Editor’s note: Story updated 5/25/07 7:49 PM CST

Last week, four professors started a petition opposing the idea to have a team chaplain for the ISU football team.

Head football coach Gene Chizik reportedly told an April 29 crowd at the central and western Iowa Fellowship of Christian Athletes annual banquet that he wants to have a full-time chaplain for the football team, according to an article in Ames Life & Times, a weekly section of The Des Moines Register. The position would supplant the chaplain under Dan McCarney, former head football coach who had an unofficial chaplain for the team.

According to the story, Chizik said he had already approached someone about the position. Kevin Lykins, pastor at Pleasant Glade Baptist Church in Colleyville, Texas, said Chizik had talked to him about the position but declined to comment further on the situation.

Hector Avalos, associate professor of religious studies; Warren Blumenfeld, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction; William David, university professor of music; and Ellen Fairchild, lecturer of curriculum and instruction were the four professors to start the petition.

In an e-mail response to David, Jamie Pollard, ISU athletic director wrote “no one, including coach Gene Chizik, intends, has, or will force any student-athlete to take part in any spiritual activity.”

In the e-mail, Pollard likens the chaplain position to other services provided to student-athletes.

“Much like we have offered our student-athletes access to drug and alcohol counselors, sports psychologists, nutritionists, hypnotists, physical therapists, learning specialists, chiropractors, physicians, etc., we are now going to also provide access to a spiritual advisor,” he wrote.

Pollard wrote in the e-mail that the chaplain would be funded by private, not public money. He also wrote that he fully supported Chizik in getting the chaplain.

“We recognize that not everyone will support, nor fully understand or appreciate, this decision, since it is a topic that often is viewed as politically incorrect,” he wrote.

Chizik and Pollard were out of town attending the Big 12’s spring meeting and could not be reached for comment.

David, in an e-mail response to Pollard’s e-mail, wrote, “I find myself more concerned about this matter than before I received it, primarily because of his view that this is only an issue of political correctness, as opposed to an issue of law.”

President Gregory Geoffroy was out of town and could not be reached for comment. John McCarroll, executive director of university relations, said the president has received the petition but hasn’t had a chance to review it. He said he would review the petition upon his return.

Last week, Geoffroy wrote in an e-mail response regarding the team chaplain to David, he and others were working through the issue of having a team chaplain for the football team. He also thanked David in the e-mail.

“A lot depends on what a “team chaplain” actually means and what such a person would actually do,” he wrote.

There are now 104 signatures on the petition.

David said he has not received any “hostile responses” since he distributed the petition.

“There was a lot of outrage [to having an ‘official’ chaplain],” he said.

David also said even if the position were to be privately funded, it still didn’t matter to the people who signed the petition.

“The funding isn’t the point,” he said. “We’re hoping they reconsider the idea.”

According to the Register story, Dave Turnball, area director for the central and western Iowa FCA, reportedly began fundraising for the position. He declined to comment.

The next step is up to the administration, David said.

Charles Haynes, senior scholar and director of education programs at the First Amendment Center, said courts have not been as strict about the establishment clause of the First Amendment for universities as they have been for grade schools.

“The courts have made a distinction between the two settings,” he said.

Haynes said the reason for the distinction is because university students are not as young and “impressionable,” as well as the fact university education is not compulsory.

Haynes said using public money to fund a chaplain position at a public university should be unconstitutional.

However, using private money is not as clear.

“That puts it in a little more of a gray area,” he said.

If a university were to hire a chaplain, they could put restrictions on what the position did, such as requiring it to be nondenominational. This would be “constitutionally suspect” because, in his view, public universities should not fund a religious position, Haynes said.

Haynes also said if the chaplain was made a university position that was funded by private money, the position is still university-sponsored, in his opinion. He doesn’t see that as constitutional.

However, if the university allowed a private group to provide a chaplain to the team, it may be constitutional, but he didn’t think the university would be able to tell the chaplain what to do.

Haynes said he did not know of any cases of lawsuits about a chaplain at a public university.

Related link: View the petition (PDF)