Cowboys’ Horton Counting Blessings
It is 8:30 on a Sunday morning at the Crystal Cathedral, where the walls part to let inside God’s light. Sun rays beam like lasers off the towers of glass and chrome, hundreds of feet high. A church choir in Technicolor vestments, ideal for the big-screen TVs and even larger Sony JumboTron that flank the altar, files into place beside a four-keyboard organ.
Entering behind the choir is Ray Horton, a football player for the Dallas Cowboys, who is escorted by a robed minister to a throne-like chair. He sits attentively as the Rev. Robert Schuller welcomes a 104-year-old woman from the congregation. Then come two uplifting spirituals from a gospel group, the Sounds of Blackness, just back from performing at Bill Clinton’s inauguration.
Rising at the pastor’s behest, Ray Horton is introduced: “Husband. Father. Football hero. Role model.”
He is flattered. He is applauded.
But he says: “It’s hard for me to accept that just because I’m on that little box that you watch on Sundays, playing football, that I would gain acceptance as a role model.
“Just because Michael Jordan can dunk a basketball, or because Troy Aikman can throw a football, I don’t think that necessarily makes someone a proper role model.
“If my son grows up to say, ‘I want to love my wife the way my father loved my mother,’ then I will have succeeded as a role model. If my daughter says, ‘I want a husband who will be like my father was,’ if she wants someone who loves her, honors her, takes care of her and respects her, then that’s when I will feel as though I have been a proper role model. Then, and only then.”
The churchgoers rocked the house with applause.
Rev. Schuller said: “Wow.”
Should Ray Horton not make a single tackle in Super Bowl XXVII, he will never score a bigger hit than he did Sunday from a pulpit in Garden Grove.
It was seven days before the big game and a lot can happen in seven days. Entire worlds have been created in less time. And the week leading up to a championship football game generally seems to be one in which the misbehavior of the players is paid the greatest heed, with all conduct intensified, all conceit amplified. Could be John Matuszak’s pub-crawling or Jim McMahon’s pants falling. Could be John Riggins’ dodging of attention or Thurman Thomas’ demand for more.
No one devotes undue time or space to the athlete who simply aspires to a better life. It isn’t colorful. It isn’t comical. Few care where players say their prayers.
Ray Horton came to California ahead of his teammates, merely to devote one rare free Sunday morning to his devotion. He is a man who believes in counting his blessings, particularly while belonging to a profession wherein a Dennis Byrd, a Mike Utley or a Daryl Stingley can be running at full speed one day and riding in a wheelchair the next.
“Sometimes it strikes you as a football player that you have no other purpose in life but to go out there and hit people and make people go, ‘Yay!’ or ‘Boo!’ ” Horton said. “I think God put me on this planet to do more than that.”
“To do what?” he was asked.
“To live a Christian life,” Horton said.
He recalled a time from his youth in Tacoma, Wash., when he had gone before a preacher to be saved. There was a portable television nearby with a football game in progress, and whenever young Raymond was asked, “Are you ready to be saved?” he found himself answering with an “Ohhh, yes!” or an “Amen!” that was actually a reaction to what was happening in the game.
Horton himself has been seen on many screens, big and small. He has been playing football professionally longer than most, since 1983. As one of the oldest of the Cowboys, a defensive back approaching his 33rd birthday, Horton is one of only two players on the team (Charles Haley being the other) who has been to a Super Bowl previous to this, having played for Cincinnati in a losing cause.
So, who’s going to win this one?
“Well, I don’t know what God’s plan is,” Horton said, “but I’ll have to go with America’sTeam.”
The congregation loved that one, even the ones who swiveled in their pews to ask companions: “Which one is America’s Team?” They also listened intently as Rev. Schuller retold the inspiring story of Tom Dempsey, the man who kicked the NFL’s longest field goal ever, 63 yards, in spite of a deformed arm and a stubbed foot.
For every athlete, every memory is precious, every moment. Any game can be anyone’s last. This is why Horton deems it so important to check in with God.
“There’s an expression I like. ‘The only thing that is consistent is change,’ ” Horton said. “Just look at our team. A few years ago, the Dallas Cowboys practically fell off the face of the Earth. And look at us now--in the Super Bowl. I thank God that I’m able to have this experience.”
“And after the game?” Rev. Schuller asked.
“I’ll be the one down on one knee in the end zone,” Horton said, picking up his cue. “When the others are giving thanks for victory, I’ll be giving thanks, too, for being alive.”