Alan Babbitt [00:00:07] Welcome to the Hope College Athletics Orange and Blue podcast. My name is Alma Babbitt. I am the sports information director at Hope College. It's my privilege to speak with people who help make Hope Athletics provide programs with competitive excellence and transformational experiences for our student athletes. Today is with great joy that I can talk with two impactful men on our campus. They're also teammates in Hope College's Campus Ministries department. Shomari Tate, our Chaplain of Discipleship, and Matt Margaron, our Chaplain of athletics. Welcome to the Hope Athletics Orange and Blue podcast, Shomarei and Matt.

Matt Margaron [00:00:45] Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having us, Alan.

Shomari Tate [00:00:48] Yes, sir, thank you. So awesome to be here.

Alan Babbitt [00:00:52] We'll start with getting a little bit about what you two. Shomari, let's talk with you and your role as Chaplain of Discipleship. What does your job entail and what do you do to help serve and minister to our students? 

Shomari Tate [00:01:07] That's a great question. In month four of my job, I would say that my biggest job right now is just getting to know Hope, getting to know students, getting to know the collective stories that make up our beautiful campus, our beautiful community, and then in terms of my formal duties, I just get the distinct honor and privilege to walk alongside of students and make sure that they are being formed well in Christ as they go out into the real world. Also, I have an expansive history doing diversity, equity and inclusion work, so I'm excited to bring that level of expertise to the team as well.

Alan Babbitt [00:01:49] And for you, Matt.

Matt Margaron [00:01:53] Again, thanks for having us, Alan. I serve as the chaplain of athletics here at Hope, and it's such a gift. I kind of see myself as a pastor to the athletics community, so over the 600 athletes and 70 coaches and assistant coaches, I kind of just see myself as walking alongside them, caring for them and helping them grow in their faith, be introduced and grow in their faith in different ways so how that plays out? We do one on one mentoring. We help with team Bible studies. One of the big parts of our is obviously Chapel Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and you see athletes in chapel all the time, which is really great. But speaking to teams walking alongside students who have injuries and are trying to recover and reclaim a new identity or a new formation moving forward. And so it's such a gift. I often say I have the coolest job in the world because I'm a huge sports fan. I love sports like any sport I love to watch. I love to analyze. We can talk about stats. Those are things that I'm really passionate about. But I'm like these athletes' biggest and coaches' biggest fan. I love it. I love talking about it and walk alongside, but then also talking about the deeper issues as well. 

Alan Babbitt [00:03:12] Shomari, let's get to know you a little bit better. Educationally, you have a bachelor's from Michigan State in political science and government, and also masters of public policy from Michigan State and also Ministry Leadership from Cornerstone University. How did you find the calling to be minister and all the work that you do? Where did that calling come from and then how did you find yourself here at Hope College?

Shomari Tate [00:03:38] That's such a good question. Like many young informed students, you know that start to familiarize themselves with the world, I set out at a young age to devote my life to helping others, to serving others. Did I see that it culminated in ministry? I did not. I thought that I was going to be working on some sort of politician's staff, being a strategist or in a think tank or a lobbyist firm or something like that was where I saw myself. And as I was fielding jobs, which staff I wanted to join after I finished my master's of public policy is when the Lord really started to lean on me about a call to ministry. And my first initial response to that call was absolutely not. I don't want to do that. But the more I said no, the more that call became more pronounced and I started to see it in my day to day life and day to day interactions with folks and the things that people were telling me and in prayer, in scripture, it just seemed like this was something that God pressed upon my heart. And when I finally answered that call, I got a beautiful opportunity. a funded opportunity to study at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. After that, I met a man by the name of Trygve Johnson there on a fellowship. He was my cohort leader, and we just started to walk together and prayed together. Over the summer time, he informed me about an open position. He thought I'd be a good candidate. I applied, and we kind of just prayed through that process, that candidacy process. And I've been at Hope since October and it has been the gift of a lifetime. Like I said, I was kind of scared going into the Hope community just because I was coming from the (Grand Rapids) Catholic Central community somewhere that I'm very much a part of, very much familiar with. Stepping into foreign territory was a bit of a new feeling for me, but I'm so glad I did it. It's been the ride of a lifetime. I'm like a kid in the candy store. Just having fun, just having fun.

