🏈 How A Prominent National College Football Writer Became A Small-Town Pastor 🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
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NORMAN, Okla. — George Schroeder loves college football.
He just loves Jesus more.
Our paths first crossed when we both worked at The Oklahoman — me getting my start on the religion beat and Schroeder covering the Oklahoma Sooners’ 2000 national title run.
Schroeder, previously with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, took over the Sooners football beat at the beginning of Bob Stoops’ second season as head coach in Norman. Oklahoma finished 13-0 that year.
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“In fact, I covered 20 wins before I covered a loss, which is kind of crazy,” Schroeder recalled.
As a longtime Sooners fan, I have to ask: Is there any chance Schroeder — now the senior pastor for the First Baptist Church of Fairfield, Texas, about 80 miles south of Dallas — could return and work his magic again?
I kid. I kid. Mostly.
For over a quarter-century, Schroeder thrived as a sportswriter — and loved most every minute of it — culminating with a seven-year stint as one of USA Today’s two national college football writers.
But ultimately, he found his true calling outside the press box, even though he still hosts a weekly podcast called “Gridiron & The Gospel.”
“I think it speaks to the mighty hand of God,” said Kenny Mossman, who retired as the Sooners’ senior associate athletic director in 2021 and now serves as the pastor for the First Baptist Church in Carnegie, Oklahoma.
“I certainly think that George’s career change is a testament to his faith and his obedience,” added Mossman, who served on Schroeder’s ordination committee. “But I would say that it’s more an example of the way that God works in people’s lives.”
Former ESPN personality Brad Edwards co-hosted the first two seasons of the podcast. Edwards plans to step back and jump in occasionally during the third season, which launches next week.
“It gives me an outlet to hang on to college football and pay attention — not like I used to but probably more than I would otherwise,” Schroeder said of the show. “It also gives me an outlet that if you like college football and want to pay attention to that part, then you might stick around … as we talk about our faith in Christ. And that' s my real hope for people.”
• • •
TO UNDERSTAND Schroeder’s personal and professional journey, go all the way back to his childhood in Little Rock, Arkansas.
At age 5, he attended his first college football game. His father, also named George, took him to see TCU play Arkansas in Little Rock.
“What I remember about it really is that it rained,” Schroeder said. “But I was with Dad, and so it was a tremendous time, right? But from that point on, I became a Razorback fan.”
Schroeder’s parents, George and Mary, raised him in a Southern Baptist church. As an elementary school student, he made a profession of faith and was baptized. But he later realized that he didn’t really know Jesus.
Even as he enrolled at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri — initially planning to follow in his eye surgeon father’s footsteps and pursue a career as an ophthalmologist — his behavior did not align with a Christian lifestyle.
Nor did his academic performance display any aptitude for medical school.
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“Basically, I did everything right except, you know, go to class or really know where they were,” Schroeder quipped.
An ad in the student newspaper seeking a sportswriter grabbed Schroeder’s attention.
“That might be fun,” he thought.
Schroeder got the gig the next semester. Although Southwest Baptist had no real journalism department, his career as a sportswriter was born.
Later, after Schroeder joined the Democrat-Gazette, he began to take his faith more seriously. As he describes it, God placed men in his path — both a supervisor and a roommate — who softened his heart.
“The Holy Spirit really began to work on me,” Schroeder said. “So one night, I went out on the back porch of the house we were renting and said, ‘Lord, I know the truth, and I want you.’ … I basically confessed, ‘I’m a sinner, and I need you.’ And at that point, I came to Christ.”
• • •
AFTER LEAVING The Oklahoman and before joining USA Today, Schroeder spent five years as a sports columnist for The Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon.
Eugene is, as you might know, the home of the University of Oregon Ducks. Schroeder’s tenure coincided with the arrival of Chip Kelly, first as offensive coordinator and then head coach.
While living in Oregon, Schroeder and his wife, Shannon, welcomed the birth of their third child, Christopher, in 2009. Christopher joined older sister Elizabeth and older brother George — yes, yet another George — in the family.
“Christopher immediately needed a heart transplant, and then his kidneys failed, and he needed a kidney transplant,” Schroeder explained. “So his first two years were just very tenuous.”
