The St. Louis Cardinals catcher, Mike Matheny, and the Christian-rock band Blitz entertained and inspired area college students Tuesday evening. This event was held in the Saint Louis Room of the Busch Memorial Center from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., and was sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Several area universities and colleges participated in this event including Saint Louis University, McKendree College and Washington University.

The evening began with Blitz performing “Everlasting Yahtzee Love” and Matheny speaking about his life experiences and his relationship with God.

Matheny said that he has had numerous speaking engagements throughout his career, but has never had the opportunity to speak to college students. “[I started] thinking about some things in my college life and some stories that I thought might be applicable to your lives that went along with my walk with Christ,” Matheny said.

Matheny stressed the importance of God in people’s lives: “[Life] is meaningless unless you have the right relationship with God,” he said. Matheny then spoke of a turning point in his life that occurred at the age of 7. At church one day, a guest speaker repeatedly challenged the congregation with the question, “Do you know for a fact, if you were to die today, where you would spend eternity?”

“I remember that day like it was yesterday,” said Matheny. That night his parents handed him the “plan of salvation,” and things have just kept rolling since then.

Matheny said that though he was devoted to his religion, he still led a normal life-he played sports, hung out with friends and enjoyed school. There were just certain things with which he would not involve himself, such as alcohol.

Matheny admits that he “ran around with a bad crowd in high school-thugs actually,” but he did not falter in his religion. His friends knew what he would and would not stand for, and that was okay.

“I knew where I stood in God’s eyes, and that was a comforting thought,” Matheny said. In hindsight, Matheny said that he believes that God protected him from the dangers and temptations that accompany adolescence.

He recalled how his high school principal called an emergency assembly one day and announced, rather disappointedly, that in the most recent issue of Time magazine, the high school was nationally ranked third in terms of drug problems and first in number of pregnancies.

Matheny then spoke of the stressful decision of choosing what to do after high school-college with sports, college without sports or the Toronto Bluejays. He ended up choosing Michigan State, but he decided not to sign with them due to injuries he suffered earlier in the year.

Matheny does not drink alcohol because of his religious convictions.

“I am a follower of Jesus Christ who sees and knows everything I do; and it would not be pleasing to Him,” Matheny said. Then Matheny told the audience of an incident that occurred on his first evening at Michigan State.

About 30 upperclassmen gathered up a bunch of the freshmen and took them to a party. But the stipulation was that the freshmen all had to do a shot of liquor before entering the party. After Matheny solely declined the offer/demand, the situation escalated and he was thrown out of the party.

Matheny was quick to note that all 30 of those upperclassmen involved in the incident individually approached him throughout that year to tell him that they respected him and his decision.

Matheny left college in his junior year to play in the minor league circuit. In 1994 he made it into the major leagues. “I was playing with guys whose baseball cards I collected,” he said.

Matheny ended his presentation by talking about “the God-shaped hole” inside each of us.

“The only way to fill this hole is to restore our relationship with God,” he said. Money, possession and jobs will not fill the void. “Either accept [God] or reject [God],” Matheny said. “There is no gray area here.”

After Matheny finished speaking, Blitz performed eight more songs, including “Waves of Mercy,” “You are Mighty,” “2 B New,” “Yes Lord” and their own rendition of “Lean on Me.” A question-and-answer period with Matheny followed Blitz’s show.

Students in attendance were overall receptive to the open, upbeat nature of the evening. ” I was really surprised at how open Mike Matheny was about his faith, and I think that’s really admirable,” said Moira O’Donovan, a sophomore at SLU. Anna Ray, a junior at SLU added, “It was good to see someone famous and successful speaking of the importance of living for Christ.”