Alan Babbitt [00:05:39] Matt. You know, Hope very well, having been a student athlete here, graduated with a psychology and religion major here at Hope and then went on to earn your master's in community counseling at Regent University. Did you always know you wanted to work in ministry. Serving others? And how did you return to Hope here after you graduated.

Matt Margaron [00:06:07] That's a great question. Early on in my college degree, I really wanted to work with people. I realized that that was a passion of mine and also a calling or a gift. Hope does a great job of helping people kind of discern that vocational calling, but I didn't know how that was going to play out. I had this psychology background, which was definitely working towards counseling or social work or working with all different populations. But then I also had a religion background where I had served in ministry while I was here" Campus Ministries Young Life, led the soccer team Bible study, and so those two things were kind of going on at the same time. So after leaving Hope, I had a journey of kind of playing that out as a good liberal arts college does. I was thinking through all the different dynamics. I helped coach here. I was an assistant coach with the soccer team. I worked in the counseling field, social work. Then eventually I remember I was with my wife at church after I got my master's in counseling and I became a licensed clinical professional counselor for about eight years I was working in that field. I was sitting in church with my wife and I heard a pastor preaching and he said, Gosh, the sheep, listen to the shepherd's voice. And I leaned on my wife and said, I need to. I need to shift into full time ministry. That's kind of my call. Her response was, I know this is what you're called to do. And so I emailed the pastor that day. We met at a Starbucks and had a conversation. I shifted into a kind of full time ministry. I loved counseling and it's prepared me so well because I get to work with students in that counseling field. Still, to this day as a chaplain, having all that background and education has been immense and good. But I spent the next 10 years working for Young Life and coaching high school soccer. Then Hope, when this new position opened up as a chaplain of athletics, they kind of gave me a call and said, Hey, would you be intrigued in applying and interviewing for this? And I felt like I was coming back home and away to a place that had developed and for me, so well. I loved my time at Hope and it prepared me for me, and now I get to again this this incredible job of walking alongside athletes.

Alan Babbitt [00:08:29] Shomari, both you and Matt obviously talked about your interest in athletics as part of your life. Tell us your story. You were a three sport athlete at Catholic Central, walked on at Michigan State on the football team and then ended up working for the Spartans throughout college. How has sport shaped your life in your career path into the person you are today?

Shomari Tate [00:08:56] Sports really was my first sense of structure in my life, just to give you a bit of my background. I come from a single-parent household where my mom, God bless her, did everything in her power to make sure that me and my brother had the most normal childhood that we could. So that involved her working multiple jobs at one time. You know, there was never a time where things weren't always busy and hectic, so sports really became that first like thing that I had when I was like, OK, there's I'm going to come to this, I'm going to do it and I know what to expect. And that's the structure so that it really became the first instance of consistency that I familiarized myself with it. And it stayed that way in grade school, throughout high school, in college. It just was that consistent thing that I knew that I could lean on, whether I was playing it, whether I was watching it or watching friends, whether I was coaching it. It just became consistent for me. It was around high school that I really began to take sports very seriously as something that I really wanted to commit to and that that that, to me, is where discipline became a factor in my life, not just in terms of being a disciplined athlete, but making sure my grades were right, making sure that I was right spiritually, really leaning in to other men and starting to trust me. Because just given my childhood of not growing up with a father, that was a very tough thing for me. So sports really helped me to be able to trust other men and to be able to walk out in my life, my spiritual life, my emotional life, my physical life with other guys and a God period and in a godly way that was healthy. That was kind of the first instance that I had in that department. So that was a godsend and a blessing. It just continued in college. I tried to do the walk on thing with football, didn't work out, but I had the coolest opportunity to work with the football team in the recruiting department and that was just awesome to stay around sports, to still be involved, to kind of walk with players.  It took a lot of stress off me physically. So just developed a renewed sense of passion for the game. And that was just one of the most awesome experiences. I got to meet so many different cool folks. I can recall games or standing on the sideline and standing next to just inadvertently someone like a Plaxico Burress, running into someone like Magic Johnson on campus, at the Cotton Bowl when the Spartans unfortunately got trounced by the Crimson Tide, I got to see Derrick Henry walk by, and my first thought was, Yeah, it's over for us. So sports has been that comedic relief. Sports has been that constant sports has kind of been a pillar that I like to go back to that I know a lot of young men and women lean on for consistency as well. So I'm just blessed that to this day, sports continue to be a part of a huge part of my formation. And I'm glad that I can share in that formation with other students as well.

