People

Faith & Commitment
In University Life

CATIE PELLERIN

Senior fencer Angad Singh was used to being singled out. He was the only student in his high school of 3000 that wore a turban, an article of faith essential to observing the full discipline of the Sikh religion.

Growing up in post-9/11 America, he found himself subject to bullying, questioning, and ignorance because his turban set him apart from his classmates.

But all of that changed when he came to Columbia University.

“What blew my mind was that people don’t really care that much here,” he said. “And I had to for the first time learn to interact with people, Americans, as just a person, as opposed to ‘Hi, my name is Angad, this is the reason why I wear a turban.’”

Like Angad, many student athletes come to Columbia looking to find an outlet for their faith. And Athletics has formalized its commitment to faith in a number of ways. Football coach Al Bagnoli recently added a spiritual adviser to help guide Christian athletes on his team.

But many athletes find a religious community on campus in one of the 37 recognized faith-based student groups on campus. Getting involved with these groups has given spiritual student-athletes a way to connect with their respective faiths and find another Columbia community outside of athletics.

For religious athletes, faith can help them find the strength to excel on the field — and survive the agony of loss.

RELIGIOUS ROOTS

Senior men’s basketball guard Isaac Cohen attended a parochial high school that strengthened his faith and provided a community of spiritual support.

When choosing Columbia, he did not expect to find an extensive faith community in Morningside Heights.

“My expectations were pretty much like, ‘This is going to be a test for me, and it’s just going to be on me to do it by myself, like go to church by myself’,” Cohen said.

Similarly, senior women’s soccer defender Cadie Naquin attended Notre Dame Prep, a Catholic high school in Scottsdale, Arizona.

At Notre Dame Prep, “no one questioned what I believed or why I believed it, according to Naquin.

FINDING THEIR PLACE

Like Angad Singh, many student-athletes were surprised by the diversity of perspectives and strength of the spiritual communities they found on campus.

Angad is a member of Columbia Sewa, a community service organization based on the Sikh value of sewa, which means selfless service. The group includes members of the Sikh religion as well as other faiths.

Naquin joined both Columbia Right to Life and Columbia Catholic Ministry in her first year, and she now serves as the president of Right to Life and the co-president of the Catholic Ministry.

“It’s been so fun because it’s such an unpopular view on campus, but there’s really so much in it for so many people,” Naquin said of her role with Right to Life. “And to have people feel comfortable enough to express that side of them, I think, is a really cool thing.”

Columbia’s student groups can be especially important for athletes who grew up within strong faith-based communities.

Growing up, sophomore Jake Tuckerman, a mid-distance runner for Columbia’s track team, had always spent the Jewish High Holidays with his family.

“High Holidays, at least for me, are a tough time because I used to go to services with my family on a regular basis,” he said.

When he came to Columbia he got involved with Columbia/Barnard Hillel, which offered him not only the convenience of on-campus services, but also the support of a larger community.

Tuckerman was not alone in making the adjustment from growing up in a faith-based household to finding his own path at Columbia.

BRINGING FAITH TO THE FIELD

Senior Joshua Foster, a wide receiver on the football team, grew up in the Methodist church as the son of a pastor. For him, that meant finding time for church every Sunday in between his practices and games. At Columbia he continued to attend church on his own.

Soon thereafter, he was introduced to Jim Black, the director of undergraduate ministry for Columbia Faith and Action.

Black came to Columbia in 2011 after serving as a senior pastor in Houston, Texas for nine years to start the Columbia Faith and Action (CFA) ministry. Since its inception, CFA has been tightly linked to Columbia’s athletic community.

Black estimates that 30-40 student-athletes are involved with CFA today -- and the ministry now offers athlete specific Bible studies to fit their demanding schedules.

But Foster was the first football player to join the ministry. He has been actively involved in the group, serving as a Bible course leader in their weekly Illumina group and introducing some of his teammates to CFA.

Black met Foster and some of his teammates as the team fell into its recently broken 24 game losing streak.

“I had watched the last three years pretty closely with some of the football players and had seen how hard that journey had been, and just spent a lot of time with them trying to encourage them, praying with them,” he said.

When Black learned that the football program had hired head coach Al Bagnoli to lead the team last spring, he was as excited about the program’s transition as some of the players he had come to know. At that point he reached out to Bagnoli to thank him for taking the position.

