God and the Gridiron: Idea of Chaplain for Iowa State Football Team Raises a Red Flag

The recent announcement that the Iowa State University athletics department wished to hire a chaplain for the football team has brought criticism from a variety of sources, including ISU professors and the Des Moines Register. Iowa Independent talked with athletic directors and chaplains from other Iowa schools about the issue, though several declined to comment.

Sean Keeler, a Register columnist, reported that ISU Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard assured people that the position would not be filled by a state employee. “The position is being completely funded by donations made by private individuals,” he said, “who have chosen to support our desire to provide this … to our student-athletes.”

The Register was not convinced and recently editorialized against the idea: “It would make no difference whether the chaplain were paid by Warren Buffett or took the job without pay.” To hire the chaplain, the paper argued, would be a clear breach of the First Amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

More than 100 ISU faculty members signed a petition against the idea arguing that it would violate the principle of separation of church and state since ISU is a public university. The petition was sent to President Gregory Geoffroy, who has directed the ISU Athletics Council to review the issue and make a suggestion by Aug. 1 according to a statement emailed by Tom Kroeschell, a spokesman for Iowa State athletics. Both Geoffroy and Pollard declined to comment for this article.

Spokesmen for the athletic departments of the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa also declined to comment on the controversy at ISU but noted that their schools were not seeking a chaplain for their athletic departments. Rick Klatt, Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs at U of I said he thought it would be “inappropriate” to discuss another school’s issue, but said U of I does not have a chaplain for any athletic team and that there are no plans “to have anyone on the staff with those responsibilities.” Rick Hartzell, Director of Athletics Administration at UNI also declined to give his opinion on the issue. “Iowa State’s business is Iowa State’s business,” he said. “It’s not mine.” Hartzell said that UNI did not have a football chaplain “because we’ve never felt there was a need.”

On the other hand, Central College, in Pella, Iowa, is also looking to land a chaplain in the athletic program but to much less fanfare. Central is a private institution “guided by its ecumenical Christian tradition” according to its website. Matt Ploeger, a campus minister at Central, said the campus ministries were in the process of developing an athletic chaplain program. “We really feel like … there’s a certain amount of need,” he said. “It would be helpful to coaches so that they could be more coaches and not have to deal with the spiritual end or emotional parts of life.”

Ploeger said he understood why some would be wary of the issue. “I can understand where some people would be hesitant to force beliefs on students who really aren’t at a place in their lives where they’re looking for that,” he said. “But that’s not our goal.”