Student led organization, Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), wasn’t always the success students know it as today. Rooted in humble beginnings, a year long journey and a common passion for Christ and sports, FCA has begun to establish itself within the school as a place where students can play their respective sports in the name of God.

Led by varsity basketball player, junior Albert Edney, FCA got its start in Liberty in Edney’s freshman year when he transferred from Christian High School and noticed that Liberty did not have an FCA at the time.

“It basically began with me asking around if we had an FCA on my first, second day here,” Edney said. After consulting with officials from the FCA organization, school administrators and teachers, Edney had begun what would become Liberty’s FCA.

“So I put up fliers and put them around the school and I wrote my own lessons and I did all these things to do FCA,” Edney said. Edney would later come to work with Mr. Hendricks to build FCA at Liberty. However, unlike many other clubs, FCA could not be granted the same privileges as other clubs due to its religious affiliation, meaning that Hendricks could not fulfill the role of being a sponsor.

“In public schools, it (FCA) has to be student led and my only role is to kind of be a liaison between the FCA organization and the students,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks himself began to participate in FCA while playing baseball at George Mason University and when considering his own great experience with FCA, he took advantage of the opportunity to help start one up.

“Someone from FCA contacted me about possibly sponsoring it and she’s well connected with a lot of the churches in the area and so she sent out the word of who would make a good leader and his name (Albert) kept coming up, so it was relayed to me,” Hendricks said.

But not all of the journey was smooth sailing as early as the September of 2016, Edney suffered an injury that prevented further growth for FCA.

“I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in the lowest vertebrae of my spine and I was completely devastated. Basically, I focused all my efforts and all my focus went towards getting better,” Edney said, “So the fact of the matter is is that I just went straight dark. I was just so frustrated with the fact that I was hurt that I was just crushed.”

The injury, coupled with waning attendance from people’s respective sports seasons approaching challenged FCA as whole to generate true progress.

“It’s been a little frustrating, actually. Last year, we tried to get it going and it kinda flamed out midway through the year,” Hendricks said. “When their (members) respective seasons came around, there wasn’t much participation.”

However, to combat last year’s complications, Edney advises students to come whenever possible, even if it means making the last 15 minutes after leaving practice.

“I encourage everyone to come straight from practice. Take a shower and come on, because we got food there, we have games and stuff like that,” Edney said.

In fact, according to sophomore Emily Gann, food and games are a part of what makes up FCA meetings.

“There’s three F’s to FCA; it’s food, fellowship and fun,” Gann said. “Usually, we’ll have pizza and then there’s a fellowship time which is when one of the leaders will share a verse and we’ll relate it to what it means about being an athlete and we usually play games.”

From sustaining stressful injuries to an ebbing attendance, FCA has stood through it all and as the school year and all corresponding activities kick off, FCA holds its hopes high as they continue to play and pray.