“All I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football”,
Strength of Religious Faith
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A Comparison of Intercollegiate athletes and non-athletes
Eric A Sorch et al, Pastoral Psychology, Vol 52. No. 6, July 2004 PP485-9
The paper reports on a survey of 226 undergraduate students at the University of Florida – 57 athletes, using the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire. A previous study had shown that male and female athletes reported higher degrees of “organizational, nonorganizational, and intrinsic religiosity” than male non-athletes. The present study sought to replicate the result of the earlier study.
The findings were that: “athletes reported higher degrees of religious faith than non-athletes”. Possible explanations suggested were that athletes were using religion to provide sense of security or to cope with stress.
It was suggested that the findings were important for coaches, who needed to understand the importance of religion in the athlete’s life with the potential benefit of incorporating aspects of the athlete’s beliefs into their coaching.