| Ex-Falcon Brezina gets the word out about faith
This wasn't on Greg Brezina's list of goals. One doesn't aspire to be awakened by their wife at 5 a.m. wallowing in a pool of their own vomit.
Moreover, it didn't make any sense. Failures become drunks and Brezina was no failure.
DESPERATE SUCCESS
"All I ever wanted to do was play ball," Brezina said, sipping a Starbucks coffee on Hilton Head Island on Thursday. "I thought I had arrived."
For a boy from Texas, "arriving" often takes place on the football field. A star at Louise High School, he accepted a scholarship to play linebacker at the nearby University of Houston, where his intense style of play -- what he describes as "agile, mobile and hostile" -- attracted the attention of NFL scouts; the Atlanta Falcons drafted him in 1967.
Always driven, Brezina wasted no time in making his mark; he started his rookie season, was named to the 1969 Pro Bowl and voted by the other Falcons as team MVP the same year.
About that time, his wife Connie informed him that she was expecting their child. His life was full, and he couldn't have been less happy.
"I wasn't satisfied," said Brezina. "I said, 'What else is there?'"
Lacking answers and out of goals, Brezina took Frank Sinatra's lyrics to heart: "If this is all there is, let's break out the booze and have a ball."
"I just raised hell," Brezina said.
But for all the booze, his life wasn't a ball, and the terror on the field became one off it.
"She cried a lot in those days," Brezina said of his wife.
A LIFE TRANSFORMED
When fellow linebacker Don Hansen asked Brezina to head to pre-game chapel, he dismissed the invitation with pure machismo: "That was for weak people."
But the chapel's guest speaker was no mollycoddle. An Olympic weightlifter, the speaker had the desperate Brezina intrigued.
"He wasn't weak," said Brezina. "He could push some iron."
The Olympian's message was hardly soft, either, as he confronted his listeners on their need to turn to Jesus for salvation from their sins and allow God to transform their lives.
Moved but not convinced, Brezina went forward after the address to extend his thanks. Again, the Olympian was direct.
Asked if he was a Christian, Brezina answered in the affirmative, having experienced plenty of church during his Texas youth. His answer fell flat with the Olympian, who challenged him to extend beyond mere morality and embrace faith in Christ.
"Christianity is God doing something for man," explains Brezina. "Religion in man trying to do something for God."
Tired of trying and doing, and racked with guilt, Brezina returned to his hotel room and asked God into his life.
"The guilt of my sin was the like this building sitting on my back," Brezina said. "All my guilt was removed from me. I knew I was guiltless."
Born again, Brezina turned to extending the love of God toward others.
"(The Bible says) love your wives like you love the church," said Brezina. "I asked my wife to forgive me for being an ungodly husband."
Soon, the drunken nights disappeared, and Brezina exchanged "Playboy" for the Bible, earning him the nickname "The Reverend" among teammates.
"I was something of a novelty back then," said Brezina. "I was the first one out of the closet as far as being a Christian."
GETTING THE WORD OUT
It wasn't long before word of Brezina's faith spread, even as far as Hilton Head Island, where he and several Falcons teammates were invited to serve as role models for area youth through football clinics. The idea caught on, and what began as a character-building exercise 29 years ago has become a forum for spreading the gospel.
Starting today, Brezina and 53 other prominent Christian athletes will conduct the "Week of Champions," a series of sports clinics throughout the Lowcountry that appeal to both body and soul.
"The spiritual is what drives the psychological, which in turn tells the body what to do," said Brezina. "We combine all three of them."
The clinics are free, and athletes as prominent as Calvin Johnson, this year's No. 2 overall NFL draft pick, have offered their insight -- athletic and spiritual -- in years past. This week, the list includes ex-NFL receiver Brett Perriman, former Atlanta Braves pitcher Jose Alvarez and a host of other former and rising pros.
Through the clinics, Brezina hopes to pass on the same faith that transformed his own shattered life; and he's also finally found a satisfying purpose for his sport.
"Just to be able to point that kid in that way, it's powerful," Brezina said. "You can leave a legacy like that."
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