Wabash football player Brock Graham is a gentle Little Giant in a big rough sport. The 6-1, 192-pound junior halfback played a large role in helping the Wabash Little Giants to the Division III quarterfinals last year, rushing for seven touchdowns and catching a team-high 69 passes for 607 yards and five more scores. The year before, he was named freshman player of the year by his teammates and freshman student of the year by his classmates.

Not bad for an old-school guy in a new generation of players. Graham got his football smarts from Alto, Michigan – his high school won two state titles – and his values from his parents, who he said “taught me so much about what it means to live, and prepared me to leave home and live my life to the fullest.”

Graham means it when he talks about leaving home and living life. Rather than spend spring break at the traditional hot spots, for example, he went farther south – all the way to Africa, where he and 19 teammates made a spiritual connection in a faraway land.

The trip was Graham’s idea, after a Wabash assistant coach during a postseason team meeting mentioned a ministry in Illinois that was planning a mission to Botswana. Graham was familiar with missionary work, having traveled with a church group to Kenya several years ago. “That trip opened my eyes to a lot of things,” he said. “On the plane back, I decided if I got another chance, I would go back.”

This past spring was that chance. At first, only Graham and a handful of friends latched on to the idea, but when posed to the entire team, two dozen expressed interest. Graham would have been happy with half, but 20 signed on.

“There’s no reason that 20 college football guys should have any impact in a Botswana town where soccer is the main thing. They don’t know American football. What are 21 guys who play football doing over there?” Graham said.

But when the players arrived in the villages, Graham said kids would flood from all over just to hang out, learn about sports and play games. “We would sit them down and tell stories from the Bible and talk about what our faith meant in our lives. To see them just sit and listen to these stories – it was an amazing trip just from that standpoint,” he said.

Being a missionary and a halfback may seem like an odd juxtaposition – it did to Graham for many of the 14 years he’s played the sport – but he had an epiphany recently.

“I realized that football is something God has given me the ability and passion to play. To me, it’s something that I can’t wait to get out there on Saturday and play. But it’s also more than that – it’s a ministry. Football and missionary work may not seem compatible, but in my life, a lot of the avenues through which I’ve shared my faith have been sports in general and football in particular.”

While football may not continue after Graham graduates in December, ministry probably will. He plans to marry his high school sweetheart (currently attending Hope College) January 3, then pursue a full-time position with OneWay Ministries, the same group involved in the Botswana trip.

“I remember telling my fiancé when we were younger that missionary work is not up my alley, and now here I am with two trips to Africa and probably a third before the year is over,” Graham said. “I can’t say enough about the people who have helped me along the way. It started at home and has continued on here at Wabash.”