Let us play: the fact that Sunday afternoon football games attract at least as much devotion as Sunday morning church services is evidence that athletics is a near religion in America. Is there something sacramental about sports?

Consider the similarities between football devotion and religious worship: Every fall weekend thousands of students and alumni here drape themselves in sacred colors (orange and blue), bear on their bodies images of their religious totem (gators), snake across the Southeast in long pilgrimage lines (car caravans), in their journey to houses of worship (football stadiums), where they sing hymns ("We Are the Boys of Old Florida"), drone chants ("defense, defense"), and participate in rituals (the Gator Chomp, the Two Bits cheer) in worship of their saint-like team (quarterback Danny Wuerffel) and superhuman coach (Steve Spurrier)."

This description by University of Florida religion professor David Hackett back when the Gators reigned as national champions--could be of just about any sports venue in America. Clearly, sports can serve as a metaphor for religion. Skeptics might condemn sports, particularly professional sports, as a godless religion, a pagan extravagance witness, please, the Super Bowl yet sports can transcend the metaphor to provide an experience of God to spectators and participants alike.

For those not inclined to worship the pigskin, there are other denominations. Annie Savoy, Susan Sarandon's character in Bull Durham, put her faith in the Church of Baseball. "I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones," she said. "I've worshiped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms and Isadora Duncan.... I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball.... I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball."

Fair ball!

Boston faced elimination. The Cincinnati Reds led the 1975 World Series three games to two. If Boston was to finally snap the legendary curse cast upon the team by a resentful Babe Ruth in 1918, the Red Sox had to win Game 6. The Red Sox grabbed an early 3-0 lead in the first inning, but the Reds came back, going up 6-3, and the Fenway faithful feared the bad luck that broke their hearts in 1946, 1949, and 1967 would prevail.

Boston tied the game in the eighth and with the score stalled at six apiece, Carlton Fisk led off the bottom of the 12th. The Red Sox catcher knocked a tall shot down the left field line. He watched the ball, and the world watched him in the now indelible image, madly waving the ball fair. The ball struck the pole--home run, Sox win! Fisk leapt for joy, and Fenway organist John Kiley broke into Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus."

At first blush, Kiley's exuberance appears over the top. The Lord God is indeed king, but not by any swing of a bat. And Fisk, though a local hero, was not the Messiah as we know him. Yet the scene in Fenway, with fans "dancing and shouting and kissing and leaping about" (by Roger Angell's description) echoed King David's enthusiasm upon returning the ark of God to Jerusalem, when he and the Israelites "made merry before the Lord with all their strength" (2 Sam. 6:5).

Marvin Olasky, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and editor-in-chief of the Christian news magazine World, cautions, "Christians should avoid two mistakes regarding baseball or other sports: either worshiping them and those who excel within them, or disdaining them, because sports can so readily become a substitute form of worship."

Fisk's home run at 12:33 a.m. set off church bells across New England throughout the night. Just as the Bethlehem shepherds rejoiced when God became human, New Englanders rejoiced that Fisk, the local boy from Vermont--one of them--had saved their team from elimination, temporarily delivering the Red Sox from the Babe's curse. They did not confuse him for the one who could deliver them from their sins, but on that night, he was their lower-case messiah.

Fisk delivered hope, and Red Sox fans rejoiced over the triumph of the human spirit. "It is not surprising that we will learn much about ourselves as Christians--what it means for us to survive as well as flourish as God's people--by attending to the relationship among our faith, baseball, and God" writes Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas in the foreword to The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture (Westminster John Knox). He elaborates that appreciating the talents and accomplishments of athletes is somewhat like "what it means to observe the lives of the saints."

Jesse Jackson stopped just short of canonizing Jackie Robinson in his eulogy for the baseball player whose life was a crusade for racial equality and justice. "God shielded and protected him so he could work the good that he did," Jackson preached at Robinson's funeral in 1972. "Jackie was an instrument of peace. God put him to a higher purpose, breaking the color barrier, opening doors of opportunity."

