When Lubbock Channel 11 Sports Director Pete Christy rang up Spur Superintendent Craig Hamilton (and interim football coach last fall) after an amazing Spur victory to say he wanted to honor the Bulldogs as KCBD-TV’s Team of the Week, Hamilton was humbled but also a bit dubious.
“I’m a bit superstitious, you know,” Hamilton jibed during Tuesday’s Lunch Church with Christy at the Spur Methodist Church, referring to the team’s 2024 Cinderella season when, as superintendent, he subbed for head coach Tate Clark during Clark’s extended illness.
But he had the wherewithal to ask Christy, if Spur were to decline, who would be the next choice?
“Well, we were thinking Jayton,” Pete replied.
Hamilton didn’t miss a beat. “Alright, I’m there— count Spur in!” The friendly banter among school personnel and the region’s top TV sports personality is characteristic of Christy’s support for high school athletics across a wide viewership area. But these days, so is a genuine, heartfelt sense of mission for sharing his Christian faith.
After a crisis in his personal life brought his spiritual life into sharper focus, Christy said, he was moved to establish a lunch church for men in Lubbock. Three years ago, he was likewise led to take his show on the road, and Spur’s July 8 engagement marked the 131st.
“I’m doing more kingdom work than sports work these days,” he said.
Hamilton took the mic to talk briefly about his own view of hope, in light of his life’s work that has taken him from teaching and coaching, to the superintendent’s office, and briefly back on the field during Clark’s illness last year. (Clark, fans and families will want to know, is back in action this year and was on hand for the luncheon.)
“School systems were built on hope,” he said. “every day we have hope for next generation of kids, best class, when scores aren’t so good — there’s always the idea that the next will be better,” said Hamilton. “Hope that the legislature will figure out that they need to fund public education. Think about kids and families going through heartbreak.”
Hamilton cited Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” noting that the Lord doesn’t promise that everything will be good, but that we will have peace even through the bad things.
He also read from the book of Hebrews about showing diligence to the very end, “so that what you hope for may be fully realized.”
“I’m a pessimist and a procrastinator by nature,” said Hamilton, “but I’m given hope—by my wife, my three children, teachers and staff who work hard, by an employee who’s been on extended sick leave who worries more about school and me over themselves, and by a community of churches that buoy our children year round.”
Christy closed out the program with numerous examples of faith in action, and the generosity of community support he’s seen across the South Plains and beyond.
He didn’t fail to remind the dozens of Spur faithful assembled for the luncheon program that Spur won KCBD’s first Community Challenge, a signature event of the sportscast— and was the only school to ever win it twice.
HethankedSMC’sPastor Scott Gray and the church for hosting the event and brought prayer cloths for those in need.
Pastor Mike Martindale, Christy’s driver and sidekick for the event, offered the closing prayer, reminding those assembled, “Whatever gifts or talents or resources the Lord has given you, it’s not an accident.”
