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Campus Life, July/August 2001
A Good Sport
Jennifer Knapp is the biggest sports nut in Christian music.
by Mark Moring
Jennifer Knapp—she of the small stature and the tender lyric—has a dream. And it's not what you might expect.
She wants to play hockey. Not just for the skating, but for the contact, the collisions, the body checks: "I'd love that!"
Actually, it's not such a surprising response from someone who loves playing sports. All sports.
Jennifer has done everything from softball to golf to skiing to racquetball to skeet shooting to deer hunting to competitive horseback riding. And she's always hungry for more.
"I don't know if I'd call myself a sports junkie," she says. "But I've always been a sports fan. And I definitely miss sports when I'm not playing. … or watching. Sometimes I'm addicted to ESPN."
And she plays to win, whether the playing field is real or virtual.
"There's always a Nintendo or Playstation on our tour bus," she says.
Bandmates and stage hands who dare to challenge Jennifer at Nintendo's "NHL Breakaway" usually walk away with that whipped-puppy look.
"I've pretty much creamed everybody," she says with a laugh.
Raised on a Kansas farm, Jennifer has always loved the outdoors. She rode horses from a young age, and competed in American Quarter Horse Association shows as a teen.
"That was a powerful experience for me, because I had to learn about teamwork. But I was obstinate and hardheaded, and so was my horse, so I was never very successful at it.
"But I still ride whenever I can, because I really enjoy it. When I visit my mom, I try to go out on a trail ride. It's very nostalgic for me."
Jennifer is also at home on a softball field. In her teens, she was catcher on a fast-pitch team that played in tournaments around the state.
"I got injured a couple of times," she says, "and I still bear the marks of some of those injuries."
At 16, she tore ligaments in her back, but she continued to play the rest of the summer, despite the pain.
"I was miserable, but I loved the game too much to quit," she says. "I probably could have played in college if I had taken the time to heal and do it right. But I was hardheaded. And I've had back problems ever since. "
But that hasn't kept Jennifer from playing ball. Two summers ago, she played third base on a women's softball team in a Michigan church league. And last summer, on a tour with Third Day, she played a lot of Whiffle Ball. They'd find a place to play in almost every city they visited.
"Those Third Day guys are really competitive," Jennifer says. "It got pretty serious!"
Jennifer bought a home in the country near Nashville, and hopes to get involved in the sports scene there—whether it's in a softball league, on a golf course, on a racquetball court, or just out in the woods, where she loves to hunt. She bagged a deer last year, and now has a freezer full of venison.
"My dad taught me how to shoot a rifle when I was a kid, but I never went hunting then," she says. "So, going hunting is like the fulfillment of a lifelong dream."
She also likes skeet shooting, where small clay disks are launched into the air and the shooter tries to gun them down. (Steve Thomas, Jennifer's manager, says she is so good at skeet that she picks off the falling pieces from disks he's already hit!)
Despite her love of activity, Jennifer usually avoids sports with a high risk of injury.
"I'm not extreme, and I'm not a risk-taker," she says. "When I go skiing, I'm into enjoyment and getting a good workout. I finally got up to the blue (intermediate) slopes. That's enough for me.
"My idea of a good time isn't sliding down a black diamond (advanced) slope on my rear end. Sometimes I see people skiing or snowboarding off a cliff, doing stuff that's just nuts. I'll watch them do it, and maybe dream that I could do it, but no way I'd ever try it myself."
So what's next?
"I'd love to try auto racing," she says, "if I could eliminate the risk of injury or fatality. I'd love to be able to spin around a track, even at just a hundred miles an hour."
Just a hundred? Hmm, no risk-free guarantees there.
Maybe she'll just have to settle for hockey instead.
Wanna learn more about Jennifer? Click here.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Campus Life.
July/August 2001, Vol. 60, No. 1, Page 22
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