About

I am an assistant professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University. I earned my doctoral degree from the University of Missouri, master's degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, and BA in History from the University of Arkansas.

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My first book, God's Warriors: College Football and the Making of 20th-Century American Religion, is under contract and in review with the University of Illinois's Sport and Society series. It examines how Catholics at Notre Dame, Mormons at Brigham Young University, fundamentalists at Wheaton College, Black Methodists at Wiley College, white Baptists at Baylor University, and evangelicals at Liberty University used college football to shape 20th-century American Christianity. At its core, God’s Warriors is a book about the convergence of two distinctly American passions football and religion. It explores how each influenced the other. Both contain lessons in sacrifice, community, and morality. They also accept violence, competition, and rebuke as means to a positive end. This book seeks to understand how the violent game of football helped prepare the next generation of God’s warriors.

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My broader academic interests include American religious history, sport history, and American popular culture.