Some of you football fans may be interested in this.
Text of forwarded message follows:
><http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=dw-white020306&prov=yhoo&type=lgns>http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=dw-white020306&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
>
>Reggie's self-revelation
>By
><http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/expertsarchive?author=Dan+Wetzel>Dan
>Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
>February 3, 2006
>
>DETROIT – He would rise every morning and
>descend to the basement where an office full of
>books, translations and lessons waited for
>Reggie White, his pursuit of knowledge and truth
>being as ferocious as his running down of quarterbacks.
>
>White, the greatest pass rusher the NFL has ever
>known, is almost assured on Saturday to be voted
>into the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of
>2006, just over 13 months since dying of arrhythmia at the age of 43.
>
>His expected enshrinement this August is sure to
>bring White back into the spotlight, flushing
>the public with memories of his dominating play
>on the field and his high-profile Christian
>preaching off of it. But it will also bring to a
>controversial light the striking conflict
>between that man and the one who found what he
>called his greatest victories down in that
>basement with his nose in an ancient book.
>
>Ordained at 17, White earned the nickname "The
>Minister of Defense" in college, but he didn't
>believe in ministers in his final years.
>
>White, who used his considerable fame to preach
>the Bible, didn't believe in the Bible. White,
>who had his own church in Tennessee (one that
>was burned to the ground in a likely hate crime), didn't believe in churches.
>
>Oh, he was the same man who believed in living a
>most wholesome life, of respecting marriage, of
>respecting life, of a loving family, of being
>close to his God. He was, by all accounts, more faithful than ever.
>
>But in that basement office in his home in
>Charlotte, N.C., and in repeated trips to
>Israel, White found a new version of the truth
>that seemed to humble him, perhaps frighten him,
>and make him question everything he once thought and so thoroughly believed.
>
>"Reggie was a person who stood on his beliefs,"
>his widow Sara said. "He was a person that was
>always solid in what he said, that never backed
>down. What he believed, he said."
>
>But what Reggie White believed and said began to
>change after retiring in 2000. Ever an
>insatiable learner, he began to question what
>exactly his Bible was teaching him, how it was written and where it came from.
>
>So he poured himself into learning not just
>Hebrew, but how Hebrew was spoken at the time of
>Christ. He spent six, seven hours a day
>studying, and he studied so hard that he could
>eventually take the original Torah, which is
>what many believe is the original Word of God, and translate it for himself.
>
>What he found changed everything. What he found,
>he believed, could change everything.
>
>
>Sara White marveled at her husband's passion for
>the truth. She had known Reggie since college
>and married him when she was just 21, yet he
>never ceased to amaze her. Here he was each
>morning, forsaking celebrity golf outings and
>easy speaking engagements, to spend hours and
>hours in solitude painstakingly translating Hebrew.
>
>"He would come upstairs and say, 'Did you know,
>this, this and this?' " said Sara on Thursday,
>as the faint afternoon light peaked through the
>stained glass of the old Mariner's Church in
>downtown Detroit, where she conducted interviews
>for a forthcoming DVD about Reggie. "He would
>teach me what he learned. He found, first off,
>(that the) King James (Bible) was taken out of
>context, a lot. A lot of words were added. A lot of words were subtracted.
>
>"He found that in the Torah, in Hebrew, things
>that may have been taken literal shouldn't have
>been. Some things that were idioms at that time,
>today people don't understand those idioms
>because they were their time. Just like in 40
>years, people aren't going to understand our idioms.
>
>"(For example) 'I paid an arm and a leg for this
>shirt.' Guess what, in 40 years they are going
>to think I paid a literal arm and a literal leg
>for this shirt. What Reggie understood, and he
>taught us, is that you have to go back to the
>way they were living and understand their mindset."
>
>Reggie meticulously translated each word and
>then put it in context. Sara says he found
>alarming inaccuracies. Some of it was lost in
>translations, Hebrew being translated into Greek
>and then being translated into another language.
