Football Star, Minister, Peacemaker

It’s football season. Once more I’m motivated to spend my leisure-reading time with something seasonal. A few weeks ago, I read and reviewed Donald Driver’s memoirs, Driven (2013), and this week I took on the personal story of yet another Green Bay Packer great, Reggie White.

Reggie White was known as “The Minister of Defense,” and was honored both on the field and off, not only for his outspoken Christian faith but also his intensely powerful play. The NFL Hall-of-Famer writes with passion and intensity in this book about how a man as massive and professionally violent as he could balance his career and celebrity with his faith. He honors meekness, of course, and of the motivation that drives him, he writes: “Hey, I’m a Christian. I’m serving the best, so why shouldn’t I be the best?” (80)

As a lifelong Packer fan, I loved how he started this book with football, ended with a special post-publication chapter on Green Bay’s Super Bowl XXXI season (Champions, 1996-97), and peppered football stories throughout. For example, he humorously describes an evangelistic encounter he once had with Offensive Lineman Larry Allen on the field. After throwing the 300-plus-pound lineman like a ragdoll, White met him again face-to-face over the line of scrimmage. “I grinned and asked him if he had accepted Jesus as his Savior. Larry didn’t answer; he just licked his lips kind of nervously, then hunkered down and waited for the snap.” (169). Now there’s an evangelism tactic I’ll probably never use!

He also writes a great deal about the benefits of sports and the life lessons they can teach. He quips, “Losing a big game is like having a football stuck in your throat—sideways. It hurts, man.” (23) More philosophically, he later writes:

“Sports is a great training ground for life. Almost any lesson you can learn on becoming successful in sports is a lesson you can apply to become successful in any other endeavor in your life. To succeed in sports, you need toughness, perseverance, motivation, teamwork, accountability, confidence, intense focus, a positive mental attitude, and strong work ethic. And these are precisely the qualities you need to succeed in life.” (47)

Much of the book, though, is dedicated to White’s life off the field, including his ministries and his responsibilities as black celebrity who’s left the ‘hood. In fact, in Chapter 10, he offers a great section against the myths of celebrity titled “The Most Overrated People in America,” in which he writes the following:

“Celebrity status does not allow us to choose whether or not we will be role models. A celebrity, simply by being a celebrity, is automatically a role model. Like it or not, you can’t escape it. All you can choose is whether to use it wisely, for the benefit of people, or selfishly, to the detriment of people.” (200)

Reggie White chose to use his celebrity wisely, and this was perhaps most tested in 1996 when his church in Tennessee was torched by cowardly, racist arsonists. He writes very early in the book:

“I believe it was the devil himself who inspired those sneaking, night-crawling people to torch our sanctuary and scrawl Satan’s slogans on our walls. But the devil has made a major tactical error. A church is made of people, not bricks and stone. The building has burned down, but the people are still standing. The devil has come against us. He has wounded us. He has destroyed much of what we have built. But the war is not over. The devil has not won. And the devil will not win.” (15)

Continuing on the theme of racism, he writes this sentiment, which shockingly sounds like a Christian pundit speaking today, 25 years later:

“I believe there’s a small percentage of people in American who want whites and blacks to fight against each other. They benefit financially and politically from the fighting. The devil is using a small minority of hate-filled people to keep this race war going on.” (219)

Reggie also touched on other social issues, though he refused to take a political stand for reasons he himself explains:

“Nobody’s preaching abstinence today, because nobody’s figures out how to get rich off of other people’s abstinence—but there’s plenty of money to be made from people’s sexual activity.” (221)

“Jesus wasn’t conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. He was the Son of God. Many Christians would like to put Him on the right wing or the left wing, but He won’t stay put on one wing or the other. Political divisions have driven us so far from the compassionate heart of Jesus, it’s ridiculous.” (222)

Finally, Reggie White also motivated in his writings. I’ve noted many great quotations in the book, but this one really stuck out to me:

“Some people say they want to lose ten pounds or quit smoking or write that novel or get that promotion, but they never seem to get it done. Problem is, they want it but they don’t want it bad enough. They don’t have the emotional intensity and mental drive to motivate the hard work it takes to get there. If you really want it—whatever ‘it’ is—you’ll get it done. If you don’t get it done, then you don’t really want it, you just wish you had it. And there’s the beg difference between wanting and wishing.” (250)

I found this book wonderfully absorbing, educational, and poignant and I’m super happy to have read it. Ghost writers or no, Reggie White’s writing style and charisma far outshined Donald Driver’s, and I felt like I zipped through this thing. That Reggie White published this book just seven years before his untimely death at age 43 makes this thing all the more a treasure, and I highly recommend you find yourself a copy and read it before this season’s over. They don’t make football players like this anymore.

©2021 E.T.

Read More Football Books:

• In the Trenches: The Autobiography by Reggie White (1997)
• The LeRoy Butler Story by LeRoy Butler and James J. Keller (2003)
• Playing for Pizza by John Grisham (2007)
• The Two-Minute Drill to Manhood by John Croyle (2013)
• Driven by Donald Driver (2013)
• Gunslinger by Jeff Pearlman (2016)