EVANGEL ATHLETICS
MORE THAN A GAME
At Mid-America Christian University, athletics is “more than a game.”
“Winning may be our goal, but it is not our purpose,” says Coach Hannah Moeller, who coached her women’s basketball team to back-to-back National Championships in 2018 and 2019. “Our purpose is seeing student-athletes grow in their relationship with Jesus.”
Every year, there are numerous stories of studentathletes coming to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. It is a narrative we never want to stop reading. Coaches fill the role of disciplemaker first, and coach second.
“It is a rare day when someone on staff does not spend time praying with at least one player concerning a life issue. We talk far more about student-athletes’ lives and where Jesus is wanting to meet them than we do about a sport.”
It is a sentiment carried across all the teams. Coach Adrian Savedra adds, “On the baseball team, our coaches are a daily witness to Christ. We always begin every practice with prayer. Prayer is as normal in our practice as batting practice is.”
Coaches accept that a chief role of their jobs is to evangelize and disciple their teams, following a three-point philosophy crafted by Athletic Director Marcus Moeller.
1. We expect our coaches to put Christ at the Center of the athletic experience at MACU. Whether it be discipleship or evangelism, our student-athletes will know that having a Christ-centered culture is paramount on their athletic team.
2. We view college athletics at MACU to be a vehicle to help young people achieve their highest academic capability. Simple eligibility is a baseline expectation, not a goal. The goal is that we will have pushed our studentathletes to achieve the highest form of their academic capabilities.
3. We do everything within the rules and resources we’ve been given to strive for competitive excellence on the field and court. We want to win. This is college athletics, and we won’t apologize for working as hard as we can to win as much as we can.
You may have noticed that winning comes third for MACU Athletics. That is not because it is not important — in fact, it is very important for the success of our programs. But winning is not more important than the first two items on this list.
HOW DO MACU COACHES MAKE DISCIPLES OUT OF STUDENT-ATHLETES?
While there is a limit to how many athletes a coach or assistant coach can personally disciple, the head coach “owns” the responsibility of seeing his or her athletes receive the Gospel and seeing to their spiritual growth.
We often see students come to MACU “just to play ball” and watch them leave to fulfill a calling God placed on their life during their time here. This may be a staff position in a congregation or missionary work in other countries — and this is all accomplished through sports.
We annually experience around a dozen young men and women accepting Christ as their personal savior for the first time in their lives. Every year, the same number of students experience a “rededication” to Christ in which they affirm their decision to hand their life over to Him.
Ninety-five percent of our traditional students were never discipled after becoming a follower of Jesus. Athletics is filling that void.
We realize that some donors may feel that brick and mortar projects do not fit into their giving priorities. However, athletics has proven to be one of our most effective ways of impacting nations for Christ and thus fulfilling the Great Commission outlined in Acts 1:8.
“But you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
You see, athletics is our most fruitful mission field, reaching young men and women from all over the world — even from countries in which Christianity is not widely followed or accepted.
An example of this is Joseph Carter, a studentathlete from London, where more than half of the population identifies as non-Christian. After he graduates, Joseph plans to use his soccer skills to go to China on an evangelism team. He sees using sports as door-openers into countries which have been closed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“MACU has done everything and more than I thought it would do for me. I’ve matured so much, learned so much. I’ve grown in my walk with God. If I was in England, I would have never had the opportunity to know Christ this deeply.
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A PRESSING NEED
Our Gaulke Activity Center is inadequate for our athletics programs.
Built in 1996, the activity center only provides locker room space for three of our teams: men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball. Unfortunately, this means 120 student-athletes from our baseball, softball, and men’s and women’s soccer teams are left without a place to change for practice, hold team meetings or simply gather as a team in community spaces.
As a result, roughly 70% of our student-athletes are forced to change uniforms in their cars or in campus bedrooms prior to practices or games. The lack of locker room space becomes even more amplified on game days, when we host games that see us shuffling up to eight teams between four locker rooms. That requires teams to take all of their equipment to the field or court with them during the game and then return to a different locker room after the game is over.
