Close

NFL leaders did not seem particularly enthusiastic about the new ceremony. They briefly attempted to re-enforce their “no fraternization” rule following the 1990–1991 season, but to no avail. When the 49ers and Giants played once again in a Monday Night Football matchup to start the next season, a handful of players knelt together at midfield after the game, daring the NFL to enforce the rule. No fines or discipline came. The prayer huddles were here to stay. 16 Close

The NFL’s ambivalence toward public prayer highlights the key paradox undergirding the Christian athlete movement. Alongside its claims of growth and momentum, many evangelical athletes and coaches nurtured a sense of marginalization. As much as the evangelical subculture of sports had grown since the 1950s, it remained just that—a subculture. The percentage of players who attended chapels on a given team could occasionally exceed fifty percent, but it varied by team—and far fewer regularly attended Bible studies or PAO conferences.

So, too, those outside the movement often expressed pointed criticism of evangelical athletes. In baseball, some scouts and managers accused born-again players of losing their competitive edge. “They’re going to be the ruination of baseball” one scout declared in 1981. 17 Close The following year in the NFL, Chicago Bears safety Gary Fencik complained to a reporter about outspoken Christian teammates like Mike Singletary and Vince Evans. “Certain players have a tendency that if you aren’t receptive to their invitation to accept Christ, you become ‘they’ rather than ‘us,’” Fencik said. He added a dig aimed at the Christian players’ masculinity, poking fun at their pregame ritual in which they “go into the shower room, hold hands and pray.” 18 Close

Sports ministries may not have liked these comments, but they recognized the need to cooperate with nonevangelical teammates, coaches, and league executives if they wanted continued access. Unlike other forms of evangelical popular culture, including music, books, and television, evangelicals could not simply create their own big-time sports league. Instead, the pluralistic nature of the sports industry meant that evangelicals had to participate within an industry whose boundaries and priorities they did not dictate. 19 Close

More often than directly challenging sports insiders, then, Christian athletes and coaches tended to blame mainstream sports media for their perceived persecution. “When I start talking about Jesus, some reporters walk away,” Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Reggie White complained in 1989. Two years later, an FCA staff member suggested that “when a player kneels and give thanks to the Lord” the sports media responded with criticism that “prayer doesn’t belong on the playing field.” 20 Close

There was some truth to this perspective. Dating back to Frank Deford’s 1976 Sports Illustrated series, media coverage of the evangelical sports subculture often took a critical or cynical tone. In 1979, Glenn Dickey, sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle , attributed the San Francisco Giants’ struggles to the team’s evangelical players. He suggested that the Giants should trade “one or two of the most obvious born-agains” in order to “break up that clique.” 21 Close Meanwhile, in a blistering column following the 1991 Super Bowl, Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly complained about “elaborately orchestrated 50-yard-line religious sales pitches,” which he saw as an unwelcome intrusion “wholly inappropriate to a sporting event.” He called on the NFL to ban the postgame prayers and urged television networks to ignore them. 22 Close

Rhetoric like this seemed to confirm evangelical fears. Yet, what sports ministries experienced as marginalization could also be understood as a thwarted desire to control the narrative. In the 1950s and 1960s the FCA found plenty of sportswriters willing to praise its clean-living Christian athletes as emblems of the American way. Men like Ernie Mehl in Kansas City and Watson Spoelstra in Detroit served as glorified PR agents. By the 1980s, sports media had changed. Some sportswriters and broadcasters continued to support the efforts of the Christian athlete movement, but journalists seemed more interested in asking hard questions or considering angles beyond the scope of sports ministry priorities. 23 Close

The leaders of the Christian athlete movement could complain about this—and many did. But some took another step. Recognizing that they could not drive the media narrative in the direction they preferred, they sought to develop new media spaces where they could center the conversation around evangelical concerns. Out of this desire came the most important evangelical sports media property of the late twentieth century: Sports Spectrum magazine.

Sports Spectrum ’s origins can be traced back to one of Sportianity’s rising stars of the 1980s: Ralph Drollinger. A backup center for UCLA from 1972 through 1976, Drollinger turned down the chance to play in the NBA after graduation and instead joined the AIA basketball team. The team was at the height of its influence, and Drollinger quickly emerged as one of AIA’s most eager spokesmen. In 1978 he arranged for a press conference in New York City to announce that he had turned down a three-year, $400,000 contract offer from the New Jersey Nets and would instead stay with AIA, where his salary was just $7,500—an announcement that led to a flurry of sports columnists praising Drollinger and contrasting him with the supposedly greedy athletes taking advantage of free agency to negotiate higher salaries. 24 Close

Two years later Drollinger decided to make the NBA leap after all. The Dallas Mavericks won the sweepstakes, signing Drollinger in June to a guaranteed three-year, $450,000 contract. 25 Close An expansion franchise owned by evangelical businessman Don Carter and run by evangelical general manager Norm Sonju, the Mavericks seemed to be a perfect fit. Sonju, raised in Chicago, was efficient and detail oriented—a business executive trained in the latest corporate strategies and shaped by the evangelical business ethos of ServiceMaster, where he worked until his move into the NBA. He was also well acquainted with Sportianity, serving as a key behind-the-scenes leader alongside fellow basketball executives Pat Williams and Jerry Colangelo. 26 Close Carter, by contrast, was a Texas native who possessed more of a “wildcat Christianity” posture: willing to speculate, take risks, and rely on intuition. 27 Close

Despite their differences in style, the two men shared a hope that the Mavericks could become a conservative Christian model for the rest of the league, representing, in Sonju’s words, “wholesomeness and goodness and respect for God and country.” 28 Close Drollinger later recalled that the Mavericks “told me they were going to be the first Christian team in the NBA,” confirming the suspicion of Dallas sportswriter Skip Bayless, who wondered if Sonju wanted a “born-again Boy Scout” team. But Drollinger helped to torpedo any efforts to build an evangelical roster. Hobbled by injuries, his NBA career lasted exactly six games and featured more personal fouls than points. For years to come the UCLA big man served as an important lesson for the Mavericks’ leadership that born-again players did not guarantee on-court success. “It was one of the worst mistakes of my career,” Sonju admitted. 29 Close

As the Mavericks moved forward, Sonju and Carter modified their vision, aiming less for a predominantly Christian roster and more for a “family friendly” basketball operation and environment. Meanwhile, Drollinger took his guaranteed salary and returned to AIA, where he initiated a new project that would dominate his interests for the rest of the 1980s: a television show centered on sports and Christian faith. Originally called Athletes in Action Sports Magazine , the show featured Christian athletes sharing their faith and discussing sports and life lessons. A glossy quarterly print magazine provided the backbone of the operation, with the cable television show building on the print magazine with recorded interviews. 30 Close

AIA’s investment in sports media coincided with a transition in the media strategy of its chief competitor. The Christian Athlete had served for two decades as the de facto journal of record for the Christian sports movement. But the controversy over Gary Warner’s editorial direction in the 1970s hemmed in his successor, Skip Stogsdill, a problem exacerbated by financial challenges faced by the FCA in the early 1980s (challenges resolved through a fundraising campaign tied to Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry). 31 Close No longer a magazine aiming to speak for the broader Christian athlete community, it became, in the words of the FCA’s president, a “specialized ministry outreach for teenage athletes.” Recognizing this shift, in 1982 FCA leaders changed the magazine’s name to Sharing the Victory . 32 Close

AIA faced its own financial challenges, the result of the cost of breaking into cable television. By 1985 funding for Drollinger’s project dried up, and the print magazine and television program were cut. Still, Drollinger did not give up. Using money from his NBA contract, he created his own media company, New Focus, and adopted the AIA strategy for himself: a print magazine combined with a faith-based sports show. He recruited NBA star Julius Erving to headline the effort and host the show. Called “Julius Erving’s Sports Focus,” it had a brief run on ESPN in 1985 before it was canceled. One issue of the magazine, Sports Focus , was published, too: it featured Erving on the cover and included a profile of retired basketball standout and recent evangelical convert Pete Maravich. 33 Close

Drollinger tried again in 1987 with a television show and magazine called Second Look. The television program once again did not stick, but the magazine had lasting success thanks to financial support and guidance provided by Radio Bible Class (RBC), a Michigan-based evangelical devotional ministry that eventually acquired the magazine. Renamed Sports Spectrum in the early 1990s, the magazine achieved a level of permanence with a subscriber base that stood at fifty-five thousand in 1993. 34 Close

Positioning itself as a positive and practical publication that focused on “the good in sports,” Second Look/Sports Spectrum fused evangelical themes with the therapeutic values expressed in older middlebrow periodicals like Guideposts . A 1987 issue of Second Look , for example, featured a profile of John Wooden—the living embodiment of middlebrow Protestantism—as well as an interview with Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser that highlighted the connections between positivity, faith, and “inner success.” 35 Close At the same time, the magazine centered theological perspectives rooted in the fundamentalist tradition, particularly during Ralph Drollinger’s leadership, when the former center recruited neofundamentalist Bible expositor John MacArthur Jr. to write monthly columns for the magazine. 36 Close

Because Sports Spectrum was not tied directly to either the FCA or AIA, it featured athletes and coaches from both organizations (and the growing number of smaller sports ministries). Christian athletes from previous generations could be written into the movement, too. Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner who sat out his best event at the 1924 Olympics because it was held on a Sunday—and then won gold in a different event, the four hundred meters—captured the support of American fundamentalists back then with his Sabbath convictions. Yet, while he fit within British evangelicalism, he was not a fundamentalist; on the American side he was shaped more by Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group and mainline Protestant ministers Harry Emerson Fosdick and E. Stanley Jones. 37 Close Even so, nearly four decades after his death, Liddell earned a place among the new generation of American evangelical athletes when the award-winning film Chariots of Fire (1981) told the dramatic story of his Olympic performance. According to a 1987 Second Look article, Liddell exemplified “running for an audience of One.” 38 Close

For the Christian athlete movement, Second Look/Sports Spectrum served as the closest thing to a journal of record. Whether past or present, it provided readers with a roster of famous athletes and coaches who connected evangelical faith with their success at the highest levels of sport—in baseball (with cover athletes like Orel Hershiser, Joe Carter, Frank Tanana, and Dave Dravecky), basketball (Mark Price, Kevin Johnson, Avery Johnson, A. C. Green), and football (Steve Largent, Bobby Hebert, Reggie Williams), as well as individual sports like tennis (Michael Chang).

By the time Sports Spectrum adopted its new name and achieved a sense of stability, Drollinger had departed and turned his attention to leading Sports Outreach America (SOA), an umbrella organization that sought to connect sports evangelism with local churches. SOA was the North American branch of a larger network, the International Sports Coalition (ISC), developed in 1986 by sports ministry pioneer Eddie Waxer and evangelical pastor Dave Burnham to galvanize and nurture sports ministry on a global scale. 39 Close

Like Sports Spectrum , SOA’s independence from the major sports ministries allowed it to provide a space where evangelical sports ministries could work together. Although this did not always happen—animosity and suspicion between the FCA and AIA remained high throughout the 1990s—SOA was able to build large-scale, event-based sports evangelism campaigns. In 1993, for example, SOA created an evangelistic Super Bowl kit for churches that included a video narrated by Tom Landry as well as testimonies from Emmitt Smith and other star football players. 40 Close

By developing what eventually became Sports Spectrum and then taking charge of SOA, Drollinger positioned himself at the top of the Sportianity hierarchy, using evangelistic events and sports media as a common cause around which the various sports ministries could unite.

