Football Faith

INSPIRATIONAL!!  NFL and NFL Players get a lot of bad press, this is positive and uplifting side of players.  I enjoyed reading how faith has helped or changed  the players in the book.

Football and faith go hand in hand. The NFL is filled with faithful men and this book is uplifting to one and all. 52 members of the NFL (including Hall of Famers and current players), from Jared Allen to Emmitt Smith share their experiences and insight. It's honest, inspirational and a must-read for any football fan.

Great gift for football fans and people of faith.

Football Faith: 52 NFL Stars Reflect on Their Faith by Rob Maaddi is to be released on August 1, 2015.  This is a great book if you are looking for illustrations of those who have become successful, some against seemingly insurmountable odds.  

So many sports participants have committed acts, especially recently, that are such a negative example for children and teens.  The examples in this book can be used as part of devotionals or any other way that you would like to share how those who have reached such an incredible level of success have kept their faith and build on it.  It is so refreshing to have positive examples to bring encouragement to young people and any others who need to know that you can be successful and follow God.

Football Faith was an encouraging, inspiring book.  It highlights 52 NFL players and coaches with a strong faith in Jesus who see God’s hand in their lives.   Each section starts out with a verse that means a lot to the athlete.  They then explain why it means so much to them as well as a lesson or two or principle that they live by.  Lots of the athletes are familiar no matter what team you root for:  Jared Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Michael Vick, etc.   The stories tell of transformed lives.  Reading them made me rejoice and marvel at the grace of God. It’s so refreshing to read of sports figures that I could point out to my son as being worthy of emulation and admiration.  These men realize that football is not the most important thing in their lives.  Their main identity is as children of God.  In this book about football heroes, God gets the glory.  It’s wonderful.  This would be a great book for any football fan or anyone with a child interested in football.   Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book for the purpose of this review.

A light and enjoyable read, especially if You're a Christian who loves Football. If You're looking for an in-depth look at these players and their lives, You won't find it here. But I will say it was a delight to read the essays these Men wrote.

Remember the school book fairs?  I loved those.  Among other popular books, they always featured biographies of athletes, with lots of pictures, and some easy-reading text for kids.  Rob Maaddi's Football Faith: 52 NFL Stars Reflect on Their Faith is a more grown-up version of those books.  Maaddi features 52 football players (including a couple of coaches), mostly from among the active ranks of the NFL, who write about their faith.

Each player selected a favorite Bible verse and discusses what that verse means to them in a few paragraphs.  That is followed by the player's career stats and couple of paragraphs about the player's background, awards, and other interesting facts.  And of course we're treated to pictures of the players in action.

Some of the players' reflections are insightful and interesting.  Contrary to the usual perception of the NFL pro athlete, humility was a common theme in many of the essays.  Many of the players show a genuine sense of gratitude for the opportunity to play the game at the highest level.  Some are life-long Christians, some have become Christians more recently.

Some of the players are the ones you would expect to see in a book like this, like Tim Tebow, Tony Dungy, and Mike Singletary, all of whom have published books about their faith.  (I was disappointed that RG3 didn't make the cut!)  Others were more of a surprise to me, like Micheal Vick, who became a Christian while in prison, and Michael Irvin, who became a Christian after he was in the NFL due, in part, to the witness of his friend Deion Sanders (also featured here). 

Football Faith is perfect for NFL fans looking for role models who are open about their faith in a sports culture that sometimes seems to foster and celebrate material excess, oversized egos, and immoral debauchery.  None of these players or coaches are perfect human beings, but each has something to share that is worth hearing.  I will be cheering for these bold believers when I watch them play every Sunday!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

We need more books like this. Everyone - young kids through adults - look up to professional athletes, celebrities, and entertainers as role models. The problem is that too often the true role models get pushed aside to make room for the scandals that plague celebrities and athletes. This book highlights 52 professional football players and coaches who have a strong personal relationship with Jesus Christ. These are retired as well as current players. The overall theme of this book is humility. Most of the players in this book profess that their athletic ability is a gift from God and they live their life both on and off the field to give Him the glory. There are many stories of choosing the wrong path in high school or college, only to end up broken and running to Christ later in life. Michael Vick rediscovered his faith while in prison. Michael Irvin was led to Christ by teammate Deion Sanders. I found it encouraging that many of the athletes profiled went on to become ordained ministers after they retired.

The foreword is given by Coach Joe Gibbs. He compares life to a game, where you and I are players, God is the coach, and the Bible is the perfect playbook. Each profile starts with a favorite verse by each player/coach, followed by a short testimony about how they came to Christ, why the verse means so much to them, or the principles they live by, and then there is a list of each players career stats. I really enjoyed this book, and I would like to see athletes from other sports featured in the same way. When I was young, I lived and breathed professional wrestling. I recently discovered that many former wrestlers have had their own experiences with coming to Christ, with a few of them becoming ordained ministers and evangelists. I received this as a free ARC from Barbour Publishing, Inc., Shiloh Run Press, on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.