In classrooms, cafeterias and study halls, the football players of Arkansas State University prayed Monday at the exact time the wife of their head coach was scheduled to undergo surgery for breast cancer.
Three floors above Centennial Bank Stadium, assistant head coach Trooper Taylor leaned his arms against his knees and extended the request to a roomful of reporters. Taylor had just explained that he was speaking in place of ASU Coach Blake Anderson, who missed the first of the team's weekly news conferences to be with his wife, Wendy, at a hospital near Memphis.
"Any prayers we can get from anybody else, they're all warranted," said Taylor, who played football with Anderson at Baylor from 1988-1989.