Stephen Copeland

Devotional of the Week: The Potter and His Tools

“Then the word of the Lord came to me: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?’ declares the Lord. ‘Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.’” Jeremiah 18:5-6

What Christians can learn from Kobe and Peyton

his is what makes anyone great at their profession or passion. The artists keep creating, understanding that there will always be something else for them to pour their soul into...

Devotional of the Week: 'Continue in the Grace of God'

The spiritual journey does not end at baptism or after praying a prayer or upon converting—rather, continuing in the grace of God is something we can do forever...

Devotional of the Week: Spirit Over Logic

Tim Noakes, a South African professor who has run in over 70 marathons and ultra-marathons, once said, “Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic...."

NBA Closeup: Jeremy Lin

Through the email prayer requests, fans weren’t only given specifics on how to pray for Lin, but the emails also gave insight into how Lin felt, how he thought and how he believed God was moving...

Another Angle: Entering another level of learning

In our Winter 2016 print issue of Sports Spectrum, I wrote a story about Sara White, wife of NFL Hall of Famer Reggie White, one of the most renowned outspoken Christians (nicknamed “The Minister of Defense”) to ever play in the NFL...

Another Angle: Rooming with New York Jets punter Ryan Quigley

In this issue of Sports Spectrum, we featured New York Jets punter Ryan Quigley in...

Chosen: Carolina linebacker Thomas Davis is making the most of his time on, off the field

Thomas Davis sits in the quiet of his Charlotte, North Carolina, home, wearing a silvery,...

Another Angle: How counseling saved my career

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to write. In grade school, I wrote a three-part series, probably 200 pages long, about flying dogs and cats that were at war with one another (it actually turned out to be kind of a gruesome tale, with backstabbing and blood and death, and I’m sure my parents were at least a little concerned)...

NFL Closeup: Ryan Quigley reflects on roller-coaster journey to NFL

Ryan Quigley found himself at a crossroads. After a successful four-year punting career at Boston College, Quigley, undrafted, had an opportunity to make the Chicago Bears roster during the 2012 preseason...

Devotional of the Week: Learning through Discouragement

“Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as...

Devotionals from Fall 2015 print issue (Week 13)

SERIES: FROM THE EDITOR, LESSONS FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK Monday: “I have fought the good...

Devotional of the Week: Your Favorite Course

“I hate this course.” “I never play well on this course...”

Another Angle: The 'Performance Wheel'

In Brad Paisley’s controversial song “Those Crazy Christians,” there’s a line about going to church that says: Those crazy Christians, dressed up drivin’ down my street, Get their weekly dose of guilt before they head to Applebee’s...

Another Angle: Eighteen Months Later

Dear Papaw, We were never ones to have serious conversations, were we? We liked arguing about sports and giving each other a hard time. We were expert jokesters and pranksters. You’d kid with me that I couldn’t possibly be a diehard Indiana Hoosier fan because I was born in Kentucky—my deepest, darkest secret...

Devotional of the Week: Accomplishment of God's Promises

The NFL has all kinds of stories about backup quarterbacks patiently waiting to be named the starter of the team. Aaron Rodgers waited behind Brett Favre. Nick Foles waited behind Michael Vick. Tom Brady waited behind Drew Bledsoe. While they waited, they continued to work hard and perfect their craft, knowing that if they were ever given their opportunity, they would be fully prepared...

Serious Call, Freeing Cause

As reported several months ago, the Brazilian government pledged to spend at least $900 million on security for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. They said that it would be "one of the most protected sports events in history." A CNN article in 2012 said that the government plans on having one police officer per every 50 people at each soccer match and one per every 80 people at other viewing events around the country...

Another Angle: Saltwater in the nose

I parked my car and hurried into the gas station to buy a bag of ice. It was 5 a.m., and I was running slightly behind. I had started coaching a golf team at a Christian high school in Charlotte that spring, and it was the morning of our conference tournament, our biggest tournament of the year. Though I was hesitant to accept the position, I looked back on the season and believed it might have been the best thing I had done with my life in a long, long time...

Scars For A Cause

They are calling Group G the "Group of Death" in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, consisting of Germany, Portugal, Ghana, and the United States. Merely advancing out of the group would be an incredible accomplishment, especially for the United States. The fact that it's a more difficult road for, say, a team like the United States, almost makes the journey more exciting. The greater the pain, the more scars there are, the greater the reward...

