An Alabama newspaper has published a Freedom From Religion Foundation op-ed examining the unwarranted role of religion in Auburn University’s baseball program.
“I grew up in a small Oklahoma town, was raised in a Christian family and attended public school. Our head football coach led pregame prayers — and Christianity was woven into our locker room, practices, games and team meals,” Regional Government Affairs Manager Mickey Dollens begin his piece in the Florence (Ala.) TimesDaily. “No one ever objected, and I never even thought twice about it.”
As the column continues, Dollens relays the tale of a teammate having to masquerade a Christian identity in an attempt to earn a football scholarship:
Later in college, a teammate told me something that changed my perspective. He was a walk-on trying to earn a scholarship on the football team. Though he had been raised and believed in a different faith, he pretended to be Christian because he wanted our head coach and fellow teammates to accept him.
One time, our coach called on him to lead the team in prayer before our pre-game meal. He stood, bowed his head and prayed to Jesus. In that moment, he abandoned his own deeply held beliefs to perform a Christian prayer.
He eventually earned a football scholarship. But I have never forgotten the religious sacrifice he felt pressured to make to get it. He wasn’t proud of pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He believed it was the price he had to pay to remain in the coach’s good graces and to prove he was “all in” on team unity.
That teammate is the person I think about when I see Auburn University baseball players, coaches and staff wearing team pullovers with a large Christian cross and the words “Jesus Won” across the chest.
If individual Auburn players had independently purchased and worn those shirts as a personal expression of faith, I would defend their right to do so. But that is not the story.
“Religious freedom is easy to celebrate when the majority has the microphone,” Dollens writes in the conclusion. “Its true measure is whether the quiet player who believes differently can say no and still be treated as a full member of the team. Auburn baseball can build unity without building a ministry. Its coaches should prepare players to compete, not pressure them to conform.”
The full op-ed can be read here (a subscription to the TimesDaily is required).
This column is part of FFRF’s initiative to engage with pertinent national and state issues and spread the messages of secularism and freethought to a broader audience.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 40,000 members across the country, including hundreds of members in Alabama, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
