Grand Canyon University Athletics
Blessed to compete: Lopes integrate faith
4/27/2022 11:00:00β―AM | General, Paul Coro
Game plan includes GCU's Christian mission for student-athletes
With the Grand Canyon University Arena lights turned down and noise turned up for starting lineup introductions before a men's basketball game, Gabe McGlothan needs nourishment before he body-slams through teammates and stages a faux lightsaber duel with Thunder, the Lopes' mascot.
As the last GCU starting player introduced to 7,000 frenzied fans, the redshirt sophomore uses the time and a purple hue to show teammate Yvan Ouedraogo passages from the Bible that he takes to the bench every game.
"Why not have the Word with me, the thing that gives me strength just in case I hit a moment of adversity?" McGlothan said of a bench Bible tradition started last year by teammate Jayden Stone. "I always have that thing that is my rock and foundation right there with me."
It is a scene that is striking for college athletics but aptly characteristic of GCU, where athletics and faith are intertwined like the nylon of a net or the lacing of a glove. Lopes players, coaches and supporting staff embrace the Christian mission of the University as much as winning.
GCU fans see teams praying before and after games and wearing "One Nation Under God" jersey patches. They don't see the student-athletes' Bible studies, pregame chapels and campus-pool baptisms.
After watching his favorite basketball player read the Bible before each game, a boy was inspired to surrender his life to Christ, his father told McGlothan.
"The main point is to have all the glory point back to God," McGlothan said.
1 Timothy 4:8 β¦ Β ForΒ bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things,Β having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
In an arena where a Bible was buried at midcourt during 2011 construction, it is appropriate that GCU men's basketball head coach Bryce Drew puts a team on that floor that doesn't just want to finish first. It wants to put God first.
Drew grew up watching his father, Homer, integrate faith into the basketball teams he coached, including when Drew played for him at Valparaiso.
That effort is as intentional as his Xs and Os. A different coach prays for the encircled team before every practice, where team shirts read "Together" with a cross as the second "t" and "J.O.Y." for "Jesus over yourself."
"Having the platform of being at a school of faith, it allows you to go all in with who our staff is as people and our strong faith," Drew said. "We try to live out our faith and increase the faith in our players by the things that we talk about."
Each game-day afternoon's "Team-time Chapel" exemplifies that. Players gather to hear one of the coaches deliver a Bible teaching that he relates to men of their age and circumstances.
Late in the 23-8 season, director of player development Ryne Lightfoot conveyed a message about Christ being the base of their lives with mention of Matthew 7:24-27, which imparts the wisdom of building a house on rock rather than sand.
Lig
htfoot split the team into smaller groups and gave each one a box of spaghetti, a bag of marshmallows and a challenge to build the tallest structure in three minutes.
"We've got to get a base and build from there," Drew told the players in his group, unknowingly foretelling Lightfoot's intended message.
In two years at GCU, the Drew staff has transformed lives with the program's Christian aspect. Oscar Frayer answered assistant coach Ed Schilling's pregame altar call at the 2021 WAC Tournament and rededicated his life to Christ 11 days before he died in a car accident.
Some of this year's players showed a parallel maturation as men and believers.
"We want to give you a foundation to show that life is so much bigger than basketball," Lightfoot told the players.
Drew continued a Senior Night tradition in March, when he took his three senior players and two senior managers to midcourt with him after the last home game and prayed for them over an arena microphone.
"There's a mission here and a desire for everlasting life," Drew said of GCU. "Our desire is that our players will find it when they are at GCU."
Hebrews 12: 1 β¦ Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
The appreciation for how GCU Athletics embodies a love of God is better understood with comparison.
Lopes softball player Stephanie Reed played four seasons at Utah State before coming to GCU as a graduate transfer. She looked forward to being at a Christian university but was pleasantly surprised when the first team meeting showed her just how much faith was going to be ingrained in head coach Shanon Hays' program.
After each game and practice, a player shares Scripture with teammates before they pray together.
"It's a way to bring us together and be reminded that our focus is on softball, but it's not everything," Reed said. "It's helped us to love and trust each other. That translates to the field. We love each other above performance on the field."
Five players, including Reed, rotate as the host of Bible study at the team's campus apartment building, where they gather in a study room or cram into one unit every Thursday night.
The impact of the shared Scripture is evident when Reed recites examples. One, John 3:30, became a team mantra for being more selfless and holding up the Lord.
"3:30," the team chants when it breaks a huddle.
Philippians 2:2 β¦ Fulfill my job by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind.
Hannah Eskes relishes a similar experience on her GCU volleyball team with pre-practice prayers and pre-match chapels, but she also is part of a unified Lopes Athletics' faith component.