Alan Babbitt [00:12:02] Matt, in my previous role before I came to Hope, this is my eighth year at Hope, I was a newspaper reporter for both the Grand Rapids Press and sports editor for the Holland Sentinel.  I remember covering you when you played soccer here at Hope. Very accomplished career. An MIAA Marvin Zuidema Award winner Two time all regional player, as well as a three time all conference player. How'd it sport, in particular the sport of soccer, shape you into the person you are today? 

Matt Margaron [00:12:31] Oh, that's an amazing question.  I grew up, I swam and I played basketball and soccer, and then later in high school, I kind of shifted into one sport. The beautiful game, which I call football, or soccer. I love soccer. I think it is a space where you can be creative. It's one of the sports that's structured, but it's also open. And it's a place where you can be yourself and you can play with passion, but also creativity. It's been such a sweet sport for me to find myself in. From a young age, I grew up in Naperville, Illinois, which is kind of a sports community in the Chicagoland area, big, big sports community. But what I found was a sweet spot for me. As I got to do, I got to play on sports teams with my best friends, and I also got to be,, the club that I played for,, Kopion, had some Christian values that were instilled in it as well. And so sometimes you sports can be pretty cutthroat, and can be a hard place to grow up. And for me, it was always a great experience. I got to travel the country with my club team. I got to go on missions trips to the Ukraine and all over the world and play. I got to serve and do camps in the inner city of Chicago, basketball and soccer camps. And so sports was also a ministry to me, and it was also friendship and social. When I came to Hope, even though I had some other offers from different schools, it was such a good fit because it was a place where I could live out both those aspects of friendship ministry and passion for the love of the excellence of Soccer. And Hope, we were a good team back then and they still are today. But we went after it for competitive excellence as well. So soccer has been such a huge formative piece of my life and I can't take it away from ministry. It's not just sport for me, it's so much more.

Alan Babbitt [00:14:37] For the both of you, how did sport help you prepare to be part of the campus ministries team here at Hope College? Obviously, you all work together to serve and minister to the campus community, our students, our staff and coaches, you kind of name it. How did sport help you and your in your day to day life now to work together on the great team you have with our campus ministries?.

Shomari Tate [00:15:03] Wow. I think for for me, sport again was one of those instances where like I got a consistency of working with a team and not working on my own, and the culture that I come from there's such a hyper focus on being independent and sport, especially team sport, like football and basketball really taught me the importance of true dependance on one's teammates' success and maturation, which just is as important as my own. In fact, I can have the greatest game in the world. But if the team wasn't succeeding, if the team didn't have a good night, that greatest game really means nothing; it's not the victory. So really focusing on victory as a team versus individual success was huge in orientating my formation towards team success. So I would say sport really helped me develop a vision for working with a team in a manner of achieving a collective and like minded goal.

Matt Margaron [00:16:14] What a good answer, Shomari I agree completely. When I was working for a young life and kind of managing ministry and hiring and working with young staff coming right out of college, I oftentimes looked for people that had been a part of good, functioning teams, either in sports or in the classroom or internships. I was looking for people that had been in that part of a team and could function in different roles, both as the leader of the team and in different roles within a team. And I think that there's something about sports which allows you to grow both as an individual and also as a part of a collective group moving towards a common goal and understanding your role within that team is incredibly important, and I think that happens in campus ministry. Each of us has unique gifts, skills that we bring to the table that we can partner alongside. We are constantly in our office, running things by each other, praying for each other, saying, Hey, this would be really great for you. This student would be someone that you should connect with and care for. And I think understanding both of your gifts and strengths, but also your limitations is the part of the team that you can do better. And I think it's scriptural too. I think we talk about one body, many parts, and each of us brings our own gifts to the table. And the only way teams are successful in sports is if they recognize both their gifts and limitations. And I think that helps us really well in Campus Ministries.

