Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville wanted to take Wes Yeary’s style of ministry wherever he went when he left Ole Miss — and in 1999, that meant Auburn University.
Yeary, then the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) chaplain for the Ole Miss Rebels, had the chance to add his name to the Auburn phone book six years ago when Tuberville did but felt the time wasn’t right. It turned out, it now seems, that God had everything worked out — He knew the right chaplain for Auburn at the time, Yeary said.
Now Yeary’s at Auburn — not to replace chaplain Chette Williams but rather to work alongside him in a new project that could take Yeary’s style past the realm of Tuberville’s team. Yeary, now serving as FCA director of chaplaincy training at Auburn, will train FCA chaplains for schools across the nation through internships held at Auburn.
It’s a special set up Auburn has — one with the potential to have an impact locally and nationally. While Yeary does this, Chette Williams will continue to hold down the fort.
Chette Williams, a 5-foot-10 former linebacker who played under Auburn coach Pat Dye in the early ’80s — a player once only distinguishable to the Auburn faithful by the No. 37 on his back.
But in 2004 — a special year for Auburn — Chette Williams practically became a household name on the Plains. The 2004 Auburn football team went undefeated, thanks in large part to a backfield so dripping with talent it would take $72 million for the NFL to sop it up.
In interview after interview, however, Tuberville placed more and more credit for the 13–0 record at the feet of Williams, the spiritual — not offensive or defensive — coordinator for the Auburn Tigers. To listen to Tuberville, Auburn’s unprecedented success had more do with the Bible than playbooks.
Williams — one of only 10 FCA chaplains established on American college campuses — has served as team chaplain since Tuberville came to Auburn. Yeary made history himself by being the first to hold such a chaplaincy.
Williams has made a visible impact at Auburn.
During “The Auburn Football Review,” fans saw the players link arms and sing the old spiritual “Hard Fighting Soldier,” which became the theme for their perfect season.
The song was sung all the way to the Sugar Bowl, and the fact that the idea began with Williams did not go unnoticed.
In Tuberville’s keynote address at the annual American Football Coaches Association meeting this past January in Louisville, Ky., the coach spoke of the impact a strong on-campus FCA presence made on his football teams.
According to Ken Williams, FCA executive vice president, the response from other coaches was overwhelming.
“Coach Tuberville was the speaker this year and one of the things he shared was the impact that Chette had on the team as the chaplain and how he thought that having a team chaplain and a guy like Chette could have a great impact on other programs,” Ken Williams said. “That generated some enthusiastic interest from other coaches.”
So enthusiastic was the response that Auburn University, Tuberville and Chette Williams have partnered with FCA to establish an unprecedented training program solely designed to train and equip FCA chaplains at the college level.
“Coach Tuberville, Chette and some other people down at Auburn really wanted to see this on other campuses across the country, and we thought to use Auburn kind of as a model for the chaplain program,” Ken Williams explained. “It really did start at Auburn with Chette Williams and the phenomenal job he did at Auburn last year, so we thought we could use it as a place to potentially train other chaplains for other programs across the country.”
But Chette Williams was busy being chaplain without the added duties — so the program needed someone to run it, Ken Williams said.
Tuberville already had a guy in mind. And this time, Yeary said yes.
“When (coach Tuberville) shared his vision with me and asked me to come, my heart jumped — not because I was ready to leave Ole Miss but (because of) the thought of multiplying what I’d been able to do over there and what Chette had done over here by giving others the opportunity to do likewise,” Yeary said.
Once family life director at Dunwoody Baptist Church, Atlanta, he is now officially listed as director of the chaplaincy training and development program for Auburn.
“We’re going to spend this fall developing our method of training itself and how to work the internship program and the application process for that,” Yeary said. “I can’t tell you all the details because we’re still working them out. But I’m also going to be assisting Chette with a lot of what he does.”
Chette Williams said he appreciates the help. “I just thank the Lord (Yeary’s) here,” he said. “He’s very experienced — he’s got two years on me — and I look forward to the help any of his expertise can bring.”
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