Up Close With PSR
Tom Osborne

Former University of Nebraska head football coach Tom Osborne was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. His Cornhusker teams won national championships in three of his final four seasons (1994, 1995 and 1997). At the time of his retirement, his .836 winning percentage ranked fifth-best of all time. Osborne discussed his views on faith, religion and sports with PSR editor Tony DeFazio.

PSR: When did faith become an important part of your everyday life?

Tom Osborne: I think there's a time in almost every person's life when they have to decide what they're going to do about a spiritual stance, and I guess for me that was between my sophomore and junior years in college. I was about 19 and I went to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes conference in Colorado. Sometime during that week I heard Christianity articulated in a way that I could relate to. I was raised in a Christian home and went to church, but it wasn't until that point that I realized there was vitality and virility about Christianity that I had missed.

I guess at that stage of my life, that conference kind of hit me where I lived. The part of Christianity that had always troubled me was turning the other cheek and the image of meekness and mildness. I began to realize that was part of it, but there is also aggressiveness to Christianity; that it is an active faith, not a passive faith, and you could be an athlete or someone who is aggressive and still adhere to Christian principle.

PSR: Was your faith an important aspect of your coaching style, or is there a danger in that?

TO: I very deliberately tried to adhere to certain Christian principles. For instance, I feel that everyone is equal in God's sight. Therefore race, religion, talent - those things didn't make any difference. If a guy was on the third team, I tried to care about him just as much as if he was on the first team. It didn't make any difference if a guy came from a wealthy home or a poor home, east coast or Nebraska.

Another principle that was important to me was the idea that no one's beyond redemption. Certainly all of us fall short of what we should be. And that is quite often the case with young people. It didn't mean I would never kick somebody off the team, but I would usually give them a chance, let them know I cared about them and give them an opportunity to change their behavior.

PSR: How does that play out in a locker room with so many different faiths and personalities?

TO: I never actively tried to push my faith on anybody. I don't think any player who ever played for me would say they got the idea that if they said the right things or acted a certain way they would get the chance to play. I never asked anybody to believe as I did.

Once a year I would take 30 minutes and let them know what my frame of reference was; where I was coming from as it related to my faith. I think they needed to understand this, because everybody has a philosophy of life and this is mine, and this is where I'm coming from.

PSR: Is there a conflict between the violence in football and your religious beliefs?

TO: Not really, and I'll tell you why. A lot of times people think you have to hate the opponent to be able to play a contact sport, whether it's football, hockey or whatever. But one thing we always told our players is that you can care about your opponent. You can care about somebody in a boxing match and still try very hard to knock them out.

It's not that you hate the person; it's simply that you're trying to execute. Our teams were very, very physical.

PSR: You're Christian. Muhammad Ali is Muslim. Sandy Koufax is Jewish. Are there parallels between the three of you?

TO: In each case, we believe in God and believe in trying to serve and honor him. Maybe the path to God is a little different in each case. A Christian is going to look at Jesus as the way to experience God, and other faiths may express that differently.

But I think there are commonalities. I think that, generally speaking, you realize that you are not the center of the universe - God is. That makes a lot of difference in how you live your life and relate to other people.

PSR: What role can faith play in athletics?

TO: You can fool a coach to some degree, and you can fool fans easily, but God knows what your motivation is and what you're capable of.