Spokane soccer teams add team chaplains to support players’ mental, spiritual health
News Story by Cody Wendt | FāVS News
Amid the local excitement since the debut of the Spokane Velocity and Zephyrs professional men’s and women’s soccer teams last year, the bulk of the attention has naturally been directed at their competitive achievements, as with the Velocity’s surprise run to the final of the USL (United Soccor League) League One Playoffs.
According to team chaplains Russ Branham and Amy Miller, however, the organization USL Spokane, which runs these affiliated soccer programs, has distinguished itself in another respect: Its holistic concern for athletes’ needs, ranging from the physical to the emotional and spiritual.
Soccer Chaplains United (SCU) recruits and trains chaplains for sports teams nationwide. With competitive athletes facing increasing mental health challenges, many teams now offer spiritual and confidential counseling as additional support. USL Spokane partnered with SCU to find chaplains who could provide these services to their players.
“When they see a team with a need, they start exploring that city, that town, that area for potential candidates, and the chaplains that are in the field will oftentimes refer people,” Branham said of SCU’s recruitment process.
Providing an anchor
Branham, who otherwise works as a sales director for a dental equipment manufacturing company, calls ministry his “real passion.” He was a sitting elder for Spokane’s Christ the Redeemer Church when he was approached by SCU about the possibility of chaplaincy for the Velocity, and “thought about it, prayed about it” before deciding to “throw in (his) hat.” After an extended interview process and background check, he was selected from several candidates for the post.
Having once played high school soccer for the Rogers Pirates of Spokane and wrestled for North Idaho College in the late 1980s through early ‘90s, Branham brings life experience that has helped him connect with his young charges over the past year. As much as dispensing wisdom or advice at the meals and activities they share, he sees it as central to his role to simply “stop and listen” when athletes unburden themselves to him in confidence.
“As a guy who was a college athlete, I know how anchorless that life can be when you go out and you’re away from your family in an unfamiliar environment,” he said. “In these guys’ case, they’re in the spotlight, and they’ve got a lot of weight on their shoulders and potentially nobody to care for them not as a soccer player, not as a high-level athlete, but just as a human being.”
‘Being a safe place‘
Miller serves as the adult ministries team lead for Summit Church of Spokane and took note last year when a parishioner who was also a member of the Zephyrs roster reached out about whether any of the female clergy there might be interested in becoming the women’s team chaplain.
“The player came up to me one weekend after I had preached, and we started talking about it,” Miller said.
Having felt the “connection of friendship was there” and her interest piqued, Miller submitted herself to the same review process as Branham and came out on the other side roughly three months ago. She said she empathizes with the “great cost to their personal lives” the athletes incur with sacrifices like “not being able to plan for the future the way a typical woman might be in her 20s,” and cherishes everything from one-on-one counseling to group gatherings for those players who feel called to meet with her.
“About half the team, we get together at a coffee shop once a week just to talk life and faith and pray together,” she said. “… I have a role of being a safe place that they can process life with, and being someone who’s championing them beyond just a position they play. That’s my heart behind it. That’s why I do it; that’s why I make time for it in my schedule. I think it’s a really important calling.”
‘Not meant to do life alone‘
Branham and Miller offered similar sentiments about the USL Spokane organization, saying that its effort in obtaining the chaplains’ services was only one expression of a generally thoughtful and conscientious disposition toward its players.
“I’m really amazed at how hard they’re working; their safety officer, Molly (Schemmel), is like a team mom,” Branham said. “She’s amazing to these guys. … I don’t think that I would’ve been as excited about this, and so looking forward to next year, if it hadn’t been for how Molly and the rest of the organization really seemed to care for these guys.”
Miller described herself as “very impressed” with the staff’s “professionalism and their commitment to not only sport, but the women as women and humans.”
Both Branham and Miller, who serve on a volunteer basis, expressed that they have found the work fulfilling and intend to continue in their roles as the program enters its second year of competition.
“I guess I would say I contend that the greatest human desire is to be fully seen and fully known, and that we just weren’t meant to do life alone,” Miller said. “I think it’s really powerful, and it’s really life-giving, when we’re not just in proximity with people, and we’re fully present.”
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