MKB Photo, The Christian View

Clemson Tigers Chaplain Tony Eubanks speaks to middle and high school students at an area-wide See You at the Pole rally.


      In his first days as Chaplain for the Clemson Tigers football team, Tony Eubanks reflected on his role and his relationship with Head Football Coach Tommy Bowden.
      "We're in one accord," Eubanks said, as he sat in his office. "We both have a task. His task is to coach football, as God has called him to be a football coach. And we both have an ultimate task, which is to lead people to a right relationship with a God they can't see. What a task.
      "I told him, 'Coach, I'm praying for you.' He said, 'I'm praying for you, too.'
      "I like the fact that God uses football for His glory, that He has combined the talents, abilities, and gifts He bestowed on us, along with His grace and His mercy, to move us to move people.
      "I love people, because my life is people. The Coach's life is people. We come together, to work with people, to help make their lives complete. It's one thing to live a life. It's another thing to live a life in full abundance of what God can do with your life."
      Eubanks can relate to the athletes, as he was an athlete himself in high school and in college as well as professionally. The Nashville, Tennessee native played basketball at the University of Mississippi before transferring to Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga, where he earned his degree in Christian ministries, pastoral studies. After teaching school for a year, he played basketball professionally overseas, in Europe and the Middle East and Argentina, over a 10-year period. 
      He was the Youth Pastor at Bayshore United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida for a few years before moving back to Atlanta in 1996, for Eubanks and his wife, Wynee, and their two sons, A.J. and Kennedy, to be closer to family. With an inner-city ministry of midnight basketball, he had been able to combine sports and faith. "SLAM, which stood for Sharing Life in Athletic Ministry, was an off-shoot of a midnight basketball ministry that the Police Athletic League had started in Baltimore and Chicago," he said. "They would play basketball with kids from the inner city, to keep them off the street. We started it in Atlanta with the help of professional athletes and, of course, money people, to use basketball for ministry."
      He joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) in 1999, serving as Urban Director in Atlanta. Then, Georgia Bulldogs Head Football Coach Mark Richt called Eubanks to be chaplain for the school's basketball program, and he served in that position for two years before taking the position of chaplain at Clemson.
      "I think the chaplain's ministry is fairly new, within the FCA structure," said Eubanks. "I think that Coach Bowden was one of the first to have a chaplain's ministry, which he started when he was at Tulane."
      Eubanks arrives early at his office, and his day may include a devotion with the football coaches, team meetings, staff meetings, football practice, being with the players during their workouts, or meeting with local Pastors. He also speaks at churches, Rotary Club meetings, youth rallies, and other events.
      "We have five ministry focuses," he said of the chaplain ministry. "In no particular order, they are: FCA meetings on Thursday nights at 7:17 and 9:19, Bible studies led by athletes on Sunday nights, a pre-game chapel, community outreach, and a coaches Bible study for all sports. We're also working in conjunction with the FCA here on campus, which is the largest FCA in the world."
      Eubanks said that he had always wanted his work to involve young people. "At first, I wanted to do social work, helping underprivileged kids or young people with disabilities," he said. "I had been a poor kid from Nashville. I didn't have a lot, but some people helped me out. I wanted to get into youth work, whether social work or the United Way or Boys or Girls Club, whatever I could do. At Ole Miss, I studied social studies, but, when I transferred to Tennessee Temple, I got into more of a ministry focus, Christian ministries outreach. My coach at Tennessee Temple, Ron Bishop, is a great speaker. He kind of 'threw me into the water', so to speak. I traveled with him over a summer and kind of did what he did. I started speaking and sharing my testimony. One day, I started doing it on my own. Over the years, I would play basketball and speak, and a majority of that speaking was done in youth work or youth evangelism."
      Eubanks said that his favorite verse of Scripture is Philippians 1:6, Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. "I have no doubt that, what God has started in me, He will complete, in spite of me. And He will complete it in the lives of our young people. Our young men get anxious in life because of the things that happen around them, but I don't, because I'm confident in whom I believe. I tell my wife, 'If you see me cry, you'd better cry. Otherwise, you and the boys don't worry about a thing.' I have no fear of anything.
      "I'm confident in Christ. I'm happy, joyful. Complete joy is in being satisfied with where you are, not where you've been, and not even where you're going, but where you are right now. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5-7). I love that. Quite frankly, I'm a servant. I'm here to serve. We're here to serve the Jew, the Gentile, the Greek, the bond, the slave, the free, whoever, we're here to serve. And, in serving, we bring God's love."


MKB, Publisher, The Christian View