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Today is Wednesday October 1, 2014 Chette Williams http://www.eastalabamaliving.com/features/chette-williams/ 1/7 10/1/2014 Chette Williams « East Alabama Living By Ann Cipperly
Snapshots of family, framed photos of Auburn Tigers praying after games, a National Championship football, signed helmet from days of playing football with Bo Jackson, and other items on shelves reveal the life story of Chaplain Chette Williams at the Auburn University Athletic Department.
On a round table are copies of Williams’s two books, “Hard-Fighting Soldier” and “The Broken Road,” published this past summer.
One of the most important photos leaning against the books on the shelves is a photo of a small white church, Old Mountain Top Baptist Church in Winston, Ga. Williams looks at this photo every day to remind himself of his humble beginning and where God got his attention.
It is the church he attended with his mother and six brothers, where he was baptized in the creek in back, where he buried a brother and spoke at his father’s funeral.
Williams grew up not far from the church. He never thought about being poor since his family raised a garden and had plenty of food. The sixth of the seven boys, he played football with his brothers in the yard.
On a summer evening when he was 9 years old, the family was sitting around the supper table, and one of his brothers walked to the back of the house to get another chair. Suddenly, he screamed. They all ran to the back to see him standing in the bedroom door looking at the ceiling, which was engulfed in flames.
They were thankful to all get out alive, but they lost everything. Williams was wearing a pair of slacks, no shirt or shoes, as he stood in the yard and watched the house burn. http://www.eastalabamaliving.com/features/chette-williams/ 2/7 10/1/2014 Chette Williams « East Alabama Living Williams played football in high school with his brother and received a scholarship to play football at Auburn University as a linebacker under Coach Pat Dye. His brother, Quency, was still on the team his freshman year. When Quency graduated, he played for the LA Raiders.
As Williams was playing his second year in 1982, he was dealing with issues in his past. One day his life was crushed when Dye told him he was off the team because of his behavior.
Williams didn’t know what he would do. He had promised his mother he would graduate from college, and now he was no longer an Auburn Tiger. In his despair he knew he had to change his life.
He realized that God has planted seeds all his life, as he attended church every Sunday. Williams made the decision to turn his life around. He came to realize that he had religion, but did not have a relationship with God. “That is different. That came to a head when Coach Dye kicked me off the team because of a lot of things I was dealing with in my life.”
That night he found himself in Kyle Collins’s room at Sewell Hall. As he talked to his friend, Williams knew he had to change. Collins prayed with him, and Williams gave his heart to Jesus to have a relationship with Him.
The next morning he hurried over to Dye’s office. He hesitated for a few minutes because he knew the coach was getting ready for the Georgia Bulldogs and Hershel Walker that weekend. He felt he had to make it quick because Dye did not want to have to deal with a troubled player when the top-rated team was coming to town.
Williams knocked on the door and went in. He told Dye he was sorry for his attitude, that he had given his heart to Jesus and was ready to change his life. “Saying it out loud,” says Williams, “gave me an incredible lightness as if Christ was in the room, giving me the words.” Dye put him back on the team and said, “We will take this one day at a time.”
Many players looked at Dye as a father figure, which is how Chette looked at him. “He had a tremendous impact on my life. One of the reasons I gave my life to the Lord was because of Coach Dye’s influence.”
Williams stayed on the team and played in the 1984 Liberty Bowl. After he graduated, he went back home to Winston where he worked with the youth in the church. In 1987 he was an assistant minister.
He felt God had been dealing with him to go into the ministry. “It had been a process my whole life, as I was in church week after week. I would listen to the words of the minister and get chill bumps.”
He did not know exactly what to do next. He felt he needed to know more about the Bible but didn’t know anything about seminary.
Williams contacted Rev. Bob Baggott, who had been chaplain of his football team at Auburn. He felt close to Baggott and shared with him God’s calling. Baggott sent Williams to New Orleans to see a friend at seminary. In three years, Williams received a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Theological Seminary. He “planted” two churches, one in Mobile and another in Louisiana.
While at Baton Rouge, he met wife Lakeba, who was a student at Southern University. They began dating and were married when Williams was working with a church in South Carolina. They have three children, Lauren, Caitlyn and Chette Jr.
In 1999, Williams received a call from Coach Tommy Tuberville, who offered him a position as chaplain for the football team. Tuberville had a full-time chaplain for coaches and the team when he was at Ole http://www.eastalabamaliving.com/features/chette-williams/ 3/7 10/1/2014 Chette Williams « East Alabama Living Miss, which was the only one in the country.
When the coach came to Auburn, he wanted to continue having a chaplain. At the time, Baggott and Dr. George Mathison were serving as co-chaplains. Turbeville wanted the chaplain to be full time, as a spiritual coordinator for coaches and the players, to have an office in the athletic department with an open-door policy and to travel with the team.
“Brother Chette,” as the players call him, has served as chaplain with three coaches in 15 years. “I look at this as my church,” he says. His official title is Campus Director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). He raises his support each year through FCA.
One of the things he started many years ago was praying with the team in the center of the field. The team always invites the other team to join them. While many teams no longer pray after games, Williams and the Auburn Tigers still do.
“I never realized the impact of the players’ private moments of prayer on the field until a freshman running back stood up in front of the team in the prayer room in 2006 and said, ‘You were my heroes in high school. I watched y’all every week, and my teammates and I imitated you on the field with hookups going onto the field and praying after you scored a touchdown.’
“He had seen the public response to a private and powerful time of prayer that began when one player said, ‘This is what we have to do.’”
Williams has taken players and coaches on mission trips. He has been able to travel around the country and world to share the gospel.
He wrote “Hard Fighting Solider” after the undefeated 2004 season. “The Broken Road” was recently released and looks at the 2010 National Championship season and the following two years.
“It is in those valley experiences that we really experience the hand of God in our lives,” says the chaplain. “It is not in those mountain-top experiences.
“It has been a blessing to know all these players and coaches, and see how their lives have been affected and transformed over the years,” adds the chaplain. “I have grown in my faith.”
“Brother Chette is like a father,” players say. “He’s always there for me.”
