Over the last decade, the Augustana University Office of Faith & Spiritual Life has worked hard to engage with “every corner of campus.” This includes its athletics programs with its pastors offering student-athlete blessings twice a year, devotions during team practices, as well as taking chapel services to the ice and serving as the voice of reason as the penalty box attendant — coined the “Sin Bin” — at Viking Hockey home games.
“The Office of Faith & Spiritual Life serves the entire student body, a fourth of whom are student-athletes,” said Senior University Pastor and Vice President for Mission Integration Rev. Ann Rosendale ‘04. “If we aren’t finding ways to engage student-athletes and coaches, we aren’t living out our calling to serve the entire community.”
In Fall 2024, the Office of Faith & Spiritual Life pitched embarked on a new initiative in coordination with Augustana Athletics — a Team Chaplains Program — with the purpose of “further integrating spiritual well-being into the lives of student-athletes and coaches,” many of whom are already people of deep faith. The office asked teams to identify coaches and student-athletes to serve as “team chaplains,” who would commit to help support their teams’ spiritual needs.
“It was important to listen first — to get to know what kinds of spiritual needs our student-athletes and coaches had, how these were already being served and how we as a university could deepen our commitment to spiritual well-being in athletics,” Rosendale explained. “We invited an inaugural cohort of team chaplains to think about ways they could support their team — by leading the team in prayer or devotions, inviting a campus pastor or interfaith chaplain to practice or visiting with a student who was still exploring their spiritual identity.”
“I believe wrestling was the first sport to send me names of team chaplains. They were enthusiastic about participating and asked how they might support the broader effort,” she continued. “A huge success in the first year of any new program is simply getting people to sign up. Knowing that people want to be a part of making a spiritual difference on their teams is encouraging.”
One of the first to volunteer was Viking Wrestler Max Balow ‘27. Balow said the importance of faith and spirituality was instilled in him at a young age — attending a Christian elementary school and church every Sunday. Though, in college, he admittedly struggled at first to find opportunities that worked for him to grow spiritually.
“It suddenly became my own responsibility to feed my faith,” said Balow, of Lake City, Minnesota, who is double majoring in finance and business administration.
Starting conversations about faith and spiritually with teammates is no easy feat and doesn’t always come naturally. The Team Chaplains Program has provided Balow the platform to be able to do that — to promote conversation and dialogue with one another.
“I felt like this would be a good opportunity to grow my faith and share it with others. I saw a chance to help young men who were in the same shoes as me,” explained Balow, who previously had little to no interaction with the Office of Faith & Spiritual Life.
“Student-athletes are some of the busiest people I know at Augustana,” said Rosendale. “Like so much with ministry, it is often more effective to meet people on their ‘turf,’ wherever that may be. We have student-athletes and coaches who come to worship regularly, but others are exploring faith outside of the traditional worship space. We want to facilitate that worship as best we can.”
Madison Ryken ‘28 isn’t new to the Office of Faith & Spiritual Life, having also participated in the Lenten Faith Partners Program and inaugural cohort of the Buntrock Scholars Program. But, being a team chaplain for the Augustana Spirit Squads (Dance Team) has allowed different aspects of her world to come together.
“I value my involvement with the Office of Faith & Spiritual Life because God is present in all aspects of my life. The Team Chaplains Program allows me to bring something I value greatly into my time at practice and time spent with teammates,” said Ryken, of Yankton, South Dakota, who is majoring in communication disorders.
Gretta Melsted, who has served as the head coach of Augustana Softball for 20 years, said faith has always been an important part of her life. But even as the daughter of a pastor, it took her “many years” to be comfortable bringing faith and topics of faith into her coaching.
“I believe that it’s important to serve as a resource to our student-athletes in this area … I think once you take the initial step to chat about faith with your players, it opens more doors for you to be able to help them grow and help them when they are struggling. I also see players more willing to chat with me about issues of faith because of this,” said Melsted. “We live in a complicated and broken world and it is important for us to be able to offer the joy, hope, love and assurance that faith provides.”
Melsted said Viking Softball is involved in many ways — Rosendale shares a devotional with her team a few times per year and a group of its players attend church together.
“If we are on the road, they (the players) have been known to stream different chapel services in the back of the bus,” said Melsted. “It is unique to see a group of college-aged students huddled together watching a service.”
If it’s any confirmation, Balow and Ryken said perhaps the best part of the program is seeing that their coaches are sailing the ship — making the program both exciting and comforting.
“It’s very encouraging to see the various coaches involved in this aspect of our development as people. Many of these coaches are an important reason why we are here in the first place and to see them care about our spiritual development, and even leading the charge, is very inspiring,” said Balow. “We are people before we are athletes. Jesus came to save all of us.”
Now that a more intentional relationship between the Office of Faith & Spiritual Life and Athletics has begun, they all hope it strengthens over time.
“Just like an athlete stretches their muscles or builds endurance through running, we have spiritual muscles that we can grow, too. Spiritual practices like prayer, scripture reading, meditation and worship have a lot of parallels to practice on the field or court. The more we practice, the more natural these movements and habits become. And, the more we grow, the better we get,” said Rosendale. “Athletics teams are the perfect places for faith to be formed because faith is almost always formed in community.”
As part of the program this fall, the chaplains are being asked to write short reflections on their faith — a devotional written by them, which will be sent to student-athletes and coaches.
“I’m looking forward to what they share about helpful faith practices or how they wrestle with ideas like ‘winning and losing’ in light of a faith that says ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first,’” said Rosendale, who is “proud to be an Augustana Viking and cheer on the home team” every chance she gets.
“I have to express my gratitude to Josh Morton (vice president for athletics), Kimberly Miller (senior associate athletics director for compliance) and the entire Augustana Athletics Department for their openness to these partnerships. It’s one of the things that sets Augustana apart — faith is really woven into everything we do.”
For more information on the Augustana Office of Faith & Spiritual Life, visit augie.edu/faith.