Shomari Tate [00:17:39] Just to add on to what Matt said about working as a team and really helping each other out, I think that was very, very apparent. We just had something that happened on Friday that Matt had the skill set to deal with. But a couple of the other chaplains, like I was ready to go home. I was tired. But since I really do view Matt, not just as my colleague, but as my brother, as my teammate, I was like, All right, well, he's dealing with this and he's not done yet. So my day is not done yet. I'm going to stay here. I'm going to support my brother. And a couple of other chaplains had that mindset as well. That reorientation that may be sometimes the duty is not exactly our specific role, but just helping out our fellow comrades and achieving the common goal of our department, which is walking alongside of students and presenting Jesus in an effective manner.

Alan Babbitt [00:18:35] Another one of the beauties of sport is especially when you're young is you get to see people that are role models for you, that emulate for you and show you the right right way to live, the right way to treat people, et cetera. For both of you, whether it's in athletics or outside athletics, as I'm sure there were many people like me that you know you were fortunate to have pour into you. Is there someone that you remember that really made a stamp on your life and helped you, you know, stay on the right path? 

Shomari Tate [00:19:09] For me, it's actually a Hope College alumni. He is the current head coach at Catholic Central and a very dear friend of mine, Mr. Todd Koster. If anyone knows who Todd is, I don't care what anyone says I'm biased, but Tod is the best head coach, the best head football coach in the state of Michigan. And like I said, I argue about that until I am blue in the face. Todd has won a ridiculous amount of games. He's been such an integral part of high school football in the past 10 to 15 years. But really more than that was, Todd really taught me some intangibles about manhood and about what it really means to go to bat to get the job done against all odds. If you've ever been through a Todd Koster practice, that's kind of how the practices are formulated against all odds. Can you get the job done? And oftentimes, with Todd's Catholic Central teams, you see huge wins and the most and the easiest thing that folks go to is, well, it's this. It's that private school, the private school that and I'll just say, like I someone that's been a part of the culture in terms of being a coach in terms of being a player. It's a work ethic. It's a mentality that regard that there's a pride in the community and the tradition that comes from it. There's there's a work ethic that I would rival like nobody in this day practices as hard as Grand Rapids Catholic Central does on a day to day basis. And then there's an emphasis on victory, on really seeing seeing what the goal is. And sometimes that means winning a game. Sometimes that means just playing better than we did last week. So just those ins and outs of what it truly means to be a man of God. I think Todd Kolster was transformational for me in that department as as a teenager and then again, as a friend and as a colleague when I coached there for the past three years.

Matt Margaron [00:21:12]  This is a great question. My grandfather was an incredible athlete and coach and athletic director in the suburbs of Chicago, so he was actually captain of the University of Illinois football team. And then he went on, he was drafted by the Bears nut decided to teach and coach instead, which is a different era around the world. He was an incredible man, and won state titles down there and I decided to choose soccer over football, which was a big loss for him, especially since sometimes if you see me, he'd be like, Wait, what? You played soccer because I look more like a football player. But my grandfather was an incredible man. He cared for his family deeply and always came before sport and his faith. And that always came before sport. Yet he was fiercely competitive and he was a you-don't-mess-with-him kind of deal. And I love him. He's a spiritual mentor to me. And then secondly, I would say my coaches, Steve Smith and Lee Schopp here at at Hope College taught me how to care deeply about excellence in soccer, but also how to be a good man and how to pursue things outside of just the sport, how to develop others, how to think deeply about faith and character, and how to care deeply about again, family and how to care and love for your, your wife and your kids. And to put that first. So their influences on me as well.