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Home BPNews Subscribe to BP Tell A Friend Contact Us From bitter to blessed: The testimony of Chette Williams Thursday, Sep 7, 2000 By Jennifer Davis Rash Email This Story To a Friend Enter your friend's email address: AUBURN, Ala. (BP)--Chette Williams possesses a contagious excitement and inner joy that the bitterest
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And yet, he once was the bitterest person he knew. Related Stories Radford downs Flames, 21 Williams walked on the Auburn football team, earned his 10/19/2000
Outdoor Church pastor leads right to play on scholarship and managed to get kicked off Wingate falls to Catawba by example in reaching the team before changing his life. 10/19/2000 sportsmen Sharing, salvations mark Newberry gets rare score off missed students' World Cup witness He experienced the wild and rebellious opportunities of kick 10/18/2000 Ouachita fullback achieves college life and "was just downright mean," he said. greatest matchup off the HBU athletes get honors field 10/18/2000 Olympian, World War II "I walked around with a frown on my face all the time," he veteran dies at 97 said. He depicted a truly miserable person with a bitterness Averett soccer team falls to Bryan 10/18/2000 HBU adding sand volleyball that came from his parents' recent divorce. in 2016 Clemson shuts out Wake Forest Williams, who played high school football in Winston, 10/18/2000 Ga., said he was not offered a college football scholarship UT athlete makes plays for Christ because he was too small. But he had an opportunity to 10/17/2000 play in Georgia's high school all-star game and was Erskine Men Cruise Past Anderson, 50 noticed by Auburn's head coach Pat Dye. With the help of 10/17/2000 Williams' brother, Quincy -- who was playing football at Erskine Women Blank Anderson, 30 Auburn -- Williams met Dye. 10/17/2000
C.U. Cross Country Teams Continue "Coach Dye had already given all his scholarships away to Step Up for that year," Williams said. "But he told me if I would 10/17/2000
walk on and work as hard as I had worked during that all- The AFCA Division II Coaches' Top star game then he would give me a scholarship the next 25 college football poll year." 9/21/2000 The AFCA Division III Coaches' Top 25 college football poll So, that is what Williams did and he earned the 9/21/2000 scholarship. But it was not long before Dye decided NSCAA/Umbro NAIA poll Williams was bringing the team down and asked him to 9/21/2000 http://www.bpsports.net/bpsports.asp?ID=41 1/3 10/1/2014 BPSports.net - From bitter to blessed: The testimony of Chette Williams leave. NSCAA Women's Division II poll 9/21/2000 "The night I was given my invitation to get out of town NSCAA Women's Soccer NAIA poll from Coach Dye I felt my world crashing down around 9/21/2000 me," he recalled. NSCAA/Adidas Division II poll 9/21/2000 But a fellow teammate, Kyle Collins, had not given up on NAIA women's volleyball top 25 Williams. Collins had been patiently praying for and 9/21/2000 encouraging him. And when that moment of brokenness Georgetown Tigers devour Kentucky came for Williams, he headed straight for Collins. 9/20/2000
St. Mary's snaps HBU's streak "We talked all night," Williams said. "I got on my knees 9/20/2000 with Kyle, and I met Jesus that night." CarsonNewman wins in overtime 9/20/2000 After that experience, Williams returned to the Auburn football team, made significant contributions to the program and earned his undergraduate degree.
He later earned a master of divinity degree from New Orleans Seminary and started IMPACT ministries -- a ministry to inner city kids -- in Spartanburg, S.C.
And now, Williams wants to reach out to other football players and athletes at Auburn University.
"My hope and dream is that every one of these kids, coaches and all who are involved in athletics will come to Christ," said Williams, head of Auburn's chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA).
"I've seen a difference already, especially in the kids' behavior," said Coach Tommy Tuberville
Comparing his position to being a father, Tuberville said the players won't talk to the coaches like they will another athlete.
"(Williams) can relate to what we are going through," said Rodney Crayton, a senior cornerback. "Even the really bad guys respect Chette. They act differently around him," he said.
"He is an anointed man," said fullback Heath Evans, a junior. "He is real. He looks you right in the eye. He is making a difference in the lives of the coaches and us."
Evans' parents, Bryan and Candy Evans, said Williams is the person they have prayed will be a mentor in Heath's life.
"He is able to identify with the different things these guys http://www.bpsports.net/bpsports.asp?ID=41 2/3 10/1/2014 BPSports.net - From bitter to blessed: The testimony of Chette Williams go through," Bryan Evans said.
Williams attends all practices, travels with the team, holds weekly coaching staff devotion, a weekly athletic department devotion and leads the weekly FCA meeting. He also schedules individual appointments.
"They have a guidance counselor, so to speak, who is around them more often," said Tuberville, who became a Christian after coaching about nine years. "It is somebody who is around every day, somebody they can feel comfortable with, somebody they know they can trust.
"The more you are around a person and can get to know them, the more trust you have in them," said Tuberville, who participated in a similar FCA program while head coach at Ole Miss.
Auburn Athletic Director David Housel said, "Chette is making a difference in the lives of the young men and women who go to school here.
"Chette is helping young people find their way through tough shallows and narrows ... he is helping them grow," Housel said. "Chette's story is what you want life to be like." He seemed unreachable, but he found Christ and now reaches out to others. --30--
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(http://www.al.com/) 11 Auburn University's football Chaplain Chette comments Williams aims for a goal more important than touchdowns
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Brother Chette Williams, longtime chaplain to the players and coaches of the Auburn University football team, standing at left, leads then head Coach Gene Chizik and Auburn's football team in prayer after the first practice of spring 2010, the championship season that Williams analyzes for the movements of God in his latest book, "The Broken Road." (The Huntsville Times file / Leffie Dailey)
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Alabama opens as small favorite to beat Ole Miss in tightest Tide spread since 2012 (http://www.al.com/alabamafootball/index.ssf/2014/09/alabama_opens_as_small_favorit.html#incart_most- Auburn University football chaplain Chette Williams, left, and player read) DeMarco McNeil, right, console Spencer Johnson as he kneels on the field after Auburn's 17-3 loss to Georgia Tech at Bobby Dodd stadium in Atlanta, Ga., in 2003. Through victories and especially through defeats, Williams writes in his new book, "The Broken Road," God draws people closer to him and into the important ministries of helping their fellow human beings. (The Birmingham News file / Tamika Moore) Active Discussions
(http://www.auburntigers.com/sports/mfootbl/) – There’s nothing that 1 Live at 9 with Kevin Scarbinsky: Could Auburn be the last stand for Les Miles? Chette Williams, who played football at Auburn University (http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/10/live_at_9_with_kevin_scarbinsk_166.html) (http://www.auburntigers.com/sports/mfootbl/), wants to do more than win. (1031 comments) But Williams – chaplain to the Auburn football team and coaches for 15 years -- defines 2 'Better sit down hon', it seems you're a “winning” a little different from most football fans. Democrat:' Today in Alabama politics (http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/10/better_sit_down_hon_it_seems_y.html) (99 comments) Take Williams' prediction, given last week as fall practiced kicked off for the Tigers, regarding the 2013 football season, for example. 3 NY Times asks: What's the matter with Alabama? “My prediction for this season?” Williams said, repeating the question during a (http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/09/ny_times_asks_whats_the_matter.html) telephone interview with The Huntsville Times on Friday, Aug. 2, 2013. (459 comments)
“This year, we’re going to see a lot of guys cross the finish line for Jesus.” 4 Blacks running in record numbers, but is that progress or white abandonment The most important victories in life, Williams explains in his of Dems? (http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/10/blacks_running_in_record_numbe.html) new book, “The Broken Road: Finding God’s Strength and (223 comments) Grace on a Journey of Faith,” just out from Looking Glass Books, don’t happen on the 100-yard green carpet in a football 5 Newly homeless man and 4-year-old stadium full of cheering fans. son struggle to get food, shelter in Mobile (http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2014/10/newly_homeless_man_and_4- Williams will be signing copies of his book in Huntsville year-.html) on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2013, from 4 to 6 p.m., at the (126 comments) Jones Valley Barnes & Noble, 2750 Carl T Jones Drive SE. See more comments » (http://www.al.com/interact/) In “Broken Road” Williams details how God walked alongside "The Broken Road: Finding the team in the years that led up to the 2010 championship God's Strength and Grace on a Journey of Faith," by season and especially during that amazing 2010 season. Chette Williams.