The GCU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee includes a spiritual formation subcommittee composed of student-athletes, including Eskes.
"Hearing how each of them has believers bring Christ to their teams, that is so encouraging for all of us to keep going and do it on our team," Eskes said.
Like many student-athletes, Eskes was drawn to choosing GCU because of her deep love for the Lord, but her religious maturation has led the junior middle blocker to understand how teammates' paths are not the same. She feels humbled to learn where she is not righteous and how her strength on the court is not drawn from herself.
"We enter our time together rooted in the Lord and know why we're playing and who we're playing for," Eskes said. "It allows us to show each other much more grace. Our identity is not rooted in how we perform."
2 Timothy 2:5 β¦ And alsoΒ if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
Four years ago, the calling of God called for a new role in Athletics β sports chaplain.
Cory Tubbs, a former college soccer player who previously worked in GCU Spiritual Life, became a spiritual sounding board for the Lopes. Whether it be with teams or individually with student-athletes, TubbsΒ strengthens their spiritual side just as sports performance coaches make them more powerful in the weight room.
"I believe athletics not only can be used as a tool to help us grow and put our character to the test, but also as a way for believers to worship God by utilizing the gifts and talents he has given them to enjoy His creation," Tubbs said.
Β
"I also believe it has a unique way to help form community and bring people together, and I believe people are more prone to grow healthier when they feel united in purpose with others."
Β
Tubbs was the men's soccer team chaplain before the University wanted his role dedicated to all student-athletes and coaches.
Β
The coaches ask him to make early season introductions to the campus' Spiritual Life, pray before events and give in-season sermons that relate the Bible to team topics such as communication and leadership.
"It is so desired to be implemented into everything we're doing in Athletics," Tubbs said. "A lot of schools give that kind of stuff up as they get bigger, but that is something that we've kept in place."
Tubbs holds a fulfilling position to enhance or ensure the student-athletes' spiritual well-being. But it can be more gratifying to watch it unfold at a game or practice or hear about GCU All-American high jumper Ethan Harris staging a track and field Bible study at his home.
"Their teammates are around them all the time, so it's awesome to see them influencing each other to find their faith and be transformed in ways that they hadn't before," Tubbs said. "I love to see them putting God first in everything they do and offering those big moments to Him."
Β
As the last GCU starting player introduced to 7,000 frenzied fans, the redshirt sophomore uses the time and a purple hue to show teammate Yvan Ouedraogo passages from the Bible that he takes to the bench every game.
"Why not have the Word with me, the thing that gives me strength just in case I hit a moment of adversity?" McGlothan said of a bench Bible tradition started last year by teammate Jayden Stone. "I always have that thing that is my rock and foundation right there with me."
It is a scene that is striking for college athletics but aptly characteristic of GCU, where athletics and faith are intertwined like the nylon of a net or the lacing of a glove. Lopes players, coaches and supporting staff embrace the Christian mission of the University as much as winning.
GCU fans see teams praying before and after games and wearing "One Nation Under God" jersey patches. They don't see the student-athletes' Bible studies, pregame chapels and campus-pool baptisms.
After watching his favorite basketball player read the Bible before each game, a boy was inspired to surrender his life to Christ, his father told McGlothan.
"The main point is to have all the glory point back to God," McGlothan said.
1 Timothy 4:8 β¦ Β ForΒ bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things,Β having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
In an arena where a Bible was buried at midcourt during 2011 construction, it is appropriate that GCU men's basketball head coach Bryce Drew puts a team on that floor that doesn't just want to finish first. It wants to put God first.
Drew grew up watching his father, Homer, integrate faith into the basketball teams he coached, including when Drew played for him at Valparaiso.
That effort is as intentional as his Xs and Os. A different coach prays for the encircled team before every practice, where team shirts read "Together" with a cross as the second "t" and "J.O.Y." for "Jesus over yourself.""Having the platform of being at a school of faith, it allows you to go all in with who our staff is as people and our strong faith," Drew said. "We try to live out our faith and increase the faith in our players by the things that we talk about."
Each game-day afternoon's "Team-time Chapel" exemplifies that. Players gather to hear one of the coaches deliver a Bible teaching that he relates to men of their age and circumstances.
Late in the 23-8 season, director of player development Ryne Lightfoot conveyed a message about Christ being the base of their lives with mention of Matthew 7:24-27, which imparts the wisdom of building a house on rock rather than sand.
