From Athlete to Scholar Part III

In addition to my thesis advisor Sarah Hughes at Shippensburg University, Mike Mc Tighe, Associate Professor of Religion at Gettysburg College is another person who mentored me on my road to becoming a scholar. We met in the faculty dining room following a paper I delivered on my master’s thesis on black abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet at a faculty colloquium on the Gettysburg College campus. We talked over lunch and quickly became good friends though we were so different. Mike was a tall very soft spoken hippy looking guy. Mike truly a brilliant guy with graduate degrees from Yale University (M.Div. 1973), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1983). At Chicago he wrote his dissertation on Protestants and public culture in antebellum Cleveland with the renowned professor of religious history Martin Marty serving as his dissertation advisor. Early in are meeting Mike sense some doubt in me about my academic chops. He provided needed assurance that I had the intellectual ability that it took for a career in the academy. I recall having similar doubts the year I transferred from Herkimer to Syracuse as both a student and lacrosse player. Over the years these seasons of doubt and insecurity never stopped me from moving forward because God always placed people in my path with words of wisdom and encouragement. Doubt in my experience is nothing but fear wearing a mask. And fear is most often False Evidence Appearing Real.