The most important victories Williams witnessed happen in hospital rooms and rehab centers when players worked through their pain to regain their strength. The most heroic demonstration of winning happened in the locker room when a guy who had just been replaced in a starting position gave a pep talk to the rest of the team about truly supporting each other, (http://maps.google.com/maps? no matter what. ll=34.671017,-86.534981&z=16&t=m&hl=en- US&gl=US&maMpcalipe ndta=tap ©iv230)14 Google “This book is about how the Lord joined alongside these players on their broken roads,” Williams said.
Those are the kind of victories that advance a young man’s life toward a much more enduring goal than out-scoring another team, he said.
"True strength comes from When a football player takes some of his few hours of free time and God" volunteers to tutor some kids at a local elementary school, when other players participate in a service trip to help Haitian refugees in desperate conditions in a camp in the Dominican Republic – that’s when they do what Williams hopes they will do: Use the platform of the football field onto which they’ve been elevated to the eyes of every fan of the SEC as a place from which to proclaim God’s love and to make the world a little better.
“God allows us to bear pain and heartache almost to the breaking point because those experiences strengthen us,” Williams writes in “Broken Road.” “They open our eyes to the hardships of people around us so we can be a comfort to them – and they remind us that true strength comes from God.”
Story updated 8/7/13, 9:26 a.m. to correct bit in Williams' bio.
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(p) enguin on top of the television set Aug 8, 2013 Kay, thank you for bringing your delicate touch to the Sports pages. I appreciate what Chette brings to Auburn and know that the lives of many student-athletes have been positively touched through his ministry. Regarding his position at a public university, I'm sure it's funded privately. Lord knows there's enough money in support of the football program, most of which comes from private donations.
(B) oSox Rule Aug 7, 2013 "Hard Fighting Soldiers" was an excellent read. I look forward to reading "The Broken Road". Kay - thanks for showing Alabama what a great Christian man Chette Williams is. Football is temporary, but Chette preaches the eternal...
(0) 4secchamps Aug 7, 2013 Thank you Kay Campbell for putting that wonderful article together. So many people forget about the structure of success.
(A) uburn University50 Aug 7, 2013 @Al.com 800+ comments of embarrassing hate from Cow Cult Why hasn't he/she been banned??
(o) hyeswedoto Aug 7, 2013 We all really know why this guy is on the staff. He is connected at the hip with Wayne Hall and Pat Dye.
(K) ay Campbell | [email protected] Aug 7, 2013 This remark makes me think you've never met Brother Chette. I've had the privilege of speaking with him (for stories) a couple times and also hearing him speak. He's an amazing Christian leader and example. If I had a son or daughter in college, I would love to know that a mentor of his caliber was available! Whatever friendships he has with powerful people, it seems to me his qualifications on his own would matter much, much more than that.
(s)ane Aug 7, 2013 Some people look up to God in prayer. It's amazing to me that some people carry hate around for that many years.
(K) ilamo Aug 7, 2013 Good man and great example! (s)lydog39 Aug 7, 2013 Chette's level of involvement and access to the football program has brought up questions in the past. I wonder how, or if, that will change under the GM tenure?
(G) riff4AU Aug 7, 2013 It's sometimes difficult to remember, especially during this time of year, that there are many things more important than SEC football... and this happens to be THE most important...
(J) SU/AU Fan Aug 7, 2013 I loved Chettes book "Hard Fighting Soldiers" and I look forward to reading this one. I will always respect Tubberville for being the first to make chaplain a position on the coaching staff!!
(K) ay Campbell | [email protected] Aug 7, 2013 You know, I meant to clarify that with Brother Chette when we talked and didn't. I had thought, however, that his connection to the school, in terms of employment, came through Fellowship of Christian Athletes, not directly from this public university.
(K) elly Aug 14, 2013 Kay, I think it's an essential part of the story to indicate where Chette's funding is coming from, as a chaplain at a state-sponsored school, especially when he's using these experiences to sell books. And, is it really necessary to have such a position? Are football players so busy that they can't have access to local Auburn churches like every other student? It's not like Jordan-Hare is a war zone or something.
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College of Education
College of Education > News > 2008 > March > Education names team chaplain, author as '08 Keystone leader MoSrehare | ShaSrheaSrheaSrheare Education names team chaplain, author as '08 Keystone leader
March 2008
The College of Education announces that the Rev. Chette LaRue Williams Sr., a 1986 adult education graduate, has been named the college's sixth Keystone Leader-in-Residence. In 2007, Williams completed his eighth season as the Auburn University football team's chaplain and the campus director for the university's Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA).
Williams will spend the day on Wednesday, Mar. 12 visiting with Education students, faculty, staff and administrators. The highlight of his Keystone Leader visit will be a campus-wide lecture at 11 a.m. in Ballroom B of The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. A book signing will immediately follow. Williams will share how his academic foundations in education prepared him for his career in ministering, guiding and counseling others' personal and spiritual needs.
The College of Education's Keystone Leader-in-Residence program, established in 2003, introduces students to proven leaders in education, human services, health services, community services and the public sector. The program emphasizes that education—like the keystone of an arch—serves a central, supporting role in society. The college strives to develop competent, committed and reflective professionals who utilize education in building better futures for all.
A noted speaker and vital member of the Auburn football program, Williams ministers on a daily basis not only to coaches and players, but to numerous staff throughout Auburn University's Athletic Department. Through his Bible studies and counseling, the football team has come to depend on "Brother Chette" for guidance, encouragement and spiritual direction.
"The blessing that we have as chaplains so often is to be used by God in a way that is unique and different from many other ministries," Williams said. "To be a chaplain, you don't demand respect from players and coaches — you earn that respect. And then you earn the right to be heard. And because of that, players and coaches trust you. They come in and share things with you that they won't share with others. The crises are different each day, but the blessing is that there's somebody there for them."
Williams chronicles his time at Auburn, his family and how God called him to his current vocation in his book, Hard Fighting Soldier, published in 2007. The book recounts milestones that include his three letterman years playing Auburn football, his studies at New Orleans Theological Seminary and his service as pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church in New Orleans, associate pastor of New Song Baptist Church in Mobile, and president of IMPACT Ministries in Spartanburg, S.C. http://www.education.auburn.edu/news/2008/march/chette.html 1/2 10/1/2014 Education names team chaplain, author as '08 Keystone leader Recruited by Coach Tommy Tuberville in 1999 to be the team's spiritual — not offensive or defensive — coordinator, Williams is doing more than working with players. Through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chaplaincy training program, Williams, alongside program director Wes Yeary, are training and developing FCA college team chaplains across the country through the Auburn-based program.
