Nashville deejays bring back pregame prayer
It was once as commonplace before the start of a high school football game as was the playing of the national anthem.
But hearing a prayer recited over the public address system in high school stadiums has now become a rarity.
Decisions made by courts dealing with the separation of church and state have eliminated this traditional part of pregame ceremonies at hundreds of high school campuses. But in rural America, the prayers are still heard.
Ronnie Carter, executive director of the TSSAA, thinks court decisions have obviously had a lot to do with the lack of a PA prayer. But his organization stays out of such controversies.
‘Our approach has always been that it’s a decision made at the local level,’ said Carter. ‘We don’t even speak to it,’ he added.
He thinks the main reason for prayer before kickoff, however, has not as much to do with religion as it does tradition.
‘It’s sort of like the kickoff. That’s how you’re supposed to start the game,’ he said.
Whether it’s a traditional issue or not, hearing a pregame prayer over the stadium speakers doesn’t happen as often as it did 20 years ago. Rarely is it on the pregame agenda at larger schools in metropolitan areas. It is, however, still often a part of the game in rural settings ‘ especially at 1A and 2A games.
Two Nashville radio deejays offer up a solution for those who miss a pregame blessing. Big D & Bubba, heard locally weekday afternoons from 3 until 7 on 98-WSIX and dozens other stations from Seattle to Key West, air a pregame prayer between 5 and 6 each Friday in the fall.
‘It’s something that’s missing from high school campuses, not only here in Tennessee but around the country,’ said Bubba. ‘It’s that prayer before the game that really makes such an impact on those players. If we can hit them and their families and the cheerleaders and the students on the way to the game, then that’s the whole point of it,’ he added.
‘It’s not like we’re trying to force any particular religion on anyone. We’ve had ministers and priests from just about every denomination you can think of deliver a prayer for us,’ he continued from his Nashville office.
‘We started doing this when we lived in Baton Rouge, LA,’ added Big D. ‘Whenever we moved up here, it was just a natural to continue. We ran it by our boss and were expecting a little hesitation; but when we threw it out there, he was all for it.
‘Probably 98 percent of what we hear from our listeners is positive. We’ll get a couple of negatives here and there. We’ll say that we appreciate their e-mail but that this is our show. We’ll tell them they have the freedom as Americans to listen to whatever they want. We’d appreciate it if they would listen to us but if not, we understand,’ said Big D.
Ministers in the area who might be interested in being a part of Big D & Bubba’s Friday night pregame football prayer can get involved by e-mailing the show’s producer. Send your requests to ([email protected]).
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Murphy Fair has published ‘Tennessee High School Football’ for the past 20 years. His Website (murphyfair.com) gives high school fans further insight into the prep football scene.