{"id":121789,"date":"2014-05-04T13:19:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-04T17:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=121789"},"modified":"2014-08-29T13:32:28","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T17:32:28","slug":"keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting faith into SI story of patient D-League hoops star"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Once again, I realize that the world of GetReligion readers seems to contain a stunningly low percentage of sports fans, especially in comparison with the American public as a whole. Nevertheless, I follow sports quite closely and I have always been fascinated by the unusually high percentage of sports stories that include faith angles.<\/p>\n

Most of the time \u2014 take the whole Baltimore Sun<\/em> ignoring Ravens<\/a> religion-angles thrend \u2014 my GetReligion posts on sports have been rather negative. You know the kind of story I\u2019m talking about. A sports star plays the God card or offers a highly specific comment about the role of faith in his or her life and a journalists never looks into the details or offers any context for these words.<\/p>\n

The negative tone is so common, in fact, that people drop me notes from time to time wanting to know if anyone covering sports ever gets one of these stories right. Well, remember that amazing Sports Illustrated<\/em> story<\/a> about the great UCLA hoops patriarch John Wooden and the challenge he faced, and met, learning to embrace the great center Lew Alcindor as he made his pilgrimage into Islam and became Kareem Abdul Jabbar<\/a>? <\/p>\n

Well, now a member of the SI<\/em> staff \u2014 one Lee Jenkins \u2014 has provided another wonderful example of getting the faith-angle right<\/a>. This time around, we\u2019re talking about a back-of-the-book feature about a player who is just as obscure as Jabbar is famous. The man\u2019s name is Ron Howard of the Fort Wayne, Ind., Mad Ants franchise in the NBA\u2019s Development League and he recently broke the career scoring record for a player in this minor-league circuit.<\/p>\n

As Jenkins states it (heads of fans up great sports flicks):<\/p>\n

On March 29, Howard sank yet another pull-up from the left wing at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. The game stopped. The crowd of 4,024 stood for three minutes. Fans sobbed. Joyner ran to the parking lot and fetched the carrot cake with cream-cheese icing, cooling in her car. Howard\u2019s 4,254th point set a D-League record, recalling Crash Davis\u2019s 247th home run. \u201cA dubious kind of honor,\u201d Crash says in the bush league classic Bull Durham. \u201cI think it\u2019d be great,\u201d Annie Savoy replies. \u201cThe Sporting News<\/em> should know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Crash Davis, Howard has been to the Show, if only for a sip of coffee. After his first year in Fort Wayne he signed with the Bucks and played in the preseason. When they released him, coach Scott Skiles said, \u201cYou\u2019re good enough for the NBA.\u201d Since then the D-League has reported 235 call-ups, but none for Howard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, as it turns out, that carrot cake and the fan named Cindy Joyner are in the story\u2019s short, lovely lede \u2014 which offers the first hint at the religion angle in this piece:<\/p>\n

The night he made history, Mr. Mad Ant drove back to the seminary and ate carrot cake.<\/p>\n

The dessert was a gift from Cindy Joyner, who bought season tickets seven years ago, when the NBA\u2019s Development League awarded an expansion franchise to her hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind. The team was dubbed the Mad Ants after the city\u2019s namesake, Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne, and there were open tryouts to fill the roster. More than 120 hoop dreamers showed up at Indiana Tech in October 2007, paying $150 a head. Ron Howard, an unemployed 24-year-old living in a Chicago apartment with his wife and daughter, was an hour late.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho arrives an hour late?\u201d recalls Howard, confused by the time change between Chicago and Fort Wayne. \u201cI was too embarrassed to go in.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back to the seminary?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The whole point of this story is to capture the dignity and depth in the life of this wiry, 31-year-old hoops professional, who spent his college years \u2014 as the story notes \u2014 \u201cbacking up Dwyane Wade at Marquette.\u201d Howard, as noted, spent a few days in the NBA and he also tried his hand at pro hoops in China, Australia, Israel and Venezuela. However, Rod and his wife Reesha kept coming back to Fort Wayne, where the locals call them \u201cMr. and Mrs. Mad Ant.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the big idea, you see. Instead of seeing this D-league stop as a cage, they saw it as a place to play and serve.<\/p>\n

They live in a four-bedroom house at Concordia Theological Seminary with their daughters, seven-year-old Chloe and three-year-old Peyton. They run a sports and arts camp for kindergartners through eighth-graders every summer. They conduct a Christmas toy drive. Ron volunteers at a food bank, mentors boys at Northwood Middle School and coaches girls at South Side High. He has won the league\u2019s sportsmanship award two years in a row. \u2026<\/p>\n

Howard drives to every home game with his wife and daughters, and as they turn down Clinton Street toward the arena, they say a prayer. \u201cWe used to pray for Ron to make the NBA, but now I realize that\u2019s so foolish,\u201d says Reesha. \u201cWe just thank God for allowing him to do what he loves. I never wanted to be one of those Basketball Wives anyway. We\u2019ve gotten so much more out of being here. We\u2019ve gotten a real home.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that\u2019s that. Please read it all, to see how the pieces of this mini-drama fit together. But I was left with one question: Why is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mad Ant at a Missouri-Synod Lutheran Seminary<\/a>? Might there be a story there, too?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again, I realize that the world of GetReligion readers seems to contain a stunningly low percentage of sports fans, especially in comparison with the American public as a whole. Nevertheless, I follow sports quite closely and I have always been fascinated by the unusually high percentage of sports stories that include faith angles. Most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18,12,21],"tags":[443,3247,3248,970,3236,3237,3238,2814],"class_list":["post-121789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-people","category-religion","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-bull-durham","tag-crash-davis","tag-lutheran-church-missouri-synod","tag-mad-ants","tag-nba-d-league","tag-ron-howard","tag-sports-illustrated"],"yoast_head":"\nGetting faith into SI story of patient D-League hoops star<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Once again, I realize that the world of GetReligion readers seems to contain a stunningly low percentage of sports fans, especially in comparison with the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Getting faith into SI story of patient D-League hoops star\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Once again, I realize that the world of GetReligion readers seems to contain a stunningly low percentage of sports fans, especially in comparison with the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GetReligion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-04T17:19:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-29T17:32:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/files\/2014\/04\/ron_mvp_650.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/\",\"name\":\"Getting faith into SI story of patient D-League hoops star\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-04T17:19:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-08-29T17:32:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\"},\"description\":\"Once again, I realize that the world of GetReligion readers seems to contain a stunningly low percentage of sports fans, especially in comparison with the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/keeping-faith-in-si-story-of-a-patient-d-league-hoops-star\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Getting faith into SI story of patient D-League hoops star\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/\",\"name\":\"GetReligion\",\"description\":\""The press . . . just doesn't get religion." - 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