Two years on from a crazy month where faith a sport became one entity: three Christian Athletes who dominated the secular headlines in the same month.
Two years ago I wrote a story about three Christian athletes who were dominating the headlines of the sporting world. I thought it would be fun to take another look at their journey's and see where their faith and talents have taken them.
American sports in dominated by the big three, NFL, the NBA and MLB. These three sports contain the athletes that are the best of the best. The greatest strength, power, agility and skill required to make it at this level is the reason why athletes across America are multi millionaires living in a billion dollar industry.
Currently each of these three sporting codes have a major story dominating the headlines, and from a spiritual point of view you couldn't have aligned three better athletes that are currently combining to dominate the media, day in and day out.
Tim Tebow, Albert Pujoils and now Jeremy Lin, are all in their own light carrying their faith with them in an amazing way. Each of the three guys are special athletes with tremendous leadership skills.
But perhaps their greatest skill is that amidst all of the competitiveness that comes with being a professional athlete and the pressures of the media and social networks, each of these men have maintained their spiritual walk and Christian purpose.
Some may say their faith has carried them to achieve greatness and others say their amazing for keeping their faith under extreme pressure.
Tim Tebow never relented on the way he integrates his faith into his football career, even under a constant international media barrage. Although now retired he will always be remembered as one of the greatest ever college players in American Football. His brief NFL career was filled with many ups and down, but it is fair to say he will be remembered for his comeback games where he carried the Denver Broncos to a very unlikely journey to the play-offs.
Albert for the past decade has been a beacon of hope in Major League Baseball he continues to thrive under the American sun on the diamond across ballparks throughout the entire country. At some stage time will catch him and start the process of eroding his skills but until then his swing will remain as string as his faith.
Jeremy Lin was undrafted as an NBA player and was only three days away from being released before he got his chance to broadcast his profound God given talents on a truly global world scale. Now that the "Linsanity" rage has died down we are about to find out what Jeremy Lin is made of. Anchored to a side that in underperforming and help in sight it will be interesting to see how this season rides out for the once mighty Los Angeles Lakers.
It was the first time in history where three Christian athletes have completely dominated the sports media at the same time . There's no tougher media group in the world that you have to face as an athlete and the way these guys continue under pressure is a great inspiration to all of us.
Josh Hinds is a school chaplain on the Gold Coast, a family man and PSI's IT professional. Josh is an experienced writer on international sport.
Josh Hinds' previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/joshua-hinds.html