Next month, Books and Culture editor John Wilson will be traveling to Baylor University to talk football. Each year, the Waco, Texas school hosts a faith and culture conference; this year's topic: sports! Wilson will moderate a panel discussing the future of football in this country. He recently chatted with Christianity Today assistant editor Morgan Lee about why Christian academics should care about sports, Baylor's athletic rise, and his least favorite athletic memory.

Tell us more about your involvement at the conference

I put together a panel called "The Death of Football"? The title came from a column by Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, who argued that football as we know it is soon going to become extinct. He wasn't saying this in a celebratory way—he was arguing that this would happen because of concern over concussions and the long-term effects of having heads smashing against other people's heads and lawsuits and parents not wanting their kids to play.

Another idea I want to explore that Kass didn't focus on, is that football as an institution, at the collegiate and professional level, is fundamentally corrupt. Some argue that the players are exploited or it's racist. At the NCAA level, critics say that the emphasis on sports fundamentally distorts the nature of the university.

I have a lot of friends who used to watch football, who've stopped watching because they believe that the spectacle includes as an inevitable byproduct people not just having this permanent physical damage, but severe cognitive impairment. The evidence is overwhelming that some players have suffered that.

I'm not in that group myself. I still watch football, but I understand their concerns, so I thought it would be good to have a panel on this subject.

Interesting timing for this conference, because as we're speaking, Baylor is actually ranked pretty high in the college football polls …

They're No. 2 I think. Some years ago, when Baylor said that they aspired to be a top 50-university and wanted to have top-ranked sports teams, a lot of people were very skeptical about those goals. They felt they were overreaching and unrealistic. Now that they've reached those goals, people are saying, how did they get there? Honestly as you know very well, there are people who feel that college sports are the work of the devil. I don't think anyone who looks at the reality denies that there is a lot of corruption in the NCAA. The question is, is that whole big picture? Or is that something that is regrettable and corrected whenever possible, however persistent? As an overall description of the institution, is it adequate? I don't think it is, but others strongly disagree.

Why should Christian academics and intellectuals think about sports?

Well, you and I talk about baseball all the time. Sports is a huge part of many people's lives as participants, as fans, and as parents of kids who play. Sports is something that gives a lot of people tremendous delight. It's a source of communication, community, and friendship. It inspires people to great achievements and self-sacrifice. It also is entangled with all of our human weaknesses. Betting is a terrible plague in sports. And anyone who has had a kid has seen parents who have this delusion that their son or daughter will become a professional athlete. The parents invest in a fantasy that the kid is almost forced to participate in.

People who dislike sports sometimes say that as a spectator, as a fan, you're living vicariously through it. But think about art. Think about the way we become involved in the stories of fictional characters; most people don't say, "Those are just make make-believe characters. You're just living through them."

What is your relationship with sports like?

I love sports. I played sports when I was a kid with my brother. Some of my best—and worst—memories are connected with it. I can still remember when I was in 8th grade and I was playing defensive back and our flag football team was in the playoffs. We were playing a team that had a good quarterback and a couple of really good receivers. I just couldn't keep up with them. Two or three times a receiver outran me and the quarterback threw a perfect pass for a touchdown. That happened more than 50 years ago, but sometimes I still think about it and it's a terrible memory!

On the other hand, I have wonderful memories of participating in sports and of watching sports. I have great memories of taking the kids to Dodgers stadium and I'm happy to say that they share those memories.