While Drollinger focused on public outreach, former AIA staffer Wes Neal emphasized the behind-the-scenes development of training materials designed to help Christian athletes and coaches reach their “fullest athletic potential” by learning what Neal claimed was “God’s way” of doing sports. 41 Close As we saw last chapter, Neal’s signature product— The Handbook on Athletic Perfection —was first issued during his time at AIA, when it was published as The Making of an Athlete of God . After leaving AIA, Neal carved out a space as an independent expert who could help athletes apply biblical concepts directly to their sports performance. 42 Close

Neal’s materials continued to influence AIA even after his departure. Wendel Deyo, who would eventually succeed Dave Hannah as AIA’s president, expanded on what Neal started by helping to create AIA’s “five principles” for developing the “total athlete” through the integration of Christian faith and athletic competition. AIA also launched a unique high-intensity camp (the Ultimate Training Camp) where athletes could practice and learn the principles. 43 Close Deyo’s most eager disciple, Cincinnati Bengals offensive lineman Anthony Muñoz, served as an important spokesperson for AIA in the 1980s, speaking and writing about his improved results after he began to incorporate the practice of seeing the intensity of his athletic performance as a way of saying “thank you” to God. 44 Close

Neal’s influence extended into the FCA, too, although his system was not embraced by everyone. Southern Baptists tended to prefer their own methods, and the middlebrow style, emphasizing the gradual development of Christian character, continued to have staying power. But Neal won over several FCA leaders, particularly in Nebraska, where the FCA had a strong presence and where staff member Gordon Thiessen and Cornhusker assistant football coach Ron Brown were especially strong advocates of Neal’s teachings. Thiessen formed a publishing company, Cross Training, that released new editions of Neal’s material, eventually rebranding Neal’s ideas as “Doing Sports God’s Way.” 45 Close

For many athletes and coaches Neal provided a framework for elite performance that focused on process over results, offering a tangible way to integrate their faith commitments directly into the field of competition. As a 1982 Athletes in Action article review put it, Neal showed “that sports competition can glorify God and that the Christian athlete can develop spiritually through sports.” 46 Close At the same time, part of Neal’s appeal was that he offered definitive and unambiguous answers to complex questions. Although evangelicals—to say nothing of Christians from other traditions—had different interpretations on what the Bible meant on a wide variety of issues, Neal presented himself as an objective receiver and transmitter of timeless biblical principles, with little consideration for the theological and cultural influences that might shape his understanding of the Bible.

One example was the Keswick lens through which Neal understood the biblical texts. Another was his approach to the coach/player relationship. Neal focused on what he called the “chain-of-command,” a “biblical concept designed by God” that helped “each person know his responsibility and function at the highest level of efficiency.” 47 Close Yet the chain-of-command idea as Neal conceived it was not obvious in the biblical text; instead it was in the air of 1970s evangelicalism, popularized by Bill Gothard, who carved out an influential role in conservative evangelical circles through his Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts (later Institute in Basic Life Principles). Gothard’s key teaching focused on hierarchies of authority that he called the “chain of command”: each person, he said, had God-ordained authority figures to whom they were required to submit, as well as some over whom they had authority. In the family unit, this meant that God was the top authority, followed by the husband, and then the wife, and then the kids. 48 Close

Although Gothard’s ideas about authority caused considerable debate and criticism in evangelical circles, Neal decided that the chain-of-command concept was indeed biblical and that it applied to the coach/player relationship. His proof text was 1 Peter 2:18–20, which reads, in part, “Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God.” 49 Close

Referring to this text, Neal encouraged athletes to be what he called doulos athletes—a Greek word referring to a slave. Neal encouraged athletes to mentally prepare for this doulos posture of complete submission by picturing themselves chained to their coaches. A doulos athlete, Neal said, “is completely at the disposal of the person for whom he is a doulos”; by being obedient to his coach, he is “being obedient to God.” While Neal recognized that coaches might be inept or insensitive, he believed that, with rare exceptions, Christian athletes should submit anyway. “When we take on responsibilities and concerns that God has not given us in the chain-of-command, our mind becomes encumbered with unnecessary weight,” Neal explained. 50 Close

To make the master/slave relationship from the first century analogous to the coach/player relationship in the twentieth century was fraught with racialized dynamics, particularly as big-time sports leagues filled up with Black players while coaching staffs remained predominantly white. 51 Close This did not seem to cross Neal’s mind. In his view, he had simply read the Bible and applied its plain meaning. Many Christian athletes and coaches agreed, finding in Neal’s system what they regarded as a truly biblical approach to competition—one that went deeper than most other programs.

Shirl Hoffman, on the other hand, was not impressed. A former college basketball coach, Hoffman earned his doctorate in education and then in the 1970s launched an academic career in the emerging field of sport studies. From 1975, when he presented a conference paper (later published as an article) titled “The Athletae Dei: Missing the Meaning of Sport,” to 2010, when he published Good Game: Christianity and the Culture of Sports , Hoffman analyzed what he called the “locker-room religion” of the Christian athlete movement. Writing in Christianity Today in 1986, he described the theology of the movement this way: “It is not so much orthodox evangelicalism as a hodgepodge of biblical truths, worn-out coaching slogans, Old Testament allusions to religious wars, and interpretations of Paul’s metaphors that would drive the most straight-laced theologian to drink.” Hoffman specifically highlighted Wes Neal’s program as the “most popular doctrine in this locker-room religion.” 52 Close

Hoffman was not merely a critic. He, too, sought to advance his own understanding of how to do sports God’s way, with a perspective shaped by popular intellectual trends. Finding his foundation in the work of academic theologians like Jürgen Moltmann and Hugo Rahner, who developed a theology of play in the 1960s and 1970s, Hoffman argued that Christian athletes should approach sports “as an expression of the divine spark called play,” and they should play for one reason: “to celebrate a joyous life, secure in Christ.” 53 Close

In contrast to Neal, who presented Christianity as a tool for maximizing one’s athletic potential, Hoffman believed Christian athletes should simply delight in the gift of sports, content in who they already were. In contrast to Drollinger, who wanted Christian athletes to use the platform of sports for evangelistic aims, Hoffman argued that instrumentalizing sports in this way led to an ethic that linked winning (and thus, a bigger platform) with Christian witness. To Hoffman, sports should be received and celebrated as a gift from God—there was no need to add anything more. “The integration of sport and genuine Christianity is possible only when we recognize the potential for sport as a celebrative and worshipful act,” Hoffman concluded. 54 Close

Reception to Hoffman’s work within the ranks of Sportianity was understandably ambivalent. Some, like Sharing the Victory editor Skip Stogsdill, appreciated Hoffman’s viewpoint and sought to promote some of his ideas. 55 Close Yet, in general, Hoffman’s audience and support came primarily from fellow academics or Christian intellectuals. This made it easier for his ideas to be dismissed. When Watson Spoelstra, founder of Baseball Chapel, wrote to Christianity Today to comment on Hoffman’s 1986 article, he made this clear. “If only Shirl Hoffman had encountered Andre Thornton or Norm Evans,” he lamented. Spoelstra went on to list other famous Christian athletes who had inspired and encouraged him over the years, offering them as rebuttals to Hoffman’s criticism. “The Lord has exciting people on his side in professional and college sports,” Spoelstra concluded. 56 Close

By naming specific star athletes with whom he was friends, Spoelstra nodded to the key source of authority within Sportianity: the relationships its leaders and organizations had with high-level Christian athletes and coaches. Academics like Hoffman, following the incentives of their field of work, advanced their careers by writing for fellow intellectuals about sports. Leaders in the Christian athlete movement, on the other hand, did the same by building relationships within sports. When it came to popularizing and advancing a particular way of doing sports God’s way, they had the advantage of presence and athletic prestige.

Culture Warriors

Academic criticism may have had little effect on the day-to-day operations of the Christian athlete movement. Yet, there was another way to challenge the existing sports ministry organizations: one could create new, rival groups. This was the path of Champions for Christ (CFC), created in 1985 by Greg Ball as the sports wing of the controversial Maranatha Campus Ministries.

Maranatha, launched in the early 1970s by Bob Weiner, was part of the charismatic/Pentecostal wing of American Christianity. In the early twentieth century Pentecostals built a religious subculture around spiritual practices like divine healing and speaking in tongues, forming denominations that included the predominantly white Assemblies of God and predominantly Black Church of God in Christ. Initially a socially marginalized movement, by the middle of the twentieth century Pentecostal experiences and practices began to move into the mainstream, aided by a “charismatic renewal” movement that reached beyond Pentecostal denominations and into both mainline Protestant institutions and new independent charismatic networks like Maranatha. 57 Close

Within mainline denominations, the charismatic renewal could seem like an update on the middlebrow Protestantism of the 1920s, with the Holy Spirit serving as a source for a practical and therapeutic faith. 58 Close This was the perspective of Leonard LeSourd, the longtime editor of Guideposts and a trustee for the FCA , who became an advocate for the charismatic movement in Presbyterian circles. But while the FCA did not exclude Pentecostal perspectives, it privileged more subdued expressions of faith. AIA, meanwhile, had a more oppositional posture to Pentecostalism shaped by its distinctive Keswick teachings. Still, as long as Pentecostal athletes kept their focus on common evangelical territory, like the transforming power of faith in Christ, they could usually find a welcome space within Sportianity.

Maranatha and Champions for Christ, however, represented a more confident and militant Pentecostalism. Not interested in playing by the rules set by evangelical gatekeepers, CFC fully embraced charismatic teachings about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and made them central to its identity, with key leaders presenting themselves as “shepherds” who could interpret and discern God’s will for those placed under their authority. 59 Close Greg Ball, a clean-cut white evangelist who looked like a college student, proved that this approach could work in 1981 when he won his most important disciple: Oregon State basketball player A. C. Green. Writing in his autobiography, Green described meeting Ball at a campus revival, where he was inspired by Ball’s admonition not to be “just another Christian student on campus.” Green recalled feeling “a power surge” like a “bolt of lightning” after Ball prayed for him. “It’s one thing to know you’re saved,” Green marveled, “but another to be saved and have the power of God living inside you.” 60 Close

Green’s entrance in the NBA in 1985 marked the official beginning of CFC as an organization, and his rise to prominence with the Los Angeles Lakers gave CFC credibility, allowing it to overcome the failure of Maranatha, which disbanded as an organized network in 1989 following charges of authoritarianism and spiritual manipulation. CFC pressed on with Greg Ball in charge, joined by another former Maranatha leader, Rice Broocks, who launched a new charismatic network in the 1990s that went by the name Morning Star before rebranding as Every Nation. 61 Close

In the early 1990s CFC expanded its star power beyond Green, with Greg Ball playing a key role in the born-again conversions of Houston Rockets guard Dave Jamerson and San Antonio Spurs star David Robinson (Robinson quickly distanced himself from CFC, joining a more traditional evangelical church in San Antonio). It was in the NFL that CFC truly made its mark, however. There, Darrell Green of the Washington Redskins became an important early spokesman. His involvement with CFC came through his mentor and pastor Brett Fuller, one of the few Black leaders in the Maranatha movement of the 1980s. In the 1990s Mark Brunell and Tony Boselli of the Jacksonville Jaguars emerged as key leaders as well, with Greg Ball as their main influence. 62 Close

CFC’s programming generally mimicked that of the other major sports ministries. It hosted off-season training conferences, provided opportunities for its athletes to evangelize, and worked to place its leaders as chaplains within sports teams. Sometimes this could lead to conflict. In 2004, John Feinstein documented religious turmoil on the Baltimore Ravens that involved a group of CFC-affiliated players who challenged the team’s AIA chaplain, Rod Hairston, by trying to create their own team Bible study. 63 Close At the same time, CFC differentiated itself with its militancy and its shepherding strategy, presenting its leaders as divinely ordained with unique insight and access to God. That provided the foundation for CFC leaders to aggressively confront supposed sin in players’ lives. “[CFC] is a ministry that just steps in and says: ‘You know what? You may get offended, but here’s how it is,’” Indianapolis Colts punter Hunter Smith said. 64 Close

CFC also seemed to rely on financial donations from its athletes to help fund its operations, something that the FCA and AIA had been careful to avoid. In 1998, the NFL opened an investigation into CFC’s financial influence when Chicago Bears rookie Curtis Enis, recently recruited to CFC, fired his agent and hired Greg Ball’s friend, an investor named Greg Feste, to represent him. CFC and Ball vehemently denied wrongdoing, framing the investigation as the result of spiritual warfare. Yet, there seemed to be not just smoke, but fire. After a run of prominence within the NFL that extended until the early 2000s, CFC’s influence waned after 2004 when Greg Ball stepped down from ministry amid a new round of accusations over financial impropriety and other moral concerns. 65 Close

Although CFC eventually faded from the scene, its rise in the last two decades of the twentieth century highlighted two important trends in the Christian athlete movement. First, CFC made it clear that the charismatic movement could not be ignored. It became increasingly common for Christian athletes to speak of divine healing from injuries or to notice supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit on the field of play. Some embraced the “health and wealth” teaching of the prosperity gospel movement as well. 66 Close Although these teachings about the Holy Spirit differed from what Wes Neal and AIA said about doing sports “God’s way,” sports ministries ignored Pentecostal expressions of faith at their own peril.

Second, CFC exemplified a more militant posture toward cultural engagement. While much of the work of evangelical sports ministry happened behind the scenes, through the ministry of presence developed by the established organizations, CFC turned up the dial on aggressive public activism. “We are called to bring the nation itself to Christ,” Bob Weiner explained in his 1988 book Take Dominion .

