(RNS) — Matthew Slater, a wide receiver who was picked 158th in the National Football League’s 2008 draft but went on to win three Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, announced his retirement Tuesday (Feb. 20). In typical fashion, he led his announcement with an acknowledgment of his faith.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” Slater said in his retirement announcement, quoting from the New Testament’s Second Letter of Paul to Timothy.
The 38-year-old Slater, whom longtime Patriots coach Bill Belichick once referred to as a “perfect player,” spent 16 seasons with the team, earning the respect of teammates and opponents alike for his excellence on special teams, doing the sometimes anonymous work of covering punts and kickoffs.
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His excellence on the field led to predictions that he could one day join his father, Jackie Slater, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Off the field, the younger Slater was praised by teammates, coaches and fans alike for his work as a good citizen in the locker room and in the community.
“I don’t want to make this about me,” he told teammates after his last game. “I just want to say thank you.”
Slater told Religion News Service that he learned as much from losing the Super Bowl in 2011 as from winning the big game three times.
“Our league and our culture put so much into winning and losing and being a champion,” said Slater, who grew up in a nondenominational church and now attends a Reformed-leaning evangelical church. “If you cling to things that are going to fade away ultimately, you’re going to be very, very disappointed. Losing that Super Bowl, yes, it was disappointing. But it allowed me to refocus myself on the things that matter in life.”
Slater, who hopes to attend seminary in the future, spoke to RNS in early February about his career, his faith and his plans for the future. At the time he had not yet announced his retirement. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
What are some of the ways that faith affected your approach to football? And on the flip side, how did football affect your faith?
Faith is the lens through which I see my life, the world, the relationships I’ve had, my profession. That is something that was rooted in me as a young person and something that I accepted and grew in as I got older. I always saw myself as a Christian who just happened to play football. I always tried to keep in front of me the principles of the gospel: love, peace, forgiveness and kindness.
The Bible tells us to do everything as unto the Lord, so I always worked as hard as I could play in football and anything else in life.
New England Patriots wide receiver Matthew Slater speaks with reporters during an NFL news conference, July 25, 2023, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
In terms of how football has impacted my faith — I think football is a great life teacher. You experience the power of teamwork, the power of discipline, the power of relationships, the power of hard work. One of the greatest things I learned was how to deal with adversity. The Bible tells us that life will be filled with adversity. Football was a training ground for that for me.