Living conscious of God's love

I’ve dislocated my knee twice while playing basketball. What’s just as frustrating as the dislocation itself, however, is what happens to the quad muscle after the injury. It shuts down. In order to get back out on the basketball court, even after two surgeries fixed my knee cap, I had to hook an electric stimulator up to my quad multiple times a day, for several weeks straight, just to fire up the muscle again. It was as if my quad completely forgot how to function, even after the surgery...

Rising to the Occasion

I had the privilege of going to last year’s national championship game between Louisville and Michigan. I confess I knew nothing about either team, but as the game progressed, I was quickly captivated by a little, freshman guard on Michigan named Spike Albrecht. Albrecht, who was only averaging 1.6 points per game, caught fire from the 3-point line and single-handedly kept the Wolverines in the game. In 18 Big Ten games, he had 22 points total. In the national title game, he had 17 points in the first 11 minutes...

From Our Friends in Russia

The Opening Ceremony for the Winter Olympics in Russia also provided the opening for Christian...

Sports Spectrum Female Athlete of the Year: Maya Moore

Does Maya Moore do anything but win? Every step, every stage, that’s all she has done. She won three state titles with Collins Hill High School in Georgia, two national titles in college at the University of Connecticut, and three years into her professional career with the Minnesota Lynx, her winning ways have not changed...

The Mind of McCutchen

Since being awarded the National League MVP in November, Pittsburgh Pirates star Andrew McCutchen gets the questions all the time. What’s the key to success? How did you get the MVP? What makes you so calm and confident?

NFL Closeup: Case Keenum

The Houston Texans have seemingly had a revolving door at quarterback this season, but it...

Come Alive

So much of life seems to be a search for life. Purpose and love and happiness seem to be buried somewhere in a far-off desert. Some find it. Some don’t. But all search...

Faith Looks Forward

Mason Plumlee looks out over the floor at Duke University’s practice facility. It must be weird to be back—returning to campus, his home for the last four years; visiting Cameron Indoor, Duke’s 2010 national championship banner hanging in the rafters of this gymnasium that feels more like a cathedral, with its wooden steeple doors and castle-stone exterior; and sitting here in Duke’s practice facility where his new team, the Brooklyn Nets, are having training camp...

NCAA Football Closeup -- Hugh Freeze

Hugh Freeze is in for the long hall. Freeze, named head coach of Ole Miss in December of 2011, said in his press conference that the University of Mississippi is where he wants to retire. Judging from his first year on the job, Ole Miss fans probably hope his talk is true...

In the News -- Mariano Rivera

Mariano Rivera is a reflection. And the night of the MLB All-Star game was no different. Rivera, considered the greatest relief pitcher of all time, was named the 2013 MLB All-Star Game MVP a month ago in his 19th season. It was his first All-Star MVP award in 13 appearances...

David Robinson, Sports Spectrum's No. 1 cover boy

May/June 1992           May 1994            ...

Long, Lost Eden

The stars felt so close it’d be easy to think God Himself had come down from His throne. He knelt below them, his heart heavy, his mind swallowed by sorrow and sin. He stared up at the sky, the heavens his only comfort to his understanding. His skin bore a drop of blood. It slowly fell from his wound and swam down his cheek. He was dying, and he knew it...

March 2013 DigiMag

The Art of Letting Go

Look past the call-girl cards that litter the street like confetti at Times Square on New Years, or the erotic billboards on the sides of trucks going down the neon-lit Strip, and you’ll see Las Vegas in its grace. You’ll see the fountains in front of the Bellagio dancing beneath the dry, Nevada sky, or the city calling your name as you look at it atop the Stratosphere, wooing you from below into an evening that never ends, where the casinos make promises and the liquor makes you believe them...

Baseball and Bucks

Washington Nationals first baseman Adam LaRoche has a tattoo on his right arm; it’s a drake. LaRoche also has a son; and his name is “Drake.” On his left arm is a buck tattoo. You could say the guy loves hunting...

Invisible No More

If you could have stood in the locker room before the fight, you would have thought an army was about to charge into battle. The energy gave you chills. The noise made your head throb. As Robert Guerrero’s team, family and friends gathered around him, howling and chanting, Bob Santos stood quietly, questioning their naivety, nervously wondering if this would go down as the biggest mistake of Robert Guerrero’s career...

