Shawn's blogging. www.shawnfury.blogspot.com. Check out the new FAQ page. NFL.com writer Gregg Easterbrook labels Keeping the Faith a "must read" sports book. Read more Booklist gives positive review to Keeping the Faith. Read more Publishers Weekly calls Keeping the Faith a "heartfelt tale." Read review Keeping the Faith is now available on Kindle. Read more. Shawn's story on Mike and Matt Fasnacht appears in the February issue of Minnesota Monthly, which can be read here. Shawn's essay on home-state memories appears in the current Sports Scoop. Read More Shawn's story on high school basketball is in the current issue of Minnesota Basketball News. Read More The Daily News of Iron Mountain, Michigan, reviews book. Read review New Ulm Journal story features Trinity football team, discusses impact of book on school, team. Read more

Published in the New Ulm Journal on October 21, 2005

Trinity Bible College limps into New Ulm

By Jim Bastion

NEW ULM -- Trinity Bible College is not known for its success on the football field.

In their last three seasons in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference, the Lions have posted an anemic 1-23 record with that lone win coming this season with a 20-18 win over Principia.

This Saturday, Trinity Bible College of Ellendale, N.D. comes to New Ulm to face Martin Luther in a 2 p.m. UMAC game.

While wins have not come easily for the Lions in football, publicity for this football team with 29 players on the roster has.

They have received national publicity in a newly released book by Shawn Fury called "Keeping The Faith," a story about the struggles of the small Pentecostal college during the 2003 football season.

The book is doing well nationally.

"Things have changed dramatically since the book has come out," TBC Athletic Director Tim Grant said. "We have added approximately 65 years of coaching experience to our football staff. That, in turn, has brought about more focus on a prepared team. But I have to qualify that to a degree -- our recruiting had to start over completely after those years."

Those two years, the 2002 and 2003 seasons under then-coach Rusty Bentley, included a 105-0 loss to Rockford College and no wins. It also included, because of injuries and an overall lack of numbers, using players who had never played high school football before just to fill out the team.

"We have a whole new group of players this year with only seven returning from previous teams," Grant said. "Preparation is an ongoing process, and we are doing a lot more football-wise with this group. But it still is only the first year."

Jim Dotson, who coached at the University of Virginia-Wise, was brought in to replace Bentley, who was offered a teaching position at TBC but elected to return to his home state of Texas.

"We (Grant and Bentley) knew that there were going to be some serious struggles," Grant said. "We had to try to plan ahead to try and dealing with those -- we planned ahead, but it did not work. We had some hope that it would work. But in the end, the players were not receiving proper coaching."

Grant said that the changes were made prior to the publishing of Fury's book.

"The changes were done before the book was ever published," Grant said. "When Shawn came to me about the idea for the book, I told him that I had no idea how you are going to come up with stuff to write about. But he was able to come up with information, and I thought that he wrote it real well."

Grant added that he had stopped reading the book two-thirds of the way through.

"But from what I have read so far, there is nothing in the book that we had not already dealt with or were going to deal with," he said.

That included Dotson running what Grant described as "normal football practices. All the players come to practice and if you are not on time, there will be consequences. Number two, we are able to help the players improve each week with skill development in those practices."

In addition, Grant said that the football budget currently is up 17 percent from last year.

But Rome was not built in a day. This season, TBC has lost games by score of 55-0, 41-0, 50-0, 31-0, 59-0 and 66-0.

They have been outscored this season 320-20 in seven games.

"But I think that our players are much more prepared for games, not just on the field, but in the video room," Grant said.

Grant has one more concern.

"We want to remain in the UMAC," he said. "We are extremely grateful to them. But we can only do [so much] each year to improve."

One of the concerns that the UMAC has is already being done by TBC: applying for NCAA- III membership.

While the book is doing well, Trinity's status as a member of the UMAC is not.

"We will have a (UMAC) meeting in November about them," Martin Luther College Athletic Director Jim Unke said. he also serves as the UMAC Commissioner. 'There are a couple of things that we are looking at. (The UMAC) wants to become an NCAA Conference and to get the automatic qualifier for our conference, all the members must be NCAA members. (TBC) has to make a decision about that."

Another issue is the travel.

"There is a lot of expense to travel to Ellendale. Schools spend a lot of money on travel, but they have not got competitive games (with TBC)," he said. "It is an issue. I do not know if it is the deciding issue, but it is part of the process."

Unke feels that at this point, applying and then being admitted to the NCAA is the first hurdle.

"If they are accepted in the NCAA-III, we would be more tolerant," he said. "But if the NCAA rejects them, I think that our decision is simple."