The Freedom From Religion Foundation is demanding that Auburn University stop suffusing its men’s baseball program with religion. 

A concerned Auburn University family member has informed the state/church watchdog that the Auburn men’s baseball team has Latin crosses on the backs of their new uniforms and “Jesus Won” written on the front. Additionally, both the Auburn baseball team Facebook page and the official Auburn Tigers fan group have posted a video and a photo, respectively, of the Auburn men’s baseball team being led in prayer by what appears to be the coach.

The family member who brought the situation to FFRF’s attention expressed concerns about the coercive pressure the players may be under to participate in team prayers and wear religious uniforms. They observed that non-Christian students would likely feel out of place and unable to refuse the coach’s expectations for players to kneel and pray or wear team gear with the cross and “Jesus” written on it. 

Notably, this is not FFRF’s first time contacting Auburn University over unconstitutional entanglement of religion and sports, and this is not the first time Auburn University has prioritized religious practice over students’ rights. In 2015, FFRF published its “Pray to Play” report, which heavily features abuses at Auburn. The report details how universities like Auburn have allowed their football coaches to impose their personal religious beliefs on players via the hiring of Christian chaplains. FFRF wrote to Auburn again in 2018 regarding football Chaplain Chette Williams, a university-employed chaplain who has proselytized and prayed with the football team. Finally, in 2023, FFRF wrote to the university after learning that multiple coaches had promoted a religious event where the head football coach had baptized a player. 

FFRF is once again asking that Auburn University respect students’ First Amendment rights — by ceasing the usage of religious symbols and messaging on uniforms, and by the baseball team coach refraining from leading players in prayer.

These actions amount to official university favoritism toward religion over nonreligion, and Christianity over all other faiths. The religious uniforms and coach-led prayer also risk unconstitutionally coercing players into wearing religious symbols and participating in prayer. Men’s baseball team players who wish to maintain their standing on the team and continue to have access to scholarships and other benefits of playing college sports will no doubt feel that going along with what the coaching staff wants is essential to being viewed favorably by their coaches and team. Players will not feel free to refuse to wear religious uniforms or to refuse to participate in prayer, for fear of retaliation or of losing their place on the team.

University employees are free to pray privately or to worship on their own time in their own way. Entangling the university’s sports teams with Christianity needlessly marginalizes students and players part of the nearly one in three Americans who now identify as religiously unaffiliated. In addition, more than half of Generation Z (those born after 1996) are not Christian, with a recent survey revealing that almost half of Gen Z identify as religiously unaffiliated.

“Auburn University continues an upsetting and concerning trend of allowing athletics coaches to proselytize student-athletes with seemingly no real consequences,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “There are undoubtedly students who are too afraid to speak up about representing a religion that they are actually not a part of. They are owed an explanation as to why their rights are consistently being sidelined.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 41,000 members, including hundreds of members in Alabama, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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