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With 2.8 seconds on the scoreboard clock, the San Antonio Spurs trail the Minnesota Timberwolves by one point. The Spurs have the ball, and everyone in the Target Center, the Timberwolves' arena in Minneapolis, knows who'll be getting the pass.

Teammate Avery Johnson lobs the ball high toward the Spurs' big man, 7-foot-1 David Robinson. The timekeeper starts the clock as the ball touches the long outstretched fingers of the man they call the Admiral.

Robinson pulls it down, feints left, ducks, cuts right, the ball never touching the floor. He leaps and, despite the tension, puts up a soft shot. He misses.

	"I can run. I can jump. I can block shots. I can dunk. But I can't take pride in that. I'm successful because God gave me the ability."

But the Admiral is not through. He runs under the basket and sees his own shot rebounding away from him. His back to the basket, he tips the ball back over his head, an impossible shot you might see in a game of HORSE, and the ball falls in to win the game 93-92.

See David's heart
You want to talk basketball? David Robinson is the man to interview. Once again, on this 1997 November night, he's the man with the numbers, scoring a team-high 36 points. But the 32-year-old athlete would just as soon talk about diapers and diplomas. Oh, he'll discuss his status as one of the top three centers in the NBA—if you steer the subject that way.

But let David lead the conversation and his talk naturally turns to Jesus, and what God has called him to do with his fame and good fortune, such as helping underprivileged students go to college or poor parents provide for their children.

"He'll talk your ear off about that," says Glenn Rogers, a sportswriter who covers the National Basketball Association for the San Antonio Express-News, Robinson's hometown newspaper. "He's found his faith. That's what he goes by."

Sure, the basketball star has dollars in his wallet, but you won't see him flashing a roll of cash, unless it's to help out in the community, like the $5 million he gave to build a prep school, whose doors will open in 1999 at The Carver Complex, an arts and educational facility on San Antonio's poor side of town. Another program, "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood," helps kids stay in school and away from drugs.

As Robinson explained to People magazine, "The Bible is very clear: Don't do your good works before men to be cheered by men. [Valerie] and I do the right things because that's what God told us to do."

Endorsements for Doritos or Pizza Hut are about as wild as Robinson gets. In a profession known for its excess, the multi-million dollar man is cautious about where he lends his name and spends his fame.

Jesus and his family come first, he says, then basketball.

He is more concerned that his three boys learn godly character than whether they can match his Top 10 ranking in the NBA for points, rebounds, and blocked shots per game. He is more concerned that his fans see him live out his faith than he is interested in talking about the time in 1994 that he scored 71 points against the Los Angeles Clippers.

So he does things like start the David Robinson Foundation, which spreads his money into the community. He cites Matthew 5:14 as his calling to be a light on the hill.

"A couple of things have touched our hearts as we've grown as a family," he says of his wife, Valerie, and their three children. "I thought about parents who couldn't feed their children. We started a ministry that provided diapers and food for some of the single mothers and struggling families."

Filling a tall order
Robinson's concern goes beyond helping fill empty stomachs. Several years ago, he identified a group of fifth-grade students, and pledged money to help them go to college if they would stay in school and out of trouble. Of the 94 students picked from inner-city schools, 90 are still in the program as they head into their final year of high school.

"Education is one of my big things," he says. "When you see kids' eyes light up when they've just learned something, that's exciting."

He doesn't do this for adulation but to set an example as a Christian and as a professional athlete.

He wants his teammates to know his faith is real, and that he cares about them as people, not as sports commodities or soul-winning notches on his Bible belt.

"That's the hardest balance," he says. "When I go in the locker room every day, I face it. How do you love God and maintain your edge and not scare people off? The one thing I try to keep in mind is that I love these guys. I want to see them do well. If they want to talk about [spiritual things], I want to always be prepared. I want to make them feel like … I would be the first person they can come to."

This man loves his job
While he and his fellow Spurs have basketball in common, few on his team can match the Admiral's game. (His nickname comes from his days as a cadet at the U.S. Naval Academy.) More often than not, he is the Spurs' high scorer and top rebounder. He frequently achieves "triple doubles"—meaning that his total number of points, blocked shots, rebounds and/or assists each are in double digits for a game. (He is one of only four NBA players ever to score a "quadruple double" with 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and 10 blocked shots against Detroit in 1994.)

For a kid who played little organized basketball before he went to the Naval Academy, his career has been astounding: NBA Rookie of the Year, member of four Olympic Dream Teams, NBA All-Star game every year of his career, Most Valuable Player in 1994. When he signed his latest contract for $66 million over six seasons, it was the biggest in the history of professional sports. All that, and some believe that he just now is really learning to play the game.

"He says the Lord wants him to reach his full potential," says Rogers, who notes that Robinson is one of the top three centers (with Hakeem Olajuwan and Shaquille O'Neal), and one of the 10 top players in the league. "He wants to play all-out."

Those are nice accomplishments, Robinson admits, but ultimately meaningless without Jesus in the lead. And Jesus can be in the lead, even in a business like professional basketball. "If I felt that what I was doing was inherently a bad thing, I would have a major problem with what I do," Robinson says. "But the fact that it's entertainment, that it's competition, I don't see it inherently as a bad thing.

