Chris Godfrey, From Michigan Football to a Life of Faith
- Thu, Nov 12, 2026 2:00 PM
Before Chris Godfrey helped the New York Giants win a Super Bowl, he wore the maize and blue at Michigan. After football, he used the platform of a champion to encourage young people to live with virtue and respect for life. For this Brother Knight, the story reaches well beyond a championship ring.
Godfrey was a guard on the Giants team that won Super Bowl XXI in January 1987, following the 1986 NFL season. The Giants remember him as part of the offensive line known as The Suburbanites, the men blocking for quarterback Phil Simms and running back Joe Morris during that championship run. His Michigan connection is more than a passing reference: the University of Michigan archives list him on the Wolverines defensive line, and Michigan Athletics includes him among its Super Bowl participants.
The Knights of Columbus identifies Godfrey as a member of Santa Maria Council 553 in South Bend, Indiana, in its video profile, Chris Godfrey and the Knights of Columbus. His council is in Indiana, but his college football roots give Michigan Knights another reason to recognize his story.
Winning did not make perseverance irrelevant. In a 2020 Catholic Sports Radio interview, Godfrey reflected, “Our Super Bowl rings are as much a symbol of perseverance as they are success, and, if perseverance is important in something like football or sports, it’s way more important in our personal lives.”
That distinction matters. A championship celebrates what a team achieved on a particular day. Perseverance is what a person needs when the next season, the next responsibility or the next hard decision arrives. Godfrey’s reflections connect athletic discipline with a deeper question: what does God want us to do with the gifts and opportunities we have been given?
In that same interview, Godfrey described a renewed commitment to prayer during his football career and a retreat as he considered retirement. With a growing family and another child on the way, he was weighing what should come next. His account is not simply about changing jobs; it is about making room for faith in decisions about work and family.
Godfrey went on to found Life Athletes. In its own 2011 reporting, the Giants described the organization as teaching young men and women to live lives of virtue, chastity and respect for life. Godfrey traced its beginnings to Champions for Life, a video project that brought together members of the Giants championship team with the encouragement of Wellington Mara and Andy Robustelli. The football platform became a way to reach young people with a message about how to live.
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For Knights of Columbus, that is a familiar challenge. Talent, recognition and professional success are not ends in themselves. They can become opportunities to serve, to encourage another person and to give a public witness to faith.
Godfrey’s story links Michigan football, a Giants championship and the everyday work of helping young people form good habits and sound convictions. The ring is part of the story. What a man does with his influence is another part—and one every Brother Knight can take to heart.