For our baseball and softball teams, conditions can get downright uncomfortable when they take to the field for practice in January — sometimes in unforgiving Oklahoma winds with temperatures dipped below freezing.
In addition to lacking a training space for our outdoor sports, the Gaulke Activity Center similarly does not contain a weight room. We presently budget as much as $80,000 for student memberships in a local YMCA in order to have access to weight training and exercise equipment. Not only is this expensive and takes away from funds we would like to put into the operations of our own facilities and programs, it is also frustrating for many of our student-athletes. This is especially true of our international student-athletes, who are not able to drive and oftentimes resort to walking back and forth from the gym, even when weather conditions are not favorable.
Right now, MACU rents multiple local indoor hitting facilities to allow baseball and softball to work out during the winter months, as well as an indoor soccer facility so that soccer teams can train on days with unfavorable weather.
These are all shared spaces with other schools or community groups that simply do not provide adequate space and equipment for our student-athletes to train at a high level. In addition to the lack of locker room space, our athletic training room, which serves all 210 of our student-athletes across all sports, is deficient in space. We are currently remodeling the lobby and hallways of the Gaulke Activity Center just to have the necessary space to get in all the required treatments our studentathletes need.
The privacy for coaches to interact with student-athletes and their families is a large
concern. Every available space in the activity center for coaches’ offices is used. Some coaches occupy what was designed as the ticket booth area pictured here. Two coaches share cramped offices under the reserved seating sections of the court, originally designated as storage closets. Six of our coaches’ offices were created by using twothirds of our concessions area. These coaches sit in open cubicles.
This poses a big problem for privacy with players, whether that is for witnessing to a player or even disciplining a player. There is no private space in the facility where coaches and players can quickly go to discuss private matters. Even facilitating discussions between prospective students and their families can be difficult when it comes to matters of the affordability of a college education. It is awkward for parents to discuss their financial situation within the hearing distance of others.
While student-athletes make up approximately 60% of our student body, the remaining 40% of our students have no place to take part in intramural sports or exercise. We do not have the capacity to host groups from our community that could be used for developing children and youth sports programs such as Upward Basketball. We simply cannot do so because our practice and game schedules do not allow for it in such a confined space.
This new facility can be used as an outreach to the region. The MACU Athletics Training Facility will greatly enhance our sports programs and will provide needed enhancement to campus and community life. The workout facility will be utilized by the entire student body, university staff and the surrounding community.
In addition to training athletes, this facility would be used to further community health through offering sports camps for the surrounding area. Currently, we are very limited in the time we are able to allow the gym to be used by outside organizations such as local volleyball clubs, youth basketball teams
and civic groups. University staff have had limited success with these programs in the past as they have been hampered by inadequate indoor training and practice facilities.
Your family can leave a legacy (naming):
• Field House - $1,000,000
• Workout Area - $500,000
• Locker rooms - $150,000 each (4 available)
• Baseball Stadium Renovation - $200,000
• Soccer Stadium Renovation - $100,000
• Softball Stadium Renovation - $75,000
• Concession Stand/Ticket Booth/Restroom - $100,000
• Conference Room - $25,000
• Offices - $25,000 each (10 available)
TOTAL PROJECTS COST $6.2 MILLION
MACU STUDENT-ATHLETES
BEAR THE HEART
OF
EVANGELS
BRINGING GOOD NEWS TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
“I spoke with a couple of our international student-athletes from Germany, England and Brazil over the summer. I am impressed with the sky-high potential we have through sports to make a global impact. All of these men and women will likely return to their home countries when their playing days are finished. They’ll become business leaders, teachers and coaches. We simply must disciple them, as Paul says to Timothy in II Timothy 2:2, ‘So that they can in turn train others.’
That is our goal in building this Training Center. The total for all projects will top $6 million. We have raised $3.6 million already, but it is our prayer that you can help us raise the vital funds needed to reach the goal!”
Steve Seaton Vice President of University Advancement