SPORTS & CAUSE

Using Sports As A Platform For Change

WRITTEN BY EMMA DINGUS DESIGNED BY LILIANA MORA

When you first think of athletic teams you may not see all of the service and work that they do to support each other and those in their community. However, that doesn’t mean that their outreach goes without impacting both the players and those they serve.

Aaron Faro is the assistant coach for the men’s soccer team and director of A Revolution of Missional Athletes (AROMA), Messiah’s sports ministry that works on campus and in the community. Faro says that service through the athletic teams on campus is the main component of AROMA.

“The organizations that we work within AROMA are Christ-centered organizations, typically using sports as a way to build relationships with people, to come alongside people to provide everything from most basic needs, to just fun through sport,” Faro said.

As the assistant men’s soccer coach, Faro has led the team on numerous missions trips in the past decade to Zambia, Columbia, and Rio de Janeiro. They have also been present in our local community by volunteering at an organization called “Tops,” a soccer club for youth and young adults with disabilities.

Whether they’re serving those out of the country or those in their community, the Falcons have felt the effect of serving. “One of the most obvious ways that you see growth and impact is just by putting students in situations that are different than what they’re used to,” Faro said.

Messiah’s field hockey team partners with Daybreak church to serve in their program “7th Inning Stretch,” which serves families that have children with special needs. As a team, they host “Friday Fun Nights” once a month where children are paired with players and coaches to do activities together.

“As a team I think it can be so much stronger than just maybe one person going out and serving because we’re such a big number of people. It just creates such a dramatic effect when all of us show up to serve,” said Catie Brubaker, a senior on Messiah’s field hockey team.

The lacrosse team is involved with a Harrisburg-based organization called “Brethren Housing,” which aims to help families that are experiencing homelessness to find stable housing, counseling, and support. The team helps those in the program move to church-funded housing or to more permanent housing.

RJ Mellor, a junior on the lacrosse team, shared how having the chance to serve has affected him and his teammates.

“It sets anything about me aside and lets me do whatever I can to help someone else,” Mellor said. “I think that selflessness and a servant mindset is good for anyone, and the more opportunities we get to do here, the better it is for my teammates and myself. It lets us think about other people and the bigger picture.”

The importance of servanthood is something Dan Carson, the men’s lacrosse coach, has instilled into his team.

“I think that with any team, the closer that group is, the more that they care about each other, the more experiences they’ve had as a team, and the better that they’re going to be,” Carson said.

The support that teams are able to give others stems from how they serve each other within their own team. Last year, the baseball and men’s lacrosse team came together to support Kenny Runkel, a former baseball player, as his father was beginning his battle with cancer.

Josh “Marv” Nielsen is a junior broadcast and journalism major on the baseball team. Nielsen shared that as a team, their purpose is bigger than playing baseball, it is first foremost to support one another.

“Being selfless can be tough sometimes, but it is definitely helping us all grow and be better people,” Nielsen said.

The need for selflessly serving each other is a core value of the baseball team that has been instituted by their head coach, Phillip Shallenberger. Shallenberger hopes that his players experience a change on and off the field.

“We hope that by the time they leave here in their four years, they have a family that they love and care about and people they’re going to stay connected with forever. But also an ability to learn what it looks like to love and care for people that are different from you,” Shallenberger said.