And the nation is made up not only of the people who live there, but of the arts, the sciences, education, law, political systems, the media, business, and so on . . . our task is to bring every one of those areas of life under His influence and under biblical principles. 67 Close

Weiner’s ideas reflected a form of dominion theology known as the “Seven Mountains Mandate.” According to this view, Christians had a God-given responsibility to take “dominion” or rulership of key centers of influence in society—the “seven mountains” of religion, family, government, education, media, arts/entertainment, and business. “God has given this earth into our keeping, and it is our responsibility to rule it properly,” Weiner claimed. “If we Christians don’t rule, who will? Atheists and humanists and agnostics, that’s who.” 68 Close In the 1980s and 1990s, dominion theology gained influence among the loosely organized group that scholars have labeled “Independent Network Charismatic” (INC) Christianity, and of which Maranatha was a part. 69 Close

CFC took Maranatha’s culture war approach and applied it to sports. “There have been many great sports ministries that have gone before and are out laboring,” Greg Ball explained, “but very few people have ever asked God for the high places.” 70 Close Ball’s use of the phrase “high places” was a dominionist move. He was identifying sports as a place of worship in society—a peak on a cultural mountain that Christians needed to occupy—and presenting CFC as the band of soldiers who could claim it for Christ.

Bob Weiner saw CFC in a similar light. In Take Dominion , he cited CFC and its work with A. C. Green as an example of taking dominion in sports. Green, in turn, saw himself as part of a special group of Christians, set apart and filled with the Holy Spirit to confront wickedness in a sinful society. This involved not just personal holiness, but also public activism. In college, Green got his first taste of this when he crusaded to get Playboy magazine removed from area convenience stores. “We felt as though we had just stepped off the page of Acts,” Green marveled. “We didn’t just step on toes; we stomped them and mashed them into the ground.” 71 Close

Green’s reference to the book of Acts reflected the charismatic movement’s desire to recover a first-generation Christianity, the kind described in the Bible, full of signs and wonders and miraculous events. The key point was that the Bible was not just a “playbook for life” or a set of principles to follow, as it was often framed by AIA and FCA; it offered a present reality into which modern Christians could enter. “God wants his people to be warriors,” Green explained in a 1988 interview. “The Israelite warriors in the Bible were always ready to fight, to destroy their enemies and possess their land. It’s that spirit that moves me.” Through holy living, Spirit-filled prayer, and unashamed public advocacy, Green believed Christians could claim new ground for Christ. 72 Close

CFC’s militant posture was not just a reflection of its Pentecostal dominion theology; it was also part of a broader evangelical culture war orientation. By the 1980s, many evangelicals had adopted a dualistic framework popularized by Francis Schaeffer (whose influential 1977 documentary film How Should We Then Live? was produced and distributed with the aid of Baseball Chapel leader Billy Zeoli). Schaeffer depicted American culture as a battleground between two incompatible forces. On one side stood secular humanism, offering a human-centered view of the world, where people set their own standards for morality. Christianity, by contrast, provided a God-centered view with a timeless and transcendent set of values and rules to which human beings were called to conform. 73 Close This perspective required a zero-sum mindset. There were two kingdoms at work in American culture, and neutrality was not an option.

Although conservative evangelicals believed they represented timeless and transcendent truths, they also sought to defend a particular understanding of Christianity’s relationship with American society. Historian Andrew Hartman has labeled this vision “normative America,” a set of cultural standards that achieved dominance in the 1950s only to be challenged by the revolutions of the 1960s. These included strict gender roles, opposition to sex outside of heterosexual marriage, and belief in American exceptionalism—the idea that the nation was uniquely rooted in Christian values. 74 Close

International Sport Coalition leader Dave Burnham captured this emphasis on “normative America” in a 1988 article for Second Look. “Back in the 1960s,” he wrote, “we experienced what was called the sexual revolution.” Since that time, he said, all hell had been unleashed: a rising divorce rate, increase in teen pregnancies and abortions, and the AIDS epidemic. All of this, in Burnham’s view, came about because Americans had rejected “God’s standards of morality.” 75 Close

While the established sports ministries did not match CFC’s militancy, their acceptance of this broader culture war framework marked a change in tone. Leaders had originally built the Christian athlete movement with a middlebrow emphasis on a practical, everyday faith and a vision of American society that combined tradition and progress, welcoming carefully guarded change. Accommodation and compromise were essential. Although these themes did not go away in the era of culture war, by the 1980s a distinctly confrontational posture toward mainstream American culture—one that sought to take back something that had been lost rather than carry forward traditional values into the future—began to rival the middlebrow approach at the foreground of the Christian athlete movement’s public witness. “There are clearly two systems at work right now,” FCA president John Erickson warned in 1982, “the world’s system and God’s system.” 76 Close

While theological differences mattered and could lead to conflict as evangelical sports ministries advanced different approaches to doing sports God’s way, there was also common ground built around a culture war narrative in which Christian athletes were enlisted in the battle against secular humanism in American culture.

Christian Athletes and the Christian Right

The culture wars were about much more than politics. Still, the voting booth mattered. And the rise of the Christian Right, which mobilized conservative white Christians as a Republican voting bloc, brought a partisan edge to the battle—with sports playing a key role in the imagery and ethos of this growing political movement. 77 Close

The most prominent Christian Right activist of the 1980s, Moral Majority founder and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, had a strong interest in sports. A Baptist fundamentalist, Falwell had been an ardent segregationist in the early 1960s. When clergy marched in favor of civil rights for Black people, Falwell preached that it was not the place of ministers to get involved in politics. After the gains of the civil rights movement had been achieved, Falwell apologized for his earlier segregationist views. He also had a change of heart about politics, deciding that he had a moral duty to enter the fray. “For too long we have watched pornography, homosexuality and godless humanism corrupt America’s families, its schools and its communities,” he declared in a 1979 article announcing the formation of the Moral Majority. 78 Close

A lifelong sports fan, Falwell invested heavily in Liberty’s football program soon after its founding in 1971, dreaming that one day it would become an evangelical Notre Dame and provide a greater platform to preach his militant brand of born-again faith and politics. To achieve his dream he turned to the Christian athlete movement, bringing in retired evangelical athletes to lead Liberty’s sports programs. In 1973, he hired former MLB pitcher Al Worthington, an early supporter of the FCA, to serve as his baseball coach. When Worthington moved into the athletic director role at Liberty, he brought in former New York Yankees star Bobby Richardson, who was serving as president of Baseball Chapel at the time, to coach the team. In football, meanwhile, former NFL coach Sam Rutigliano, an FCA advocate, took charge of the Liberty program in 1988. 79 Close

Men like Worthington, Richardson, and Rutigliano embodied Falwell’s vision for American society. They were strong Christian leaders whose success in the masculine domain of sports helped to link conservative Christianity with virile manhood and “traditional” values. By the end of the 1980s Falwell had not quite reached the big-time with Liberty athletics, but he did succeed in moving his football program up to the NCAA’s second-highest division, I-AA (now known as the Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS). 80 Close

Falwell, however, needed Sportianity more than the other way around—in fact, Falwell’s extremism could be a liability to the movement. He remained a relatively marginal figure in evangelical sports ministry spaces, where the affinity for Republican politics was driven less by new Christian Right firebrands and more by the long-standing conservative political preferences of its middle-class white Protestant constituencies in the Sunbelt and Midwest.

Ronald Reagan represented this more expansive conservative orientation. As California’s governor in the 1960s, he had cited the FCA as an example of the “Creative Society” he sought to promote, a vision for building community without government intervention. 81 Close Reagan also attended a Presbyterian church pastored by former UCLA linebacker and FCA pioneer Donn Moomaw—a pastor who distanced himself from the Moral Majority, telling a reporter in 1980 that “we are more liberal in our ideas of the ways people can work out their faith.” 82 Close In 1982, when FCA president John Erickson met with Reagan and offered the FCA’s assistance to support the president’s agenda, he was not someone recently awakened to Christian Right activism; instead, his entrance into politics came in 1970 when he ran for Congress as a moderate Republican. 83 Close

Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp, a New York congressman from 1971 until 1989, exemplified this broader conservative tradition, too. Fiercely optimistic, his belief in an American way defined by free-market capitalism and individualism hearkened back to the middlebrow Protestants of the 1920s. Writing in the Christian Athlete in 1973, Kemp linked his political philosophy to sports, suggesting that individual Americans could better themselves through competition and bring the rest of the country up with them. “We don’t have to accept our circumstances; we can mold them. That’s what it means to be a competitor,” he wrote. 84 Close Focusing more on tax cuts and supply-side economics than on culture war issues, Kemp represented a more inclusive vision of conservatism than the militant rhetoric on offer by Falwell. 85 Close

Yet, the rise of the new Christian Right as a driving force within the Republican Party meant that Kemp and Erickson were closely linked with more militant right-wing leaders whose conservativism had emerged from the roots of Southern segregationist resistance to civil rights (like Jerry Falwell) or from the far-right conspiratorial imagination of the John Birch Society (JBS) (like Moral Majority cofounder Tim LaHaye). 86 Close These forms of conservatism may not have been dominant or prioritized within the Christian athlete movement, but they clearly had a place.

The example of Dave Dravecky is a case in point. In 1984 Athletes in Action magazine featured the San Diego Padres pitcher on its cover, with a profile titled “How Does a Nice Guy Like This Wind Up in the Majors?” A few months later Dravecky made national headlines and stirred debate for his membership in the John Birch Society, a political affiliation that Dravecky saw as the “natural outgrowth” of his born-again faith. 87 Close Stung by the media criticism, in future years Dravecky declined to speak about the controversy or the JBS. Meanwhile, his star rose within the Christian athlete movement for very different reasons: a courageous and heroic battle with cancer, which eventually ended his career and led to the amputation of his left arm. 88 Close

Dravecky was a prominent figure in Christian sports spaces because of his inspirational story of overcoming adversity, not his politics. Yet, his politics did help to reveal the boundaries and shape of the movement. While conservatives ranging from Kemp to Dravecky could feel at home, mainstream liberal political perspectives—to say nothing of the far left—often received pushback. Skip Stogsdill, the FCA magazine editor who continued to provide a space for progressive evangelical perspectives through the 1980s, resigned in 1989. He expressed frustration with what he saw as a tendency to create “cookie-cutter Christians” who conformed to conservative talking points instead of engaging in issues with complexity and nuance. 89 Close University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith also stepped back from the movement and voiced alarm at the rise of the Christian Right. 90 Close

Roe Johnston, the liberal Presbyterian minister who helped launch and guide the FCA in the 1950s, expressed similar concerns. He wrote an article for Sharing the Victory in 1985 in which he reflected on his involvement in those early years and urged FCA leaders to “get into complex issues.” He mentioned world peace, the economics of college athletics, and justice for the oppressed as issues of concern. And he encouraged the FCA to “become more ecumenical.” “In the last decade we’ve become pretty confined to that portion of Christ’s body called Evangelicals,” Johnston pointed out. “I haven’t seen the mainline denominations represented very well for a long time.” 91 Close

Johnston’s article sparked criticism from some readers. One complained about the notion that the FCA should “be devoted to social issues,” urging the FCA to focus instead on the “eternal” goal of “the simple, clear, gospel message” and “saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.” What the reader seemed to miss was that the FCA was already involved with social issues—it had simply selected social issues aligned with conservative politics. 92 Close

But while Johnston wanted more mainline Protestant influence, the disconnect went both ways. Although middlebrow mainliners remained involved, mainline intellectuals and institutional leaders had neglected the Christian athlete movement, particularly its emphasis on a ministry of presence and on evangelism. Evangelical sports ministries worked to place staff members in the field, strengthening connections within the sports industry; mainline leaders shied away from evangelism and generally preferred to engage in sports—if they did at all—by writing critical essays and articles. Just as significant, by the 1970s many mainline intellectuals and politically liberal leaders rejected the idea that the United States had a uniquely Christian identity. They focused more on concerns about pluralism and respect for diverse religious viewpoints. As a result, sports ministry organizations—believing that a distinctly Christian perspective needed to be encouraged in the sports world—felt they had little in common with liberal mainline priorities. 93 Close

This became especially apparent with debates over the place of religion and prayer in public schools. In 1984, religious conservatives in Congress tried to pass an amendment that would enshrine school prayer as a constitutional right—a battle they had been fighting since the Supreme Court’s Engel v. Vitale (1962) and School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963) decisions. 94 Close Many mainline leaders and organizations opposed the amendment, but several high-profile leaders in Sportianity, including Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry and Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, offered their support. “The Supreme Court, in my opinion, took God out of every part of our life except church,” Landry explained at a congressional forum. “Once God is taken out of the marketplace, I think humanism moves into the void.” 95 Close

The school prayer amendment in 1984 fell short of the sixty-seven votes needed to advance in the Senate, yet debates continued over the boundaries of religious expression in public schools. As conservatives like Landry and Gibbs organized in support of school prayer, progressives in groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) organized against it, seeking to limit the religious activities of coaches and sports ministry groups on public school campuses. In 1980, in one of the earliest high-profile cases involving prayer in school sports, the parents of a high school athlete in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, filed a complaint against head football coach Emory Hale, an FCA member who led his team in prayer before and after games. In college football, meanwhile, coaches like Bill McCartney (University of Colorado), Bobby Bowden (Florida State University), and Rey Dempsey (Memphis State) received scrutiny for encouraging Christianity within their programs. 96 Close

These skirmishes became an ongoing battle, with the threat of litigation curtailing some practices—at Colorado, McCartney had to make team prayers and chapel services optional. Yet, Christian coaches did not back down. They navigated new boundaries while developing other strategies to encourage Christianity within their teams. “Neither the ACLU nor any other group can keep me from sharing my beliefs with the world,” Bill McCartney declared in his autobiography. 97 Close What liberals and progressives saw as a violation of the separation of church and state, leaders in the Christian athlete movement saw as essential to their ministry and a continuation of the nation’s Christian heritage.

