On Monday morning, Director of Athletics, Josh Morton and Rev. Dr. Paul Rohde blessed student-athletes at the Chapel of Reconciliation.

"This is a great example of what makes Augustana so special," Morton said. "It shows that being a student-athlete here is about way more than just competition. Our student-athletes are able to thrive in all aspects of their life."

Rev. Dr. Rohde has been at Augustana since 2001 and started blessing the student-athletes in 2014.

"It started in about 2014, Zach Jones a runner in cross country got on staff as a roman catholic representative," Rev Rohde said. "He came up to me and said 'Paul we need to do more with the Elmen Center - people over there want it.'"

After brainstorming ideas trying to figure out how they could bring it to them and how to work it in between practices and games, Rev. Rohde and Jones came up with an idea to have certain days to invite the student-athletes over.

"Well I thought we could start blessing them to see how that goes," Rev. Rohde said. " A lot of people started to show up. It was really cool and powerful. People have really started to appreciate it."


Rev. Dr. Rohde says he believes that's what helps with the "Augie Advantage".

"We see it largely as an act of community," Rev. Dr. Rohde said. "Each part of the community thanks each other for what we bring to the whole Augustana experience."

Rev. Dr. Rohde said they host about a dozen or more special services over the course of the semester for anyone to attend on campus.

Adam Dykman, a sophomore on the men's basketball team, expressed how he enjoys the services ever since transferring to Augie from South Dakota State.

"It's just a great opportunity to get together to receive that blessing," Dykman said. "A lot of guys do go to church together and it's great to have the whole team together for service."

Dykman said he saw the campus ministry as a huge opportunity while looking at colleges and it helped that the coaches are religious as well.

"I came by and saw it as a great place to come in between classes," Dykman said. "It's a very special place to have on campus for anyone to be able to attend. I think its just really cool that many of the coaches are religious too. It's an extra push to go and receive a blessing. Coach Billeter is a man of high character."



Dykman said that a lot of his teammates at first weren't very comfortable going.

"The coaches are really good at getting them out of their comfort zone," Dykman said. "They just try to get them to go at least once to try it and I've noticed more people are getting more and more comfortable with going."

Assistant men's basketball coach, Chad Hetterman leads a bible study on Wednesday and even though Dykman isn't always able to go he has noticed that more people are showing up and talking about it afterward. The Fremont, Neb. native says the Chapel is a huge advantage that Augustana has over other colleges and what helped in choosing what school he wanted to attend.

"SDSU is a lot bigger and I just felt like people care more here at Augie," Dykman said. "You get the feeling that someone looks after you whether it be the coaches or the professors. You get more one on one and that's a big advantage of Augie. Not that they didn't at SDSU, it was that they are so much bigger."

Augustana classes break each weekday from 10:00 a.m. to 10:40 a.m. to provide students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to participate in worship. Services are open to all and include diverse voices from the campus community and beyond.

Rev. Dr. Rohde hopes that someone that comes and gets blessed will come back to bless someone else in the community.

"At the very least I hope people know that they matter, what they do matters," Rev. Dr. Rohde on what he hopes people take away from the service. "The word spirit means breathe so if you're breathing you're a spirit."