When football season arrives, the Rev. Caesar Rentie gets restless.
He remembers working himself into top shape so he could knock other large men around as an offensive tackle, including for the Chicago Bears.
“It’s always in my blood,” Rentie said of football.
These days, he does very different work, serving as vice president for pastoral services at Dallas-based Methodist Health System and associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Mansfield, Texas.
While there are a few former NFL players in ministry, Rentie knows of no others in hospital chaplaincy. If this weren’t distinction enough, he’s also a CODA — a child of deaf adults.
Football gave Rentie a college education and helped move him out of poverty. Growing up with deaf parents taught him to read body language closely.
That’s a plus for a chaplain.