"Now if I was a CEO of a beer brewing company, I would think, 'Maybe this is not a good thing for me to be doing.'

"With basketball, yes, there are a lot of bad things about it. For one, our salaries are ridiculous compared to more valuable services in society."

But, he avers, basketball has given him a tall hill from which to shine his light. "I can go into a high school and talk about Jesus. What an incredible opportunity. There are a lot of positive things I see as the reason God placed me there."

His focus, he says, is not his success, but that God is behind his accomplishments. "I can run. I can jump. I can block shots. I can dunk. But I can't take pride in that," he says. "I'm successful because God gave me the ability.

"What I need to do is have a great positive attitude and a great work ethic. Those two things validate me. Yes, it's important that I have good numbers, and I'm well-respected as a player. But I think it's more important that I'm respected as a man."

Life's greatest moment
David Robinson quotes Scripture as easily as he can quote his statistics. The difference is that you have to ask him about his numbers. The Scripture flows naturally. Basketball is what he does for a living. His faith is what he lives.

He came to faith in Christ after he had begun to make his mark in the NBA. In How to Raise an MVP, a book his parents wrote, Robinson says for the longest time he considered Jesus as just another fairy-tale character or meaningless historical character. "Do they matter or affect what you do today or tomorrow? No."

At the Naval Academy, he stopped attending church. And life as a basketball star was unfulfilling. In 1986, on the way back from the World Championships in Amsterdam, an evangelist talked to the players on the airplane. But Robinson still did not understand. "I knew there had to be more."

His "second birthday," as he calls his conversion, came on June 8, 1991, when he talked with a minister from Champions for Christ. This is how he describes it in his parents' book:

"The first question he asked was, 'David, do you love God?'

"I was a little surprised and said, 'Of course, I love God.'

"Then he asked, 'How much time do you spend praying?'

"I said, 'I eat three times a day, and I pray then.'

"'How much time do you spend reading your Bible?'

"'There's one around here somewhere … '

"Then he said, 'When you love someone, don't you usually take time to get to know that person? Don't you want to get to know that person better?'

"That day, Christ became a real person to me. … I felt like a spoiled brat. Everything was about me, me, me. How much money can I make? It was all about David's praise and David's glory. I had never stopped to honor God for all he had done for me. That really hit me. I cried all afternoon. That very day, I was saved."

His new relationship with Christ led to a renewed relationship with Valerie, whom he had dated earlier. He called her, and learned that she, too, had been born again.

Three months later, in September 1991, he asked Valerie to marry him. Now they have three children, and he is cast in the role as a model for his own offspring as well as his fellow players and fans.

The money and other benefits that flow to his family offer a challenge in parenting. "I try to make my kids understand that we don't focus on the money," he says.

"We're dealing with obedience and respect. You go into a store, they start begging for things. I teach them not to beg. Instead, we'll go to a store and I'll say we're just going to look today. I want them to understand there's a value to restraint. Just because you've got something available to you doesn't mean you wield it. That's not godly character. I don't know how God's going to allow me to teach them that, but it's something he's really impressed upon my heart."

Living as "Saint David"
The title of a Sports Illustrated cover story of Robinson in April 1996 called him Saint David. That image targets him for challenging situations.

Dennis Rodman, who may be the player least likely to be confused with a saint, once played on the Spurs with Robinson. Almost everyone who writes about Robinson eventually asks about his relationship with the player known as much for cross-dressing and his coif of many colors as for his basketball skills.

When they played together on the Spurs, Rodman bellyached about Robinson's record-breaking salary.

"Dennis was talking about David all season, complaining about all the money David makes," Spurs Coach Bob Hill told Sports Illustrated. "I was just waiting for David to turn around and kill him. But he never did."

Now that Rodman is a foe, playing for the Chicago Bulls, he gets his digs in a different way. Early in the '97-'98 season, in the Spurs' first meeting with the Bulls, Rodman drew a technical foul when he bumped his hip into Robinson's back as Robinson went into the air for a dunk.

Robinson refuses to speak ill of Rodman. "He's such a shy person. He can't talk about something real. He can't talk about his life, his heart, what's going on," Robinson says. "I love him as a brother. I think that in there, there really is a sweet person."

What Robinson didn't say in reaction to Rodman's autumn assault was the obvious point that such antics could be harmful to Robinson, who missed all but six games last year because of a strained back and a broken foot. That wasn't a time he wants to repeat, obviously, but it did result in renewal and learning.

"The only thing you can do is try to take advantage of a bad situation," he says. "Sitting on the sideline gave me a different perspective. … When there really was no pressure to win, I saw how easy the game is. It made me like a little kid again, made me excited about playing and looking forward to getting back on the floor. … That's what last year gave me. It renewed my energy."

At the buzzer
It's the new season now, and there are 2.8 seconds on the clock. The commentators are caught up in the action along with their television viewers. "Johnson. Robinson. Robinson up and under. He can't do it!"

But then he does it. "Wow!" the other commentator exclaims.

"And it counted. It counted at the buzzer!"

That sums up David Robinson—Christian, husband, father, basketball star. At the buzzer, he wants his life to have counted for something. God has given him a gift and he wants to perfect it, on and off the court.

"He's for real," Glenn Rogers says. "No doubt about that."

A Christian Reader original story.

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