Tanisha Wright almost never loses. Almost.

She dominates in basketball—helping lead her Penn State University team to two conference titles, being named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, and playing for the U.S. under-21 team. Spectators sit bug-eyed as No. 33 spins and slashes to the basket. She gives fans and coaches what they want: victory.

But tonight, T—as her friends call her—will not win in the natatorium at Colorado State University. She knows this. And her new team does too. They don't watch her in awe, but in pity. "It's a battle for her," says a teammate about the swimming relay. "She hates the water."

In T's world of athletics, love flows from success. Tonight is different.

Shouts of encouragement fill the chlorine-drenched air as she dips into the water wearing basketball clothes. Swimming terrifies Tanisha. Rather than swim, T stands in the water and pulls herself along the floating lane separators to the other end of the pool and back.

After the relays, she slumps atop two blue and red inner tubes, breathless. Picking at her forehead, she doesn't want anyone to talk with her. But her team, consisting of college athletes from five different sports, comes to her side anyway. Silently, several pat her shoulder in affirmation, even after her performance. "The reason I got in the pool was because of my teammates," says Tanisha.

This swimming competition is just part of a weeklong summer camp hosted by Athletes in Action, Campus Crusade's sports division. In 1978, Wendel Deyo, former national director of AIA, sought to create a camp where staff members and athletes could learn and apply key biblical principles. The S.P.E.C.I.A.L.—Scriptural Principles + Exhaustion = Confidence in Almighty Lord—crowns the week. This 24-hour endurance test hammers home key truths learned throughout the week.

With only a few hours of sleep, T's team and 13 other teams compete in a nonstop sports smorgasbord: volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, tug of war, pushup relays, swimming relays, basketball, a written test, an obstacle course, kickball, sprint races, and the back-breaking "Golgotha Run." This is AIA's version of the Ironman Triathlon, and the goal is to relate biblical principles to athletic competition. "Sometimes pain is the only way people change," says Jeff Prior, an AIA staff member who has directed the camp for 14 years. "God uses the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. so people won't rely on themselves and their pride, but on God—it's the application point of the whole camp."

	All for One | After making team T-shirts and praying together, and after 24 hours of exhausting competition—including tug of war—the diverse competitors form one team.

Tanisha learns these insights, but one other lesson surprised her that week.

Born in Brooklyn, Tanisha moved to Pittsburgh to live with her grandmother, Thelma Berry. Her mother didn't want the 5-year-old. Prison bars held her father. In fact, the first time her dad attended one of her basketball games was the night Penn State gave away Tanisha bobble-head dolls. "I've been the child who has always longed for love," she says.

Granny didn't take Tanisha to church, but the young girl went because her friend's dad was a minister; so church attendance brought acceptance, and she thought it was fun. She was even baptized at age 12. But soon basketball eclipsed God in her life. "Church didn't just fade away," she says, "it stopped."

As church participation disappeared, basketball success soared. "Basketball filled my void," she says. "It loved me and I loved it—it was a perfect match." By her junior year the 5-foot-9-inch point guard became the all-time leading scorer at Pittsburgh's West Mifflin High School. During her senior year, a basketball journal ranked her as the 12th-best female high-school player in the nation.

But tonight, in Colorado, Team Deuce—T's team—doesn't know her sterling basketball resumé. Success-wise, her team starts the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. abysmally, losing their first two volleyball games. Nonetheless, they work hard to apply the camp's principles: focusing on Christ, turning their athletics into an act of worship, and loving each other in the process. Tanisha shouts, "Regain your focus!", "Who you playing for?" and "Let's worship here, worship!" She hobbles on a sprained ankle and doesn't excel, but her team still hollers encouragement. This affirmation is strange for Tanisha. In basketball, T is used to affirmation based only on success.

After her sophomore season at Penn State, T's coaches suggested she try out for the under-21 national team. Only 12 players made the cut, so her selection to the team shocked Tanisha. But playing with the team surprised, and frustrated, her even more. All summer she sat the bench. Another honorable mention All-America, Tameka Johnson, sat beside her. Neither played much, but both renewed their commitment to Christ. Every day they would read their Bible, pray and worship God together. "God has stopped people in their tracks in so many ways," says T. "For me it was just one summer of not playing basketball."

One for All | Participants discover others who love Jesus—people who are sweating and praying next to them—people willing to support them through tough times.

Back in Pennsylvania, Tanisha got involved with AIA at Penn State. A year ago, riding the bench re-focused Tanisha on Christ. This summer she's learning about what brings acceptance in God's family.

The moon shines overhead at midnight—halfway through the S.P.E.C.I.A.L.—when all 140 camp athletes gather outside the basketball courts. "I've done sports since I was 6 but I've never been surrounded by people like this," says Blake Jensen, a Fordham University football player on T's team.

Tanisha agrees. "I feel loved," says a weary T, "especially in the pool."

The love, and the pain, climax 12 hours later. John Mauer, a camp speaker, stands on a boulder reading the story of Christ's ultimate display of love—His Passion. Athletes listen with their heads down and eyes closed. Above, the sun hides behind clouds. Physically and emotionally drained, the athletes meditate on the pain Christ endured. Many weep.

Then the Golgotha Run begins. After three teammates finish the one-mile run, Tanisha grabs a 4-foot board resembling part of a cross, and disappears down the steep Colorado hill. Slow minutes pass as she finally re-emerges, struggling up the hill, board on her shoulders. Over the last 100 yards, shouts of encouragement echo off the asphalt. "Trust Him and He'll carry you through!" screams a University of Kentucky football player. "He went up Golgotha. He didn't quit for you."

Several collapse at the finish line. Teammates wait to catch—and cry with—their falling friends. "In terms of pure intensity I can't imagine anything worse in 24 hours," says Brice Wilkinson, a football player at Yale University. "It's designed to break you down so you're forced to rely on the Lord." As T finishes, two friends rush to her side and help her to a lawn chair.

Handwritten words from 2 Corinthians 4 fill the back of Tanisha's sweat-wringed team T-shirt: "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed . . . struck down but not destroyed." T already understood being pressed and struck down. But this week, Tanisha learned how to worship God in competition by focusing on Christ. And the Golgotha Run taught her how to rely on God's strength by remembering Christ's suffering. Yet neither of these lessons burned deepest in her soul.

"God showed me His love through all these people," says Tanisha, "He put perfect strangers in my life, and they loved me as if they were my brother or sister."

When Jesus trudged up Golgotha, He gave His love without condition. Tanisha's team measured love like Christ: unconditionally. Love, she learned, isn't based on performance.

To find out more about the AIA camp, contact jeff.prior@aia.com.