Still, for all the ways that a conservative political orientation shaped the Christian athlete movement, sports ministry organizations did not usually prioritize direct political activity. The example of Frank Pastore is instructive. A professional baseball player with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1980s, Pastore converted to evangelical faith through the efforts of AIA leader Wendel Deyo. After his playing career, Pastore came on staff with AIA. Yet Pastore found himself losing interest in sports ministry work. As he explained in his autobiography, he conducted chapel services and worked with players on the Cincinnati Bengals and Reds but “found it pretty shallow.” The players seemed to ask the same questions: they wanted help with their marriages, advice about life after sports, tips on how to handle money, and suggestions on how to relate their athletic performance to their Christian faith. “Those are valid questions,” Pastore admitted. “But I wasn’t a counselor, and I didn’t like the hand-holding stuff.” 98 Close

Instead of the “hand-holding stuff” that comprised the bulk of sports ministry work, Pastore wanted to get into the rough-and-tumble world of intellectual and political debate. So, in 1991, Pastore left his work with AIA, eventually becoming a conservative Christian radio host in Los Angeles, where he could defend his conservative Christian beliefs and talk more directly about politics. 99 Close Five years later, another former AIA member, Ralph Drollinger, took a similar path, leaving sports ministry for activist political ministry. Drollinger’s new organization, Capitol Ministries, specialized in Bible studies for politicians that presented conservative talking points—from cracking down on undocumented immigrants to rejecting the science of climate change—as timeless biblical truths. 100 Close

That Drollinger and Pastore left sports ministry so they could pursue political influence underscores the continued middlebrow nature of sports ministry work. While some leaders in the Christian athlete movement understood their work through a culture war frame, for many people what mattered most was how Christian faith spoke to their everyday experiences. Sports ministry staff rarely had political activism at the forefront of their minds, focusing instead on meeting the practical concerns and pressures faced by athletes and coaches.

At the same time, there were political implications to sports ministry work. With ecumenical and liberal Protestant leaders like Roe Johnston pushed further to the margins and right-wing fundamentalist leaders like Jerry Falwell invited in, the political center of the Christian athlete movement shifted even more to the right. To be a Christian athlete, in the eyes of the public and within Sportianity, was to be politically conservative. 101 Close

Women as Christian Athletes

Because a conservative “family values” vision of gender was central to the rise of the Christian Right, the growth of women’s sports after the 1972 passage of Title IX posed a challenge. Sportianity’s infrastructure had been built precisely because sports seemed to provide a distinctly masculine space through which Christian men could enhance their authority and shape the future direction of the country. The rise of women’s sports, inspired in part by the feminist movement of the 1960s, could challenge this male-centered perspective. Yet sports ministries were continually looking for areas of growth. The infusion of women into athletics provided an opportunity to attract new members and supporters. 102 Close

This ambivalence was not confined to evangelical sports ministries. Women faced continued disparities in equity and opportunity across the American sports scene. The NCAA opposed Title IX implementation throughout the 1970s and did not offer intercollegiate sports for women until the 1980s. Instead, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), formed in 1971, sponsored championship tournaments and advocated for increased athletic opportunities. Meanwhile, efforts in the 1970s to launch professional team sports for women—a softball league in 1976 and a basketball league in 1979—fizzled after a few years. While some women starred in tennis, track, or golf, it was not until the creation of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) in 1996 that women had a highly publicized, stable professional team sports league in the United States. 103 Close

Despite these continued challenges, rates of sports participation for women soared and sports ministries took notice. In fact, well before Title IX, women had been included in limited ways in the FCA’s promotional materials. In July 1956 FCA founder Don McClanen announced that Patty Berg, one of the cofounders of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), had joined the FCA. It appears that Berg offered her name and endorsement, but little else. In 1964, the Christian Athlete featured an article by former Wayland Baptist college basketball player Patsy Neal. Neal would go on to author several books and articles focused on themes of identity, play, and worship in sports. 104 Close

Occasional promotion of successful women athletes aside, the FCA did not move forward with plans for a women’s program until 1972, when new FCA president John Erickson approved several experimental women’s groups. 105 Close The following year the Christian Athlete published a story on one of these groups, titling it “Competition with a Feminine Touch.” The article featured Julia Hoon, a physical education instructor, who led a “cuddle group,” the girl’s version of the FCA’s high school “huddle group.” Along with the “cuddle group” moniker, Hoon signaled the nonthreatening nature of the FCA’s women’s program by noting that she was personally “not gung-ho on women’s lib.” 106 Close

With women entering into the FCA, the organization moved to develop an institutional presence within women’s sports organizations. Cindy Smith, hired in 1976 to serve as the first National Director for the FCA’s Women’s Program, led the charge. 107 Close In 1976 she wrote a letter to AIAW leaders, introducing herself and the FCA and suggesting that if the FCA could implement programs within women’s college sports similar to those in men’s college athletics, it could help the AIAW “expand the opportunities for women in sports.” Two years later the AIAW allowed Smith to host an FCA coaches’ breakfast at its annual convention; it did the same in 1979. 108 Close

Unlike the NCAA, which generally supported the FCA’s attempts to embed itself within men’s intercollegiate athletics, some AIAW leaders expressed concern with the FCA’s motives. Margot Polivy, chief legal counsel for the AIAW, wrote to fellow organizational leaders after she noticed an invitation to an FCA breakfast in a 1979 AIAW mailing. “Has the question of why the Fellowship of Christian Athletes would want to sponsor (free of charge) a breakfast ever been seriously examined?” she asked, warning that the breakfast aimed to “establish a more positive climate for the Fellowship to pursue its missionary and proselytizing activities among collegiate athletes.” In Polivy’s view, by allowing the FCA to host a breakfast, the AIAW came dangerously close to violating the principle of separation of church and state. “I do not believe it is AIAW’s role or place to assist them,” she stated. 109 Close

Polivy’s suspicions became a nonissue after the NCAA took over the administration of women’s college sports in the early 1980s, driving the AIAW out of business. 110 Close The NCAA, which hired Cindy Smith to work in an administrative role in 1981, proved more amenable to FCA’s presence. 111 Close Meanwhile, led by staffers like Marcia Burton, Cindy Nero, and Barb Bernlohr, in the 1980s AIA expanded its own women’s ministry by hosting summer camps and sponsoring traveling teams of ex-collegians. 112 Close

Women were vital to the work of Ralph Drollinger’s Second Look/Sports Spectrum project as well—especially his wife, Karen Rudolph Drollinger (after the two divorced, she dropped the Drollinger name). A former college basketball player, Rudolph served as a contributing author and editor for the magazine into the early 1990s, often writing profiles of women. Thanks to her efforts, prominent athletes and coaches like Lynette Woodard (basketball), Betsy King (golf), Madeline Manning Mims (track and field), and Kay Yow (basketball) were presented as models for Christian women, helping to inspire the growing ranks of young women athletes. 113 Close

The inclusion of women came with tensions and paradox. In an article for Second Look titled “Ladies of the Eighties,” Rudolph discussed the influence of star women athletes who “are modeling a new style of toughness and femininity.” Despite the success of a few prominent individuals, Rudolph believed that obstacles remained. “Can a woman be athletic and tough, yet remain feminine?” Rudolph asked. 114 Close For Christian men, participation in sports offered a way to prove their manhood, to establish masculine credentials. For women, sports could be viewed as transgressive, a potential threat to their womanhood. As scholar Annie Blazer has shown, Christian women athletes often felt pressured to perceive and present themselves in traditionally feminine ways and to keep their aggression and assertiveness as competitors in check. 115 Close

This dilemma was heightened by a growing debate in evangelical circles over a woman’s place in the home, church, and society. Broadly, the debate took shape around two competing options. On one side stood the egalitarians. Galvanized in the 1970s by books like Nancy Hardesty and Letha Dawson Scanzoni’s All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today (1974), egalitarians advanced their cause through the Evangelical Women’s Caucus (EWC) and later Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE). Egalitarians argued that evangelical readings of the Bible were compatible with feminism and that the Bible sanctioned women’s full participation in all aspects of church leadership as well as shared and equal authority between husband and wife in the home. 116 Close

On the other side were complementarians. With evangelical feminists organizing in the 1970s, some conservative evangelicals grew alarmed at the challenge to what they saw as the Bible’s clear endorsement of a gendered hierarchy, with women submitting to male authority in the church and home (and, by extension, in society). Linking continued support for male headship with the authority of the Bible, in 1987 complementarians formed the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and issued the Danvers Statement to advance its cause. “Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God as part of the created order, and should find an echo in every human heart,” the Danvers Statement declared. 117 Close

Because sports were associated with the development of confidence, strength, assertiveness, and courage—all traits that had been culturally linked with masculinity—one might assume that Christian women athletes would champion evangelical feminism. Yet, for several reasons, this did not occur. First, at the leadership level, the major evangelical sports ministries tended to support or privilege complementarian perspectives. 118 Close The FCA, with its history of ecumenism, likely had the greatest diversity of thought at the ground level. Because of its Southern orientation, however, many key FCA leaders were strongly influenced by the path of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which embarked on a conservative turn in the 1980s that made complementarianism a test of biblical orthodoxy. In 1998, when the SBC codified a complementarian understanding of women’s submission to male headship as a central tenet of the SBC faith, the two most powerful FCA leaders, Dal Shealy and Nelson Price, were Southern Baptists. 119 Close

In addition, coaches and athletes at the grassroots level often embraced complementarian perspectives as a common-sense view of traditional American values, an expression of “normative America.” This involved a positive articulation of the therapeutic value of complementarianism, as well as more oppositional postures to cultural trends. In 1988, Houston Astros pitcher Bob Knepper, who had been converted through a Baseball Chapel service in 1978, expressed his disagreement when Pam Postema became the first woman to umpire an MLB game. “In my opinion, which I base on the Bible,” he explained, “I believe that God’s perspective is that women should not be in certain occupations.” 120 Close In response to letters criticizing his comments, Knepper developed a three-page summary of complementarian talking points to defend his views, which emphasized that “men and women were equal” but that “God has created woman to be a special gift to man.” 121 Close

Knepper’s views about women umpires were not necessarily a mainstream perspective in the Christian athlete movement. Yet, complementarianism exerted a powerful pull. It existed easily within the world of sports because—despite the inclusion of a handful of women in men’s sporting spaces—the American sports system was already organized around gender distinctions, with men and women competing on separate teams and in separate leagues. Even more, the sports industry as a whole remained deeply invested in men’s sports. Despite the changes that emerged after Title IX, the vast disparity in time and money poured into televised men’s sports compared with women’s sports ensured that athletic competition would continue to be culturally linked with masculinity, even as women carved out more opportunities to participate. 122 Close

In this environment, the development of sports ministry programs for women remained compatible with complementarian ideas: women could simply confine their leadership and teaching roles to other women, with men overseeing the overall operation of ministry efforts. In 1987 women made up nearly half of the FCA’s national membership, and yet there were only twelve women employed in full-time field staff roles, compared with 120 men. 123 Close

To be sure, there were some Christian athletes and coaches who advocated for egalitarian perspectives. In 1991, the University of Washington women’s basketball coach Chris Gobrecht urged FCA leaders to treat women “as dynamic community leaders in the same way we minister to men” while also “ministering to men in the same ways we need to minister to women.” 124 Close More often, however, women leaders in the Christian athlete movement either supported complementarian perspectives or agreed to operate within its boundaries.

