Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
What a year it has been for religion-in-sports stories. The year started off with Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy leading his team to a Super Bowl victory proclaiming the power of God at every opportunity, followed by a series of religion and baseball-related stories.
You may have noticed that the professional sports arena is, well, a bit soiled at the moment. All kinds of people — including some muscular Christians — are finding out that repentance is never an easy thing to do in public.
We rarely, rarely cover the work of religious publications here — because that is not what GetReligion.org is about.
The day that Redskins safety Sean Taylor was declared dead, Leonard Shapiro of The Washington Post wrote a column exploring the reasons for Taylor’s murder. Shapiro wrote that he could not say ultimately why Taylor was killed.
Unless you are a sports fan, you may not know that the Washington, D.C., area has headed into that strange zone in which people gather in the public square for prayer meetings that end with emotional renditions of “Hail to the Redskins.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Mary Kay Cabot wrote up an interesting profile about Browns kicker Phil Dawson. Last Sunday the Browns had an amazing 33-30 overtime victory over the Baltimore Ravens. Dawson had kicked the game-winning field goal as well as a 51-yarder to send the game into overtime.
The troubles in the family of Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid is a difficult story for reporters to cover. In many ways, one would wish for the story to just go away. Coach Reid’s family life is in public disarray. A judge has publicly castigated him about his abilities as a parent and his two oldest sons are in prison because of their long-standing drug addictions.