“I didn’t have anything in mind really,” Black said. “But I just got his email and I wrote him and just said, ‘I want you to know that I know quite a few young men—seven or eight—on the football team, they’re dear friends of mine. I really want to thank you for coming. They’re so encouraged. If I can be of any assistance just let me know.’”

REDEFINING THE ROLE

Black’s correspondence with Bagnoli resulted in him volunteering his time as a religious resource for Christian members of the team.

“In my other life we used to have reverends around us all the time who would actually travel with us,” Bagnoli said of his time as the head coach of Penn’s football team. “It’s had a pretty long precedent in my other life, so I was trying to take it and carry it over.”

Columbia’s football program had a team chaplain under head coach Norries Wilson, who offered spiritual guidance and conducted prayer services for interested players. But former head coach Pete Mangurian got rid of the position.

Now Black and Bagnoli are working together to redefine a role for his ministry for any interested players. Black attends Tuesday practices, and makes himself available to pray with the players afterward. He offers a football specific bible study as well.

For Bagnoli, this service is yet another resource to help build a well-rounded program for the student-athletes.

“I think it’s like a lot of things that you do in sports: It could be nutritionists, it could be your speed coaches, your strength coaches. This is just another vehicle to try to help our kids,” Black said. “And hopefully that translates into them being a better student, better athlete, better human being.”

FINDING BALANCE

Black has made special arrangements for the student-athletes to be able to fit Bible study into schedules already filled with classes, practices, conditioning, and competitions.

Finding time for religious commitments in addition to an Ivy League course load and Division I varsity athletics can be a difficult balancing act. But for Cohen, making time for church and Bible study has become second nature.

“You have to practice to be good at basketball, you have to study to go to school, and faith just feels like it’s another part of my life that I give time to because it’s something I care about.”

Naquin acknowledges the logistical difficulties of maintaining her spiritual commitments, but credits those involved in her various activities for supporting her as a student, an athlete, and an active member of Columbia’s religious community.

“It definitely takes a lot of planning and a lot of help from the people that surround me and help me out. I have countless people at all of the organizations I’m a part of that are very aware that I’m stretched in different directions and understand that I give all that I can, and are very flexible with me."

But, at times, Columbia’s religious student-athletes are forced to make a choice between their faiths and their sports.

Tuckerman is most frequently faced with that choice each year during Yom Kippur. He frequently chooses to celebrate the holy day instead of participating in practice or competition.

“That’s something that I’m not willing to compromise no matter how important track is to me. I should be willing to give up a day each year to atone for what I did wrong, and I think that would be really in bad taste if I couldn’t make that commitment,” Tuckerman said.

Like Naquin, Tuckerman said that his coaches and teammates gave him full support in making the decision.

“The coaches obviously understand that, as student-athletes, we are first and foremost a student and then we are an athlete,” Tuckerman said. “Part of being a student is also having other commitments.”

SHAPING IDENTITIES

While student-athletes may sometimes feel the need to consider their commitments as a student and an athlete separately, more often they find that these different roles inform each other to shape their identities.

For Angad Singh, athletics has always been a place where he is no longer defined by his turban, but instead by what he contributes to the team.

Playing pickup basketball as a kid, he remembered, “I realized once they saw I could play basketball it made me feel very normal -- people would pass me the ball, people would expect me to shoot, people would high-five me if I got the team points.”

This feeling of normalcy for Angad has extended to his fencing career at Columbia as well.

“I found sports as one of the ways that I could connect with American peers and not really feel like an outsider when I was playing the game,” Angad said. “Certainly playing basketball when I was younger, and even now fencing, it’s been, for me, an experience of really feeling part of a community, and part of a very American community.”

For others, their spiritual beliefs can offer guidance in moments of frustration -- and help keep them from defining themselves by a bad game or a rough play.

*   *   *   *   *

During the football team’s 24-game losing streak, Foster looked to his religion to keep things in perspective in the agonizing moments.

“It’s more so just knowing that everything happens for a reason and God has a plan for everything,” Foster said. “And being able to keep my head up and know that, while football is my first love since like forever, it’s more than just football. I don’t have to carry it off the field and be miserable with school and everything else when we weren’t winning.”

“But we’re definitely getting some wins this year,” he said, “which will make things a lot better.”

For Naquin, her faith remains the most important constant in balancing the many different responsibilities of school, soccer, and her student groups.

“It’s in every piece,” she said. “That’s the only reason that it has meaning at all.”


[Courtesy: Columbia Spectator. Edited for sikhchic.com]
October 23, 2015
 

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