In 1987, the FCA’s director of women’s ministry, Debbie Wall Larson, took this approach. Asked about the possibility that women on FCA’s staff might have authority over men, she explained, “An FCA staff person is not in a position of Biblical authority over those they serve nor was it ever intended they should be.” Recognizing the need to stay within the limits and boundaries prescribed for women, she noted that she tried not to “carry a chip on my shoulder or react negatively” to chauvinistic attitudes, focusing instead on cooperating within the system to gradually build opportunities for women. 125 Close

Put simply, the inclusion of women did not directly challenge the masculine ideals that undergirded Sportianity and gave it cultural resonance. Sports ministry organizations often served the dual roles of empowering women to identify as athletes and also encouraging them to accept the so-called traditional structure of American culture in which men were the ultimate leaders in the home, church, and society. “Men and women, although equal in their positions before God,” Karen Rudolph wrote in Grace and Glory , “were created for different roles.” 126 Close

While debates about complementarian and egalitarian perspectives loomed large over the acceptance of Christian women as athletes, another cultural issue proved just as significant. In a 1982 article for Athletes in Action , high school basketball star Cheryl Miller—on the cusp of a Hall of Fame career in the game—addressed it in a subtle way. Asked to explain how she maintained her faith and femininity while pursuing competitive excellence, she assured readers it was possible. “I can be ladylike,” she insisted. “I’m not boy crazy, but I like boys a lot.” 127 Close

Miller’s comments highlighted fears about the links between women’s sports and lesbianism. There was already a long history of women’s involvement in sports being associated with “deviant” sexuality and “mannishness.” Those insinuations became a topic of open conversation after 1981 when tennis stars Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova were outed for same-sex romantic relationships. 128 Close With conservative ideas about the family and sexuality increasingly central to both evangelical identity and Christian Right activism, sports ministries felt compelled to speak. “The issue of homosexuality in women’s athletics is one which can remain silenced no longer,” Karen Rudolph claimed . “Whether through innuendo or direct accusation, women athletes and coaches are encompassed by this issue.” 129 Close

For sports ministry leaders, as for many in the evangelical world, the issue seemed to be clear-cut. Drawing on a conservative understanding of biblical authority and New Testament passages like Romans 1:27, most evangelicals believed that sexual acts between members of the same sex were sinful. 130 Close A 1982 article in the Christian Athlete , titled “Lesbian Lust” and written by a college basketball player, illustrated the basic approach. “I think lesbianism is definitely a problem in women’s sports today,” the author explained. She recalled that she herself had “close calls” and that she had to “be alert” because “I still find certain girls attractive.” “If you’re susceptible to homosexuality, seek qualified Christian counseling and avoid situations where you’ll be tempted,” she encouraged. “But don’t condemn gays as people. We need to love them as God does.” 131 Close

In 1985, the FCA published “Homosexuality and the Female Athlete.” Featuring interviews with two college women, it sought to strike a similar balance, on the one hand stating that “the Bible doesn’t offer homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle” but on the other hand encouraging Christians to be more empathetic. “The thing is to love them, not condemn them,” one young woman explained. The 1985 article also encouraged people with “a problem with homosexuality” to seek help from two self-described “ex-gay ministries”: Love in Action and Metanoia. 132 Close

While evangelical sports ministries sought to position themselves as loving and empathetic, their approach was not usually received that way by lesbian athletes. In her book Strong Women, Deep Closets (1998) , Pat Griffin, a pioneering scholar and activist for LGBTQ college athletes, devoted a chapter to the conflict between evangelical sports ministries and lesbian athletes and coaches. Using research, interviews, and her own experiences, she argued that whatever the intentions of evangelical sports ministries, they created a hostile climate for gay and lesbian athletes. 133 Close

Along with the criticism from Pat Griffin and other LGBTQ advocates, the failures and controversies associated with ex-gay ministries posed a problem for the Christian athlete movement. Leaders with the two ministries recommended by the FCA in 1985, Love in Action and Metanoia, stepped down after confessing that they could not change their sexual orientation. In the coming years, ex-gay ministries would increasingly come under fire for their claims that gay people needed to—or even could—change their sexual orientation. For the Christian athlete movement, this was brought home through the example of Karen Rudolph. After serving as a leading voice for Christian women athletes in the 1980s, in the 1990s she quietly left the movement and divorced Ralph Drollinger; her former husband revealed this was because she had come out to him as a lesbian. 134 Close

By contrast, the presence of gay male athletes was rarely discussed. To Sportianity’s leaders, gay men existed outside the structure of sports, a perception that fit with broader patterns in American culture. Although a couple of athletes, including Dave Kopay in the NFL (1964–1972) and Glenn Burke in MLB (1976–1979), were known by teammates and insiders to be gay during their playing days, they did not make any public announcements until after they retired. “It’s harder to be a gay in sports than anywhere else,” Burke said in 1982. “Only a superstar could come out and admit he was gay and hope to stay around.” 135 Close As a result, the Christian athlete movement was almost entirely silent when it came to the possibility that gay men might be present in locker rooms.

That is not to say that the Christian athlete movement avoided the subject of gay sexuality. In the 1980s several leaders issued condemnations of homosexuality as a threat to American society and alluded to AIDS as evidence of the consequences of the sexual revolution. 136 Close This confrontational rhetoric intensified in the 1990s as the gay rights movement made gains in American society. In 1992, Colorado football coach Bill McCartney came under fire for speaking in support of a Colorado for Family Values campaign against gay rights ordinances. “I embrace what almighty God has said about these things to me when I read the Scriptures,” McCartney explained. “Homosexuality is an abomination of Almighty God.” While McCartney said he had no animosity toward gay people—he adopted the familiar line of rejecting the sin, but not the sinner—he argued that homosexuality was a “lifestyle” that did not deserve antidiscrimination protections. 137 Close

Six years later, Green Bay Packers defensive end Reggie White—arguably the most prominent Christian athlete at the time—caused an even greater stir when he took the floor of the Wisconsin state legislature and made his opposition to gay rights known. “Homosexuality is a decision, it’s not a race,” he said, claiming that many of America’s problems could be traced back to the public’s willingness to allow “this sin to run rampant in our nation.” 138 Close His words ignited a firestorm that played out along culture war lines, with liberals denouncing his intolerance in mainstream news outlets and calling for Campbell’s Soup and Nike to drop him from endorsement deals, while conservatives rallied to his support with an ad campaign and a book deal. 139 Close

The antigay pronouncements of White and McCartney increasingly defined the public image of Sportianity in the 1990s, as clashes between the Christian Right and gay rights advocates expanded. To its supporters, the Christian athlete movement was simply defending traditional values, teachings that came straight from the Bible and that were widely accepted in American culture before the revolutions of the 1960s. To its critics, the movement was embracing reactionary and outdated viewpoints, undermining the notions of progress and inclusion which had long been a part of the mythology of sports. 140 Close

Still, for as much attention as the public activism of McCartney and White received, those involved in the Christian athlete movement invested far less time speaking against gay rights than they did promoting a positive vision of heterosexual Christian life. This occurred behind the scenes, in the “hand-holding stuff” of college and pro sports ministry, where the work of sports ministers and chaplains often focused on helping athletes adhere to conservative sexual boundaries: faithfulness to one’s spouse for married athletes and abstinence for single athletes. And it occurred in public, as Christian athletes and coaches helped to sell the joys and benefits of a conservative vision of marriage and sexuality.

One of the most prominent examples of this came from Promise Keepers (PK), a Christian men’s organization founded by McCartney in 1990. McCartney developed the idea for PK while en route to an FCA event. The aim was simple: mobilize Christian men to dedicate themselves to God and to their roles as husbands and fathers. While it was not a sports-specific ministry, it drew heavily on sports imagery, holding rallies in sports stadiums. It reached a peak in 1997 when 1.2 million men attended PK events. Its vision for masculinity, building on themes that had been popularized in the 1970s with Pro Athletes Outreach, combined male leadership in the home with a call for men to love, serve, and be emotionally available to their wives and children. 141 Close

While McCartney and PK encouraged men to be devoted husbands and fathers, another leader in the Christian athlete movement, A. C. Green, focused on making sexual abstinence appealing. Green spoke proudly about his virginity and recruited a group of Christian athletes to participate in a collective he called “Athletes for Abstinence.” Formed in 1992 in the wake of the shocking announcement that Green’s teammate, Magic Johnson, had contracted the HIV virus, the group, which included David Robinson, Barry Sanders, and Darrell Green, produced a rap music video, “It Ain’t Worth It,” with the goal of linking their message of sexual purity with hip hop culture. “We believe in the Bible, not that you pass out condoms, but that you teach righteousness,” Darrell Green explained. “And righteousness is to abstain.” 142 Close

As scholar Scott Strednak Singer writes, the association of strong and fit Christian athletes with the sexual purity movement of the 1990s helped to make abstinence “sexy.” 143 Close At the same time, the heavy emphasis on sexual purity as a defining feature of what it meant to be a Christian athlete raised the stakes for those associated with Sportianity. The pressure of performing—as a happily married Christian couple, or as a chaste single Christian—intensified, particularly with evangelicals arguing that their approach to sex, based on the Bible, offered the only sure way for happiness.

Barry Sanders became a prime example of these challenges. As a member of the Athletes for Abstinence collective, in 1992 Sanders participated in the group’s rap song and music video. But two years later, when the music video was publicly released, word came out that the unmarried Sanders had fathered a child. “I never wanted to set myself up as the moral conscience for the sports world, but that role eventually became my identity,” Sanders wrote in his autobiography. “It seemed more important to people that I be the person they needed me to be—the refreshing alternative to the modern, narcissistic athlete—than to be myself, an imperfect human being with flaws just like everyone else.” 144 Close

Of course, alongside the public failures of evangelical athletes and coaches to live up to their standards for marriage and sexuality came many apparent success stories: David Robinson, Reggie White, and A. C. Green, who finally got married at age thirty-eight in 2002. Numerous others saw their marriages strengthened by the support they received from sports ministries like PAO. But since the model for marriage and sexuality put forward by the Christian athlete movement was based on a complementarian and heterosexual framework, athletes or coaches who fell outside that framework were unlikely to find the same support.

In the 1980s, when opposition to gay and lesbian sexuality remained strong across American culture, the movement’s views did not receive sustained outside criticism. In many ways, the Christian athlete subculture simply reflected popular American sentiment. According to a Gallup Poll in 1986, just thirty-two percent of Americans agreed that gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should be legal. By 1999, however, that had risen to fifty percent, and it would continue to grow. Similarly, support for same-sex marriage, at just twenty-seven percent in 1996 when Gallup first asked the question, crossed the fifty percent threshold in 2011. Meanwhile, the percentage of the population affirming that gay and lesbian relations were morally acceptable went from forty percent in 2001 to over fifty-two percent in 2010 before soaring past seventy percent. 145 Close

As support for gay and lesbian sexuality and same-sex marriage rose at the turn of the twenty-first century, evangelical sports ministries faced frequent charges of bigotry and homophobia; this became the main threat to their continued access within big-time sports. Yet, as the primary organized Christian presence within sports, their ability to define the boundaries and set the terms for what counted as God’s way for athletes and coaches remained strong.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, reporter Chris Dufresne offered a glimpse into the growth and development of the Christian athlete movement with a feature story in the Los Angeles Times . Published a few weeks after the 1999 Super Bowl, it was the latest entry in the genre of journalistic investigations into the movement, confirming that Christian athletes were here to stay. “The number of religious athletes,” Dufresne wrote, “appears to be rising faster than a Roger Clemens fastball.” 146 Close

Dufresne captured many of the trends that had developed since Deford announced the arrival of Sportianity. He wrote about the rise and influence of television and the resulting growth of public displays of religion. “You can’t channel-surf these days,” he wrote, without encountering an “interview in which a player thanks God for a punt, pass, putt, rebound or right cross.” He noted, too, the other side of celebrity: the recent examples of hypocrisy by prominent Christian athletes, including Atlanta Falcons safety Eugene Robinson, who in 1998 had been arrested for soliciting a prostitute just hours after receiving the Bart Starr Award from AIA. And he referenced the increasing presence of Pentecostal spirituality, with quotes from athletes attributing success on the field to God’s supernatural intervention.

Dufresne also described the ongoing ministry of presence by the FCA and AIA, with representatives from both organizations detailing the ways they helped athletes manage stress, deal with pressure, and apply Christian values to their athletic experience. The behind-the-scenes work of these organizations ensured that a steady stream of Christian athletes and coaches shaped by evangelical religiosity would populate the sports world. And he pointed to the culture war implications of the movement, making note of Reggie White’s recent comments to the Wisconsin state legislature, as well as the hostility between Christian athletes and the media.

