In the spring of 2000, I went to Charlotte, North Carolina, to do some interviews for my radio show, Face to Face.
One of the interviews was with a young minister. But this was no ordinary minister.
He had played in the National Football League for 13 seasons, and had made his mark in an NFL Wild Card game with the Buffalo Bills. Frank Reich was the backup quarterback for an injured Jim Kelly. Down 35-3 to the Houston Oilers in the third period, Reich rallied the Bills to a 41-38 win in overtime and an eventual trip to Super Bowl XXVII, where they lost to the Dallas Cowboys.
When we met in Charlotte, the Carolina Panthers home field was nearby, and Reich had once played for them. But we were a long way from football.
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The taped interview we did was in a small suite in a strip mall, where Frank had taken on a new career writing devotionals for a Christian website. His desire, through Crosswalk.com, was to give a Christian perspective to sports and athletics.
He was excited about it, and also about his own Christian journey. Born in New York, he had grown up in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where he had excelled in a number of sports, and accepted a football scholarship to the University of Maryland. His Christian faith was nurtured in his home. He told me that he had grown up in a spiritual home and they were in church every week. Priorities in the home were God, family and school.
But Frank was highly competitive.
“My religion was no different,” he told me. “I believed I could earn my way into heaven. I could beat you enough times, I could score enough points, I would get into heaven. It wasn’t until some friends showed me I could score no points with God, and it was only by his grace and righteousness and what he did for me on the cross, and only when I trusted completely in him, amazingly enough, I had eternal life.”
Reich’s faith carried him through his playing career. He played with the Bills, who made four Super Bowls in a row. The Bills were defeated in all four.
It was actually after the aforementioned Super Bowl XXVII against the Cowboys that Reich grew in his faith. His stirring comeback of a few weeks earlier was forgotten, as he started at quarterback in place of the injured Jim Kelly, and the Cowboys devastated the Bills 52-17. One of the favorite Christian songs for the young quarterback during that time was Michael English singing “In Christ Alone.”
He told me, “It wasn’t till after the Super Bowl loss that I realized what the implications of that song and the lyrics were. In Christ alone, he is my source of strength and my source of hope in all situations. I realized that the same God who loved me and was with me on the mountaintop of the greatest comeback in NFL history, was a also a God of the valleys, and he loved me in defeat.”
Years later after that interview, God opened up a whole new avenue for Reich.
In 2006, he was invited by then-Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy to come aboard as an intern. He became a full-time assistant with the Colts from 2008 to 2011. This led to coaching stints with the Arizona Cardinals, San Diego Chargers and, finally, last year as the offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
This year, he realized his dream to become an NFL head coach, leading the Indianapolis Colts.
That may be the greatest comeback of all. As we closed our time in Charlotte, he said he lived by Colossians 2:6, “So then, just as you received Christ, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
That’s the Frank Reich everyone needs to know.
Columbus’ Tom Rust is founder of the national Face To Face sports ministry, a local radio sports broadcaster, and pastor of Sardinia Baptist Church. He can be reached at [email protected].
