Athletes summon new spirit

Members of the University of Hawai'i's men's basketball game often engage in a group meditation before games. The basketball players are among a small but growing number of athletes at the University of Hawai'i and elsewhere who are starting to see spiritual practice as a way of enhancing the mind-body focus. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

•	"Meditation is like food for me. It gives me that energy to move on in my daily life, makes me more clear. " Maja gustin UH women's volleyball team

Last semester, University of Hawai'i football player Nkeruwem "Tony" Akpan and basketball standout Phil Martin learned Hojo kata, an Eastern form of training with swords, during a class on Japanese philosophy that 24 varsity athletes attended.

Star volleyball player Maja Gustin meditates every morning before breakfast.

And before each home game, any team member of a major UH sport who wishes to may gather at the end of a table in prayer with Athletes in Action, a national group affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ.

As players focus on their bodies and minds, there's a move afoot to incorporate the spiritual aspect of life into the life of athletes. Often, they're lured with a carrot promising that spiritual efforts will enhance physical performance.

Others are hoping that a greater emphasis on spirituality will bring with it better sportsmanship, especially after the recent Hawai'i Bowl brawl broadcast on ESPN. Akpan, among those suspended for a game next season after the Christmas Day disturbance, said he's learned from the experience and is tapping his faith to help get him through.

"If something knocks you off, you don't lose hope but work harder," the defensive end said. "... The road may be rocky, you may fall down. It's hard to get back. This is the rough road."

Akpan added that he chooses not to look back with regret.

"I think God is helping me already," said the West African, whose mother grounded him in her Christian faith. "Mom is a strong believer. I know she is praying for me every day. God loves her so much, God's going to look over me."

The makings of "spiritual warriors," as sports counselor and professor Michael D'Andrea calls them, is a complex process indeed.

While getting rooted in some kind of spiritual awareness isn't a necessity for UH athletes — the hardwood is, as Coach Riley Wallace emphatically points out, an unreligious setting — you're as likely these days to hear athletes thank God for their winning plays as you are to see Michael Kuebler make a free throw.

But do they really call up their spirituality in times of peak performance?

That depends on the player — and on the team. Gustin credits her spirituality as keeping her focused. Former UH quarterbacks Shawn Withy-Allen and Johnny Macon and kicker Carlton Oswalt speak openly of their faith.

Former UH basketball player Phil Handy didn't play Friday nights in high school because he observed that as the Sabbath. UH volleyball player Joshua Stanhiser, a Seventh-day Adventist, reluctantly plays on Friday nights, his faith's Sabbath.

But they aren't in the majority.

"From my own college playing experience, there weren't a lot of football players interested in pursuing the Christian faith," said Rick Stinton, who took over for Mike Buchanan as the pastor leading the Athletes in Action pre-game prayer service.

Stinton, who played college football at the University of Calgary, was drafted by the Calgary Stampeders as a linebacker but got the cut at training camp.

In his college days, there would be just a half-a-dozen players at the pre-game chapel services, out of 50. The percentage here in Hawai'i is much higher, he says, drawing a dozen or more players at football prayer services and about four players at basketball services.

Athletes "definitely overslant the life of the body and the mind. Everybody knows the mental part, you have to be mentally on your game. But there isn't a lot of focus on the spiritual," Stinton said.

"My conviction is that people are a combination of mind-body-spirit, but the emphasis for athletes goes to body and mind, and less for spirit."

He's hoping Athletes in Action helps counter that.

Karl Frogner, who co-taught last semester's Japanese philosophy class for athletes with professors D'Andrea and Judy Daniels as well as Graham Parkes, adds that different sports have different cultures. A "football culture," for example, may be more aggressive than a "volleyball culture" or a "basketball culture."

Basketball players shake hands after each game with the opposing team. Volleyball players bestow lei on visitors.

Maja Gustin, a UH volleyball player, draws energy from daily meditation. Advertiser library photo • Jan. 10, 2003 Sports, faith and media coverage Should journalists cover athlete's religion? Several Web sites take up that topic: The Sports Ethics Institute, a Maryland-based group, raised the question about journalists covering athletes' religion. Its Web page has links to stories on the topic. The Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life (Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.) takes on the topic of athletes discussing religion.

Daniels, D'Andrea's partner as well as a fellow sports counselor, says that while the pair works regularly with the volleyball and basketball teams, both men's and women's, they are only called in for special cases with the football team. Coach June Jones contends that each line coach also should be part sports counselor, D'Andrea explained.

But Daniels and D'Andrea do take it upon themselves to try to round out athletes, teaching skills that will help not only on the court, but in life.

One exercise, "the pulse," teaches connectedness: The team, players and coaches form a circle, holding hands. One person squeezes the hand of the person next to him. The recipient then responds by squeezing the hand of the next person, and so on.

The response time may be slow at first — say, 28 seconds — to get the pulse around the circle, but after practice working as a single unit, the rapid-fire pulse eventually moves faster and faster.

When the athletes are really working in sync, the pulse can pass through the circle in as little as five seconds, D'Andrea said.

As explained in "The Rainbow Circle of Excellence," a book D'Andrea wrote with Wallace and Daniels about their winning 2000-2001 season, this increases the positive connection between athletes.

But even the most spiritually grounded athletes can find themselves in a brawl, Stinton said.

"Even if you are pursuing life of spirit, you can get caught in emotions," he said. "You still can be overcome by the boiling over of emotion, though ideally the fruit of the spirit life brings self-control."

College athletes have added stress, in and out of the arena. Besides regular practice and games, they carry full academic loads, travel, face pressure to succeed and here in Hawai'i, may wilt under the added limelight.

Add that to being a young adult and college student, and one can understand how the spiritual life may be lacking.

However UH senior Gustin, middle blocker for the women's volleyball team, keeps centered throughout it all with Siddha yoga.

"Meditation cleans my mind, connects me with my own self," she said. "... In school, I can focus more, whatever I study. Meditation gives me a lot of patience. In sports, they call it 'to be in a zone.' Meditation can give me that."

Though reared without religion in Slovenia, she uses her newfound meditative practice to hone her inner spiritual warrior. She was also among the 24 athletes in the Japanese philosophy class.

"Meditation is like food for me," Gustin said. "It gives me that energy to move on in my daily life, makes me more clear. A lot of people think meditation is like dreaming, but it's opposite. We meditate to be active in daily life."

Reach Mary Kaye Ritz at mritz@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8035.