Tampa Bay Bucs QB confident ‘God has a plan’

Updated, August 20, 2009

LUTZ (FBW) – Although he’s fighting to be the starting quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Luke McCown believes God will ultimately decide the matter – just as He has guided the steps of the NFL six-year veteran since he fully committed to God as a ninth-grader.

“God writes this book,” McCown told Florida Baptist Witness Aug. 16 before speaking to the deacons of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz. “He knows what’s going on and it’s easy to leave it in His hands,” he said of the quarterback competition.

McCown’s main competitor is Byron Leftwich, a seven-year NFL veteran and former starter for the Jacksonville Jaguars, who selected him seventh overall in the 2003 NFL Draft. Leftwich has started 46 NFL games, while McCown, drafted in the fourth round in 2004 by the Cleveland Browns, has started only seven games.

The competition also features rookie Josh Freeman, drafted by the Bucs this year in the first round – 17^th overall, and Josh Johnson, a second-year player who is not expected to make the team.

McCown, who started the Bucs first pre-season game Aug. 15 against the Tennessee Titans, said he feels good about the competition.

“I’ve put a lot of work in. I’m ready to be a full-time starter,” he said.

Still, he added, “The great thing about being a Christian is that – and it’s so comforting to know – I’m not in control of any of it. All I can do is go out and play and enjoy the game … and work as hard as I can and be as good as I can be, put my best foot forward and let God map out the rest.”

McCown grew-up in a Christian family in Jacksonville, Texas, and made a profession of faith as a seven-year-old, but it was not until ninth grade that he really got serious about his faith, he told the Witness.

During a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting he was confronted by Ecclesiastes 5:4-5: “When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.”

McCown said his vow to follow Jesus as a seven-year-old had not been followed up with actual service to Christ. Rather than merely obeying all the things the Bible teaches he should not do, he understood for the first time his obligation to have a relationship with Jesus.

“And that’s when my walk with Christ began,” he said.

Ranked nationally as the number two quarterback prospect during his senior year in high school, McCown said he became burdened with the decision of where to play college football. Recruited by colleges across America, McCown narrowed his choice to just two schools – Oklahoma and Louisiana Tech.

The football powerhouse Oklahoma Sooners would have seemed to be the obvious choice, but McCown went to LT “for no other reason than I really felt that’s where God wanted me to be.”

McCown said his Christian life grew at LT where he met “some tremendous Christian people who are some of my best friends today.”

He also thrived as LT’s quarterback, playing in just his fourth game as a freshman and going on to start 45 games during his college career. McCown holds LT records for pass completions, pass attempts, passing yards and is eighth in NCAA Division I-A history for passing touchdowns.

After one year with the Browns, McCown was traded to the Bucs in 2005. Throughout his seasons with the Bucs McCown has moved up and down the depth chart – and he has seen God’s hand at work.

McCown told the Idlewild deacons, “All along, God’s got a plan. He’s in control.”

In 2007, McCown thought he was ready to be the back-up to Jeff Garcia, who was injury-prone, but fell to third on the depth chart.

Although disillusioned at slipping further from the prospect of playing, early in the season McCown’s then two-month-old son, Elijah, was diagnosed with what was feared to be a malignant tumor on his head.

God “knew that I wouldn’t be able to focus as a player … because I was concerned about the well-being of my child.” The tumor, to the doctor's surprise, was not malignant, nor was it imbedded in his son’s skull and was removed in a brief procedure, he said.

During that period of time, McCown said he and Bucs punter Josh Bidwell, his close friend and training camp roommate, had been studying Albert Einstein’s thoughts on the vastness of the universe. That study caused him to be amazed that God “being so big, would want a relationship with someone so small,” McCown told the deacons.

Ken Whitten, senior pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church, led a time of prayer for McCown following his Aug. 16 talk, having the deacons lay hands on their fellow member.

Whitten later told the Witness, “Luke is the kind of professional athlete every pastor would love to pastor,” noting that McCown and his family were at church at 9:30 Sunday morning Aug. 16 although he returned to Tampa at 3:30 in the morning after the Tennessee game.

“He’s the real deal,” Whitten added. “The tongue in his mouth and the tongue in his shoe go the same direction. He walks his walk and talks his talk. I know he desires to glorify Christ. My prayer and hope is that he will.”

Bidwell, a 10-year veteran who survived cancer as a rookie with the Green Bay Packers, has seen McCown’s faith grow, especially in “trusting God’s design and will for his life.”

Even while competing to be starting quarterback, Bidwell told the Witness McCown is “secure in God’s will for his life and knows all he can do is work hard at what God puts in his path and let Him take care of the rest for His glory.”

Bidwell, who is out for the year with a hip injury, said teammates know McCown is “available, accountable and always willing to share God to everyone.”

Doug Gilcrease, the Bucs team chaplain, told the Witness McCown is actively involved in team Bible studies and ministry outreach.

“Luke is very mature in his faith and has a real desire to know God’s Word and to grow spiritually,” Gilcrease said, adding that “he is a great example in the locker room and definitely lives out his convictions on and off the field.”

Gilcrease, a member of Idlewild, has served as volunteer chaplain to the Bucs for 18 years and has been a staff member of Athletes in Action for 21 years.

McCown told the Witness Gilcrease has been a key role model for him and his family.

“It’s been unbelievable how their family has taken us in. … They’ve just been there for us,” McCown said of Gilcrease and his family.

Other role models for McCown are former Bucs and Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy and Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith. Although he does not know them well, the Christian testimony of the coaches “drives" him to be more bold in his own faith, he said.

Most of all, McCown points to his father as his best role model for teaching him how to be a man, husband and father.

“There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for a father like that in my life,” he said.

McCown shuns celebrity status as a NFL player.

“I don’t ever consider myself that,” he said. “I don’t deserve any of the attention or even the position I’m in. For some reason, God has put that on my plate and allowed me to experience that. But I don’t deserve it any more than any body else. He’s just had a plan that’s worked out this way for me.”

More important than being an all-pro quarterback for McCown is “being a good husband and good father and being a servant of the Lord and whatever He wants.”