When Mike Sanfratello steps off the plane, he starts with a prayer.
“Lord, help me get out of the way,” he whispers as his feet move quickly through the airport terminal in Salt Lake City. “Let me find You here, and let me join You in this.”
The cab door slams, the scent of gas fumes lingers, and the journey begins. Sanfratello, Vice President of Field Ministry for FCA’s Rockies Region, has been on a mission for quite some time: To share the gospel through athletics in every nook and cranny of Utah.
It’s a task of God-sized proportions, one he knows can’t be done alone, but, as his prayer states, he’s joining God in this place—and enlisting the help of several key people to see the mission through.
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A native of Albuquerque, N.M., Bill Schorr has called Utah home since 1999. A member of Ari-zona State’s College World Series team in 1987, he later signed with the Texas Rangers but injured his rotator cuff in his first season, ending his pro career before it ever really began.
Bill Schorr (back, right) at Hillcrest High School's FCA Huddle with University of
Utah huddle leaders and Hillcrest Huddle Coach Chris Luttrell (back, middle).
“My god was baseball,” Schorr says. "When it was taken away I thought, 'So what now?'"
He started attending a Sunday worship service at Calvary Church in Albuquerque, sitting among a small group of friends as the pastor, Skip Heitzig, spoke God’s Word.
“I sat in that church the first time and heard the gospel message and I said, ‘Where’s this been all my life?’”
Three months later, Schorr committed his life to Christ. Later he began to date a young lady from that small group of friends named Erin. The two were married in 1990, moved to Utah nine years later, and still live there today with their three children.
Schorr met Sanfratello last year when FCA was searching for a new state director in Utah. Sanfratello was looking for strong leadership, vision, and the ability to serve—a local person who understood the culture and community. He wanted a person with a pastor's heart, a sports background and business experience.
When Sanfratello shared his vision of the ideal candidate, you’d think he was reading aloud from Schorr’s résumé. Understands the community and culture? Utah is in Schorr’s DNA. He’s called it home for 13 years. Check. Heart of a pastor? Schorr was a campus pastor in a Utah church for six years. Check. Sports and business experience? Schorr played college and professional sports and later was successful in sales and marketing. Check.
“Bill, this is right up your alley,” Bryan Dwyer, Schorr’s pastor, told him.
“It was fun to watch the Lord prompt Bill,” Sanfratello says. “I think it was a release for him because he felt God was calling him, and now He was confirming it through his pastor.”
Sanfratello, too, was also coming to the realization that Schorr was the guy for the job.
“Bill understands the mind and the heart of an athlete and a coach,” Sanfratello says. “He knows business. He’s gone to areas where he’s had to go and start something from scratch. He understands the business side from a long-term approach.”
The formalities were completed in the days and weeks after the meeting, and last fall Schorr was named Utah’s new FCA state director.
He immediately set his sights on the opportunities the Beehive State has to offer, with its population of roughly 2.8 million plus its three largest colleges, Utah, Utah State and Weber State, which collectively educate nearly 80,000 students and 1,000 student-athletes.
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The first time Joy Nakaishi heard the words “Fellowship of Christian Athletes,” she was 423 miles beyond the state line of Utah coaching her high school volleyball team, Layton Christian Academy, at a tournament in Colorado. She visited the FCA booth and picked up cards explaining the athlete and coach mandates.
“What is this?” she asked. “I started reading it, and I was like, 'What?' I didn’t even know it existed. I thought, ‘This is really cool.’”
She took the cards and left. The seed was planted.
Nakaishi accepted a position as an assistant women’s volleyball coach at Weber State last year. She met Schorr, who coached high school baseball with her husband. He mentioned his work with FCA and she remembered Colorado. She remembered the cards. She felt God’s calling.
“The next thing you know, I’m part of FCA,” she says. “Now I’m having Bible studies. I’m talk-ing to athletes about God.”
Utah's Jay Brossman, Utah State's Jason Thomas and Weber State's Joy Nakaishi
spoke at the FCA Utah vision meeting in December 2012.
Schorr kicked off a coaches' Bible study at Weber State, and soon the dominoes within the athletic department started falling. God began to move. Nakaishi was re-introduced to head football coach Jody Sears, who coached at Washington State when she was a student-athlete there. Sears introduced Nakaishi to other Weber State coaches, and a 30-minute coaches' devotional created a new synergy between coaches in the athletic program.