There were two aspects of Dufresne’s story, however, in which what went unstated was just as revealing as what was said. First, despite the growth of women’s sports, all of the athletes featured by Dufresne were men. To the public, Sportianity remained primarily a men’s movement, focusing first and foremost on the cultivation of Christian manhood with women’s involvement a secondary concern. Second, the majority of the athletes profiled by Defresne were Black. Although Defresne did not mention these racial dynamics, it highlighted a key contradiction at the heart of Sportianity. Here was a movement led by predominantly white evangelical leaders and organizations with an affinity for the predominantly white politics of the Christian Right. Yet, many of its most prominent public spokespeople were Black Christian men.

The racial tensions of this reality did not go without comment or action in the 1980s and 1990s. Rather, efforts to resolve and respond to this contradiction offered one more front in the ongoing struggle to define how to do sports God’s way.

Linda Kay, “When Christianity Goes into the Locker Room,” Chicago Tribune , October 17, 1982, 6.

John Carvalho, “AIA . . . Clearing Up the Initial Confusion,” Athletes in Action , Spring 1984, 4.

Lars Dzikus, Robin Hardin, and Steven N. Waller, “Case Studies of Collegiate Sport Chaplains,” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 36, no. 3 (2012): 268–293.

Grant Teaff with Louis and Kay Moore, Winning: It’s How You Play the Game (Dallas: Word Books, 1985); Grant Teaff, A Coach’s Influence: Beyond the Game (Waco, TX: American Football Coaches Association, 2012).

Atcheson, Impact for Christ , 74–89; Tom Osborne with John E. Roberts, More than Winning (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1985); Bobby Bowden with Mark Schlabach, Called to Coach: Reflections on Life, Faith and Football (New York: Howard Books, 2011).

“FCA Big on Breakfast,” Sharing the   Victory , January/February 1984, 14.

Watson Spoelstra, Baseball Chapel newsletter, July 24, 1977; Pat Williams with James D. Denney, Ahead of the Game: The Pat Williams Story (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 2014), 215.

Tom Friend, “Gibbs Reconvenes the Breakfast Club,” Washington Post , January 22, 1989, C-16; Watson Spoelstra, “Waddy’s World,” Sports Spectrum , January 1994, 5.

Travis Vogan, ESPN: The Making of a Sports Media Empire (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 11–42.

William Endicott, “Born Again Ballplayers on Increase,” Los Angeles Times , August 31, 1979, 28.

Sam Lacy, “Athletics and Religion,” New Journal and Guide , May 25, 1983, A32. The racial diversity within the Christian athlete movement will be discussed more in Chapter 8.

Alan M. Goldenbach, “Tuning into the Gospel: How the Growth of Sports Television Popularized Public Prayer among Athletes” (master’s thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, 2012), 7–26.

“An All-Loose Series,” Los Angeles   Times , October 9, 1979, 4.

Leonard Shapiro and Tom Friend, “Players Take a Moment,” Washington Post , December 12, 1989, E4.

Watson Spoelstra, “Waddy’s World,” Sports Spectrum , January 1994, 5.

Thomas Neumann, “How 49ers, Giants Started Postgame Prayer Tradition 25 Years Ago,” ESPN.com, December 3, 2015, https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/14276301/first-postgame-prayer-san-francisco-49ers-new-york-giants-25th-anniversary .

Jim Reeves, “That Bat Rack Religion,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram , February 8, 1981, 4B; Kashatus, “The Origins of Baseball Chapel and the Era of the Christian Athlete.”

Kay, “When Christianity Goes into the Locker Room,” 6. For examples of the Bears Christian clique, see Marie Merriweather, “Bears ‘Stay Clean’ with Religion,” Chicago Defender , August 11, 1982, 24. Thank you to Lou Moore for providing me with this source.

On evangelical consumer subcultures in the 1980s, see Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Vaca, Evangelicals Incorporated ; Payne, God Gave Rock and Roll to You . There were evangelical sports leagues at the small-college level, but they received little attention from the broader public.

“Man with a Message,” Sharing the Victory , September/October 1989, 4; John Dodderidge, “From the Editor,” Sharing the Victory , March 1991, 7.

Glenn Dickey, “Time to Think about Next Year,” San Francisco Chronicle , August 13, 1979, 48.

Rick Reilly, “Save Your Prayers,” Sports Illustrated , February 4, 1991, 86–87.

MacCambridge, The Franchise .

“Drollinger Passes Up $400,000 Offer from New Jersey Nets,” Athletes in Action press release, March 15, 1978, CFLP, Collection 455, Box 20, Folder 13; Steve Dolan, “Ralph Drollinger Sticks by Beliefs,” Life News , March 29, 1978, B-1.

Dallas Mavericks press release, June 10, 1980, CFLP, Collection 455, Box 20, Folder 13; Jan Hubbard, “Drollinger to Get Last Look after He Mends,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram , November 2, 1980, 13B.

For background on Sonju, see “Sonju: A Businessman with Ties to Sports,” Buffalo News , March 26, 1977, A-7; David Bauer, “Backboard Jungle,” D Magazine , June 1980, 158–159. See Grem, The Blessings of Business , for more on ServiceMaster and its connections to evangelical business culture.

On “wildcat Christianity” see Dochuk, Anointed with Oil. Carter was not in the oil business. He got his business break from his mother, Mary Crowley, who built Home Interior and Gifts into a direct-sales empire. Yet he approached his leadership of the Mavericks with a similar style as the “wildcat” Christians Dochuk describes. See, for example, Randy Harvey, “The Good Guys Finish Last,” Inside Sports , June 30, 1981, 74.

John Papanek, “Well Now, Looka Here,” Sports Illustrated , October 27, 1980.

Skip Bayless, “Kiki May Provide Mavs’ Cornerstone,” Dallas Morning News , June 11, 1980, B1; Harvey, “The Good Guys Finish Last,” 79; Gregg Patton, “Drollinger to Focus on Good Sports,” San Bernardino County Sun , January 31, 1985, E1.

Carvalho, “AIA . . . Clearing Up the Initial Confusion,” 4.

Skip Bayless, God’s Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of   Tom Landry’s Cowboys (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 19.

“Stogsdill Resigns as Editor,” Sharing the   Victory , November/December 1989, 21.

“A New TV Program Features Well-Known Christian Athletes,” Christianity Today , June 14, 1985, 48.

John Carvalho, “Sports Spectrum, SportsFocus and Me,” Sports Page blog, March 24, 2018, https://johncarvalhosports.com/2018/03/24/sports-spectrum-sportsfocus-and-me/ ; Ladd and Mathisen, Muscular Christianity , 225–230; Steve Cooper, “Ex-Athlete Takes a ‘Second Look’ at Christian TV,” San Bernardino County Sun , June 27, 1987, D5.

“Why Isn’t This Dodger Blue?” and “Master at the Mid-Court,” Second Look 1, no. 2, 1987, 6, 15–18.

John MacArthur Jr., “Under the Influence,” Second Look 1, no. 3, 1987, 18–20. For context on MacArthur, see Hummel, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism , 309–312.

Hamilton, For the Glory; Eric Liddell, The Disciplines of   the Christian Life (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1985).

John MacArthur Jr., “Striving for the Ultimate Reward,” Second Look 1, no. 4, 1987, 18.

Ladd and Mathisen, Muscular   Christianity , 169–171.

Darrell Turner, “Religion a Halftime Option on Super Bowl Sunday,” Tampa Bay Times , January 16, 1993, 4E.

Neal, Handbook on   Athletic Perfection , ix.

Blazer, Playing for God , 56–67.

Joyce Simms, “You Can Lose and Still Be Perfect,” Athletes in Action , Winter 1982, 36; Athletes in Action, The Principles of Athletic Competition (Lebanon, OH: Athletes in Action, 1995); William David Pubols, “An Evaluation of the Five Principles as Taught at Athletes in Action’s Ultimate Training Camp” (doctoral project, Biola University, 2018).

Anthony Munoz, “A Talent for the Game,” Guideposts , November 1986, 42–44; Katie Pontius, “Christian Athletes Handle Unique Problems,” Cedars , March 2, 1989, 7.

“Priority Reading,” Christian Athlete , January/February 1982, 16; Arthur L. Lindsay, Influence: A History of the Nebraska Fellowship of Christian Athletes (Kearney, NE: Cross Training Publishing, 2009), 60, 103, 207–208, 231. Several different editions of Wes Neal’s Handbook on Athletic Perfection and Handbook on Coaching Perfection have been published by Cross Training since the 1990s.

“Books,” Athletes in Action , Winter 1982, 30.

Neal, Handbook on   Athletic Perfection , 192.

Edward E. Plowman, “Bill Gothard’s Institute,” Christianity Today , May 25, 1973, 44; “Bill Gothard Steps down during Institute Shakeup,” Christianity Today , August 8, 1980, 46; Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne , 74–78.

Neal, Handbook on   Athletic Perfection , 195.

Neal, Handbook on   Athletic Perfection , 199.

William C. Rhoden, Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall,   and Redemption of the Black Athlete (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006).

Shirl Hoffman, “The Sanctification of Sport,” Christianity Today , April 4, 1986, 17. Shirl Hoffman, “The Athletae Dei: Missing the Meaning of Sport,” Presentation to the Philosophic Society for Study of Sport, November 14, 1975, Kent State University; Hoffman, Good Game   .

Hoffman, “The Sanctification of Sport,” 17; Hoffman, “The Athletae Dei,” 12–17.

Hoffman, “The Sanctification of Sport,” 17.

“Stretching,” Sharing the Victory , May/June 1988, 17. See also Lowrie McCown and Valerie Gin, Focus on Sport in Ministry (Marietta, GA: 360 Sports, 2003), 73.

“Letters,” Christianity Today , June 13, 1986, 6.

For an insider account of the rise of Maranatha, see Bob Weiner with David Wimbish, Take Dominion (Old Tappan, NJ: Chosen Books, 1988). For context on the growth of the charismatic/Pentecostal movement in the United States, see Edith L. Blumhofer, Restoring the   Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993); John Maiden, Age of the Spirit: Charismatic Renewal, the Anglo-World, and Global Christianity, 1945–1980 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).

Maiden, Age of the   Spirit , 22–30.

“Experts Fault Maranatha Campus Ministries for Authoritarian Practices and Questionable Theology,” Christianity Today , August 10, 1984, 36.

A. C. Green with J. C. Webster, Victory (Orlando, FL: Creation House, 1994), 60–62.

Randy Frame, “Maranatha Disbands as Federation of Churches,” Christianity Today , March 19, 1990, 40; Rice Broocks, Every Nation in Our Generation (Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 2002).

Leigh Montville, “Trials of David,” Sports Illustrated , April 29, 1996, 90–104; Chris Tomasson, “Ex-NBA Player a Champion off the Court,” Akron Beacon Journal , December 25, 2000, E1; David Aldridge, “In a Season of Challenge, Green Keeps the Faith,” Washington Post , December 4, 1993, B7.

John Feinstein, Next Man Up: A Year behind the Lines in Today’s NFL (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005), 266–270.

Eric Tiansay, “God in the NFL,” Charisma and Christian Life , November 2002, 37–46.

Carolyn McCulley, “Champions for Christ Pulled into NFL Convert Controversy,” Christianity Today , October 5, 1998, 34–35; Robert Elder, “Greg Feste’s Trail of Fumbles,” Austin American-Statesman , October 28, 2007, H1.

On the rise of prosperity gospel figures like Frederick Price, founder of the Crenshaw Christian Center, see Bowler, Blessed , 89, 202–203. Price counted former NFL great Rosey Grier as one of his followers.

Weiner, Take Dominion , 158; C. Peter Wagner, “Dominion! Kingdom Action Can Change the World,” Journal of the American Society for Church Growth 18, no. 1 (2007): 37–48.

Weiner, Take Dominion , 160.

Brad Christerson and Richard Flory, The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders   Are Changing the Religious Landscape (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Tiansay, “God in the NFL.”

Green, Victory , 70; Weiner, Take Dominion , 244–246.

Leilani Diane Corpus, “Straight Arrow Who’ll Straight-Arm You,” Sharing the Victory , March/April 1989, 2–4; Green, Victory , 157–158.

Barry Hankins, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 165–178; Silliman, Reading Evangelicals , 59–63.

Hartman, A War for the   Soul of America , 5.

David Burnham, “Morality: The Rules They Are a-Changin,” Second Look 2, no. 2, 1988, 2.

John Erickson, “President’s Perspective,” Sharing the Victory , November/December 1982, 2. See also Bill Bright, “The Root of the Problem,” Athletes in Action , Fall 1982, 18.