Underwater

Joel Parker was on his way back from the slopes. He pounded another beer and chucked the bottle out the sunroof of his Subaru station wagon. He pressed his foot on the accelerator, his friends laughing in the backseat, anxiously peering out the rear-window to see if the bottle struck a brand new car in the dealership parking lot...

Beauty Unseen

The drive from Lake Tahoe to Seattle is about 13 hours. The road, like a river, winds its way through an array of landscapes—mountains, valleys, forests, desert, and high plains—as if God is showcasing His most beautiful paintings. Nick Visconti is on the road, the river. He doesn’t second-guess his direction, just as water doesn’t question its current...

Male Athlete of the Year: R.A. Dickey

It’s only fitting R.A. Dickey’s memoir “Wherever I Wind Up” was released this past March,...

The Void

That summer, John Morris would sit in church every Sunday and feel his eyes well up. His wife would look at him, concerned. “It’s okay,” he’d say. Then she would hold his hand. But he wasn’t okay. How could he be? How can you be okay when a player kills—kills—another player? When the town you’ve lived in for 25 years—Waco, Texas—is a media circus, the center of one of the most catastrophic scandals in college basketball history? When the school you love—your employer for the last eight years—is like an exploding building, collapsing in slow motion for the entire nation to see...

One Year Gone

There’s a stairwell that leads to a lonely apartment on Hinesley Avenue, down the street from Hinkle Fieldhouse. Rotnei Clarke, one of the nation’s top college basketball players, used to crawl up the stairs to the second floor, casts on his feet, questions on his mind, doubts flying like arrows over the walls of his soul...

Zealous Faith

When you grow up a Zeller, you have some big shoes to fill. And it’s not just because Luke and Tyler wear size 18 and 19 shoes, respectively. The eldest brother, Luke, led Washington High School to an Indiana Class 3A championship, swooshing a miracle heave from mid-court his senior season in 2005. The middle brother, Tyler, the 17th pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, led the Hatchets to another title in 2008 and set an Indiana scoring record during his senior campaign. And to top it off, both received the illustrious Indiana Mr. Basketball award and were named McDonald’s All-Americans their senior seasons...

Faith as Fashion

Aaron Baddeley was wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt and a backwards hat, far from his typical on-the-course attire—an Adams cap and his trendy Ogio clothing. His relaxed, boyish wardrobe (Richelle, his wife of seven years, playfully jokes that he still wears American Eagle sweatpants with a number on them, which he does) isn’t rare for the handsome 31-year-old American-Australian professional golfer...

Training Table -- Fruit of the Spirit (Week 8)

Monday “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you...

Training Table -- Pro Quotes (Week 4)

Monday “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will rest in the shadow...

Training Table -- Fruit of the Spirit (Week 7)

Monday “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,...

Training Table -- Pro Football (Week 9)

Monday “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those...

A Distinct Path

It happened to Luke Zeller three times—the recurrence of a dream. “What do you want to do when you grow up?” a television reporter asked Luke when he was 14 years old. “I want to start a basketball camp,” he said...

Born Again to Ride

"He’s blue! He’s blue!” George Briscoe cried, as they wheeled his son, Travis, into the operating room. “In the name of Jesus! In the name of Jesus! In the name of Jesus!” screamed Travis’ mother, Debbie, who was signing documents at the nurse’s desk. Perhaps that’s all you can say when your 16-year-old son is on his deathbed—when a typical Thanksgiving weekend in 2003 is transformed into a traumatizing nightmare—when your son is mistakenly rushed to the operating room without his oxygen tank, his life source. The doctors and nurses quickly retrieved the oxygen tank, which, at the very least, prolonged what little life he had left. “I need to talk to you,” said the anesthesiologist before the surgery...

It's A Mind Thing

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:1-2

Right Doesn’t Always Feel Good

“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” Colossians 2:16-17

Do-or-Die - Colossians 2:4-5

During this year’s men’s NCAA basketball tournament, I heard an interesting argument re- garding Butler’s postseason success. Bob Kravitz, Indianapolis Star columnist, said one of the keys to their success is their conference, the Horizon League, a conference that most likely won’t get any at-large bids and therefore must be won to advance to the Big Dance. Every game was a “must win” game and significantly affected Butler’s hopes of making the tournament. That’s why, when Butler did make the tournament, the players’ attitudes didn’t change. They’d been playing “do-or-die” all year...

NCAA Closeup -- Gordon Hayward

Sitting in a parent seminar on the eve of the NBA draft, Gordon Scott Hayward...