Williams is married to the former Lakeba Hibbler, who completed a master's degree in the College of Education's community agency counseling program in 2004. The couple has three children: Lauren Denise, Caitlyn Mae and Chette LaRue Jr.
Past College of Education Keystone Leaders-in-Residence include Susan Dryden Whitson '91, former press secretary to First Lady Laura Bush; Alabama State Treasurer Kay Ivey '67; and Wayne T. Smith '67, chairman, president and CEO of Community Health Systems.
View Rev. Chette Williams campus lecture
Last Updated: May 13, 2011
http://www.education.auburn.edu/news/2008/march/chette.html 2/2 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain
January 3, 2005
SPORTS OF THE TIMES Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain
By SELENA ROBERTS
OOK for him among the Auburn faithful today. The Rev. Chette Williams is the one with access to the team's football practices, its athletic facility, its bus and the most intimate details of players' lives.
"Anything you had inside you, no matter what it was, you could tell him," said Reggie Torbor, a rookie with the Giants and a former star at Auburn. "You trust him like a father."
Williams is ubiquitous, at the center of Bible study for coaches, at the soul of Scripture sessions for players and in the middle as the Tigers link arms the night before games and sing:
I'm a hard-fighting soldier on the battlefield.
I keep on bringing souls to Jesus by the service that I give.
The gospel of Brother Chette is liquid. Since he arrived on campus in 1999, he has baptized 20 players. And to many, he is the revelation behind Auburn's undefeated season, healing them when Tommy Tuberville was nearly fired last year after the university president and boosters boarded the trustee Bobby Lowder's plane for a clandestine meeting with Louisville Coach Bobby Petrino.
"If you ask anyone in that program," Torbor said, "Brother Chette is the reason Auburn is where it is right now."
The Auburn base knows Williams as a gatekeeper for victory. The players know him as the caretaker of their secrets, whether personal or financial.
"He wants to help people," Torbor said. "That's the type of man he is. At the same time, him doing that would give off the impression of cheating and doing something he knows he shouldn't do. It's a fine line there. He helped us, but he didn't do it for us, he pointed us in the right direction."
But who directs Chette Williams?
He is not, Auburn officials insist, a salaried employee, despite being labeled as a hire of Tuberville's, despite the office he has at the athletic department and his listing on the Tigers' Web site as team chaplain.
"He is employed by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes," said Terry Windle, Auburn's associate athletic director. "He is paid by the F.C.A."
Williams is also on the payroll of powerful Auburn boosters, with none other than the bank tycoon Bobby Lowder as one of his primary benefactors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 1/4 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain As wealthy contributors gain more influence in college football - as donations soar and coaches' salaries inflate - the financing behind Williams illuminates the elasticity of a booster's reach into every last pocket of a program.
Neither Williams nor Lowder returned requests for interviews, but they are cozily linked by Chette Williams Ministries Inc., a nonprofit 501C3 charity.
Its address is Auburn Athletic Department, with its books kept by Windle "on my own time," he said. According to Lee County, Ala., property records, Windle is also named as the owner of Williams's Auburn house - valued at $346,050, three blocks from Tuberville's residence. Windle said that the records were inaccurate, and that he sold his house to Williams.
Who knew the F.C.A. paid its staff so well? If a supplement is needed, Williams may be able to turn to his ministry. In its 2003 990 tax filing, a form used by nonprofit organizations, Williams's ministry reported $73,335 in direct public support, including $30,000 from the Lowder family's foundation, according to tax documents filed for the same year by the Robert and Charlotte Lowder Foundation.
Of his total expenses, Williams gave $7,340 to Habitat for Humanity, paid for his Auburn-related travel costs and drew $55,824 in compensation as president for 20 hours of work per week. The list of officers for Chette Williams Ministries, Inc. - none of whom are compensated - is curious.
The vice president, Ben Thomas, is listed as a member of Auburn's event management staff and was the former resident director for Sewell Hall, the athletes' dormitory.
The chairman, Mike McCartney, a former Auburn board member, is a successful Alabama businessman who has a history of close associations with Lowder.
The treasurer, Wayne Hall, is a former Tigers defensive coordinator who is known as a leader in Lowder's posse that oversees everything Auburn. Hall became labeled as the instigator who helped Lowder undermine Coach Terry Bowden during a scandal in 1998.
As The Orlando Sentinel reported at the time, "Bowden dismissed Wayne Hall, a holdover from" former Coach Pat Dye's staff, "when Terry suspected Hall wasn't as devoted to N.C.A.A. rules as he demanded."
It isn't clear why a team chaplain would be so friendly with former Auburn football insiders. Surely, Williams doesn't need such untidy company.
Williams has become a celebrity in state football lore, popular on the speech circuit and as a radio guest. For N.C.A.A. rules purposes, it is important to know if his message is specifically aimed at athletes, including potential recruits.
Again, Williams declined to discuss the matter, but in a statement he released through Auburn, he said, "In my role as the Director of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I provide spiritual advisement to students on the Auburn campus."
His ministry mission, however, doesn't square with his F.C.A. role. On tax forms, he paints a much more narrow picture, explaining that the purpose of his ministry is to work effectively with "Auburn University athletes, especially with the football team, to encourage and stimulate better relations between players, coaches and support staff, using the standards and examples set by Jesus Christ; provide opportunities to evangelize, disciple and develop leaders through one-on-one witnessing and systematic studies, prayer meetings and counseling."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 2/4 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain Is Lowder invited to the prayer circles? Does he know all and see all through Brother Chette?
Not necessarily. Lowder may not have anything so manipulative in mind when he sends a $30,000 check to the team chaplain. But Lowder's past creates suspicion.
Why would Lowder invest so much money and have so many ties to a team chaplain?
The answer appears to be access and more access. For years, Lowder has paid handsomely to create his private wormholes into Auburn athletics. In 2003 and 2004, he donated at least $5 million toward Auburn athletics, the price to buy vicarious entry into the world of Tigers football for this 1964 Auburn grad.
His obsessive meddling has been infamous, if not nearly disastrous to the university. As a graduate of Auburn, I was a little nervous about the credibility of my diploma when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the university on probation last year, citing the micromanagement by Lowder.
Last month, the association removed the probation. But the disclosures about Lowder's influence and ethical conflicts have been endless this past year: 6 of the 14 trustees had financial ties to either Lowder or his business, Colonial Bank; The Opelika-Auburn News reported that the law firm of the trustee Jack Miller received $2.6 million in legal fees from the bank; as listed on Colonial Bank's Web page, Dye, the Auburn consultant and legendary ex-coach, is on its board; and the daughter of the university's interim president, Ed Richardson, who came aboard after William Walker resigned amid the Lowder tarmac scandal, is an employee of Colonial Bank.
