Tragedy Leads to a Wave of Baptisms in Football Program

When 27-year-old Jace Norus passed away unexpectedly on July 8, the Port Charlotte (Fla.) High School assistant football coach left an emotional and spiritual void in the program. In the days following his death, several of the team’s players attended a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp along with assistant coach Rusty Russell, lead pastor at New Day Christian Church. That experience has led 24 players and coaches to be baptized at the same location Russell baptized Norus several years earlier. It helped “bring good out of tragedy,” Russell wrote in a Facebook post. Patrick Obley, sports editor of The Daily Sun in Port Charlotte, shared this story in his newspaper column on Saturday. Obley and the newspaper have given us permission to share the column with our readers. 

_ _ _ 

By Patrick Obley, sports editor, The Daily Sun 

Rusty Russell posted the photos to his Facebook page last week. Picture after picture depicting young men, faces split by beaming smiles, each chest-deep in the emerald waters off Boca Grande during a brilliant day beneath a cloudless sky. 

“Earlier this week, 9 more football players and 1 more coach were baptized at the beach, making a total of 24 players and coaches baptized this week,” Russell wrote in the post. “God has brought beauty out of ashes. We are so thankful and excited to see these players and coaches being made new in Christ!” 

Ashes of tragedies past had indeed led to a praiseworthy present. Why one so often leads to the other speaks to humanity’s eternal struggle to understand a most fundamental question: 

What happens when we die? 

For many players and coaches in Port Charlotte High’s football program, the search for that answer began in 2017 and continues today. 

• • • 

It was a big week for Gody Marcelin. The 15-year-old former Bandit and rising Pirates sophomore was putting together some thoughts ahead of a Bible study for his teammates when inspiration struck. 

He called up Facebook and shared the notion as it came to him: 

”I had to let myself breakdown so god can build me up again because when I thought I was at my strongest that was bound to be my biggest downfall.” 

It was July 15, 2017. Gody and a few of his teammates arrived early for that Bible study on a beach at Boca Grande. They were soon joined by 20 other area football players and they all piled into the water for a little fun before getting started. 

A rip current grabbed Gody and pulled him into the Gulf of Mexico. 

He drowned. 

Tommy Russell was two years older than Gody, but the duo had struck up a friendship while playing for the Pirates. Tommy often drove Gody to practice. Tommy’s father, Rusty, had in part settled on Tommy attending Port Charlotte based on kids like Gody and men like Port Charlotte football head coach Jordan Ingman. 

It was not a decision Russell made lightly. As the thoughtful and deliberate lead pastor at New Day Christian Church since 2010, Russell performed due diligence. 

“I knew of Jordan. We had mutual friends,” Russell said. “I had watched him and followed him and was really impressed with his leadership and his commitment to the Lord and the way he was trying to raise young men, and I wanted Tommy to be involved in the program.” 

Gody’s sudden death rocked Tommy. That night, Russell drove his son to the lighthouse at Boca Grande, where he ministered to Ingman and the Pirates. 

The following evening at the Port Charlotte High cafeteria, Russell aided in a prayer service for several hundred players, students, faculty, and members of the community. 

In tragedy, a bond had been forged. Ingman had been a New Day member for some time by that point, but Pirates team chaplain Tom Parker mentioned to Russell that Ingman and his staff could use some help. 

New Day began handling the team’s laundry. Russell joined the team as a player development coach. Whenever called upon, he offered his ministry to coaches, players or whomever asked. 

Gody Marcelin had always known he would be called to heaven, so much so that he had spoken about it with Parker on the way to Boca Grande that fateful morning. In the days and weeks following his passing, Gody’s faith, a pastor’s words, and a community’s embrace led one man to start asking what would happen to him when he died. 

Jace Norus spent the rest of his life making sure he knew the answer. 

• • • 

Tragedy would strike Port Charlotte’s community again and again in the years to come. Virginia Luther, matriarch of Port Charlotte football’s first family, superfan and general force of nature, passed away in 2019. 

“I think that kept us on the track of, ‘Look, we’ve gotta believe that there’s something beyond the grave,’” Russell said. 

This past year, the Port Charlotte community lost Jake Monzeglio, another popular former Pirate. 

Somewhere amid the sadness, Jace Norus had struck upon a notion, meant to save himself while remembering those who had been lost. 

Norus asked Russell to baptize him where Gody Marcelin had died, redeeming not only himself but—in Norus’ mind—the place where Gody had been lost. Ingman and fellow assistant coach Jarrett Debus joined him. 

“I can’t say this for sure without asking Jace—which I can’t do—but I don’t know that he would have been nearly as attentive to the opportunity of having Bible study and talking about eternal things if it hadn’t been for just going through Gody’s death,” Russell said. 

Following his baptism, Norus by his own account remained a work in progress, but he had found his path by closing a circle that had begun with Gody. 

Norus was a former Pirate who played for Ingman’s first team. He had returned as a coach less than two years later while still attending college. He became a teacher at Port Charlotte High, eventually becoming a department head and an assistant athletic director. 

