Sarah Boruta

Ferris State Women's Basketball Manager Sarah Boruta is an active participant in the Athletes In Action organization

To say that Sarah Boruta loves women’s basketball would be an understatement. The Mason, Mich., native isn’t an ordinary fan.

“I love basketball. Whether it’s playing basketball, watching games, or daydreaming about it, I love it. I’ve been involved with basketball my whole life,” Boruta says.

This past basketball season alone, Boruta put 7,000 miles on her car by traveling to women’s college basketball games, many of those trips taken to Milwaukee to watch Marquette play.

And it seems rather fitting that the one game she loves the most served as a catalyst to begin radically changing her life in late 2004. It was one morning in October that the Ferris State University junior awoke to attend church on a Sunday morning, albeit unenthusiastically.

“I really didn’t want to go to church but I knew it was the right thing to do,” says the Ferris State women’s basketball team manager.

But Sarah perked up when she read in the church bulletin that an Athletes in Action women’s basketball team was in Big Rapids and would be visiting that morning. The announcement stated that a few of the athletes would be sharing personal stories of how God had changed each of their lives.

Sarah began searching to see if she recognized any of the players, and sure enough, one face was familiar.

“I realized it was Jessie Stomski, a former standout at the University of Wisconsin, who I used to watch play,” Boruta says.

Later that day the Athletes in Action USA Women’s Basketball Fall Tour team was scheduled to play the Ferris State Bulldogs. Boruta admits the main reason she decided to attend the game was not to show her school spirit.

“I mainly went to the game to watch Jessie,” she says.

As Boruta watched, she found herself watching the entire Athletes in Action team. What she witnessed was strikingly different to her.

“I saw their love for God shine on the court,” says Boruta. “You could actually see that they were playing for Him. (It) made me realize that I wanted that same thing for my life.”

Boruta understood God’s love for her and became a Christian when she was young, but she didn’t understand the importance of the decision at that time. The Athletes in Action team planted a seed in helping her decide to recommit her life to following Jesus Christ.

An interaction at the 2005 Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament had even more impact on her life. It was there that she met Katie Voigt, a player on the 2004 Fall Tour team. The decision to wholeheartedly recommit her life to Jesus Christ came after a meaningful conversation with Voigt.

It was soon after the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis that she got the idea to start an Athletes in Action ministry for student-athletes at Ferris State. After approaching leadership at the university, permission was granted to begin AIA.

Each week Boruta and Raquel Hansen, a Ferris State golfer, lead a weekly AIA meeting on campus, a time for athletes to gather together to read the Bible and encourage one another. There are no full-time Athletes in Action staff serving at Ferris State. Instead, Boruta and Hansen are mentored by phone and occasional visits with an AIA staff member assigned to their campus.

“Eventually, we would love to have full-time AIA staff here in Big Rapids!” Boruta says.

Meanwhile, she and Hansen work laboriously with the student-athlete body at Ferris State, hoping the AIA ministry continues to grow.

“Our vision for Athletes in Action at Ferris State is to have it totally change our campus, to have athletes from every team meet together and establish Christian relationships with each other,” Boruta says. “We also want to encourage them to reach out to their non-Christian teammates and coaches.”

Boruta’s life-changing AIA adventure will continue this summer as she travels with an AIA women’s basketball team to play games and run clinics, all the while sharing the message of God’s love in Spain from May 17-June 2. Serving as a team manager, Boruta will be surrounded by those people she faithfully watches every November to March - women’s college basketball players.

“I’m so excited about this! I can't believe I'm actually getting to go on tour!” Boruta exclaimed.

Author's Note: Tricia Allen is from Vincennes, Indiana. A graduate of Vincennes University and Olivet Nazarene University, she now lives in Xenia, Ohio, where she is on staff with Athletes in Action as part of the Communications Team. To contact her, email Tricia.Allen@aia.com.

Sarah Boruta will be a junior at Ferris State University this fall and will embark on her second season as a student manager for the Bulldog women's basketball team.