Alan Babbitt [00:22:52] My next question probably is worthy and has been done as a dissertation, and we could probably have a whole separate podcast on it, but how do you both think sport can help us grow our faith and be closer to God?

Shomari Tate [00:23:11] It's such a good question. One thing I'm going to go back to my Spartan roots and watch this plastered in the weight room, they're in the practice facility, in the locker room. There is a scripture that says iron sharpens iron. Often times in our Christian faith, we have a tendency to hyper focus on evangelism. Or more simply put, when a person comes to Christ, it's like a celebration. That's awesome. But then the question is how do we walk with one another? And that's why I'm so blessed in my role as a chaplain of discipleship, because that's truly what that word means discipleship to really walk out the Christian faith with someone. And what better way to do that than in the format and the umbrella of a sport team? I do believe thatt also some of my other great influences in my spiritual walk, along with my athletic journey has been just seeing great men of my age doing it well. There's a lot of lessons that I still carry with me today that teammates taught me. There were a lot of disciplines that were instilled in me from just walking alongside with teammates, like before each game, me and my teammates. We make sure that we prayed together, not separately, but but together after games, praying together, praying with the other, with the other team, really posturing our heart towards prayer, really passing our lifestyle towards worship, really making sure that in the ins and outs of sports and all the dangers that come with that we're we're keeping the main thing the main thing, as coach Nick Saban loves to say all the time, just making sure that for one, faith comes first. Sports really helped us in formatting that if we were going to be successful, successful in all that we did on the field, off the field, on the court, off the court. And faith had to be first. Secondly, our faith is part of our faith was to make sure that we were intentional about walking with each other and picking up another one as we stumbled.

Matt Margaron [00:25:39] This is basically my whole job description, the integration of faith and sport. So there is a ton there, obviously, but some people would say that faith BS sport don't interact as much, right? So kind of like politics and faith. We don't talk about those things together. Sometimes it's like, Well, let that sport be the the thing. We are working towards a common goal and you know, we can co-opt a prayer or a scripture onto this kind of situation. But they're not integrated. And I would say that if you look at the Bible, if you look at scriptures, the amount of reference towards sport, racing, training your body as a physical exercise are immense. I think that the analogy that we are training for kind of a spiritual exercise is similar to that of sport and everything we learn through sport, about work ethic, about character, about teamwork is also kind of really applicable to that spiritual journey that we're on and that we're in a training mindset. And if we don't train our spiritual beings, then we're not going to be kind of successful in this journey. It is God that does the work in us and helps us, but we're a part of that. We're a part of this interaction and we have to train and work and work out kind of our faith in fear and trembling. And it talks about in Romans 5 about perseverance, producing character and character producing Hope, which is the name of our college. And I think that athletics gives us a vision about what faith can actually be like if we work hard together as a team to pursue different ideals.

Alan Babbitt [00:27:36] You know, along with that, obviously, sport continues to be part of the national conversation regarding race and social justice, which I know for the both of you are very near and dear to your heart. And this is even though, I mean, the issues are not new, that sport has always been one that has been a push for the conversation and making people come together and talk and listen to others. How can we use sport to model for how we can live into God's image and plan for us? And particularly when it comes to race and social justice?

Shomari Tate [00:28:12]  Oh, wow. There's so many different ways to go with that one. I would just say in terms of just where the history of sport is in relation to race and social justice, we've honestly taken that luxury for granted. I would say in terms of how sport and race really are integrated together and are interwoven in functionality. If we look through our history, we see so many different sport icons that have used the platform of their sport to really advance the uplift of their culture. And I would say the broader American ideal of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We've seen it with people like Ali. We always call him the greatest. But do we really critically study the fact that he was an advocate, that he did not want to go and fight in a war because he felt like his fight for justice was at home at a time where he where he said I could go fight in a war, but I'm fighting for a country that doesn't even give me my civil rights. We see that today with different athletes using their platforms just to highlight things like racial injustice, police brutality, human rights violations that are happening overseas. So I think sport is that great equalizer that gives us a chance. Well, this is my brother, this is my sister that are talking about these issues, and we both play for the same team and the same color letters or whatever the jersey may say. So if they're saying this and they believe in this, maybe I should hear them out to be a great teammate, maybe I need to hear them just to hear where they're coming from and then make an informed decision on how I feel about that. But at the very least, as Galatians Chapter 6, verse 2 says, we have to bear one another's burdens because in that we truly fulfill the law of Christ. 