On the rise of the Christian Right, see especially Williams, God’s Own Party. On the centrality of “family values” to the rise of the Christian Right, see Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right .

Jerry Falwell, “Why the Moral Majority?,” Moral Majority Capitol Report , August 1979, 1–3. For background on Falwell, see Williams, God’s Own Party , 43–47, 171–179.

Ladd and Mathisen, Muscular Christianity , 161–163; Baker, Playing with God , 214–217. An earlier example of an upstart evangelical school using sports to get public attention was Oral Roberts University, which had a brief run of national prominence in college basketball in the early 1970s. See Baker, Playing with God , 210–211.

Leigh Montville, “Thou Shalt Not Lose,” Sports   Illustrated , November 13, 1989, 82–86.

Dochuk, From Bible Belt to   Sunbelt , 259–292.

“Pastor Says He’s Teachable,” Press Democrat , January 9, 1981, 9D.

Kenneth M. Duberstein memo, “Meeting with John Erickson, National President, and Anthony Wauterlek, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Fellowship of Christian Athletes,” January 15, 1982, Presidential Briefing Papers, Folder titled 01/18/1982, Box 12, Ronald Reagan Library.

Jack Kemp, “The Competition of Ideas,” Christian Athlete , February 1973, 19.

Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes, Jack Kemp: The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America (New York: Sentinel, 2015); Michael Weisskopf, “Kemp’s Racial Awakening,” Washington Post , October 9, 1996, A1.

On LaHaye’s support for the JBS, see Williams, God’s Own Party , 72–74. For background and context on the JBS, see Edward H. Miller, A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).

Gary Kauffman, “How Does a Nice Guy Like This Wind Up in the Majors?,” Athletes in Action , Spring 1984, 38–41; Mike Granberry, “Three Padres Pitch Their Politics,” Los Angeles Times , July 8, 1984, J1.

Dave Dravecky with C. W. Neal, The Worth of a Man (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 141–143. It is unclear how long Dravecky continued his JBS involvement. A reporter in 1989 claimed that Dravecky remained a member in good standing with a San Francisco chapter. See Martin Snapp, “Eastbay Ear,” Oakland Tribune , August 21, 1989, C-4.

Skip Stogsdill, “Cookie-Cutter Christians,” Sharing the Victory , May/June 1987, 23; Skip Stogsdill, “From the Editor,” Sharing the Victory , November/December 1989, 6.

Smith, A Coach’s Life , 257.

Roe Johnston, “No Challenge, No Adventure,” Sharing   the Victory , May/June 1985), 16–17.

“Beanballs n Backslaps,” Sharing the Victory , July/August 1985, 20.

James T. Baker, “Are You Blocking for Me, Jesus?,” Christian Century , November 5, 1975, 997–1001. On these differences between evangelicals and mainline/ecumenical leaders, see Hollinger, Christianity’s American Fate , 103–104.

Kruse, One Nation under   God , 203–237.

T. R. Reid, “Coaches Run Joint Play to Push School Prayer,” Washington Post , March 1, 1984, A3; Walter Goodman, “Strongest Effort Yet to Put Organized Prayer in Schools,” New York Times , March 8, 1984, A1; Kruse, One Nation under God , 275–184.

Jeff Prugh, “Anti-Prayer Ruling Loses on High School Gridirons,” Los Angeles Times , December 7, 1980, J1; Tom Wheatley, “‘Born Again’ Coaching Stirs Uproar in Memphis,” St Louis Post-Dispatch , November 18, 1984, F1; Tony Kornheiser, “Prayer Fine, but Not in Locker Room,” Washington Post , August 31, 1985, D1.

Bill McCartney with Dave Diles, From Ashes to Glory (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 204.

Frank Pastore with Ellen Vaughn, Shattered: Struck Down, but Not Destroyed (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2010), 156; “A Former Professional Athlete Contending for the Faith,” Torch , Spring 1991, 11.

Frank Pastore, “Christian Conservatives Must Not Compromise,” Los Angeles Times , November 5, 2004, B13.

Ralph Drollinger, Oaks in Office: Biblical Essays for Political Leaders (Ventura, CA: Nordskog Publishing, 2019); Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (New York: Bloomsbury, 2020), 34–54.

For extensive evidence and analysis of this, see Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes   .

Ladd and Mathisen, Muscular Christianity , 242–243; Jay, More than Just a Game , 158–171.

Cahn, Coming on Strong , 254, 260–261. On the growth of women’s sports in the 1970s, see also Susan Ware, Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

FCA Newsletter, July 30, 1956, BRP, Box 58, Folder 2; Patsy Neal, “The Greatest Coach of All,” Christian Athlete , February 1964, 12–13.

John Erickson, 1972 report on FCA activity, CFLP, Collection 455, Box 4, Folder 6; Atcheson, Impact for Christ , 110–119.

“Competition with a Feminine Touch,” Christian Athlete , May 1973, 13–15; Atcheson, Impact for Christ , 118.

Cindy Smith telephone interview with author, October 10, 2017.

Cindy Smith to Laurie Mabry, June 14, 1976, NPBP, Box 12. Correspondence between Smith and AIAW leaders can also be found in Box 52, Folder 30, and Box 30, Folder 35 of the AIAW papers.

Margot Polivy to Carole Mushier, October 30, 1979, AIAW, Box 30, Folder 35.

Mary Fo Festle, Playing Nice: Politics and Apologies in Women’s Sports (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 165–227.

Marcia K. Burton, “A Feasibility Study of an AIA-USA Women’s Basketball Team,” master’s thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1988. See also the Winter 1985 issue of Athletes in Action magazine.

Karen Drollinger, Grace and Glory: Profiles of Faith and Courage in the Lives of Top Women Athletes (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990); Karen Rudolph Drollinger, “Ladies of the Eighties,” Second Look , July/August 1989, 8–10. Madeline Manning Mims was an especially important pioneer in women’s sports ministry and in the development of Olympic sports chaplaincy.

Drollinger, “Ladies of the Eighties,” 18.

Blazer, Playing for God , 103–128.

Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right , 136–138; Sharp, The Other Evangelicals , 163–196.

“The Danvers Statement,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism , ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), 469–472; Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right , 131–141.

Turner, Bill Bright and Campus   Crusade for Christ , 209.

Allen Palmeri, “Baptist Influence Ripples through Ministry of FCA,” Baptist Press , April 20, 2004, https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/baptist-influence-ripples-through-ministry-of-fca/ ; Hankins, Uneasy in Babylon , 230–239; Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne , 168–169.

“God Didn’t Create Women to Umpire—Astros Pitcher,” Los Angeles Times , March 15, 1988, I-1.

Jill Lieber, “Some Say No Leica,” Sports Illustrated , June 20, 1988, 48–53.

Cahn, Coming on Strong , 246–314.

Debbie Wall Larson, “A Lot to Be Proud of, a Long Way to Go,” Sharing the Victory , January/February 1987, 16; Blazer, Playing for God , 118.

John Dodderidge, “Setting High Standards,” Sharing   the Victory , March 1991, 8–9.

Larson, “A Lot to Be Proud of, a Long Way to Go,” 16.

Drollinger, Grace and Glory , xi.

Karry Kelley, “The Sky’s the Limit,” Athletes in Action , Winter 1982, 23.

Festle, Playing Nice , 235–245; Cahn, Coming on Strong , 185–206.

Drollinger, Grace and Glory , 179–180; Blazer, Playing for God , 129–156.

For examples, see Randy Frame, “The Homosexual Lifestyle: Is There a Way Out?,” Christianity Today , August 9, 1985, 32–36; Randy Frame, “The Evangelical Closet,” Christianity Today , November 5, 1990, 56–57. For context on evangelical approaches to LGBTQ people, see Sharp, The Other Evangelicals , 207–242; David J. Neumann, “‘A Definitive but Unsatisfying Answer’: The Evangelical Response to Gay Christians,” Religion and American Culture 32, no. 1 (2022): 1–40, doi:10.1017/rac.2021.21.

April Nelson, “Lesbian Lust,” Christian Athlete , May/June 1982, 24–26.

“Homosexuality and the Female Athlete,” Sharing the Victory , May/June 1985, 8–9.

Pat Griffin, Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sport (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1998), 109–132.

Stewart, The Power Worshippers , 37; Neumann, “‘A Definitive but Unsatisfying Answer’”; Sharp, The Other Evangelicals , 242–247.

Michael J. Smith, “The Double Life of a Gay Dodger,” Inside Sports , October 1982, 57–63; David Kopay and Perry Deane Young, The David Kopay Story: An Extraordinary Self-Revelation (New York: Arbor House, 1977).

See, for example, Jane Leavy, “Scott McGregor and the Pulpit Pitch,” Washington Post , July 19, 1988, B1; Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right , 159–172.

“McCartney Fights Gay Rights,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch , February 12, 1992, 2D; Adam Teicher, “McCartney’s Passion for Bible Dividing Boulder,” Kansas City Star , October 4, 1992, C-2.

Liz Clarke, “Packer’s White Stands by Remarks,” Washington Post , March 27, 1998, D1.

Reggie White with Andrew Peyton Thomas, Fighting the Good Fight (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999); Gwen Knapp, “Acolytes of White Make War, Not Peace,” San Francisco Examiner , February 14, 1999, B-3.

Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes , 136–137.

Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne , 153. PK has received substantial scholarly attention. One of the best sources is Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right , 207–227.

Aldridge, “In a Season of Challenge, Green Keeps the Faith,” B7; Green, Victory , 131.

Scott D. Strednak Singer, “The Word Was Made Flesh: The Male Body in Sports Evangelism” (PhD diss., Temple University, 2016), 134–177.

Barry Sanders with Mark E. McCormick, Barry Sanders: Now You   See Him (Covington, KY: Clerisy, 2005), 130.

“In Depth Topics: LGBT Rights,” Gallup, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx .

Chris Defresne, “Does God Care Who Wins?,” Los Angeles Time s, February 21, 1999, D10.

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University of South Carolina Beaufort Requirements for Admission

What are University of South Carolina Beaufort's admission requirements? While there are a lot of pieces that go into a college application, you should focus on only a few critical things:

• GPA requirements
• Testing requirements, including SAT and ACT requirements
• Application requirements

In this guide we'll cover what you need to get into University of South Carolina Beaufort and build a strong application.

School location: Bluffton, SC

Admissions Rate: 62.7%

If you want to get in, the first thing to look at is the acceptance rate. This tells you how competitive the school is and how serious their requirements are.

The acceptance rate at University of South Carolina Beaufort is 62.7% . For every 100 applicants, 63 are admitted.

This means the school is moderately selective . The school expects you to meet their requirements for GPA and SAT/ACT scores, but they're more flexible than other schools. If you exceed their requirements, you have an excellent chance of getting in. But if you don't, you might be one of the unlucky minority that gets a rejection letter.

We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies . We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League.

We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools.

Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in.

University of South Carolina Beaufort GPA Requirements

Many schools specify a minimum GPA requirement, but this is often just the bare minimum to submit an application without immediately getting rejected.

The GPA requirement that really matters is the GPA you need for a real chance of getting in. For this, we look at the school's average GPA for its current students.

Average GPA: 3.82

The average GPA at University of South Carolina Beaufort is 3.82 .

(Most schools use a weighted GPA out of 4.0, though some report an unweighted GPA.

With a GPA of 3.82, University of South Carolina Beaufort requires you to be near the top of your class , and well above average. Your transcript should show mostly A's. Ideally, you will also have taken several AP or IB classes to show that you can handle academics at a college level.

If you're currently a junior or senior, your GPA is hard to change in time for college applications. If your GPA is at or below the school average of 3.82, you'll need a higher SAT or ACT score to compensate . This will help you compete effectively against other applicants who have higher GPAs than you.

SAT and ACT Requirements

Each school has different requirements for standardized testing. Only a few schools require the SAT or ACT, but many consider your scores if you choose to submit them.

University of South Carolina Beaufort SAT Requirements

Many schools say they have no SAT score cutoff, but the truth is that there is a hidden SAT requirement. This is based on the school's average score.

Average SAT: 1020

The average SAT score composite at University of South Carolina Beaufort is a 1020 on the 1600 SAT scale.

This score makes University of South Carolina Beaufort Lightly Competitive for SAT test scores.

University of South Carolina Beaufort SAT Score Analysis (New 1600 SAT)

The 25th percentile SAT score is 910, and the 75th percentile SAT score is 1090. In other words, a 910 on the SAT places you below average, while a 1090 will move you up to above average .

Here's the breakdown of SAT scores by section:

SAT Score Choice Policy

The Score Choice policy at your school is an important part of your testing strategy.