Olasky's caution to avoid hero worship is well-heeded--for there are certainly those guilty as charged--but Jackie Robinson reminds us that there have been, and will continue to be, athletes who can inspire and edify us.

Transcendence in a stadium

No one who was in Fenway that October 1975 night will forget the feeling. For many, the ball plunking off the foul pole became their burning bush.

"If there's a universal understanding of what an experience of the transcendent is, and if that involves a feeling of timelessness and a dropping of ego boundaries, the connection to people around you in a critical moment of a football game (or other sport) that seems to go on for hours, you could say that's tantamount to an experience of the transcendent," explains Hackett, a religious historian and a Catholic.

The feeling that united New England and Red Sox fans everywhere, the sense of community we crave, draws us to sport and can become a sacramental moment, Hackett believes. He points to the ritual of driving to a game, parking, then joining others walking toward the stadium in numbers that swell as fans draw closer.

"I think the reason people go to football games is for the experience of community more than the experience of winning or losing;' he says." If religion is a communal experience, something that happens corporately, then football games offer an experience of connectedness to one another, and in that connectedness there can be an experience of the transcendent."

Financial analyst Cory Jackson has felt that sense of community as a fan and as a former college hockey player. "It becomes a spiritual experience for me at times when I feel the emotion and power of the crowd responding to the event," says Jackson, who skated for St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Rituals can open one to the experience. A repetitive hymn before the Liturgy of the Eucharist can open one to the experience of God in the consecration. So, too, chanted cheers can open one to sport's sacrament. "Repetitive actions or songs done over a period of time are the vehicles of entering into the sacred," Hackett says.

As with prayer, one must arrive with the proper openness and preparedness. "Going to church and participating in the ritual does not guarantee a sacramental experience," Hackett reminds. "It has to do with the attitude you have. Being into the game and crowd and the experience is going to allow that to happen as opposed to going on a date with the feeling you have to be there."

Writer Thomas Bowden picks up the pilgrimage into the baseball stadium where Hackett leaves off: "R's the moment when I first glimpse the bright, lush green grass of the playing field. That little patch of green--so vivid in contrast to the grey concrete of the narrow tunnel that frames my view as I walk up the ramp towards the seats--is my private welcome to a different world, the sporting world, where all my values come into sharper focus and brighter reality.... That first flash of green beckons me to a world where I can relax and celebrate human skill, dedication, and success in a spirit of simple joy."

Bowden describes a transformative moment, entering the light from the world of darkness. In addition to the connection with others and God, fans flock to the stadium craving this redemptive possibility of sport.

Pediatric cardiologist Patrick Frias majored in theology at Creighton University but is a die-hard University of Florida fan who admits he prays the Gators will win big games. He has experienced more than a few transcendent moments at sports stadiums.

"When somebody is injured on the field, and maybe this kid's life hangs in the balance, people in the stadium may be from opposite sides but suddenly they come together, praying that the guy will make it;' the doctor says. "That gives me a chill and puts the game in perspective."

Is God keeping score?

Contrast that with the more familiar image today of Barry Bonds blasting a shot into the upper deck and pointing skyward, or Cris Carter taking a knee in the end zone. The gestures seem out of place on the playing field, acts that draw more attention to the individual than to the glory of God.

"It's an inappropriate application of prayer," comments Shirl Hoffman, professor of exercise and sports science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and author of Sport and Religion (Human Kinetics).

"I think they mean well, but given the atmosphere in which these [gestures] are played out, it's more confusing than inspirational. It suggests that God helped the wide receiver catch the pass. You can't think that way unless you also think God somehow interfered with the efforts of the defender. Then you get into God getting involved as a celestial spectator who takes an interest in who wins. The superficiality of it is mind-numbing."

In spite of Notre Dame's "Touchdown Jesus" the library mural above the end zone that appears to celebrate every Fighting Irish score, it is silly to think that God cares about the outcome of games. Top coaches admit as much.

Notre Dame alumnus and coach of two-time defending NCAA champion men's hockey team at the University of Minnesota Don Lucia admits to lighting a candle before each of his team's last two national title games but says he prayed for his players to play to the best of their abilities rather than explicitly for victory.

