Southern Baptist influence within the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) can be illustrated by the triangle one finds at the top of its organizational structure.
Nelson Price serves as chairman of the FCA board of trustees. He works closely with the only two men with the title of president in the FCA world headquarters building in Kansas City, Mo. — Ministry President Dal Shealy and Foundation President Carey Casey.
All three are Southern Baptists.
Price has led the trustees since 1999 and is the first minister to serve in that capacity in FCA’s 50-year history. Past chairmen have included such sports notables as the late Tom Landry, longtime coach of the Dallas Cowboys; Congressman Tom Osborne, former head football coach at the University of Nebraska; and Grant Teaff, former head football coach at Baylor University and director of the American Football Coaches Association.
Price spent 35 years as pastor of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., which quadrupled in size to 9,500 members under his leadership. Toward the end of his ministry at Roswell Street he served as one of 15 members on the committee that produced Baptist Faith and Message 2000 that was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in June of that year.
“Dr. Nelson Price has been a super blessing to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and to me personally, not only as a friend but also as a spiritual mentor,” Shealy said. “He gives us great wisdom, spiritual soundness and insights, and has really helped us keep the focus on keeping the main thing the main thing, and that is the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Going into his 13th year as president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Shealy is doing the same thing he did for 28 football seasons before coming on staff with the largest interdenominational, school-based Christian sports organization in America. Shealy is coaching.
Father figures
“I have a heart for coaches,” said Shealy, a Southern Baptist since 1968 and a deacon at First Baptist Church, Raytown, Mo. “I believe if we don’t have coaches, we don’t have FCA. In today’s society, our male coaches need to understand that they are the father figure for so many of these young men and women that they coach.”
At Mars Hill College, a Baptist school in North Carolina, Shealy built the football team from scratch in 1968, the same year he was baptized at First Baptist Church, Mars Hill.
Shealy’s legacy with FCA can be tied to his service as a lieutenant with the United States Marine Corps. Shealy strives to lead the interdenominational FCA family by living up to the Marine Corps motto of “Semper fidelis” — “Always faithful.”
“We want everything we do in FCA to present Jesus Christ and Him crucified and resurrected, and give people an opportunity to receive Him as their Lord and Savior,” Shealy said. “I would hope that some way, somehow, that we’ve had the integrity to be faithful and above reproach in trying to pull Team FCA together so that we can be a part of Team Jesus Christ and have an impact for eternity.”
Shealy, 65, and Casey, 48, are longtime friends and fellow members of First Baptist Church, Raytown. Shealy is a past chairman of the deacons at the church; Casey will serve in that capacity in 2005.
Shealy likes to refer to Casey as his running back. “He runs all over this country,” Shealy said. “He’s a running back, because he’s a guy you can give the ball to,” Shealy said. “There have been a lot of times in FCA when I couldn’t do something and I’d lateral that ball to Carey and he wouldn’t fumble. He tucked that ball away and turned it downhill, and he’s still doing that today.”
Both Shealy and Casey enjoy the teaching of their pastor, Paul Brooks, at First, Raytown. Brooks has been their friend and leader. “He’s not a jealous man,” Casey said of Brooks. “He cares for me. He’s very secure in who he is as a man of God. I always joke about him as a short, white brother who can’t [jump and] get the net, let alone the rim, but he stands tall in that pulpit.”
Scoring touchdowns
Casey, a former running back for the University of North Carolina and a member of the team that won the 1977 Atlantic Coast Conference championship, served six years as senior pastor of a church in Chicago. He is a gifted orator whom Brooks likes to use in the pulpit at First, Raytown. One year Brooks had Casey do his Christmas message. The following year, instead of broadcasting his message to his television audience, Brooks chose to broadcast the previous year’s sermon by Casey.
“When he preaches, the people love him,” Shealy said. “When you’re that running back and you score a touchdown, people love you.”
Shealy presides over a ministry that employs 665 people. FCA conducts 180 summer camps attended by more than 20,000 students. Overall participation is gauged by 7,400 student huddle groups, or Bible studies, with 520,000 members in schools across America. Internationally, FCA maintains contacts in 30 countries. (BP)
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