Lions build a belief system

DETROIT -- The biblical verse taped inside his locker, Galatians 2:20, reads: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . .”

And when he walks in from midday practice, the clean white baseball cap tugged down over his head bears a black cross on the front, the word “Forgiven” stitched on the back.

Jon Kitna has never been shy about displaying his convictions.

“I’m this way every day,” he says. “I don’t change.”

Earlier this season, the quarterback and undisputed leader of the Detroit Lions made headlines by telling reporters that “nothing short of a miracle” had cleared his head after a first-half concussion, allowing him to guide his team to an overtime victory against Minnesota.

His comments elicited particular skepticism, the media dubbing him “God’s quarterback,” nudging him into the category of athlete who claims that God assured victory, as if God cares who wins a game.

Kitna shrugs it off, saying: “The Bible tells me not everyone is going to agree with what I have to say.”

Within the Detroit locker room, the reaction to his unabashed spirituality has been very different.

Since his arrival as a free agent last fall, attendance at weekly Bible study has increased from a handful of regulars to as many as 20, roughly a third of the roster. The team chaplain has baptized more than a dozen players and wives and expects more soon.

Even nonbelievers say religion has helped to unify a team ripped apart by years of losing. With the Lions unexpectedly at 6-4 facing Green Bay in a crucial game today, they point to Kitna’s influence as a factor in their unlikely run at the playoffs.

“Really, every day in football you’re selling a vision,” Coach Rod Marinelli says. “Faith is a belief in the unknown and, as a team, that’s where we’re trying to get.”

The question makes Kitna smile. No, he was not always a Christian.

During his first three seasons at tiny Central Washington, he says, “I was basically an alcoholic, a womanizer, cheating my way through school.”

The change came when his girlfriend caught him with another woman. She turned to Christianity, he followed, and they were married eight months later.

Jon and Jennifer have been together 14 years now.

“That saved me,” he says.

If nothing else, Kitna might have an argument that God has touched his professional career. How many quarterbacks make the transition from the NAIA to the NFL, and make it stick?

Signed to Seattle’s practice squad in 1996, he played a season in Europe before returning to the Seahawks and starting the last five games of 1998. The following year, he led the team to an AFC West title.

Then came a stint in Cincinnati, where he was the NFL’s 2003 comeback player of the year and served as a mentor to Carson Palmer. Ask Kitna about his 11 seasons in the league and he is just as likely to mention faith as Xs and O’s.

Like the time in 2001 when, playing for the Bengals, he lost his temper and got into a shouting match with Baltimore Ravens linebacker Peter Boulware.

“He ended up spitting in my face,” Kitna recalls. “But I felt bad because I had let my pride get the best of me. I got into an argument and I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

After the game, the players sought each other out.

“Both of us were believers,” Kitna says. “We had a chance to think about it and hear from God and listen to our spirits and we both felt like we needed to ask for each other’s forgiveness.”

The quarterback goes a step further, saying: “I don’t think I lack any passion or desire to win, but my walk with Christ will never be superseded by the game I play or the job I do.”

This was the guy Detroit got in 2006, a hardscrabble quarterback who neither imbibes nor swears, a front man for the newly hired Marinelli. That first season, working out of coordinator Mike Martz’s offense, Kitna passed for 4,208 yards and led the league in completions.

The Lions won all of three games.

Religion is an undeniable part of sports. Players blessing themselves before an at-bat, pointing skyward after a dunk, forming a prayer circle at midfield. But it can also be a touchy subject. The whole “turn the other cheek” factor does not quite fit with football and, in any workplace, differences in belief can be divisive.

So Dave Wilson, the Lions’ chaplain for 23 years, says that as Bible study grows his amazement is tinged by concern.

“We don’t want to judge anybody,” Wilson says.

Even if some teammates are put off, it is doubtful they would complain given the team’s winning record. Still, Kitna is sensitive to the issue, insisting that he does not proselytize. If anything, he seems to draw players by way of grit, the way he has forged a career without benefit of spectacular skills.

The shaved head and thick neck. Fearless on the field. Honest off it.

“Guys see the way he handles stuff, especially the young guys,” receiver Mike Furrey says. “Everybody’s curious.”

The weekly meeting, held in the basement of Kitna’s home near the Lions’ training complex, is a low-key affair with players and wives bringing desserts, equal time devoted to scripture and just hanging out.

“Guys come and go,” kicker Jason Hanson says. “Some guys check it out and, if they don’t like it, nobody’s pressuring them to stay.”

It helps that Kitna does not fit the religious stereotype, not with his fiery demeanor in games, not with the stunt he pulled at Halloween.

The quarterback and his wife arrived at a teammate’s party dressed as a nude man and fast-food attendant. The costumes spoofed defensive line coach Joe Cullen, who was arrested last year after police said he went through a Wendy’s drive-through naked. Cullen was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in a separate incident.

Local media deemed the costumes in bad taste. Kitna regretted the uproar but Cullen said in a statement that he wasn’t offended. At the same party, a player and his wife dressed as Jon and Jennifer, thumping Bibles.

“With Jon, you get a balance of tough and grace,” Wilson says. “It’s just who he is.”

Even players who do not attend Bible study at his home are glad that it promotes team unity.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who hang out together, whether it’s Bible study or just going out,” says Shaun Cody, a former USC defensive lineman who does not attend the meetings. “That always benefits the chemistry on a team.”

If the season ended today, Detroit would sneak into the playoffs as the second wild-card team in the NFC, and most of the credit goes to Marinelli.

The former Tampa Bay and USC assistant has remade the Lions with his emphasis on toughness and relentless optimism. He calls it, “Faith in yourself, what you’re doing, how you’re doing it.”

The message was tailor-made for Kitna who, before the season, predicted 10 wins. This statement was bold if not outlandish, but Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb liked it.

“You have to have that confidence,” McNabb said before the teams played in September. “When your team sees that you have that confidence, people begin to follow you.”

Detroit won six of its first eight games as if by will -- and a fairly soft schedule -- pulling out victories over Oakland, Minnesota and Tampa Bay. Now, after consecutive losses, they must find a way to keep believing.

The post-concussion statement notwithstanding, Kitna and other Christians on the team have avoided suggesting that God wants them to win.

“I don’t think anyone uses it as a lucky charm,” Hanson says. “Like, ‘Hey, if we pray harder, we stay faithful, we’re going to win.’ ”

But they see faith as a means of staying focused at difficult times, and that goes double for the quarterback, who has come under fire.

Each week, a local newspaper runs the “Kitna Meter” -- it looks like a blood-drive chart, counting toward 10 wins, and features a picture of him grimacing when the team loses. After Sunday’s 16-10 defeat to the New York Giants, in which Kitna had three passes intercepted, a local columnist called him a journeyman “who can’t make the big play.”

With reporters gathered around his locker after practice this week, Kitna says the team needs to do the little things right, avoiding blown assignments and mental mistakes. Later, speaking quietly, he draws a connection to scripture.

“Coach Marinelli has talked about what we need to do and a lot of it is biblical, whether he knows it or not,” Kitna says. “The disciplines that the Bible talks about are the disciplines that people are always trying to wrap their hands around.”

Such talk might elicit a wince from fans who don’t want to hear about religion, not mixed with their sport. Kitna knows that. He doesn’t care.

“They have their beliefs,” he says. “And I have mine.”

The quarterback removes his cap and peels off his uniform, heading for the showers. It is 3:30 on a Monday afternoon. In a few hours, teammates will begin arriving at his house.

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david.wharton@latimes.com