“It brought together coaches in the same building who didn’t even know they were believers,” Schorr says. “To hear these coaches talk about how the volleyball coach can now go visit with the football coach, the basketball coach and the track coach is amazing.”
Sanfratello adds that coaches are the “centerpiece to the FCA model.”
“When we get coaches at any of the major universities in Utah who stand up with [the FCA] logo on their chest, it immediately gives you credibility—in the church world, sports world, the local community,” he says. “The exciting thing is, we can go down the list and say we have 20-plus coaches who have a faith in Christ and have had an experience with FCA.”
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Under Schorr’s guidance, beginning coaches' Huddles was the spark that lit the FCA fire in the state of Utah. That fire quickly spread to other universities and student-athletes.
Weber State built a Huddle that draws about 20 student-athletes each week, and, in its first meetng of 2013, 11 athletes gave their hearts to Christ.
Huddles at the University of Utah started when a couple of transfers from Arizona got ambi-tious and started organizing them by texting friends. Within a few weeks, the groups grew from about 15 student-athletes to 50 or 60.
Jay Brossman, former four-time all-conference baseball selection at Utah, was drafted in 2007, but, like Schorr, injuries derailed his professional career. He returned to the program in August 2012 as a coach and now serves as its director of operations.
“We have student-athlete leaders who are really on fire for the Lord,” Brossman says. “See-ing them step up and be firm and bold in their faith has been really encouraging.”
Jason Thomas, director of athlete academic services at Utah State, says FCA's presence on campus is adding credibility and awareness to a college athletic culture with 14 NCAA Division I men’s and women’s programs. Word is spreading to the 354 student-athletes and more than 28,000 college students at Utah State.
“The relationships that you build are key,” Thomas says. “When I was here (as a stu-dent-athlete), we built a really strong core of guys who to this day still hold each other ac-countable. Now, it’s great to see those relationships develop and see that transformation.”
Mike Sanfratello, pictured (back, right) with Schorr and members of the University of Utah FCA Huddle
When Schorr and Sanfratello visited him on campus last summer, Thomas remembers walk-ing away from the meeting “really fired up.” He knew the impact FCA had on him as a stu-dent-athlete and how it was at the center of building lifelong relationships. Now, with FCA in Utah, he can continue his ministry.
“It was an answer to prayer,” Thomas says. “The harvest is ripe, and it’s the right time.”
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Schorr and Sanfratello have some ambitious goals for FCA in Utah.
Sanfratello is entering his 21st year with FCA, a career that started in 1992 as a part-time area representative in Arizona. Like the other states under his direction today—Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming—Sanfratello says Utah’s field ministry will implement a three-phase growth strategy:
1. Build awareness and educate the community.
2. Establish relationships and trust with people in the sports world.
3. Implement FCA’s “Four C's” — Coaches, Campus, Community and Camps ministries.
“We’re not a fly-by ministry,” Sanfratello says. “We’re not an event ministry. We’re a relation-ship ministry. I coach people to establish belly-to-belly relationships. Relationships equal net-works, and networks equal expansion into new relationships. You’ve got to spend time there. The strength of our organization is the relationships we’ve built.”
For FCA supporters, Utah will be a state to watch because of the ministry's relative newness to the area. The staff is focused on serving the state and continuing the work God's already done.
“Every time I’ve come to Utah, I feel like the Lord has gone so far before and has been do-ing so many things prior to us showing up, it’s just a matter of trying to follow His lead,” Sanfratello says. “All we’ve had to do is show up, and people were coming out of the wood-work.”
Since officially taking over, Schorr has been on the move, visiting high schools and colleges across the state, shaking hands, and sharing FCA with everyone he meets.
Each day is a new adventure for the former hardballer whose Major League dreams have been replaced with real-life ministry opportunities.
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With that, Sanfratello is back on the plane. He returns his seat to its upright position, takes a deep breath and fastens his seatbelt. God is in the cockpit, and all is well in Utah.
Prepare for takeoff.
Originally Published: March 2013
Photos courtesy of Bill Schorr and David Sidwell