>Some may have been just simple errors, the
>product of an era before moveable type.
>
>Some were not so honest, Reggie White believed.
>
>"And so, that was what he was getting to – there
>were so many mistakes in the translations," said
>Sara while her sister nodded in agreement. "That
>is why he was so doggone eager to (translate it himself)."
>
>Each day brought new clarity, new opinions and
>more dismay that so much of what Reggie had once
>preached he no longer believed. He began to
>wonder if he had been used and lied to by
>ministers. He regretted using his fame to raise
>so much money for various churches he felt weren't true to God.
>
>He felt, he told NFL Films just four days before dying, "prostituted."
>
>"Reggie felt like the churches had become
>polluted because they were following man's
>tradition instead of God," Sara said. "We felt
>like early on, (the) idea (of churches) was
>right, but then later on it was polluted because
>now, instead of going with what God was saying,
>they added to The Word. They added their opinions rather than just reading.
>
>"Now we have preachers preaching their opinion
>which distorts The Word. It should be (called)
>opinion churches, or motivational speakers. For
>our family and for many people who was studying
>the Torah with us, it created a sense of
>excitement because now the things we felt
>uncomfortable (about) in church wasn't our
>imagination. It was we should have been uncomfortable.
>
>"We should have been uncomfortable with some
>idols, with some idol worshipping, with people
>bowing down to the pastor, people putting the pastor on a pedestal."
>
>The change in the White home was dramatic.
>Reggie discarded all athletic awards that
>included a statue of a football player, since it
>was a false idol. His kids' Beanie Babies soon
>followed. The Whites had never celebrated Easter
>because it is not in the Bible (they observed
>Passover), but they have eliminated the celebration of Christmas, too.
>
>"We all knew the Messiah wasn't born on
>Christmas Day, December 25. We all knew that was
>just a representation to celebrate his life,"
>Sara said. "But after we started reading how
>Christmas came about, with the pagan holiday of
>the sun solstice, then we stopped celebrating Christmas.
>
>"What (they) were trying to do as a traditional
>church was satisfy the Christians and give them
>Christmas. When really, in fact, we are
>worshipping the solstice, the winter solstice; The Word says, 'Don't do it.' "
>
>
>Perhaps no professional athlete had evangelized
>more often or more publicly than Reggie White.
>During his playing days, he preached at every
>opportunity. He mentored young players. He spoke
>out against sin. He even had a habit, after
>mowing over some opposing offensive lineman, to
>go back, help him up and say, "Jesus loves you."
>
>When he left the
><http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/teams/phi/>Philadelphia
>Eagles as a free agent in 1993, he said God
>influenced his decision to sign with the
><http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/teams/gnb/>Green
>Bay Packers, with whom he won a second Defensive
>Player of the Year award and a Super Bowl.
>
>It is at least some of White's trailblazing that
>allowed so many
><http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/teams/pit/>Pittsburgh
>Steelers and
><http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/teams/sea/>Seattle
>Seahawks to feel comfortable speaking about
>their faith in the run-up to Sunday's Super Bowl
>XL. For his entire career, White was the
>ultimate example of a Christian athlete. He was
>officially non-denominational, but to
>Evangelical Christians, he was one of them.
>
>"Reggie gave (people) permission to stand on
>their faith, whatever faith that was," Sara
>White said. "It's OK for a man to cry. It's OK
>for a man to pray. It's OK for a man to love his
>wife. It's OK for a man to say they are not
>going out on their wife – that it was OK to be moral and not be crazy.
>
>"He had changed the perspective of people of what a real man is."
>
>Now, in death, Reggie stands at odds with many
>Christians. Sara says he even stopped calling
>himself Christian and preferred to be known as
>"Believer" after studying the Torah. He eschewed
>any organized religion, but he held on to most of his same convictions.
>
>Reggie's most controversial statement came in
>1998 while addressing the Wisconsin Legislature.