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For the first time, Schroeder opened up about his faith in print.
“God really worked in my heart,” he recalled. “It allowed me to share Christ in a couple of columns in a way that I had not really figured out how to do. Because people care about little kids.”
Through that experience, Schroeder said, “One of the things that God showed me was how to share this imperfect analogy of how a heart transplant is like what God does for us in salvation, where he replaces a heart of stone with a heart of flesh, right? … It requires a death, like a sacrifice, which I hate, hate, hate that somebody passed away (for Christopher to receive a new heart). But somebody gave us the gift of life, right?”
Later, even as Schroeder moved to a dream job with USA Today and relocated back to Norman, he felt God tugging at him to see his purpose as greater than covering college football.
He became active with the missions team at his church.
He started taking seminary classes in his free time.
He contemplated a move away from sports journalism to full-time ministry — a decision made easier when USA Today gave him a layoff notice at the end of 2019.
“If Peter and Andrew, John and James, can walk away from the fishing boats, and Matthew can walk away from the bounty of collecting taxes, I suppose George can walk away from OU-Texas,” said Berry Tramel, a former colleague and longtime Oklahoma sports columnist who now works for the Tulsa World.
“I don't know how experience in the press box relates to pastoral ministry, but I know it should open a lot of doors, because lots of people, including lots of Texans, love to talk sports,” added Tramel, a devoted Christian whose late father, J.L., pastored a Pentecostal Holiness church. “And George knows his sports.”
• • •
BEFORE GOING into congregational ministry, Schroeder first served in key leadership roles involving news and media for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee in Nashville, Tennessee, and later Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
At Southwestern, he earned a Master of Theological Studies degree with a concentration in cross-culture missions. He serves as an adjunct journalism professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Texas — where he has become a fan of the Bears athletic program and plans to enjoy the Auburn-Baylor game with his sons next Friday night.
He became the pastor at FBC Fairfield — a town of roughly 3,000 just off Interstate 45 — just over a year ago.
In that time, the church of about 150 to 170 attendees has experienced numerical growth. The nursery overflows with babies, reflecting an influx of young families.
“None of that is due to me,” Schroeder insisted, “unless it’s just, ‘Hey, they finally have a preacher.’ But I believe God is moving here.”
And Schroeder sees — believe it or not — more than few similarities between his old career and his new calling.
George Schroeder with his family. (Photo provided by George Schroeder)
“As a journalist, you’re accustomed to meeting deadlines, so there’s still that,” Schroeder said. “And when God really got a hold of me, I saw my vocation as a journalist as a ministry — you wanted to do excellently for his glory. You wanted an opportunity to show other people about him and tell people about it. So that part shouldn’t be different.
“And the other part is,” he added, “in journalism, you try to do research. You ask lots of questions. You listen, right? So that’s part of this.”
Writing, too, remains a big part of what he does as he prepares sermons and Bible lessons.
Trying to decipher the meaning of a book such as 1 Peter can be a bit more daunting, he suggested, than making sure the score and rushing yardages are correct in a game story.
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A major difference is that sportswriter Schroeder had to be careful about crossing an ethical line in attempting to evangelize, say, a coach or a player.
“But now,” he said of sharing the gospel with everyone he meets, “that’s what people expect.”
The rise of NIL (“name, image and likeness”) deals and the popularity of the transfer portal have transformed college football since Schroeder left the press box.
Not all for the better, many would argue.
“When you finally get to fall Saturdays, the game in between the lines and at the stadiums is the same game,” Schroeder said. “But everything else about it is different.”
For all the change, Schroeder still loves college football.
He just loves Jesus more.
Inside The Godbeat
In 2022, I traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, and wrote about a Russian-speaking church becoming a hub for helping Ukrainian refugees.
After the recent meeting there between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Christianity Today highlighted the prayers for peace by that congregation and other people of faith in Alaska’s largest city.
The Final Plug
As a journalist, I ask a lot of questions.
For a change, I decided to answer a few.
If you’re curious about what kind of questions people ask a faith-based newspaper editor — and how he responds — check out my latest Christian Chronicle column.
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.