Chosen Attribute: Friendship

Dictionary definition: "The state of being a friend. Harmony, accord, understanding, support."

My definition: "To be a good example of Christ in my day-to-day interactions with people regardless of the situation — whether people come to me with problems, happiness or sadness."

It's the typical driveway basketball scenario: Your team is down by two with three seconds left on the clock. You get the pass at the top of the key and square up to take the game-winning shot. It's one of the most heart-pounding moments in your imaginary career, and, once the shot goes down (even if it's on the second or third try), you rejoice with the thousands of invisible spectators.

As athletes, we dream of being in those pressure-packed, crunch-time situations. The fourth quarters, ninth innings and final sets. When it comes to actual games, however, those visualizations take on a new reality.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is the largest Christian campus ministry in the world. It is on more campuses than the next three largest campus ministries combined. In the past year, FCA reached more than 350,000 people on over 7,100 campuses and worked with more than 46,000 coaches and athletes at camps across the globe.

The numbers for this ministry are staggering. Still, even though it's been around since 1954, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a mystery to many. Even the late Tom Landry, legendary Dallas Cowboys’ coach and lifetime trustee of FCA, used to call FCA “America’s best-kept secret.”

Most people have at least heard of it, but some of them can’t really say for sure what FCA is all about.

Chosen Attribute: Patience

Dictionary definition: "An ability to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay. A quiet, steady perseverance."

My definition: "Having the mental capacity to wait for the things that you want and are trying to achieve. It is the journey to the destination. You want to get to the destination, but patience is the waiting and growing stage before you get there."

Can the food we eat actually make us sick? According to an article in TIME magazine, we may be paying a steep price for the cheap quality of food we eat.

Typically I don't consult newsstands for good science, but this article had a lot of truth in it. The topic centered on how the American food system is bad for our bodies, bad for the environment and bad for our economy.

I grew up in Slidell, La., about 30 miles away from New Orleans and the area's famed Bayou Country. My paternal grandfather was a minister who preached faith in God and a strong work ethic. He instilled those values in my father, Gene, who faithfully passed them on to my older brother, Bryan, and me.

As kids, Bryan and I really benefited from our dad's wisdom. Our family attended church every week at Hartzell Mount Zion Church in Slidell, and that was where I placed my faith in Christ when I was 15 years old.

It's an ordinary Wednesday afternoon at Miami's Ghoulds Park where, under the watchful eye of FCA's Noah Wilbanks, a group of street-savvy football prospects race through a series of drills hoping to catch the eyes of college football coaches from across the nation.

These aren't your typical blue-chippers. Some are teenagers, others are in their mid-20's, but all are pushing themselves through the oppressive South Florida heat alongside campmates of different ethnicities and from others parts of town.

The name of any sports team says something about the nature of the game being played. It's revealing to note, then, that the NHL has more teams named after natural disasters than any other pro sport: the Flames, the Lightning, the Avalanche, and perhaps most indicative, the Carolina Hurricanes. These names alert fans that they're watching, not a game of slow precision or deliberate grit, but of collective fury and fast-paced skill.

The young girl in eighth-grade science class may look like she's doing all right, but Claudeen Bryant knows better. The fifth-year teacher at inner-city Nashville's (Tenn.) Haynes Middle School has been around long enough to see through the facade of most struggling adolescents. She knows how easy it can be to trick people into believing everything is OK when, inside, you're an emotional wreck.

Let’s think for a moment about the various ways we have traveled to and from competitions across our lives in sport. Low rent or first class, those who play their hearts out find joy in the journey.

I remember traveling to high school wrestling meets in school buses. I remember teammates spitting in paper cups to lose the last fractions of a pound to make weight. I remember the smell of oranges being peeled and snacks from mothers being shared among teammates. I remember the raucous rides home after victories and the deathly quiet following painful losses.