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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