Lig
htfoot split the team into smaller groups and gave each one a box of spaghetti, a bag of marshmallows and a challenge to build the tallest structure in three minutes."We've got to get a base and build from there," Drew told the players in his group, unknowingly foretelling Lightfoot's intended message.
In two years at GCU, the Drew staff has transformed lives with the program's Christian aspect. Oscar Frayer answered assistant coach Ed Schilling's pregame altar call at the 2021 WAC Tournament and rededicated his life to Christ 11 days before he died in a car accident.
Some of this year's players showed a parallel maturation as men and believers.
"We want to give you a foundation to show that life is so much bigger than basketball," Lightfoot told the players.
Drew continued a Senior Night tradition in March, when he took his three senior players and two senior managers to midcourt with him after the last home game and prayed for them over an arena microphone.
"There's a mission here and a desire for everlasting life," Drew said of GCU. "Our desire is that our players will find it when they are at GCU."
Hebrews 12: 1 β¦ Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
The appreciation for how GCU Athletics embodies a love of God is better understood with comparison.
Lopes softball player Stephanie Reed played four seasons at Utah State before coming to GCU as a graduate transfer. She looked forward to being at a Christian university but was pleasantly surprised when the first team meeting showed her just how much faith was going to be ingrained in head coach Shanon Hays' program.
After each game and practice, a player shares Scripture with teammates before they pray together.
"It's a way to bring us together and be reminded that our focus is on softball, but it's not everything," Reed said. "It's helped us to love and trust each other. That translates to the field. We love each other above performance on the field."
Five players, including Reed, rotate as the host of Bible study at the team's campus apartment building, where they gather in a study room or cram into one unit every Thursday night.
The impact of the shared Scripture is evident when Reed recites examples. One, John 3:30, became a team mantra for being more selfless and holding up the Lord.
"3:30," the team chants when it breaks a huddle.
Philippians 2:2 β¦ Fulfill my job by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind.
Hannah Eskes relishes a similar experience on her GCU volleyball team with pre-practice prayers and pre-match chapels, but she also is part of a unified Lopes Athletics' faith component.
The GCU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee includes a spiritual formation subcommittee composed of student-athletes, including Eskes.
"Hearing how each of them has believers bring Christ to their teams, that is so encouraging for all of us to keep going and do it on our team," Eskes said.
Like many student-athletes, Eskes was drawn to choosing GCU because of her deep love for the Lord, but her religious maturation has led the junior middle blocker to understand how teammates' paths are not the same. She feels humbled to learn where she is not righteous and how her strength on the court is not drawn from herself.
"We enter our time together rooted in the Lord and know why we're playing and who we're playing for," Eskes said. "It allows us to show each other much more grace. Our identity is not rooted in how we perform."
2 Timothy 2:5 β¦ And alsoΒ if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
Four years ago, the calling of God called for a new role in Athletics β sports chaplain.
Cory Tubbs, a former college soccer player who previously worked in GCU Spiritual Life, became a spiritual sounding board for the Lopes. Whether it be with teams or individually with student-athletes, TubbsΒ strengthens their spiritual side just as sports performance coaches make them more powerful in the weight room."I believe athletics not only can be used as a tool to help us grow and put our character to the test, but also as a way for believers to worship God by utilizing the gifts and talents he has given them to enjoy His creation," Tubbs said.
Β
"I also believe it has a unique way to help form community and bring people together, and I believe people are more prone to grow healthier when they feel united in purpose with others."
Β
Tubbs was the men's soccer team chaplain before the University wanted his role dedicated to all student-athletes and coaches.
Β
The coaches ask him to make early season introductions to the campus' Spiritual Life, pray before events and give in-season sermons that relate the Bible to team topics such as communication and leadership.
"It is so desired to be implemented into everything we're doing in Athletics," Tubbs said. "A lot of schools give that kind of stuff up as they get bigger, but that is something that we've kept in place."
Tubbs holds a fulfilling position to enhance or ensure the student-athletes' spiritual well-being. But it can be more gratifying to watch it unfold at a game or practice or hear about GCU All-American high jumper Ethan Harris staging a track and field Bible study at his home.
"Their teammates are around them all the time, so it's awesome to see them influencing each other to find their faith and be transformed in ways that they hadn't before," Tubbs said. "I love to see them putting God first in everything they do and offering those big moments to Him."
GCU Men's Basketball vs. Northern Illinois - Halftime with Jamie Boggs
Wednesday, November 12
Bella Nunez | Women's Volleyball
Monday, November 10
Head Coach Bryce Drew Sits Down with Daron Sutton
Tuesday, November 04
Inside the Locker Room: Coach Drewβs Pregame Message to Team
Tuesday, November 04