Beyond the Scoreboard: A Community Partnership Making a Difference

In Indiana, Senior Night has become a huge tradition with packed gyms to honor athletes in their final home games of the regular season. There are posters and balloons, flowers and awards. Fans and classmates cheer while family members self-consciously escort their competitor to center court. But like so many rituals, things are different this year. The crowds restricted, the decorations limited, and the applause scattered at best. Yet, the most noticeable difference with many of the schools we serve are the number of players without dads and the number of moms without players. Players without Dads - According to a Pew Research study from 2019, almost a quarter of the children in the U.S. live with a single parent, with the majority of those parents being moms. The challenges of 2020 have simply magnified the difficulties of many parents struggling to care for their children and emphasized the importance of the high school coach. This year, coaches have become so much more than courtside instructors. They have become counselors, chefs and chauffeurs. We’ve seen coaches practically open loan offices in locker rooms to handout shoes, socks and shorts to players needing the essentials. During team times, coaches are taking on the role of parents, talking to their players about everything from girls to grades to God and many coaches are assuming the responsibility of getting their players to jobs after practice and to college after graduation. 2020-21 continues to validate our strategy of ministry of “to and through the coaches.” The FCA Team is right there in the trenches with these coaches providing food and resources, encouragement and support as we seek to equip and encourage them to grow in their faith. We are seeing many coaches throughout Central Indiana standing in the gap of missing dads and become transformational in their approach and thus producing transformed players for Christ. Moms without Players – In 2020, 47 of the 215 criminal homicides in Marion County were teenagers. 47! Almost 1 per week! And this number doesn’t include the dozens of students who have died by taking their own lives or through another tragedy. High School athletes like K.T., M.W., J.B. and J.T., all gone but not forgotten, especially on their Senior Night. As FCA staff members, we’ve stood at center court with several of these moms and grandmas, holding a jersey and mournfully missing their children. We’ve shared memories and hugs and we’ve cried together, each time walking back into the bleachers with a renewed urgency of our mission “to lead every coach and athlete into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and His church.” Our world, our city, our schools need the transforming power of Jesus Christ. God has open up doors even in the midst of a pandemic, for FCA to walk into gyms and locker rooms and share the good news that Christ is the only one who can give lasting hope and peace. People, coaches, athletes, students without dads, moms without children, you and me, we all need hope… a hope that comes not because of a cheering crowd and numerous accolades… a hope that comes not just during difficult times or during election seasons… but a living hope that comes through faith in a God who sent His Son to conquer death so that you and I can live with forgiveness from our past, a purpose for our present and a certainty about our future. A real hope that comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ… one heart at a time. Thank you for your prayers for FCA, as we sh are Christ Boldly.