Fire & Fury : The Faith of Defensive End and Part-Time Pastor Reggie White Has Been Tested by Arsonists Who Burned His Church to the Ground

He believes he healed a torn hamstring through prayer.

Teammates believe his faith gives him the strength to toss around 300-pound opponents.

Fans believe in him so much, one gravely ill man recently read scripture with him over the telephone, then died 45 minutes after the Green Bay Packers had upset the San Francisco 49ers last Saturday.

Died in peace, according to the family of the late Richard Boelter of Neenah, Wis.

Miracles are seemingly everyday occurrences in the life of Packer defensive end-minister Reggie White, one of the reasons he looked angry enough Thursday to bite another hole in Texas Stadium.

White, 34, said he has finally found something even he cannot fix:

The “demonic hatred” inside the people who he says burned down his church in Knoxville, Tenn., earlier this week.

Saying that Monday’s early-morning blaze would not distract him from the Packers’ NFC championship game against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, White nonetheless put aside football questions and delivered a diatribe on what he claimed was the cause of the fire.

He said the Inner City Community church, where he is an assistant pastor, was targeted by racists.

He said the alleged arsonists are still phoning the pastor with death threats.

He said, “I don’t know if anyone is focused on me, or not.”

He said this will not stop him from continuing his business of sacking quarterbacks and saving souls.

“They’re not going to hurt Reggie White,” he said. “No more of our leaders are going to die off because of people who hate. We aren’t going to be the kind of Christians who people walk up to and slap around.

“We are not going to walk around in fear. Nobody is going to make me and my family afraid.”

The Packers, saying this was the first they had heard of White’s concerns, were uncertain whether they would provide him with extra security Sunday.

Knoxville investigators say they have found gunpowder, kerosene and Molotov cocktails left behind by arsonists.

But White said his church, which is 2 years old with a 90% black congregation, represents more than merely an arson case.

“Here are some of the slurs written on the building,” he said, reading several racial epithets loudly from a piece of paper. “And some of the paraphernalia found was from a Skinheads’ group.”

White is upset that the Knoxville media reported the church has a $500,000 insurance policy, and that pastor Jerry Upton was being questioned as a witness.

“It’s time to stop sweeping this stuff under the rug,” White said. “If we don’t do something about these groups, more people are going to die.”

While White spoke passionately outside the Packer locker room, inside his teammates dressed, played dominoes and joked.

From White, they expect the unexpected.

“A lot of people feel the way Reggie does about things, but Reggie is the only guy with enough guts to talk about it,” safety Leroy Butler said.

He paused and smiled.

“Of course, sometimes we say, ‘OK, Reggie, that’s enough.’ ”

*

Everything about Reggie White is dramatic.

His size.

He is 6 feet 5, 300 pounds, with the body of a blocking sled.

His style of play.

He has mastered a “club move” with which he knocks opposing tackles off balance simply by swinging his large arms into their chest.

His statistics.

His 157 sacks are the most in the NFL since the league began keeping track of them in 1982.

His scenario.

He came to tiny Green Bay three years ago after being courted by virtually the entire league. Although he signed a $17-million contract, making him the game’s highest paid defensive player at the time, he said he was here because “God told me to come.”

His sermons.

Opposing players say that White knocks them down, steps on their faces while traveling to the quarterback, then returns to bless them.

Teammate John Jurkovic, a defensive tackle, said it doesn’t happen quite like that.

“I’ve never seen an actual blessing or conversion on the field,” Jurkovic said. “I think it happens while he is violently throwing the other guys around.

“He’ll pick them up and, like when you sneeze, he’ll say, ‘God bless you!’ as he hurls them through the air. When the guy lands, all he remembers is the blessing.”

His strength.

White returned to action after suffering torn knee tendons without missing a snap. Prayer, he says.

He returned to action a week after suffering a serious elbow injury, after taking what has been described as a “magic nap.” More prayer, he says.

Perhaps nothing has been so dramatic as what helped land White in the first NFC championship game of his 11-year career.

It occurred on Wednesday, Dec. 12. Sometime between noon and 8 p.m.

Reggie White will say that only God knows exactly when.

In the middle of that day, with two weeks left in the regular season and the Packers having just suffered an embarrassing loss to Tampa Bay, the organization gasped at an announcement.

White, their best defensive player and certain Hall of Famer, had torn a hamstring behind his left knee and would be out for the rest of the season.

An MRI exam had revealed a complete tear. A stress test was failed during the first of six phases.

He never even had a chance to show he couldn’t run, or spin, or club, or muscle.

“Reggie couldn’t even take off from a stance,” said Kent Johnston, Packer strength coach.

Surgery was scheduled for the following week and the roster was being shuffled.

Then at 8:50 p.m. on that same Wednesday, Johnston received a phone call at home. He remembers the exact time.

It was White, and he had a request.

“Kent, my leg is feeling a little better,” White said. “I’ve just got to give it one more try.”

Johnston turned to his wife, Pam, who sighed.

“Poor old Reggie,” she said. “He will just not give up.”

Johnston shrugged, put on his coat, and waited for his player.

“I figured we would go over to the Hutson Center [the team’s indoor facility] and whatever happened would just confirm our earlier feelings,” he said. “This being Reggie, I figured it was the least I could do.”

They arrived, White dropped into a stance, and suddenly Johnston came alive.

“He could run again,” he said. “Just like that.”

So Johnston put him through another part of the exam. And another. And another.

By the time White reached the blocking sleds, which he pummeled as always, Johnston said their weariness had turned to euphoria.

“We were both smiling like we couldn’t believe it,” he said. “He was able to do things that, in no way was he able to do before.

“What I saw out there was inexplainable.”

White bounced from the field with another request. He wanted to drive to Coach Mike Holmgren’s house and tell him the news.

Johnston cringed. It was 10:30 p.m. Why in the world would Holmgren ever believe something like this at that hour?

“I said, ‘You sure you just don’t want to call him?’ ” Johnston said. “I was getting kind of nervous, going over to the coach’s house so late.”

White was insistent. Away they drove, over to Holmgren’s house, where they were greeted with an omen.

The coach was in his front yard. At 10:30 on a bitter cold night.

No, he hadn’t sensed they were coming. He was simply shutting off his Christmas lights.

But soon they were sitting in his living room, and Holmgren was saying, “Wow!”

Which is pretty much what Pam Johnston said after her husband rushed home and roused her out of bed.

The next day, White donned full pads and worked over an offensive lineman in game-type conditions. The recovery was so amazing, by the time his workout was finished, most of the team had stopped to watch.

“I have seen people with his exact injury who cannot even walk, who are out for six months,” Johnston said. “What has happened, I cannot argue that it was not miraculous.”

White has played at least half of each of the four games since, all victories, thanks, at least partially, to his inspiration.

“It is all certainly very unusual,” said Holmgren, speaking slowly, carefully, as if he had just seen something flash through the sky.

“It was torn,” Holmgren said. “The hamstring was torn.

What did happen?

“It was God,” White said. “I prayed, and God healed me. God gave me the ability to perform. That’s all it is.”

Well, not quite all.

That healed hamstring?

Johnston was asked how it looked on a recent exam. He lowered his voice.

“Still torn,” he said. “Still completely torn.”