"It hurt when she was brought into all this," Richardson said in a recent telephone interview. "She asked me if she should resign, and I said no."
Even though Lowder's abuse of trustee power has been exposed in investigations by the university's newspaper, The Plainsman, and his image has been lampooned in political cartoons statewide and he was asked to resign by The Mobile Register, Richardson has defended him. Richardson admitted there was a perception that Lowder is the institution's puppeteer, but Richardson referred to Lowder as a "convenient lightning rod."
"Bobby Lowder has done a lot of good for Auburn University," Richardson said.
But this is the issue for university presidents across the country faced with renegade boosters and trustees: Is their control for sale?
"There is no greater temptation for intrusion into presidential control and institutional mission than athletics when it comes to the board of trustees," Notre Dame's outgoing president, the Rev. Edward Malloy, told a forum sponsored by The Sports Business Journal last month. "The governing boards and many members of the governing boards have a huge incentive - for reasons we can all speculate about - to be excessively interested in athletics and to attempt to micromanage."
What is Lowder's motive? As an Auburn history professor, Wayne Flynt, wrote in an op-ed article for The Decatur (Ala.) Daily last February, "Whether because of his obsession with football - as some critics claim - or his determination to recast the school according to his own inaccurate and myopic understanding of a what a land-grant university ought to be, Lowder has used his political influence to pack the board with trustees beholden to him."
This began with Gov. George Wallace, who, after a handsome donation from Lowder, appointed him as a trustee to the university in 1983. Lowder hasn't let go, bullying any politician who has dared try to separate him from his Soprano-like hold on Auburn. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 3/4 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain He sounds ominous, but physically Lowder is a slightly built man, with an affinity for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Money gives him strength. Lowder's influence has skyrocketed with his wealth. He has been listed as one of Forbes's most powerful people, and in 2003 the magazine estimated his total compensation from Colonial Bank at $1.6 million, with stock options valued at more than $3 million.
He has other investments, too, making his financial success stunning. According to property records, he owns several homes besides his Montgomery, Ala., estate, including a condominium in Naples, Fla., valued at $12 million and two homes in Auburn - a picket-fenced bungalow worth $168,970, four blocks from a stately, renovated residence appraised at $405,440.
Auburn athletics may be Lowder's greatest acquisition. He has been known to interview football coaches behind the athletic director's back and to orchestrate hirings and firings.
He is the prototype of the über-booster, the great threat to intercollegiate athletics. No doubt Bobby Lowder was prowling around the Sugar Bowl today, lording over his undefeated team, knowing all, seeing all, owning all.
There are surely Lowder knockoffs out there on the college landscape, testing the elasticity of their reach, pushing the limits for an all-access pass to the team. No telling who is under their thumb. Even a trusted team chaplain could be vulnerable.
E-mail: [email protected]
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 4/4 10/1/2014 Auburn chaplain’s ‘broken road’ to BCS title game | SaportaReport
Auburn chaplain’s ‘broken road’ to BCS title game
Posted in Atlanta, Ben Smith, Inspiration, Transformation Date: January 6th, 2014, 9:00 am
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By Ben Smith At the start of the 2013 college football season, Chette Williams, chaplain of the Auburn University Tigers, said he told a reporter, “I hope our football team scores a lot of touchdowns for Jesus.” Williams had no idea what miracles were coming, the preternatural last-second shifts of fortune that enabled Auburn to beat huge rivals—Georgia and No. 1-ranked Alabama—and end up squaring off against Florida State University tonight in the NCAA college football championship. The Tigers, which at the beginning of the season were expected to be good—but not this good—go into the game as 8.5-point underdogs. On the sideline will stand Williams, a Douglasville native who sees these triumphs with a long view of the Auburn program’s rocky history. Chette Williams grew up playing football in Chette (pronounced Chet) Williams has been doing this for 15 years, since former coach Douglasville, and is now Tommy Tuberville decided in 1999 he wanted a full-time “spiritual coordinator” on staff for his the chaplain for the Auburn Tigers. players and coaches. Williams, an Auburn alumnus and former linebacker in the 1980s, saw Tuberville leave and replacement Gene Chizik come and go. He also counseled the team through a 2010 controversy involving the father of former star quarterback Cam Newton, who allegedly had tried to obtain large amounts of money in exchange for his son playing for a major college football team. The Broken Road Williams documented his experiences in a book released in 2013, “The Broken Road: Finding God’s Strength and Grace on a Journey of Faith” (Looking Glass Books). It chronicles the three-year spiritual climb by the Auburn players and coaches to their previous national championship at the end of the 2010 season. To understand the joy of this season, you have to grasp how low the team got not that long ago. Their chaplain saw it all. “For all the joy we experienced, we also knew injuries and sorrows and disappointments. Players endured pain and witnessed the suffering of others along the way. Yet isn’t that the nature of every journey?” writes Williams. “We all travel a broken road. Even in our journey to Him, God allows us to bear pain and heartache to the breaking point, because those experiences strengthen us.” “They open our eyes to the hardships of people around us so we can be a comfort to them,” Williams states. “They remind us that our strength comes from God.” The team not only weathered these changes and incidents, it prospered. Auburn won the 2011 BCS championship, defeating the Oregon Ducks at the end of the 2010 season after Newton had been declared http://saportareport.com/blog/2014/01/auburn-chaplain-broken-road-bcs-title-game/ 1/3 10/1/2014 Auburn chaplain’s ‘broken road’ to BCS title game | SaportaReport ineligible to play and then reinstated after it was determined there wasn’t enough evidence to show he or anyone on the Auburn staff had known about Newton’s father’s actions. The investigation was closed in October 2011. Newton now plays for the Carolina Panthers in the National Football League. “Adversity and challenges and make you grow spiritually,” said Williams, who is 50. Among the stories included in the book is a benched starter’s locker room speech to teammates about backing each other up. Four chapters detail an aid trip Williams and a dozen players take to the Dominican Republic after the devastating Jan. 2010 earthquake that rocked Haiti, on the other side of the island of the island of Hispaniola. (The team originally wanted to go to Haiti, where a team player’s father went missing, but it was considered unsafe.) Williams’ book also includes accounts of players both overcoming and giving up to injuries, including defensive back Aairon Savage, who college career was cut short by major injuries. For one reader based in Auburn, The Broken Road took on the bigger question of “Where is God when things go bad?” “If He with you in victory, does He abandon you in defeat?” asked ‘Big D,’ an Amazon reviewer. “This book attempts to answer that question in the context of Auburn football. If God was in the magical 2010 national championship season–as many, if not most, Auburn fans who consider themselves Christian proclaim– where did He go, where was He during the dismal, embarrassing and humiliating 3-9 season of 2012? Did abandon Auburn?… This book tells where God was in Chette’s opinion and theology and it is a powerful message of how to handle victory and defeat. It doesn’t entirely answer the question ‘Where was God when we got our butt beat?’ but it comes close.” An inexplicable season When asked if divine intervention was at play in any of Auburn’s surprise victories this season, Williams appears to demur. “I feel if God is in you he’s in a play,” Williams said. “As a believer in Christ I feel there is a spiritual component in everything.” Auburn’s stunning final-second victory over Alabama after returning a missed field goal for a touchdown may not have been miraculous, but it was transformative. So much so, Williams said, that he doesn’t quite remember where he was precisely or what he was experiencing when it happened. He has a much clearer recollection of when Auburn quarterback Nick Marshall’s fourth-and-long bomb bounced out of a defender’s grasp and into the hands of receiver Ricardo Louis, who scored the game-winning touchdown over Georgia. An assistant coach jumped up into Williams’ arms in jubilation, and both men fell to the ground. “He’s a big man,” Williams said, chuckling. Tonight when the Tigers take the field at the Rose Bowl, Williams will be on the Auburn sidelines as he has been all season. The chaplain made no predictions about how the game will turn out. Williams hasn’t even planned what to say when he leads the team in a pre-game prayer. It will be in keeping with Auburn’s knack for the unexpected; in Williams’ words, “Whatever the Holy Spirit leads me.”
