Q: My son is from a good Christian family and is a field goal and extra point kicker on his high school football team. Just before kicking, he always says a little prayer. Some of the other players make fun of him but I think he should keep doing it. Don’t you?
A: Absolutely. Athletes who have strong spiritual beliefs generally have high self-esteem, and the higher their sense of self-worth the closer they will perform to their skill level on a consistent basis. When your son kicks a field goal or extra point, I don’t know if there’s divine intervention or not, but I do know the little prayer he says helps a great deal regarding how he feels about himself. It’s like getting an assist from God, but it’s a statistic that will never show up in the record books.
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