All Things through Christ
The handsome, black athlete casually takes his place behind the pulpit of our small country church. He addresses the crowd before him with the confidence of someone who has something worth saying.
“What brings you here?” Adrion Smith asks. “I know God brought me here tonight for a reason. I have something to say to you. What’s His reason for wanting you to hear it?”
"I was on the verge of quitting, but when I suggested this to Dad, he said, 'Trust God and let Him make the decisions.' "
Obviously comfortable with public speaking, this cornerback for the Toronto Argonauts football team begins to tell us about an impossible journey – his – the journey of a poor boy from the ghetto in Kansas City, Missouri, to the Canadian Football League (CFL).
“I’m here tonight because I had a father who told me again and again that ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’” Smith states.
“A lot of my childhood friends grew up and lived just the way their parents lived,” he continues, “but God had something better for me.”
A One-Way Ticket Out of the Ghetto
Smith always knew that he would get out of the ghetto for good, but his ways weren’t God’s ways. Baseball, not football, was Smith’s first love and what he thought would be his ticket out of the poorhouse. He was determined to break Ricky Henderson’s stolen bases record, and he wasn’t embarrassed to say so to his friends on the field.
“What makes you so special that you can break Henderson’s record?” Smith would hear.
He reminded himself, “I can do all things through Christ.”
He ran and ran around the bases, dreaming of one day running those bases in the major leagues.
Smith was a senior in high school when some of his friends asked him to try out for the football team.
“I said, ‘You get hit in football, don’t you?’” says Smith. “I didn’t think getting hit for anything was my idea of fun.”
Nevertheless, he gave it a try, made the team, and led the state of Missouri in interceptions that year. Years of stealing bases in baseball didn’t help him break Henderson’s record, but it did help him steal lots of footballs away from the opposing football team.
In 1990 he got a surprise call from Southwest Missouri State University asking him to come play football for their team.
“I laughed into the phone,” Smith says. “I said to the coach, ‘You don’t know where I live. My folks can’t afford anything. I’ll have to get a job just to get through community college.’ Then Coach laughed back at me. He said, ‘You don’t understand. I’m offering you a full scholarship. We’ll give you anything you’ll possibly need.’”
Smith’s friends heard his good news and said, “Yeah, you go on up to college. You’ll be back here on this street corner doing nothing with us again in four years.”
That, however, wasn’t what God intended for Smith. When he graduated from college, he had accumulated the second-highest number of interceptions in NCAA history – 24. When he returned home from university, there was another surprise call. This one came from the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger Cats, asking him to try out for their football team.
Straight from College to Pro Football
Smith moved to Canada and had a great rookie year with the Ti-Cats.
In 1996 he went with the Toronto Argonauts. However, while driving on the 401 in Ontario, he swerved off the road to miss a deer and subsequently rolled his vehicle five times. It was a miracle that, with no seatbelt on, he only had a bruise on his thigh and needed five stitches over his left eye. Because the doctors worried about the cut bleeding into his eye, Smith was sidelined.
“I was on the verge of quitting,” Smith says, “but when I suggested this to Dad, he said, ‘Remember what I’ve always told you? All things through Christ. Trust God and let Him make the decisions.’ ”
During the Argos’ fourth game that year, a player broke his ankle. By then Smith’s stitches had healed and he was chosen to take his injured teammate’s place.
Smith has enjoyed ten years so far with the Argos and holds the CFL record for the longest kick-off return – 95 yards.
“God has a purpose for you being here tonight just like God had a purpose for me,” Smith tells the kids who are hanging on to his every word. “I thought it was baseball, so I practiced running bases. He took my base running and turned it into running away with a football. He has a purpose for each of you, even though you might not know what that is right now. If you’re not right with Him, take care of that now so He can work in your life.”
Smith concludes with a big white smile.
“And when you’re right with Him, hang on for a great ride. Through Him you can do all things.”