>He declared, "Homosexuality is a decision, it's
>not a race. People from all different ethnic
>backgrounds live in this lifestyle. But people
>from all different ethnic backgrounds also are
>liars and cheaters and malicious and backstabbing."
>
>There was a major furor. Sara says he never backed down from that stance.
>
>"Oh, no, no, no. That didn't change," she said.
>"Homosexuality wasn't changed. And let me just
>tell you about our Wisconsin legislators. They
>were not as bad as people reported them to be. The media tore that up.
>
>"I believe God allowed that to happen to put
>some thick skin on Reggie because Reggie was
>hurt by it. Because he was there, he knew what
>he said, he knew how it was reported and he is
>very sensitive. But I think God allowed that to
>give him thicker skin for where he was going to
>go. Because where he was going to go was much deeper than that."
>
>The thing that makes religion the ultimate
>hot-button issue is that almost no one wants to
>admit what they believe and what they've taught
>and been taught, or how they've taught or been
>taught, may be wrong. Throughout history, wars
>have routinely been fought over this.
>
>And that is what makes Reggie White's journey
>fascinating to some and frightening to others.
>Here he was, once the most vocal of his kind,
>now saying he had been duped. The Bible thumper said the Bible was bunk.
>
>"Reggie was before his time," Sara said. "People
>were not ready for Reggie. Pastors were not ready for Reggie.
>
>"Pastors were intimidated by Reggie because
>Reggie knew the truth, and they knew that he
>knew the truth and they knew a little bit of the
>truth. But they said their congregation wasn't
>ready for the truth and they'd lose their congregation.
>
>"So what would that lead to? No money in the church."
>
>
>James Brown, the Fox Sports broadcaster and a
>close friend of Reggie White, says the player
>had plans to build a movie studio to make
>wholesome, family-based shows. Brown said White
>dreamed of theme parks. Some of White's other
>friends claim he was planning to take his
>message big, that he was just getting started.
>
>It isn't difficult to imagine White's Hall of
>Fame induction being the start of him
>proselytizing about a new belief, about all
>those hours in the basement office.
>
>Sara White isn't so sure. Being wrong had scared Reggie like nothing else.
>
>"He was so fearful because he had taught at a
>mass scale for so much of his life and he felt
>he wasn't preaching exactly what The Word said
>because it was polluted," she said. "But Reggie
>didn't know it was polluted. (I said) 'You were
>preaching from your heart, from God. This is what you knew.'
>
>"He said he didn't want to take the chance. He
>wanted to study until he knew everything. I
>said, 'Reggie, you'll never know everything. But
>you know everything on this subject, you have
>been studying this. Just teach this. Teach one thing at a time.' "
>
>But White wasn't ready. And his time ended before he ever was prepared.
>
>Sara White understands some of these beliefs
>won't be popular. But she also says she and
>Reggie and so many others are correct. She
>trusts her late husband's translations. She trusts his faith.
>
>And her life is not wrapped up in it. She has
>children to raise and a career to run.
>
>Sara has started a company called "Power of 92"
>and is selling hats and other items on the
>website Reggie92.com, with proceeds to help
>former NFL players who don't receive much from
>the league pension. There is the
>work-in-progress DVD. Her son is also writing a book about his father.
>
>She is busy. And now, after 13 tough months,
>Saturday should bring word that her husband is
>headed to Canton and a day for a long-awaited
>celebration. But she knows the spotlight is coming with it.
>
>Sara White is not sure what Reggie's old fans
>will think of what he came to believe before his
>death. But she isn't hiding it. She is excited
>that maybe some will question what they have
>been taught, question their religious
>institutions and perhaps dedicate themselves to
>learning Hebrew, the culture of the time and translating The Word themselves.
>
>It is, she believes, one of the good things that
>can come out of the death of Reggie White.
>
>"God," she said with a slight, knowing nod, "had a plan."
>
>
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End of forwarded message text:
John
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