The No Kool Aid Zone

This day after Christmas was a day of tragedy, as we got the news of the thousands who have perished in the tsunami in Indonesia and India and parts unknown. I was traveling a good bit of the day, and still don’t have the full story by any means. Our hearts and prayers go out to the many, and we pray that God’s grace would somehow shine through in a situation such as this.

Another, albeit smaller, human “tragedy” was found out today, but it was one which touched me in some personal ways. Reggie White, one of the greatest men (as well as best players) to ever put on an NFL uniform, was found dead, apparently of a respiratory condition related to his sleep apnia. One death, as compared with thousands, seems small indeed, of course. Yet, Reggie was a personal hero of mine.

I began watching Reggie’s career when he was a senior at Howard High School in Chattanooga. I was a freshman at Tennessee Temple, a small independent Baptist school in the heart of Chattanooga. The accolades he was receiving nationally portended a great college and professional career, and Reggie did not disappoint, first becoming an All-American for the Volunteers of UT, and then to a brief career with the Memphis Showboats of the long-forgotten USFL, then on to the Philadelphia Eagles, a great run with the Packers, a one-year retirement followed by a brief swan song with the Carolina Panthers. I don’t know if Reggie was in a class by himself as a defensive linemen, but whatever class he was in, it didn’t take long to call roll! I have collected his football cards for several years now–cards of defensive linemen don’t go for nearly as much money as their proportional worth on the football field.

But more than this, Reggie was a committed, unashamed, Christian man, a preacher of the gospel of Jesus who was not afraid to speak up for his Lord. He received some ridicule for so doing, particularly from the liberal media who couldn’t “get” his deep faith. He was a man with feet of clay like the rest of us; certainly, he’d be the first to admit that here or there, he’d like to have a play back, a word back, a deed back. Who wouldn’t? But Reggie was the real deal.

Fast forward to 2000. I attended the first Pastors’ Conference put on by Alistair Begg at Parkside Church in Cleveland. Wonderful conference in its own right, made all the more special by the presence, not as a hero, not as a football player, not as a speaker of any kind, but merely as a fellow learner, of none other than Reggie White, there to hear from a fine Bible expositor and hone his own skills. What a thrill to get a chance to speak with Reggie, to introduce myself, to tell him of my respect for him, to tell him that I’d been watching his life for a long time. He was warm, genuine, filled with an obvious Christlike spirit, and when I told him that I had graduated from Tennessee Temple, he told me that it was two students from Temple who had led him to faith in Christ in the first place. I was pretty proud of my alma mater on that occasion, needless to say!

If this faith in Christ that we hold is true, then tonight, Reggie spends his first evening of the rest of his…eternity…in the presence of Jesus, seeing face-to-face the Savior Whom he had committed his life to so many years ago in Chattanooga. Thanks, Reggie, for the memories, for the testimony, for the lives you’ve touched…including mine.

Suggested Reading:

The Travels of Marco Polo

The Travels of Marco Polo: Edited by Peter Harris (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

NBC Sunday Night Football Cookbook