Matt Margaron [00:30:10] That's great Shomari. It seems like every day, gosh, sports are about wins and losses. Sometimes if you play certain sports, there are ties, right? So but sometimes we see we see wins and we feel like we're moving forward in regards to racial issues or social issues. And then another story comes out and another way that we've gone backwards, whether it's hiring practices within the NFL or it's the NBA's response to the shooting, athletes and coaches have been at the forefront throughout off being advocates for movement and change. I remember when the Milwaukee Bucks kind of protested a game together because they were in it and they were feeling the hurt and the pain of a community shooting in their area. And so as a team all across the, you know, whether they were from Europe or whether they were from black or white, they came together and said, we're unified around this thing together because we're a team first and we're not going to play tonight. And so I think that's the power of team is to say, you are, I'm in this with you and that we can have these conversations. And this is more than just about sport. This is about life. This is about my family. This is about my neighborhood. This is about my community. And we've got to have these conversations and we're working towards a common goal, which the Bucks next year. They didn't win a championship that year, but they won the Championship the next year. And so these conversations need to happen. And I think we're living in a cultural moment. These are not new issues, right? Shomari is talking about Muhammad Ali. You know, there's situations within tennis throughout the years, there are situations through all sports where we're seeing these issues come up. But we are living in a cultural moment now where we're very divided and very polarized in our country. And I do think sports has a unique opportunity to rally people together. And how can we move towards a common goal with these issues without bypassing them? It's because that's my family, that's like someone I'm in the war with. And I'm not just going to let that go because I'm in a relationship with them. And so that's where I think sports can have a huge impact on racial and social issues.

Alan Babbitt [00:32:35] Graciously, God provides obviously not everything in life is easy, but he also provides some really good things as well. For the both of you, is there a Bible verse that you have that helps keep you grounded? Whether you're feeling great or you're struggling a little bit, that just helps you kind of center and you move forward with your walk..

Shomari Tate [00:32:59] I would say that the verse that really drives me, that drives my work, that drove me in sports, that drives my activism, that drives my ministry, I would say the verse that really just keeps me is Romans 12 verses 1 and 2. And they say that by the mercies of God to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. And then verse 2 says, do not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern  what is the will of God, what is good, perfect and acceptable. I think those two are so key in sports and race and ministry because I think ministry, you present yourself as a sacrifice, as you have to sacrifice a lot of what your body and what your natural preconceived notion may be about a topic to really align with God's will. In sport, you have to sacrifice your body 24 7 to be successful. In race. We've seen throughout the history of racial justice black and brown people, even white people sacrificing their bodies for their brothers and sisters, for their fellow man to be seen as equal and then to be constantly transformed by the renewal of our mind that's present in all three. As we learn more about race, we have to be transformed by being renewed in the information that we pick up in sport. We get coached to do the right thing every single day or get coached to be able to coach well. And in the same way, with my work as a minister, as a chaplain, as a campus pastor. There's new things that I learn from students and colleagues every single day. So those are just two to two small scriptures that really drive me.

Matt Margaron [00:34:57] Thank you, Shomari. I'm just so excited he's here to work with our students and athletes and all of our students; it's just been such a gift. Second Corinthians, versus 16 through 18. I learned this when I was in college and try to keep it to remind myself. Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away. Yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day for our light and momentary troubles are achieving a glory that far outweighs them all. So we fixed our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen for what is seen as temporary and what is unseen is eternal. And I just think in this moment that we're in that we have to remember a grander picture, a vision of what the kingdom can look like and what we can enter into. And, you know, not to minimize our troubles that we're going through, we've been in it for the last couple of years. It's been real, but we have a greater vision of what God has done for us and we'll continue to do so.