University of South Carolina Beaufort ACT Requirements

Just like for the SAT, University of South Carolina Beaufort likely doesn't have a hard ACT cutoff, but if you score too low, your application will get tossed in the trash.

Average ACT: 20

The average ACT score at University of South Carolina Beaufort is 20. This score makes University of South Carolina Beaufort Moderately Competitive for ACT scores.

The 25th percentile ACT score is 17, and the 75th percentile ACT score is 22.

Even though University of South Carolina Beaufort likely says they have no minimum ACT requirement, if you apply with a 17 or below, you'll have a harder time getting in, unless you have something else impressive in your application.

ACT Score Sending Policy

If you're taking the ACT as opposed to the SAT, you have a huge advantage in how you send scores, and this dramatically affects your testing strategy.

Here it is: when you send ACT scores to colleges, you have absolute control over which tests you send. You could take 10 tests, and only send your highest one. This is unlike the SAT, where many schools require you to send all your tests ever taken.

This means that you have more chances than you think to improve your ACT score. To try to aim for the school's ACT requirement of 20 and above, you should try to take the ACT as many times as you can. When you have the final score that you're happy with, you can then send only that score to all your schools.

ACT Superscore Policy

By and large, most colleges do not superscore the ACT. (Superscore means that the school takes your best section scores from all the test dates you submit, and then combines them into the best possible composite score). Thus, most schools will just take your highest ACT score from a single sitting.

We weren't able to find the school's exact ACT policy, which most likely means that it does not Superscore. Regardless, you can choose your single best ACT score to send in to University of South Carolina Beaufort, so you should prep until you reach our recommended target ACT score of 20.

Download our free guide on the top 5 strategies you must be using to improve your score. This guide was written by Harvard graduates and ACT perfect scorers. If you apply the strategies in this guide, you'll study smarter and make huge score improvements.

SAT/ACT Writing Section Requirements

Currently, only the ACT has an optional essay section that all students can take. The SAT used to also have an optional Essay section, but since June 2021, this has been discontinued unless you are taking the test as part of school-day testing in a few states. Because of this, no school requires the SAT Essay or ACT Writing section, but some schools do recommend certain students submit their results if they have them.

University of South Carolina Beaufort considers the SAT Essay/ACT Writing section optional and may not include it as part of their admissions consideration. You don't need to worry too much about Writing for this school, but other schools you're applying to may require it.

Final Admissions Verdict

Because this school is moderately selective, strong academic performance will almost guarantee you admission . Scoring a 1090 SAT or a 22 ACT or above will nearly guarantee you admission. Because the school admits 62.7% of all applicants, being far above average raises the admission rate for you to nearly 100%.

If you can achieve a high SAT/ACT score, the rest of your application essentially doesn't matter. You still need to meet the rest of the application requirements, and your GPA shouldn't be too far off from the school average of 3.82. But you won't need dazzling extracurriculars and breathtaking letters of recommendation to get in. You can get in based on the merits of your score alone.

But if your score is a 910 SAT or a 17 ACT and below, you have a good chance of being one of the unlucky few to be rejected.

Admissions Calculator

Here's our custom admissions calculator. Plug in your numbers to see what your chances of getting in are. Pick your test: SAT ACT

• 80-100%: Safety school: Strong chance of getting in
• 50-80%: More likely than not getting in
• 20-50%: Lower but still good chance of getting in
• 5-20%: Reach school: Unlikely to get in, but still have a shot
• 0-5%: Hard reach school: Very difficult to get in

How would your chances improve with a better score?

Take your current SAT score and add 160 points (or take your ACT score and add 4 points) to the calculator above. See how much your chances improve?

At PrepScholar, we've created the leading online SAT/ACT prep program . We guarantee an improvement of 160 SAT points or 4 ACT points on your score, or your money back.

Here's a summary of why we're so much more effective than other prep programs:

• PrepScholar customizes your prep to your strengths and weaknesses . You don't waste time working on areas you already know, so you get more results in less time.
• We guide you through your program step-by-step so that you're never confused about what you should be studying. Focus all your time learning, not worrying about what to learn.
• Our team is made of national SAT/ACT experts . PrepScholar's founders are Harvard graduates and SAT perfect scorers . You'll be studying using the strategies that actually worked for them.
• We've gotten tremendous results with thousands of students across the country. Read about our score results and reviews from our happy customers .

There's a lot more to PrepScholar that makes it the best SAT/ACT prep program. Click to learn more about our program , or sign up for our 5-day free trial to check out PrepScholar for yourself:

Application Requirements

Every school requires an application with the bare essentials - high school transcript and GPA, application form, and other core information. Many schools, as explained above, also require SAT and ACT scores, as well as letters of recommendation, application essays, and interviews. We'll cover the exact requirements of University of South Carolina Beaufort here.

Application Requirements Overview

• Common Application Not accepted
• Electronic Application Available
• Essay or Personal Statement
• Letters of Recommendation
• Interview Not required
• Application Fee $40
• Fee Waiver Available? Available
• Other Notes Prerequisite high school courses required for freshmen

Testing Requirements

• SAT or ACT Required
• SAT Essay or ACT Writing Optional
• SAT Subject Tests
• Scores Due in Office None

Coursework Requirements

• Subject Required Years
• Foreign Language 2
• Social Studies 2
• Electives 2

Deadlines and Early Admissions

• Offered? Deadline Notification
• Yes Rolling Rolling

Admissions Office Information

• Address: One University Boulevard Bluffton, SC 29909
• Phone: (843) 208-8000
• Email: [email protected]

Other Schools For You

If you're interested in University of South Carolina Beaufort, you'll probably be interested in these schools as well. We've divided them into 3 categories depending on how hard they are to get into, relative to University of South Carolina Beaufort.

Reach Schools: Harder to Get Into

These schools are have higher average SAT scores than University of South Carolina Beaufort. If you improve your SAT score, you'll be competitive for these schools.

Same Level: Equally Hard to Get Into

If you're competitive for University of South Carolina Beaufort, these schools will offer you a similar chance of admission.

Safety Schools: Easier to Get Into

If you're currently competitive for University of South Carolina Beaufort, you should have no problem getting into these schools. If University of South Carolina Beaufort is currently out of your reach, you might already be competitive for these schools.

Data on this page is sourced from Peterson's Databases © 2023 (Peterson's LLC. All rights reserved.) as well as additional publicly available sources.

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• Honors and Scholars Programs

Honors & Scholars Programs

Carolina Elite is a group of specialized programs within the University of South Carolina designed for high-achieving students. Home to three invitation-only programs — Top Scholars, Honors College and Capstone Scholars — Carolina Elite is a distinguished academic opportunity like no other.

Carolina Elite Programs

Top Scholars

Top Scholars are the university's most distinguished merit award recipients. They display extraordinary academic talent, exemplary character and remarkable leadership skills.

South Carolina Honors College

The South Carolina Honors College is home to some of the nation's brightest students. The Honors College offers more than 600 courses per year, boasts its own residence hall specifically designed to foster collaboration and even offers its own degree.

Capstone Scholars

The Capstone Scholars Program is a two-year educational enrichment program designed to provide opportunities both in and out of the classroom. Capstone Scholars live by the program motto: "Dream big, impact the community, leave a legacy!" 

Applying to Carolina Elite Programs

After you submit your general university application, you may receive an invitation to apply to the South Carolina Honors College and our Top Scholars Award program. If you’re not automatically invited, you may contact the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at [email protected] to request access to the Honors College application.

You are automatically considered for Capstone Scholars when you apply for freshman admission. No separate application materials are required for review. 

Required Materials

The following materials are required for admission consideration to the South Carolina Honors College and Top Scholars Award program.

You'll provide your high school courses/grades for your senior year only, choose your  major , complete the essay, and list your extracurricular activities, honors and awards. You will also decide whether you want us to consider your ACT / SAT scores in the review process.

All information submitted with your application will be used to determine admission and merit-based scholarship award decisions. For more information on the freshman application visit our freshman application page.

We recommend submitting your general USC Application or Common App by the Oct. 15 Early Action deadline if applying to the Honors College. This will allow you more time to complete the application and essays.

Regardless of which application you select, you must pay the non-refundable $65 application fee or use an ACT, College Board, NACAC, SCOIR or Common App application fee waiver, if eligible.

If you have an application fee waiver, upload it on the payment page before submitting the application.

Upload a legible unofficial copy of your high school transcript in JPG or PDF format. After you submit the application, we’ll review your uploaded transcript and let you know if we need an official one. The unofficial transcript must list grades through the end of your junior year and include your full name and high school name. Do not send an official high school transcript to the admissions office unless it is requested.

If you already graduated from high school, request to have your official transcript sent to USC’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Don't forget to list your senior year courses and credits on the application. You must list the exact amount of credit (full, half, trimester) for each course. You will also need to list all dual enrollment courses you are taking.

USC is test-optional for the spring, summer and fall 2025 terms. This means you are not required to submit SAT and / or ACT scores for admission to the University, South Carolina Honors College admission, or merit scholarship consideration. You will select “Yes” or “No” on the general application to indicate whether you want us to review your test scores as part of the admission process.

If you choose to report your scores on the general application, enter the highest scores for the ACT composite and / or the SAT total. If you took either test more than once, we will superscore using all tests taken. 

USC’s deadline for receipt of test scores is based on the credential deadline associated with your application type. If test scores are received by the credentials deadline, your application will be considered on a space-available basis. We require official scores only if you enroll in USC. Our SAT code is 5818 and our ACT code is 3880.

Review  frequently asked questions  about USC's test-optional policy. 

Students should answer a “yes / no” question on the general application to indicate their interest in applying to the South Carolina Honors College. The separate Honors College application will be added to the USC Admissions Portal approximately 48 hours after submitting the freshman application. Students will receive an email from our office once the application is available.

Students who originally answered “no” on the freshman application and change their minds may email [email protected] to request access to the Honors College application.

Personal Interest Statement: What motivated you to apply to the South Carolina Honors College? Discuss how you would take advantage of the specific opportunities and resources the Honors College offers. How do you envision contributing to and benefiting from the collaborative and engaging community of the Honors College? (150 – 300 words)

Doing Essay: Reflect on your role and responsibilities in an activity — this might be community service, clubs / organizations or any other initiative that has shaped your character and influenced your personal growth. Provide one specific example that showcases your passion and dedication, demonstrating how this outside-the-classroom experience has prepared you to make meaningful contributions to the South Carolina Honors College community. (500 – 1,000 words)

Thinking Essay: The South Carolina Honors College seeks students with a deep intellectual curiosity and a passion for knowledge. Reflect on a topic that has sparked your intellectual curiosity. Explain how this topic has driven you to engage in critical thinking that will contribute to the scholarly community of the Honors College. (500 – 1,000 words)

A letter of recommendation is required by the Dec. 1 credentials deadline. There are two ways to submit the letter:

• Your high school counselor can submit the letter on your behalf via a secure electronic service (including the Common App, Scoir and Naviance).  This is our preferred method. 
• Your recommender may email the letter to [email protected] .

Helpful Hints:

• Ask someone who knows you best to write on your behalf. Recommenders can include teachers, school counselors, coaches, community leaders and even employers.
• Only one letter of recommendation will be considered during the review process.
• Please ask your recommender to only submit your letter once.

Important Dates

Early Action Application Deadline

Apply by Oct. 15 to get an early admissions decision.

Honors College Application Deadline

Apply by Nov. 15  to be considered for Top Scholars awards and the South Carolina Honors College.

Application Credentials Deadline

Send in all required materials by Dec. 1 to complete your application for admission.

Honors College admission notifications will be sent via email by mid-February. If you are named a Top Scholar Candidate, you will be invited to participate in a mandatory interview and in-person event. Capstone Scholars invitations are released in March.

Application Review

The South Carolina Honors College and Top Scholar review is a holistic process that evaluates aspects from the student's application including, but not limited to, academic achievement, leadership potential, a commitment to serving others, intellectual curiosity, high school course rigor, interest in the university and a letter of recommendation.

Academic Profile

These ranges reflect the middle 50% of students who were admitted in 2024 and give you a general idea of where you fall within each academic range.

* Class rank ranges only include students whose high school provides a ranking.

After You Apply

You can check your application status on your   USC Admissions Portal . You can also request changes to your application. Once we've made a decision on your application, you will receive an email instructing you to check your portal.

USC Admissions Portal

Connect with an Honors Ambassador

Honors Ambassadors love to answer questions about life at the Honors College!

Carolina Elite Brochure 

Download our Carolina Elite brochure to learn more about our programs. 

Connect with Us

Have questions about Carolina Elite? Let the admissions office help you!

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