Even with the "Miracle on Ice," the greatest upset in sports history, when the young United States hockey team defeated the Soviet juggernaut and went on to win Olympic gold in 1980, it's doubtful that the Almighty bestowed upon anyone specific powers akin to those that turned water to wine and cured the sick. Coach Herb Brooks said: "A friend of mine, a minister, told me, 'Let's not get carried away with this miracle stuff. That's for the good Lord, but it sure was one hell of an upset.'"

So the finger pointing to the sky is a superficial gesture, but what about the sublime beauty of the supple swing? Can the beauty and grace inherent in exceptional or momentous athletic achievements beckon us to deeper appreciation and understanding of God? Yes, maybe.

"You can appreciate the giftedness of athletes and the significance of their activity just as you might see dance as a spiritual expression," says Brenda Light Bredemeier, codirector of the Mendelson Center for Sports, Character, and Community at the University of Notre Dame. "Yet we can't see what's in a person's heart."

Hoffman agrees. "It can cause us some wonderment at the marvelous human body, and recognizing the creator in what the human body is capable of," he says. "Beauty always invokes a sense of wonderment, hut I'm not sure that beauty is the same thing as the awe that German religious historian Rudolf Otto talks about as this awe one senses before the face of God."

Still, in the same way that one of Michelangelo's sculptures might point the beholder toward God, the fan might glimpse the divine in a spectacular or clutch play. "God is analogous to the effortlessness of that way of being," says Hauerwas. "But you've got to be careful with the language of revelation. God showed up in Israel in the person of Jesus Christ in a way that God doesn't show up elsewhere."

In the zone

Some may behold God as spectators; others find God in the doing. The late George Sheehan, a middle-aged New Jersey cardiologist-turned-marathon-runner, documented his mystical experiences in the 1978 bestseller Running & Being (Second Wind II):"There on a country road, moving at eight miles an hour, I discover the total universe, the natural and the supernatural that wise men speculate about."

Bredemeier affirms this experience. Indeed, her institute is founded upon the belief that spirituality is embedded in sports. "Sports experiences themselves are rooted in mystery and zeal, the way people feel such deep joy not only because--they won or lost but because of the experience--they touch on the wellsprings of our human passion;' says Bredemeier.

The way that one can lose a sense of oneself and become open to meaning beyond individuality can trigger a sacramental moment in sports.

"When you experience the beauty and the mystery of what for you is an exceptional performance and really see the beauty and mystery of what you've done with the full body and spirit, there's an awareness of the giftedness of life, an understanding right out of the Bible that we are more than our own being and effort," Bredemeier says. "You're united with something beyond that, this understanding of grace that our performance and lives are more than our own efforts. You meet God at your boundaries."

Those moments can deepen faith upon reflection. Individual sports such as running or golf might lend themselves more to this experience because of their contemplative orientation. Yet competition can be the rub that robs any sport of its religious element. "It's harder to have this experience [of God] the higher the competitive level you move to," Bredemeier observes. "The more winning matters, the less space there is for this spirituality."

Hoffman concurs. "It can't be played out in an environment where players are conditioned to treat opponents as enemies and become insensitive to them as human beings;' he says. "I see that as anti-religious." Still, team sports may offer moments of sidestepping antagonistic competition and entering a holy communion with one's teammates. For example, former basketball great Bill Bradley marveled at the mysticism of the back-door play: the way one could be running down the court, suddenly make the right cut, have the guard see him and the ball arrive at exactly the right moment. It's entering the zone or flow with others.

"In sport you transcend the separations between you and your teammates," Bredemeier says. "As human beings it's hard to imagine you could work together this well. There's a sense of life-giving energy and force that's somehow beyond you."

If you build it

Not everyone who buys a ticket or picks up a basketball will encounter God. Much depends on the individual's openness to the experience and reflection upon it. For the believers, though, there's agreement that such an experience of God in sport will not leave them the same.

JOHN ROSENGREN is a Minnesota writer and the author of Blades of Glory: The True Story of Championship D reams and a Young Team Bred to Win (Sourcebooks Trade, 2003).