Ben Smith can be reached at [email protected]
http://saportareport.com/blog/2014/01/auburn-chaplain-broken-road-bcs-title-game/ 2/3 10/1/2014 Auburn chaplain’s ‘broken road’ to BCS title game | SaportaReport
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About Ben Smith Columnist Ben Smith is filling in for his wife, Michelle Hiskey, as she takes a break from this column to finish writing her memoir, "Trophy Girl." He is a veteran reporter and website designer who has freelanced articles for The Toronto Star, CNN, AOL.com, the Daily Report, among other publications. He worked at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 22 years covering primarily politics and government. Ben earned his bachelor's degree in English from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. Ben and Michelle live in Decatur with their two terrific daughters. View all posts by Ben Smith →
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Posted: Thursday, October 20, 2011 12:00 am
Brian Woodham / The Auburn Villager | 0 comments Calendar
Fans of the Auburn University football team stayed and cheered in their seats, reveling in the spectacle and October 2014 jubilation of the Tigers first national championship since 1957. Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 Players and coaches celebrated on stage where they had gathered for the trophy presentation. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
But the star of the hour, Cam Newton, the Heisman 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Trophywinning quarterback who shattered records all John Wild / AuburnOpelika Tourism Bureau season as he led Auburn to SEC and BCS 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 championships, was missing. Villager wins five awards in APA 26 27 28 29 30 31 "I was looking for him, and there he was behind the contest podium," said Chette Williams, the team chaplain for today's events browse Auburn who is affectionately known as 'Brother Chette.' After each game, Chette Williams leads the football team in "He was behind there by the staircase praising God, prayer on the 50yard line with head coach Gene Chizik beside crying. That blessed my heart so much. You know, he's him. a strong believer."
By the time Williams got there, several of Newton's teammates had already found him. They shared the moment with Newton, crying and praying with him before lifting him up.
"It was very cathartic for him," Williams said. "The pressure was gone, and you can imagine the pressure, not just to win but everything else that was going on." http://www.auburnvillager.com/news/article_0a0b4659-6258-5474-8955-ca51a3c3a75c.html 1/5 10/1/2014 Auburn spiritual leader's storied past - The Auburn Villager : News
The journey for Newton and the Tigers was as amazing as it was improbable,comeback victories, including a win over Auburn's archrival, the University of Alabama, after being down by 24 points, and a payforplay scandal that threatened the eligibility of Newton, Auburn's star player and team leader.
Auburn's 2010 season might not have been a magical one, though, if not for unbelievable team chemistry, unity and trust, Williams said.
The Auburn team overcame great odds to reach greatness and realize its goals.
"I just think Chette's played a big role in the success of the Auburn football program since he's been the counselor," said Mark Murphy, who has covered Auburn football since the 1980s with Inside the Auburn Tigers magazine.
The team could have folded when chances looked bleak, but it found a way to persevere.
The same could be said for Williams, the team's spiritual guide and inspirational leader.
Sitting in a brown leather chair in his office in the Auburn Athletic Complex, Williams removes his thinrimmed glasses and rubs the cobwebs of memory from his eyes as he recounts the moment when his playing days at Auburn in the early 1980s hung in the balance, the same moment that spurred the beginning of his metamorphosis from hellion to healer.
After a night of drinking beer and cavorting made Williams miss curfew once again, assistant offensive line coach James Daniel came by his room in the athletic dormitory, Sewell Hall, late that night to pass on a message from Auburn head coach Pat Dye.
"'Son, we can't put up with that no more. You're out of here,'" Daniel told Williams. "I'm on the team, then he comes and tells me that night I'm off the team."
Dye said that while the coaches didn't single out Williams, once someone got in trouble they would almost assuredly get more attention when a coach makes his way through Sewell Hall for bedcheck.
"You're always suspect when you've been in trouble," Dye said. "Chette had been in some and got in some more, and the last one was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"By the time they get to me, they're in pretty serious trouble, and then the coaches let me make the final sayso whether they stay or go, and then, of course, I talk to the players and tell them whether they're staying and what we expect. Like I said, Chette was down to his last chance."
Williams, who hailed from Winston, Ga., a small town 20 minutes west of Atlanta, said he thinks the rebellious attitude that emerged when he came to Auburn stemmed from his parents' divorce when he was 16 years old.
"I blamed it on my dad,just mad at him and a lot of crazy problems," said Williams, who added that he forgave his father and that the two later became good buddies. "Of course, through the anger and frustration, all of that stuff, I started smoking and drinking,just rebellion, you know."
Williams, an invited walkon before being awarded a scholarship in his second year at Auburn, was a "tough, hard nosed kid, a good football player," according to Dye.
His issues were not on the field, where, as a linebacker, he could could release his anger and frustration to punish opposing players, but off the field.
"His temper was just like out of control," Murphy said. "He was bad tempered, the kind of guy who would get in fights, unnecessarily. He was out to prove he was the toughest guy there was."
That temper led to scuffles with teammates during practice infamous brushups with then assistant coach Wayne Hall.
"He was like a lot of young folks: hadn't grown up, a fella out there running around in the wilderness," Dye said. "He wasn't focusing all of his energy in the right direction, which was school and football."
After being told he was no longer on the team, Williams went to teammate Kyle Collins, who was heavily involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and had offered his ear and guidance to Williams if he ever needed to talk.
Williams told Collins that he had been kicked off the team.
They prayed, and that night, Williams said, he gave his life to Christ.
The next morning, he went straight to Dye's office to tell him that he was a changed man.
"It wasn't like I was going to coach Dye and begging him to let me back on the team," Williams said. "It was more I http://www.auburnvillager.com/news/article_0a0b4659-6258-5474-8955-ca51a3c3a75c.html 2/5 10/1/2014 Auburn spiritual leader's storied past - The Auburn Villager : News was going to see him and tell him what had just happened, that he didn't need to worry about me no more.
