Rusty Smith has spent most of his life on the football field.
Now he’s headed to a different field — the missions field.
Smith, a former NFL quarterback who played with the Tennessee Titans, will leave next summer with his family to begin serving a two-year commitment in Kijabe, Kenya, as part of the Africa Inland Mission team.
Smith will be teaching at Rift Valley Academy — a Christian boarding school in central Kenya operated by AIM — and will be assisting with the spread of the gospel to unreached people groups.
It will be a major change for Smith, who has spent the past eight years as a head football coach and teacher at Grace Christian Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, and for his wife, Nicole, who was the head volleyball coach at GCA and a former college volleyball star.
It will likewise be a big adjustment for Smith’s four sons.
No denying
Smith said there was no denying he has been called.
“God made His plans for us abundantly clear,” said Smith, who is currently working as a systems analyst for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
Although Smith has had a relationship with the Lord since childhood, he never envisioned becoming a missionary. Rather, he assumed that sports — and football in particular — would be his livelihood.
And certainly everything in his life seemed to be pointing him in that direction.
Growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, he was a standout athlete from childhood through high school, earning honors in multiple sports.
He then went on to have a celebrated career as a quarterback at Florida Atlantic University, where he compiled school records in passing yards (10,112) and touchdowns (76) while playing for legendary coach Howard Schnellenberger.
Smith led FAU to its first and second bowl appearances. He was named the 2007 Sun Belt Conference player of the year.
Smith was drafted by the Titans as a sixth-round pick in 2010. He spent four years in the NFL, seeing limited action while serving as a backup quarterback.
After leaving professional football, Smith began his coaching career, and he figured that would be the end of the story.
“When I was at Grace Christian, I honestly thought that was where I would retire,” Smith said.
God had something else in mind.
This past January, Smith attended Passion 2022, the annual conference developed by Louie Giglio, as a chaperone for a group of students from GCA.
Smith was dealing with a transportation issue so he wasn’t able to go to the full event.
“I was only able to hear about two or three of the featured speakers, but one of them was David Platt,” Smith said. Platt’s message that day touched a chord with Smith.
“His whole message was explaining from Old Testament to New Testament why God wants us to take the gospel to the ends of the world and to all the people groups across the nations,” Smith said.
‘Wherever You want’
Smith remembered how excited he was at that moment. “I was thinking to myself, ‘God, I’ll go wherever You want.’”
As the memories of the conference began to fade, Smith went on with life. But little did he know, he was about to have a “Jonah, go to Nineveh” experience.
“About two weeks after the conference, God closed … the door from coaching football,” Smith said.
Inquiries about other football jobs did not even get a response. That’s when he shared with his wife about the call to the missions field.
The Smiths, who will raise their own support, will begin “doing life” in Kenya in July.
“There are some sacrifices involved with going to Kenya, knowing that there’s not going to be American football, there’s not going to be baseball, there’s not going to be an emphasis on athletics like there is here,” he said.
“The boys seem to be understanding why we’re doing it. Nicole and I are trying to do our very best to be open with them in terms of explaining the purpose of this. It’s a biblical commandment for us to do these things.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by David Dawson and originally published by Tennessee’s Baptist and Reflector.
