FCA huddles up at Princeton High School

Carmen Grey read a prayer request last fall from her teen Bible study from four years ago from a 2021 graduate, praying for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes to come to Princeton High School.

While the prayer was slow to be answered and delayed by the pandemic, it was answered in God’s time.

The FCA Huddle (chapter) has been meeting at PHS since late fall, the first time for the organization in nearly 50 years. Prior to that, a group of PHS students had met informally in a community setting.

FCA is an all-student led, faith-based organization with adult sponsors in the background with hundreds of huddles in Illinois and more than 18,000 world wide.

Area schools with solid FCA Huddles include Annawan, Bureau Valley, Geneseo, Henry, Kewanee, L-P, Putnam County, Sterling and Wethersfield.

Abbie Cochran, the PHS sponsor, said her job is simply to open the doors, turn on the lights and “sit and enjoy listening to them.”

PHS sophomore Erah Goodale took the torch from graduated students who pursued FCA and brought the PHS Huddle to fruition. She didn’t know if it would happen or not.

“There was a period of time where I was like, ‘OK, is this actually going to happen? Are we going to be able to meet in the school?’ she said. “I knew that there would always be something and we would be able to meet, because of the community support that we were given. It was just would we be able to meet in the school?

“It is definitely very, very important to have this. I know we see other schools around us and I think it’s a great way to get all of us together since we’re such a close group of student-athletes and we can all relate to so many things. I think it’s important for us to be able to talk about our faith through our different sports.”

Trent Goodale, Erah’s oldest brother, was thankful to have FCA started during his senior year. Their younger brother, Phillip, also attends.

“It was incredibly important to me, because we could never get it started as an official club,” said Trent, who attended informal gatherings as a freshman. “So seeing my sister wanting to take charge to do this was incredibly important that we could get together and actually get it going.

“Bureau Valley, who is a rival and our closest school, has always had a very strong FCA chapter for quite awhile now. Seeing us finally get one started means a lot, because we’ve never kind of had this group at the high school, so it means a lot.”

Goodale said he’s very proud of his sister, “because she’s put in a lot of work. She’s been to every meeting with Mr. Ohlson, week after week. It took over a year, I think to actually get to meet in school, so she’s been incredibly diligent getting it started.

Club member Alex Jagers, a senior, said having FCA is a good thing for all PHS students.

“Now a days, not a lot of people get to have Jesus in their life, so to bring this to school, it’s good,” he said.

Jagers also praised Erah Goodale’s persistence in getting FCA started at PHS.

“She was kind of the founding father, I guess. Did a lot of work to get this started,” he said.

FCA provides an avenue for a school’s athletes to bond with their faith. PHS senior Maggie Davis said it also is a great outlet for all students to work thru their daily struggles.

“Even if they don’t regularly attend church, don’t have a strong Christian background, it’s such a good outlet for conversations about athletics and our frustrations,” she said. “Just how we can express our frustrations and work through issues in a Christian way rather than causing drama and conflict amongst kids.”

The Princeton FCA draws between 10-15 students each week in a PHS English classroom, meeting at 7 a.m. on Thursdays. Erah Goodale leads the discussion, reading and asking others to read scriptures. This week’s scripture verses came from Acts and Matthew.

Discussions included how to be a leader and someone to look up to on your teams. Prayer requests were made for upcoming games and their teams.

While Davis will be graduating soon, she tries to use her status as a senior to encourage younger teammates and students to join FCA.

“As a senior, we have the abilities to encourage other students and have more of an influence,” she said.

Northwest Illinois FCA Multi-Area director Dan Pearson, who oversees the Three Rivers and greater Peoria area, was excited to have the Princeton Huddle take off.

“My picture of Princeton is there’s a church at every other corner,” he said. “Just a community of faith so strong. So this is very fulfilling and exciting to me that it’s happening. I just think it’s only going to get bigger and bigger. I really feel God’s moving there. I encourage coaches and parents to really check it out.”

Pearson said coaches are the greatest influencers for FCA by displaying their faith to their athletes.

“We believe they are the most influential people in America,” he said.

FCA was founded in 1954 by Don McClanen, a coach in Oklahoma, who unable to schedule a meeting with Branch Rickey, then the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, just showed up at his office unannounced and turned his “five-minutes” into a five-hour discussion with the man who integrated Major League Baseball with Jackie Robinson.”

“McClanen said, ‘If all these athletes are promoting things from cereal to cigarettes, why not the gospel, too,’” Pearson said.

Interested students may contact Goodale to get involved with the PHS Huddle. For more information on FCA, visit www.fca.org.

Kevin Hieronymus is the BCR Sports Editor. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com