Between NIL deals, the transfer portal and sports taking over free weekends and family dinners, it can be easy to lose sight of what sports are supposed to provide in the first place.
Even at the high school level, sports have become increasingly obsessed with what comes next: the next contract, the next transfer, the next scholarship, the next level. However, three people connected to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) organization say the value of sports goes beyond the scoreboard.
Long-term baseball coach Pat Bailey, three-time Olympic gold medalist Leah Amico and FCA Tri-Cities leader Zenon Thornton have each seen how sports can develop character and relationships — and, through their Christian faith, believe those lessons transcend winning.
“What you allow, you encourage. What you permit, you promote,” Bailey said on The Sports Council.
As a coach for 42 years, Bailey — who experienced a high school state championship, a national championship as the head baseball coach at George Fox University and as an assistant head coach at Oregon State University — has had a front-row seat to how sports have changed.
Bailey is now FCA’s Multi-Area Director for the Willamette Valley region, where he uses his passion for sports and his Christian faith to encourage young athletes in their walk with Jesus Christ.
While coaching collegiate baseball, Bailey watched the relationship between athletes, their teams and the sport itself change as NIL and the transfer portal shaped college athletics.
His concern with the platforms isn’t just money. It’s what happens when money becomes the most important aspect.
“We are created to be in relationship,” Bailey said.
When constantly chasing the next opportunity causes an athlete to focus on themself and not their teammates, coaches or community, Bailey believes something has been lost.
For Bailey, the alternative to constantly looking for the next paycheck or winning team isn’t complacency. It’s learning to grow through adversity.
He recalled an OSU player who wanted to transfer after struggling to find playing time. Bailey encouraged him to stay, work with his coach and keep improving rather than immediately looking for something else.
The player stayed at OSU and eventually became a second-round pick as a junior.
For Bailey, the experience showed why adversity can be valuable instead of something athletes should always try to avoid.
“Adversity is good for us. It molds us. It makes us better human beings,” Bailey said.
Bailey’s belief that adversity can shape an athlete is a philosophy Amico lived firsthand long before she became an Olympian.
At the University of Arizona, Amico had established herself as a pitcher and first baseman when her coach moved her to outfield, a position she had never played before.
Instead of resisting the change, Amico asked her coach to teach her. She approached the position with the mindset of someone starting from scratch.
“I just became like a 10-year-old kid just trying to soak up everything I could,” Amico said.
What initially looked like a setback became part of what made Amico a more versatile athlete.
Learning a new position forced her to adapt and keep working through the discomfort of not knowing what she was doing.
“The resilience that was built through the process helped me long term even with Team USA,” Amico said.
Her Christian faith also changed how Amico understood success. Rather than allowing her athletic performance to determine her identity, she found consistency in understanding who God had made her to be.
While Amico’s experience shows how learning to adapt can benefit an athlete at the highest levels, Thornton’s work with FCA focuses on creating those opportunities for athletes before they even reach college sports.
As the FCA Tri-Cities leader, Thornton works with coaches and athletes through programs ranging from coaches clinics to school huddles, youth sports leagues and camps.
The organization’s approach puts particular emphasis on coaches, who Thornton said have a major influence on the culture of their teams.
“The coach coaches people, but who’s coaching the coach?” Thornton said.
That influence becomes especially important as youth sports become more focused on year-round training and the possibility of playing at the next level.
Thornton pointed to the reality that most young athletes will never make a career out of their sport.
“Not every kid’s going to go pro,” Thornton said.
That does not make the time spent playing sports less valuable.
The experience of athletics can also include new friendships, travel and time with teammates that happen outside of competition.
“There’s a place for the scoreboard, but there’s also a place for fun because that’s why we do sports…” Thornton said. “Most kids and people remember from their sports career is the bus rides and the hotels and the fun things that happened, not the wins and losses.”
Bailey, Amico and Thornton approach sports from different positions, but their perspective comes from the same place: a Christian belief that an athlete’s identity is bigger than their performance.
Competition still matters. Winning still matters. However, neither is meant to determine an athlete’s worth.