Alan Babbitt [00:36:01] And lastly, obviously, it is Super Bowl week, so I can't get it away without asking two things. . What's your favorite Super Bowl snack and then two who you're who you pick in for the big game tomorrow?

Shomari Tate [00:36:19] I mean, I'm old school, so my Super Bowl snack will get me some chicken wings. Make sure you got my celery, my carrots. I need blue cheese. I'm not a ranch guy, and I know that's a bit unconventional, but I'm not a ranch guy. So chicken wing makes it spic, got my blue cheese, my salary and my carrots, and that's my go to snack. In fact, that's what I'll be cooking up. I'm not doing those Super Bowl party. This year is going to be me by my lonesome watch with my chicken wings, you tell me. And then for the big game, I got Cincy I would love to see. I mean, I won't be hurt either way, but I'm going with Cincy, they're a Midwest team. They're a blue collar team. I'm loving the combination between Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase. They look a little spotty up front on the offensive line, but I like the energy they bring on defense. I love the Rams and I love what they're doing. Big fan of OBJ, big fan of Stafford, Big fan of Von Miller and all those guys on defense. Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey. It's going to be a fun one. But if I had to choose, I'm going with the Bengals tomorrow. 

Alan Babbitt [00:37:30] I'm with you 100 percent on the blue cheese in the wings. That's a good call. I do not know how that's going to follow that in terms of food, but I'm sure there are obviously a million great options for Super Bowl snacks. Matt, what do you eating and who do you think's going to win?

Matt Margaron [00:37:47] Well, you know, the big debate is always, do you have a Super Bowl party? Because then you can't actually watch the game, right? So like, I am so hyper focused on like actually watching the game that I don't like talking to anybody else. I don't know if anyone else is like that or like, that's going to have some conversation with somebody. I just want to eat my food. And then I want to watch. So number one, you know, I would be remiss. my parents would be upset if I didn't really say chips and guacamole like a huge bowl of guac, real deal guac. And so we do that sometimes lime chips, the Tostitos lime chips. That's kind of the real deal. Nice work on the wings. I would do ranch over blue cheese. That's kind of my way to go. But now I see these guys are shaking their heads. My preseason picks for this year, where the Bills and the Rams in the Super Bowl, I'm still miffed about that Chiefs Bills game. I thought Josh Allen deserved it, for sure. But Joe Burrow, then how can you go against that story? I mean, if you're from this area, maybe you want Stafford to kind of win and get that kind of redemption. It would be an indictment for sure on the Lions organization again if Stafford wins. But gosh, Joe with the cigar and he's just got that moxie. .

Shomari Tate [00:39:06] You gotta love him..

Alan Babbitt [00:39:07] Him and him and Chase. I remember when they drafted him and Chase, it was like, But you're not going to block for him. There's like these two guys played in college and did some amazing things together. Let's see what happens. So are you sticking on them? I'm sorry, Matt, I didn't let you finish. Are you sticking with the Rams or are you going to switch to Cincy Matt?

Matt Margaron [00:39:28] Matt, I think I'm going to go with the Bengals. You know, how do you root again? He's kind of got that thing, you know, Joe Burrow, I'd love to see him win. You know, there's probably more firepower all around on the Rams. They got such big names Jalen Ramsey and Von Miller and, you know, Akers, they got the whole crew. It's kind of like betting against Tom Brady? Do you bet against Joe Burrow at this point? I don't know. So I'm going Cincy.. 

Shomari Tate [00:39:58] Momentum kills, momentum kills. They're the hottest team in football, so that's I'm going with the Bengals.

Alan Babbitt [00:40:05] Some sound logic there. It should be a lot of fun, and it's been a lot of fun talking with both of you, Shomari and Matt. Appreciate your time today and also your service to Hope College, and we look forward to seeing you both work with our student athletes and seeing you out at Hope games again very soon. And thank you everyone for listening to Hope Athletics Orange Blue Podcast. It's been a pleasure. We're grateful for our wonderful fan support and look forward to seeing you at Hope games coming up soon as well.

Matt Margaron [00:40:36] Thanks, Alan.

Shomari Tate [00:40:38] Thanks for having us, Alan.