"I got my life right, so whether he asked me to stay or go home, I was prepared for either one. I was going to school and playing football, but I've been born again, saved."
Williams said Dye's response was "let's take it one day at a time."
Brother Chette was back on the team.
"He went right up to the edge and looked over and decided that wasn't what he wanted," Dye said.
While Williams' exodus from the football team lasted all of one day, its impact has rippled in his life ever since.
Sure, there were times of struggle as he straightened out his life, but with the help of Collins, Williams was able to persevere.
"Man, I slipped," he said. "Lost a lot of socalled friends, but Kyle and really strong believers discipled me and helped me walk through this thing that first year and kind of sent me out after that,so yeah, there were struggles; there always are."
When Williams finished his time at Auburn, he went straight back to his hometown where he started ministering at his childhood church, Old Mountain Top Baptist Church.
"I went home because I was fired up about Jesus, man," said Williams. "I loved the Lord, I loved preaching and sharing Christ, so I went home to my little church."
Back in his office, Williams beams with pride as he uses a letter opener to pry the black cardboard off the back of a frame that holds one of his prized possessions,the '89'90 directory of Old Mountain Top Baptist Church, with the image of the whiteboarded, modest church on the front.
The directory reads like a Williams' genealogical tree, listing three uncles as pastors and Brother Chette, who sports a thick mustache in one image, as an associate minister.
"That was my first ministry, but after a while just doing that, I'm thinking there's got to be something else to this because I need to further my understanding of God's word," he said.
He reached out to Bob Baggett, a good friend of Dye who served as the team chaplain for Auburn during Williams' playing days.
"Look, Dr. Baggett, there's something stirring in my heart. I just can't shake it, and I need to grow more than I'm growing here," Williams recounted. "And he said 'You want to go to seminary? and I said 'What is that?'"
Baggett explained what seminaries were and then directed Williams toward New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where Brother Chette earned a masters of divinity in pastoral studies.
While a student, Williams pastored a church in New Orleans, while also commuting to Mobile to minister as well.
It was in New Orleans where he also met his wife, Lakeba, who played basketball as an undergraduate for Southern University, an historically black college in Baton Rouge, La. They married in 1996.
"I was already in ministry fulltime when we met, so she just joined alongside what we were doing, and we partnered up, and we've been going ever since," Williams said.
Instead of continuing his theological studies in the seminary's doctoral studies program, Williams moved to Spartanburg, S.C., where he started numerous ministries, including Impact Ministries, which Williams credits with preparing him for his current job as team chaplain.
"We had about 15 of these guys who had just got out for selling drugs, too young to go to prison, but too old to be in detention, and I can just see all of this now and how it prepared me for what I'm doing now," Williams said. "We would just make jobs. We'd have them go and cut wood in the woods, the safest place for them. We brought chainsaws, and we're all going to cut wood all day and then they would sell it."
One success story of his ministry is that of Samie Clowney, who, like most of the program's participants, lived in poor conditions in housing projects around Spartanburg.
"He grew up in the housing projects of Spartanburg, waking up to gun shots," Williams said.
Clowney went through the program and, later, joined the ministry as an intern, helping coordinate basketball leagues and other programs.
Brother Chette's humbleness and spirit naturally draws people toward him, said Clowney, who added that Williams http://www.auburnvillager.com/news/article_0a0b4659-6258-5474-8955-ca51a3c3a75c.html 3/5 10/1/2014 Auburn spiritual leader's storied past - The Auburn Villager : News was a strong role model as an AfricanAmerican man of faith.
"That's a model I still want to replicate in my own life," said Clowney, who served as the director of Multicultural Affairs and Leadership Programs at Wofford College before accepting his current position with Teach for America. "I think, also, when it came to figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, it was very impactful, in that I had around me a lot of guys who were very encouraging, so ministry naturally felt right to me.
"When I think of things that helped me come to that decision, definitely being a part of that ministry and having Chette as a mentor as well."
Williams continued his work in Spartanburg until 1999, when he got a phone call from Tommy Tuberville, who had recently been hired as the head football coach at Auburn, to become the team chaplain.
"He called me and said 'this is what I got, this is what I need,'" Williams said. "I talked to several people, and they said 'you're the right person for the job. Would you be interested?' And, of course, I came down."
After being a spiritual guide for so many, Williams doesn't feel any anxiety when he looks back at the troubles that almost derailed his life.
"I look back on them now as just opportunities," he said. "I wouldn't change anything because it made me who I am today."
While many credit Williams with being an integral part of Auburn's success and two undefeated seasons in 2004 and 2010, that isn't what drives him.
"I enjoy winning games and winning championships, but the real victory comes when they do come back and you see changed life in them," he said.
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http://www.auburnvillager.com/news/article_0a0b4659-6258-5474-8955-ca51a3c3a75c.html 5/5 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain
January 3, 2005
SPORTS OF THE TIMES Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain
By SELENA ROBERTS
OOK for him among the Auburn faithful today. The Rev. Chette Williams is the one with access to the team's football practices, its athletic facility, its bus and the most intimate details of players' lives.
"Anything you had inside you, no matter what it was, you could tell him," said Reggie Torbor, a rookie with the Giants and a former star at Auburn. "You trust him like a father."
Williams is ubiquitous, at the center of Bible study for coaches, at the soul of Scripture sessions for players and in the middle as the Tigers link arms the night before games and sing:
I'm a hard-fighting soldier on the battlefield.
I keep on bringing souls to Jesus by the service that I give.
The gospel of Brother Chette is liquid. Since he arrived on campus in 1999, he has baptized 20 players. And to many, he is the revelation behind Auburn's undefeated season, healing them when Tommy Tuberville was nearly fired last year after the university president and boosters boarded the trustee Bobby Lowder's plane for a clandestine meeting with Louisville Coach Bobby Petrino.
"If you ask anyone in that program," Torbor said, "Brother Chette is the reason Auburn is where it is right now."
The Auburn base knows Williams as a gatekeeper for victory. The players know him as the caretaker of their secrets, whether personal or financial.
"He wants to help people," Torbor said. "That's the type of man he is. At the same time, him doing that would give off the impression of cheating and doing something he knows he shouldn't do. It's a fine line there. He helped us, but he didn't do it for us, he pointed us in the right direction."
But who directs Chette Williams?
He is not, Auburn officials insist, a salaried employee, despite being labeled as a hire of Tuberville's, despite the office he has at the athletic department and his listing on the Tigers' Web site as team chaplain.
"He is employed by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes," said Terry Windle, Auburn's associate athletic director. "He is paid by the F.C.A."
Williams is also on the payroll of powerful Auburn boosters, with none other than the bank tycoon Bobby Lowder as one of his primary benefactors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 1/4 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain As wealthy contributors gain more influence in college football - as donations soar and coaches' salaries inflate - the financing behind Williams illuminates the elasticity of a booster's reach into every last pocket of a program.