Earlier this year, he married his high school sweetheart, Nikole, with Russell presiding. 

Then, at age 27, six years to the month after Gody had died, Jace Norus passed away. 

Yet in death, Norus would continue to be a guiding light. 

“Jace was very close to all of us,” Russell said, referring to the Pirates’ coaching staff. “We loved Jace and it was very hard on all of us, but it also allowed us to model how a believer grieves. 

“Part of that grief is reminding ourselves and all those around us that we have hope through Jesus Christ,” Russell continued. “I knew that these young men who looked up to Jace would suddenly be thinking about the most important thing in your life, the most important question anybody can ever ask: 

“What happens to me when I die?” 

• • • 

Jace Norus had been found dead on a Saturday morning. On that Sunday night, the team gathered for a voluntary prayer service at the football field. They stood around a newly painted Pirates logo that contained Norus’s initials. 

Ingman spoke first, then asked the gathered to share what they were thankful for when it came to the memory of Norus. After sharing a few of his own thoughts, Ingman turned it over to Jarrett Debus. 

Well-known as an inseparable friend of Norus, it was on Debus’s words that the Pirates hovered. 

“This is one of Jace’s best friends, you know, what’s he going to say in this moment?” Russell said. “Here he is with all his coaching peers and all those players standing there and he says, ‘My favorite memory is the day Jace and I and Coach Ingman got baptized by Pastor Russell at Boca Grande. 

“‘And you know, in times like this, that’s what gives me hope that I’m going to see Jace again.’” 

A week after Norus’s memorial service at New Day Christian Church, a number of Pirates and other area football players made the trip to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp at Ave Maria University. 

The camp covered a lot of ground, but its main theme revolved around the importance of making the right decision in any circumstance. 

Alas, it’s not always enough for one to say they’ll make the right decisions—to live for God and choose the right path, there is an action that can be taken to differentiate between saying something and doing it: 

Baptism. 

At camp’s end, in a huddle, Russell mentioned he had arranged for a Sunday afternoon return to Boca Grande, where Norus had been baptized. Anyone who wanted to do so could get baptized at that time. 

“Before I even got the words out of my mouth—and I’m telling you word for word the way I said it because it’s really important to me that these kids make their own decisions and they don’t feel manipulated because they have to take that step of faith—hands all over the room started shooting up. 

“And I didn’t even ask them to raise their hands.” 

Thirteen players and a coach made the trip. 

The coach: Brennan Norus, Jace’s brother. 

“Brennan had faith in God but had never really done anything publicly like that,” Russell said. “It was a big step for him.” 

The next day in Port Charlotte High’s weightroom, more players approached Russell, asking to take their plunge, so another nine players and a coach were baptized in the emerald gulf waters. 

“People, on the inside, know that this was a movement of God and these young men all made their own decision,” Russell said. “That they were truly making Jesus Lord in their life.” 

Afterward, in the way only teens could do, questions were asked regarding just what they could still get away with, or what missteps they could still be redeemed for. 

“I could hear them debate with each other,” Russell said with a chuckle. “It has just been a beautiful thing to witness. These young men are truly trying to step right. Toward God. Toward living a different kind of life.” 

• • • 

Monday marked the first practice of the 2023 football season. Port Charlotte, a reigning district champion loaded with as much talent as it has ever had, set a high bar for itself. 

That was the case with Jace Norus. It remains so following his passing. 

On that Sunday night following Norus’s death, while gathered on the Pirates’ field, Russell did his best to explain how overcoming loss, celebrating Norus’s life, and playing their best brand of football went hand-in-hand. 

“Obviously the loss of Jace Norus is a huge hurdle to overcome,” Russell said. “These kids looked up to Jace and he was an amazing coach, not just with the nuts and bolts of the offensive line, but in the relational aspects of coaching and team building. You can’t replace such a man. 

“But I believe in the power of God to move the right people into place at the right time so that we can continue to do what God has called us to do: To lead these young men to be great men on and off the field,” Russell continued. “I believe God will use this tragedy to unite us and motivate us.” 

As Russell looked to the grieving players on that night, he flipped an old adage on its head: 

What Would Jace Norus Do? 

“We are going to grieve together and then we have to put one foot in front of the other and do what we’ve been called to do to the best of our ability, and that’s to play football,” Russell said that night. “Imagine God goes to Jace Norus and says, ‘Hey, Jace, I wanted you to know your players down there are so distraught that they’ve decided they’re not playing football this year. Would you like to send them a message?’ 

“He’d say, ‘Yeah, tell them I said you bunch of pansies, I’m up here having a great time and can’t wait for you to join me. In the meantime, go do what you’ve been called to do,’” Russell continued. “Would Jace Norus quit? No, he was never a quitter, so we can’t quit either. Jace Norus leaves a huge hole, but God has called us to keep going and we are going to do just that.” 

Here’s a link to Patrick Obley’s column posted at The Daily Sun’s website.