Article June 21, 1999 Issue

Spirituality and sports: a proving ground

Spiritual victories in athletics

Reported by Rosalie E. Dunbar

Interest in sports circles the globe. Go to the AltaVista search engine on the World Wide Web, type in sports, and you'll get more than forty-five million listings to investigate. Such avid interest isn't new. In the Bible, St. Paul used athletic imagery in his letters. And preachers over the years — Eric Liddell of Olympic fame, for example — have shown by their example that sports canbe a great proving ground for spirituality. To gain some fresh insights into the subject, the Sentinel spoke with four women athletes who are also solid spiritual thinkers.

Shannon Miller won two gold medals in gymnastics at the Atlanta Olympics. Holly Gutelius plays on the nationally ranked women's lacrosse team at Princeton University. [Name removed by request] is a cross-country skier, racing distances of five to thirty kilometers. She ranks eighth among women competitors in the United States. Holly Huff is on the NCAA Division I National Championship field hockey team at the University of North Carolina.

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