The football coach featured in a new Fox Nation sports documentary says he teaches his players to prioritize faith and family over football and to trust Christ in every aspect of their lives. Denny Duron is the chancellor and head football coach at Louisiana's Evangel Christian Academy, a private school whose team is spotlighted in a new documentary, God. Family. Football., streaming on Fox Nation. The school is well-known to many football fans, having won 14 state championships while producing numerous college players. Seven players on active NFL rosters played at Evangel.
"The message that we're telling these young people every day is [that] God will come into your world," Duron told Fox News in a preview of the series.
"There are so many [players] that feel like God is compartmentalized [and that] He belongs in the sanctuary on Sunday morning, and He never leaves there," Duron added. "But we teach these kids the truth, and that is, we have a wonderful God who is active in every area and facet of our lives, and He will come into your world. And so every day, we start by saying, just before practice, we're all in our gear, and we're about to get after it: 'God bless our worship in Jesus' name,' and we believe that everything that we do that honors Him becomes an act of worship."
The school places sports third in importance behind faith and family, Duron said. He pointed to Matthew 6:33: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
"We have kids from everywhere, and this is a Christian school, but you don't have to be a Christian to come here," he said. "You don't have to sign anything that says that you have a pastor or you've had some kind of experience with God. We want kids from everywhere because we feel like the message of the gospel is able to transform their thinking and their lives, and God just has drawn these kids. We can't recruit them. It's against the rules. …God just has to draw them here, and He's done that for over 35 years, and we've seen so many kids' lives changed."
Duron came out of retirement in 2020 to coach Evangel. The school, he said, has always emphasized faith.
"We were very active in the Katrina crisis, and I can remember standing at the buses as they pulled up from New Orleans, and these precious families getting out their clothes, still soaked from wading through the flood waters," he said of the 2005 hurricane that displaced countless families from New Orleans. "And we gave them three things as soon as they arrived. We gave them a big hug and we gave them a blanket. And as we were escorting them to their quarters …we gave them a moment of prayer. And when the people reflected on our time with them, the thing that they mentioned most of all was the prayer -- that when we took a moment just to invoke the very presence of God and to let them know that there is a God who cares for us in our tragedies.
"When the storms come … we have got to be in touch with a God who genuinely cares. In tragedy or in goodness, He sees us through."
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Evangel Christian Academy
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.