Please Bow Your Head: Pre-Game Public Prayer at College Football Games in the South

INTRODUCTIONPicture this. Y ou and a small group of friends decide to spend a Saturday afternoon together by attending an American football game between two public schools competing in the southern United States. You are familiar with the festivities surrounding football on weekends so as you park and make your way to the stadium it is common to see excited fans in the parking areas around coolers filled with beer, grilling the food of the day as tens of thousands of fans "tailgate" prior to kickoff.You enter the stadium, buy refreshments, and settle at your seats. The teams finish their on-field warm-ups and retreat to their respective locker room before the game officially commences in 15 minutes. Next, the marching band of more than 200 students takes the field playing the home team's fight song as the crowd roars, cheers, and chants along. The fight song concludes and a few individuals proceed to the middle of the field to present the American flag and honor the country by singing the National Anthem. The crowd begins to draw silent in expectation of the first notes, and the public address (PA) announcer broadcasts to tens of thousands of spectators, "Let us pray ..."The aforementioned anecdote reflects a gameday experience of many spectators at football games in the South. The practice of public pre-game prayer hosted at a state institution in 2013 may come as a surprise to some people, if not unsettling, due to the fact that the Supreme Court prohibits pre-game public invocations [1].Gameday ExperienceThe authors' primary discourse concerns that of sport management and sport sociology, and thus understanding the gameday experiences of spectators is essential to business operations given the fact that spectators are salient stakeholders [2]. Furthermore, examining the sociological implications of gameday experiences is essential since gameday experiences are inextricably tied to perceived stakeholder satisfaction [3]. Given the fact there are two prominent social institutions of the Southern culture in the United States - college football and religion [4] - the purpose of this study was to assess the intersection of football and religion in the South by analyzing pre-game public prayer at collegiate football games.College Football, Religion, and the SouthAmong the founding ideologies of the United States of America was separation of church and state (i.e., government). However, there are references to God on U.S. currency, stated within the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, and sacred texts, such as the Bible, are used in courtrooms for sworn testimonies [5]. Therefore, when discussing the intersection of college football, religion, and the culture of the southeastern United States (the South) it is difficult to provide independent context as the three elements are interrelated. Bain-Selbo describes these elements as threads woven into the fabric of Southern culture. It is important to note that the notion of place far exceeds the physical space associated with a town, region, state, or nation - it is also inclusive of the "those living there" and "who they are and what that location means to them [6]." As such, the South is a unique place profoundly shaped by its turbulent history involving the Civil War and its aftermath.Compared to other regions of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the South was characterized by an overall aura of inferiority (e.g., poverty, infant mortality, low life expectancy, illiteracy) [7]. As the general popularity of football continued to grow in the United States, Southern society gravitated toward college football as a sense of pride in its young men. In a relatively short time, these core values, beliefs, and ideologies of the "New South" were reflected in college football [8]. Barnhart suggested "nothing is more ingrained in the Southern psyche than the love of Southern college football - not as a game or a mere diversion, but as a way of life [9]. …