God talk silenced on the sports page?
No, it’s nothing new.
But still, it can be jarring. Especially when a journalist attempts to profile an athlete for whom faith is a crucial part of his story — without ever, you know, mentioning his faith.
Such is the case with The Ringer’s recent feature on Jrue Holiday of the New Orleans Pelicans.
For those familiar with Holiday, the story’s compelling opening seems to hint at the holy ghosts that become clear by the end:
If you ever need to borrow $25,000, Jrue Holiday is your man. It’s a running joke between his wife, Lauren, a retired midfielder for the United States women’s national team, and her former teammates: If they were in a pinch—say, a quarter-of-a-hundred-grand kind of pinch—they’d just ask her husband. Holiday wants to help, always. Help you, help me, help his teammates on the Pelicans. He’d say yes in a heartbeat, the joke goes. Holiday is the mom of his friend group, the hype man for his family. “The supportive one,” Lauren said. A $25,000 loan is a bit hyperbolic, sure. At least, I’m assuming it is. That’s the joke. This is the point: Jrue, I’m told, will always come through. It’s his campaign slogan, should he ever run for office. But that’s the other thing about Holiday, the thing that assures me he’d never want to run for any office of any kind: Jrue Holiday does not want this—does not want anything—to be about Jrue Holiday.
“I like to assist people,” he told me in his backyard by the pool. It was August and 87 degrees in Santa Rosa Valley, California, where the Holidays spend the offseason. He leaned back into the patio chair, squinted at the sun, and smirked. “That was a pun. But no, I like to assist people.” Holiday is a starting combo guard for the New Orleans Pelicans. His game is often described in terms of what he does for others. Lobs and dimes, help defense and spacing, deflections and blocks. Assistance is where Holiday earns a living. And for the past six years, superstar Anthony Davis was his main beneficiary.
The Ringer touts Holiday as “the NBA’s Best-Kept Secret.”
The reader who shared the link with GetReligion wondered, though, how The Ringer managed to keep Holiday’s Christian faith a secret.
“This story doesn't have a ‘religion ghost,’” the reader said. “It's completely haunted. It's the Amityville Horror.
“Holiday is one of the best-known Christians in the NBA,” he added. “In fact, he is one of four Holiday brothers in the NBA, all of whom are Christians.”
BreakPoint noted last year:
In 2016, when Jrue and his wife, Lauren, were expecting their first child, doctors found a benign tumor on the right side of Lauren’s brain. Holiday, who after struggling with injuries was in the best basketball shape of his life, knew what he had to: He took an indefinite leave from his team, the New Orleans Pelicans, to care for his wife and soon-to-be-born daughter.
Though devastated about his wife’s condition, Holiday said that “there is nothing in life my wife can’t conquer with Jesus Christ in her corner.”
Both mother and daughter, thanks be to God, turned out fine. And Jrue was named the best defensive point guard in the league the following season. He doesn’t shy away from admitting how difficult Lauren’s health crisis had been, but he also told Sports Spectrum that the crisis brought him closer to God.
Now, if that was all there was to the story, Christian athlete who puts God and his family first and still excels, it would be worth telling. But there’s more.
I’ll let you click the link to read the rest of that story.
Want to read other interviews with Holiday? See Beliefnet and the Christian Sports Journal.
The Ringer story? It’s not terrible. It’s just not the whole story.