RR:  That’s a good word.  (Applause)  Dave, I know that you understand that young people, high school students, college students, look up to professional athletes.  They hold you in such high regard, in some cases they hold you too high.  They want to be like you.  They, if you’re a football player they want to run with the ball like you run or carry the ball, throw it or kick it or pass it.  Or if it’s basketball, they want to shoot like you shoot.  Or if it’s golf, they want to hit the ball like you do, or they want to stride down the fairway like a Jack Nicholas or something like that.  And young people hold professional athletes in high regard.  And what I want to talk to you about and ask you to speak to is, well, concerning the matter that happened recently with the young man from University of Maryland, drafted by the Boston Celtics, who wound up in this cocaine situation apparently for the first time in his life.  I don’t know that anyone will ever know all of the circumstances because in those kind of things we don’t always know exactly what happened.  They know what perhaps it appears that happened.  But I know of your determination against drugs and against that in professional sports, but what would you say to a young person, high school, junior high, college, that has athletic ability but somehow they have either somehow got with drugs or the devil is playing tricks with their minds, what would you say to them? Take a moment and talk out of your heart.

DB:  I would say three things to them.  The most important thing for a child or someone who is living at home with his parents is, number one, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right to honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and you may enjoy a long life in the land the Lord your God has given you.  Number one, to obey your parents.  Number two, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived, for bad company corrupts good morals.”  So number one, to obey your parents and watch who you associate to, with.  And number three, oftentimes in life that every generation feels that our parents or another generation is obsolete and we have to experience everything for ourselves.  One of the ways we learn is from other people’s experiences.  Drugs, the use of alcohol, the abuse of alcohol, those are all dead-end streets.  How many people have to die before you wise up?  And for me, I don’t have to use drugs or abuse alcohol.  I don’t drink for that matter as it is because of all the people that look up to me, and it’s just really a dead-end road.  And it’s not glorifying to your body, for the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

DB:  Well, when, you know, now everything that I do I give glory and honor to God because that’s what I’m here for, you know, to bring other people to the kingdom of God and snatch them out of hell because this is a serious situation that we’re in.  You know, we’re in the last days.  And when I play in a football game, I’m doing it all as heartily as unto the Lord.  And I do my very best every single play and I relieve the results to God.  As long as I do that I know that I have success because I please God.  And that’s the one person that I’m playing before and that’s the most high God.

RR:  Here you are running one of those touchdowns right now onthe screen.  (Applause)

DB:  And so when I get an interception and I’m running back for a touchdown, instead of jumping up in the air and throwing the ball down and I’ve just decided that I bow a knee, that just by maybe my bowing on my knee that someone might see that there is a God in Seattle, Washington, because we know that there is. (Applause)  And so how that effects, you know, my teammates, you know, the guys particularly that knew me before I became a Christian eight years ago, they know without a doubt that there is a difference.  And, you know, there’s a guy who’s a news commentator, a few other guys that are on the team that are still not believers.  But when I see them, they know what I stand for, and I stand for God through Jesus Christ and I stand for His Word.  And because of that stand, I believe that some day, you know, I’m just planting seed or maybe I’m watering the seed, but only God can make it grow.

DB:  Ephesians 2:8,9.

RR:  All right now, when you came to Jesus through this man’s witness, what did it do?  How did it change your life?  How did it effect your fellow players?

DB:  Well, first of all–

RR:  Because you began acting in a way that you weren’t used to acting before.

DB:  First of all, you know, I had a strong wife.  My wife Rhonda who I’ve been married to for ten years now, she was a Christian at the time.  And she was just really a strong witness in front of me.  She always stood by me.  She was my support and really I just feel so fortunate and blessed to have a wife like Rhonda. And once I became a Christian and I started reading the Bible for myself and studying it and allowing God to work through my life just saying, in every situation, you know, I’ve made a choice this day to follow after You, Lord, to be the man of God that You called me to be.  And I don’t know what to do.  You just show me through Your Word and through my spirit, the Holy Spirit that You’ve given me, and show me how I am to live. And each day as I’ve been obedient to the Word of God I’ve been revealed more and more from studying the Word of God, spending time in prayer and fellowship with other believers and witnessing.  This is what I’m doing right now, just telling what God has done in my life. I’ve just grown and grown.  (Applause)

RR:  A question I want to ask is the reaction, the reaction throughout your teammates and throughout the NFL and the fans, because suddenly people began seeing you do things, like, for example, the time that you, that you intercepted a pass, ran for a touchdown, the second largest interception in NFL history, and when you got into the end zone you got down on your knees and thanked the Lord.  I’d like you to, I’d like you to talk about that, how people responded.  And also when they saw you after Seattle came up in the world and you wound up beating the Miami Dolphins in the playoffs, you all were having a prayer meeting back in the dressing room afterwards.  And cameras came in and the news media came in and saw all this.  What was the response of people?

RR:  Did you, was that the time when you really came to know Jesus as your Savior, through his witness?  out there may be.  I didn’t really want to give God my life.  I felt I had to be good in order to give my life to Christ.  And when he explained to me, you know, that God wanted me just as I was, that I could not be good enough for God, I’d never make it because the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins and the sins of the world, just believe in God through Jesus Christ and ask Him to come into my life, to forgive me of my sins and be my Savior and my Lord, that He would.  And it took me about a year later.

RR:  And it took you a while.  You said something a minute ago that I want to ask you because a lot of people have said this to me and I picked up on what you just said.  You said, I didn’t feel like I was good enough to become a Christian.  What did you mean by that?

DB:  Well, what I meant by that is that, you know, oftentimes we think that we have misconceptions about what God’s Word says.  We base most of our information on what the Bible says from what other people tell us and what we hear and what we think God should be.  And oftentimes that’s a misconception.  That’s how the devil uses other people or false prophets, antichrist, to influence our lives.

RR:  You know it’s not true now.

DB:  No, no question about it.  You know, when I found out He died for my sins and it’s by grace that I’m saved through faith, it’s not a gift, it’s a gift of God.  I can’t work my way into heaven.

RR:  Nothing of yourself, but it is a gift of God.

RR:  Now that was a time when Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay Buchaneers and and they had no tradition.  They didn’t have any tradition of winning or losing, it was a new team.  And so they started their own tradition, which at that time was lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.  Now here’s a young man who won in high school, he was a star with the University of Michigan, the first round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, win, win, win, win, win, go to the Super formed Seattle Seahawks, and suddenly it all comes crashing down around you.  What happened to you while you were there?

DB:  Well, no question, it was definitely different and I don’t think it had an effect on my character and I believed I still was a very, very fine, I was the best football player in my position. But again, I realized that it wasn’t just because of my ability I was able to do the things that I was, that I did.  I’d been very fortunate to have not ever missed a game of football in high school and in college, and my first year in professional football I missed one game.  And since that point I’ve only missed, I’ve missed six games.  I broke my leg in 1981.  But there was a guy who was on our football team, because at that point in time every team in the National Football League had put 13 players on a list and I was chosen off that list.  So we had guys from just about all the other 26 teams in the league.  And there was one guy in particular that I watched, because we had a group of guys on the team that they were different.  One guy in particular, he just seemed to have a smile on his face all the time, seemed to have something different.  And I watched him and he received an injury and his career was ended, and just because of his witness when he had the injury and all during the time when he rehabilitate his knee and his career was ended–

RR:  What was his name?

DB:  His name was Kent Hutchison.

RR:  And his witness had an effect upon you?

 DB:  No question about it.