Neither Williams nor Lowder returned requests for interviews, but they are cozily linked by Chette Williams Ministries Inc., a nonprofit 501C3 charity.
Its address is Auburn Athletic Department, with its books kept by Windle "on my own time," he said. According to Lee County, Ala., property records, Windle is also named as the owner of Williams's Auburn house - valued at $346,050, three blocks from Tuberville's residence. Windle said that the records were inaccurate, and that he sold his house to Williams.
Who knew the F.C.A. paid its staff so well? If a supplement is needed, Williams may be able to turn to his ministry. In its 2003 990 tax filing, a form used by nonprofit organizations, Williams's ministry reported $73,335 in direct public support, including $30,000 from the Lowder family's foundation, according to tax documents filed for the same year by the Robert and Charlotte Lowder Foundation.
Of his total expenses, Williams gave $7,340 to Habitat for Humanity, paid for his Auburn-related travel costs and drew $55,824 in compensation as president for 20 hours of work per week. The list of officers for Chette Williams Ministries, Inc. - none of whom are compensated - is curious.
The vice president, Ben Thomas, is listed as a member of Auburn's event management staff and was the former resident director for Sewell Hall, the athletes' dormitory.
The chairman, Mike McCartney, a former Auburn board member, is a successful Alabama businessman who has a history of close associations with Lowder.
The treasurer, Wayne Hall, is a former Tigers defensive coordinator who is known as a leader in Lowder's posse that oversees everything Auburn. Hall became labeled as the instigator who helped Lowder undermine Coach Terry Bowden during a scandal in 1998.
As The Orlando Sentinel reported at the time, "Bowden dismissed Wayne Hall, a holdover from" former Coach Pat Dye's staff, "when Terry suspected Hall wasn't as devoted to N.C.A.A. rules as he demanded."
It isn't clear why a team chaplain would be so friendly with former Auburn football insiders. Surely, Williams doesn't need such untidy company.
Williams has become a celebrity in state football lore, popular on the speech circuit and as a radio guest. For N.C.A.A. rules purposes, it is important to know if his message is specifically aimed at athletes, including potential recruits.
Again, Williams declined to discuss the matter, but in a statement he released through Auburn, he said, "In my role as the Director of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I provide spiritual advisement to students on the Auburn campus."
His ministry mission, however, doesn't square with his F.C.A. role. On tax forms, he paints a much more narrow picture, explaining that the purpose of his ministry is to work effectively with "Auburn University athletes, especially with the football team, to encourage and stimulate better relations between players, coaches and support staff, using the standards and examples set by Jesus Christ; provide opportunities to evangelize, disciple and develop leaders through one-on-one witnessing and systematic studies, prayer meetings and counseling."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 2/4 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain Is Lowder invited to the prayer circles? Does he know all and see all through Brother Chette?
Not necessarily. Lowder may not have anything so manipulative in mind when he sends a $30,000 check to the team chaplain. But Lowder's past creates suspicion.
Why would Lowder invest so much money and have so many ties to a team chaplain?
The answer appears to be access and more access. For years, Lowder has paid handsomely to create his private wormholes into Auburn athletics. In 2003 and 2004, he donated at least $5 million toward Auburn athletics, the price to buy vicarious entry into the world of Tigers football for this 1964 Auburn grad.
His obsessive meddling has been infamous, if not nearly disastrous to the university. As a graduate of Auburn, I was a little nervous about the credibility of my diploma when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the university on probation last year, citing the micromanagement by Lowder.
Last month, the association removed the probation. But the disclosures about Lowder's influence and ethical conflicts have been endless this past year: 6 of the 14 trustees had financial ties to either Lowder or his business, Colonial Bank; The Opelika-Auburn News reported that the law firm of the trustee Jack Miller received $2.6 million in legal fees from the bank; as listed on Colonial Bank's Web page, Dye, the Auburn consultant and legendary ex-coach, is on its board; and the daughter of the university's interim president, Ed Richardson, who came aboard after William Walker resigned amid the Lowder tarmac scandal, is an employee of Colonial Bank.
"It hurt when she was brought into all this," Richardson said in a recent telephone interview. "She asked me if she should resign, and I said no."
Even though Lowder's abuse of trustee power has been exposed in investigations by the university's newspaper, The Plainsman, and his image has been lampooned in political cartoons statewide and he was asked to resign by The Mobile Register, Richardson has defended him. Richardson admitted there was a perception that Lowder is the institution's puppeteer, but Richardson referred to Lowder as a "convenient lightning rod."
"Bobby Lowder has done a lot of good for Auburn University," Richardson said.
But this is the issue for university presidents across the country faced with renegade boosters and trustees: Is their control for sale?
"There is no greater temptation for intrusion into presidential control and institutional mission than athletics when it comes to the board of trustees," Notre Dame's outgoing president, the Rev. Edward Malloy, told a forum sponsored by The Sports Business Journal last month. "The governing boards and many members of the governing boards have a huge incentive - for reasons we can all speculate about - to be excessively interested in athletics and to attempt to micromanage."
What is Lowder's motive? As an Auburn history professor, Wayne Flynt, wrote in an op-ed article for The Decatur (Ala.) Daily last February, "Whether because of his obsession with football - as some critics claim - or his determination to recast the school according to his own inaccurate and myopic understanding of a what a land-grant university ought to be, Lowder has used his political influence to pack the board with trustees beholden to him."
This began with Gov. George Wallace, who, after a handsome donation from Lowder, appointed him as a trustee to the university in 1983. Lowder hasn't let go, bullying any politician who has dared try to separate him from his Soprano-like hold on Auburn. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/sports/ncaafootball/03roberts.html?pagewanted=print&position= 3/4 10/1/2014 The New York Times > Sports > College Football > Sports of The Times: Auburn Trustee Boosts Everyone, Including the Chaplain He sounds ominous, but physically Lowder is a slightly built man, with an affinity for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Money gives him strength. Lowder's influence has skyrocketed with his wealth. He has been listed as one of Forbes's most powerful people, and in 2003 the magazine estimated his total compensation from Colonial Bank at $1.6 million, with stock options valued at more than $3 million.
He has other investments, too, making his financial success stunning. According to property records, he owns several homes besides his Montgomery, Ala., estate, including a condominium in Naples, Fla., valued at $12 million and two homes in Auburn - a picket-fenced bungalow worth $168,970, four blocks from a stately, renovated residence appraised at $405,440.
Auburn athletics may be Lowder's greatest acquisition. He has been known to interview football coaches behind the athletic director's back and to orchestrate hirings and firings.
He is the prototype of the über-booster, the great threat to intercollegiate athletics. No doubt Bobby Lowder was prowling around the Sugar Bowl today, lording over his undefeated team, knowing all, seeing all, owning all.
There are surely Lowder knockoffs out there on the college landscape, testing the elasticity of their reach, pushing the limits for an all-access pass to the team. No telling who is under their thumb. Even a trusted team chaplain could be vulnerable.
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