Welcome, brothers and sisters. Peace be with you and please be seated. We center today’s sermon on a vision that came to fruition when Gee Scott Jr. found his identity in faith rather than football.

And in doing so, the Ohio State tight end brought teammates along for the joy ride, which included dunking them in a tub of living water.

But first, some background. Because you need to understand where the journey began to appreciate how far Scott has come.

A parable that happens to be true: There was a boy who thought he was a man. In all the wrong ways. He acted tough to hide his insecurity. His quick-trigger anger appeared like a pop-up thunderstorm, the lightning in his eyes striking the unsuspecting. He lived only for himself and measured success by how often others gushed over his athletic ability. He found his worth in baubles and trinkets, his identity in what he did, not who he was.

His name is Gee Scott Jr., but for the longest time he went by “Gee, ain’t I great.”

Listen, all who have ears, to the way Scott described himself this week following the Buckeyes’ fifth preseason practice:

“I lived for my own glory and was a person who was very on edge,” he said. “Ask anybody. I struggled with bad anger issues. My sense of lost identity would come out as anger, where I would lash out at people.”

Can I get a witness?

Ohio State defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau knew Scott when both players starred at Eastside Catholic High School near Seattle.

“Huge difference in Gee now,” Tuimoloau said, shaking his head while explaining how his friend has a “before and after” story similar to a biblical Saul-to-Paul conversion.

Can I get a witness?

Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson didn’t want anything to do with Scott when the two first met in 2021.

“The crazy thing is, as much as me and Gee are close now, we were not that close at first,” Henderson said this week. “Who he is now, he was far from that. But one day he came in and something was different about him. We were all waiting for him to do something funny, but he was like, ‘Guys, I’m not doing that anymore.” I knew something had changed in him.”

Transformation does not always happen overnight

The change in Scott happened like a slice of bread browning in the toaster. A little at a time. And burned along the way.

Things began to fall apart for Scott his freshman season at Ohio State, when the four-star recruit did not crack the starting lineup. He had been the 12th-ranked wide receiver in the 2020 recruiting class, a 6-foot-3 target who caught 76 passes for 1,453 yards and 15 touchdowns his senior season of high school. But the Buckeyes were loaded at wide receiver, so Scott switched to tight end between his freshman and sophomore seasons.

Tight ends block more often than they catch, but Scott still considered himself a thoroughbred, and Secretariat is not supposed to plow fields. Dedicated to an “I’ll show you” form of protest, he doubled down on proving he could excel at the new position. It would be a worthy goal if not for the intention behind it, which was to feed his ego.

Then real tragedy struck when Scott’s mother, Tara Scott, died in a traffic accident in July of 2021. Broken, the son immediately hopped in his car after FaceTiming his mother from Columbus for the last time as she lay dying in the ICU of a Seattle hospital. The plan, such as it was? Drive from Columbus to Seattle with a bitter and broken heart.

Do you believe in angels? An Indiana police officer found Scott asleep in his car and after a long night of talking and listening convinced the distraught player to return to Columbus.

Hear this, brothers and sisters. We all are beautiful messes. Amen? Scott is no exception. His “Damascus Road” experience after U-turning on a U.S. interstate was not clean and tidy. He did not instantly reject his carnal instincts and phony self-belief. Instead, he returned to OSU searching for happiness in all the wrong places. Partying. Women. The spirit was willing; the flesh still weak.

Fast-forward three years, to last month when Scott preached three 30-minute sermons at One Church in Gahanna, presenting a Biblical message before nearly 3,000 people.

“At the beginning of 2022, I would love to stand before you guys and say I got home, I got on my knees and I prayed and God changed everything,” he told the church audience. “But that’s not exactly how it went.”

Scott’s spiritual transformation began with him testing out different faith experiences before joining a Bible study attended by running back Xavier Johnson and quarterback C.J. Stroud, among others.

Eventually, Scott became one of the study’s leaders, joining Tuimoloau, Henderson and wide receiver Emeka Egbuka in a group that was hungry for something more meaningful than becoming famous through football.

Who are you Sunday through Friday, not just on Saturdays? That’s what Scott wanted to know. It’s a question Tuimoloau also sought the answer to. The same for Henderson, who said identifying as a football player first and foremost is a false identity.

Quarterback Will Howard agreed.

“It’s freeing when you’re not worried what people on earth are thinking about you,” Howard explained. “You can have fun again.”

A vision to baptize Buckeyes

“The Lord showed me this vision in January of this year,” Scott said of the idea to baptize teammates. “ I saw exactly the guys walking (to the baptismal). Those baptisms were put on my heart specifically.”

In July, Scott baptized seven teammates following his sermon at One Church: quarterback Lincoln Kienholz, wide receiver Carnell Tate, cornerback Diante Griffin, safety Brenten “Inky” Jones, running back TC Caffey, wide receiver Kojo Antwi and cornerback Jermaine Mathews Jr. all acknowledged their Christian beliefs by lowering into and rising from the water.

“I felt real good afterward,” Jones said. He shared how he had approached Scott about wanting to get closer to God. “And ever since then he never backed off. Usually, you tell people that, and then you start to shy away from it. But Gee noticed it and stayed on me about it.”

For Tate, getting baptized symbolized his spiritual journey from growing up in a Christian home to deciding to make a public declaration of his faith.

“When times are hard you have to look to your faith to get you through the day,” Tate said, adding that getting baptized by a teammate was especially meaningful.

And that teammate surprised Tate and others with his public speaking ability.

“I didn’t think he had that in him,” Tate said, smiling.“It’s amazing.”

“Honestly, he is probably one of the best preachers I’ve heard,” Kienholz chimed in.

As recently as two years ago, Scott would have received a compliment like that and patted himself on the back, but humility has replaced the hubris.

One example: Not all Ohio State players follow or even believe in the Bible. The team is a mix of Christians, Muslims, atheists and agnostics. How to “love thy neighbor” without pressuring them into embracing your beliefs?

“I don’t think of it as being tricky anymore,” Scott said of sharing his faith story with anyone who believes differently or has no faith at all. “At one time it was, because I had this burden on my heart … to uproot all of their issues. And what I believed not to be true, I wanted to uproot that. I wanted them to be a new believer because I shared with them the Gospel. But it’s not my job to uproot that and make them believe in Christ. My job is to plant seeds, and when they see me, they see Christ in me.”

Is this the same guy who once lived life with a constant chip on his shoulder? Who, according to him, was “a loaded gun ready to fire.”

Yep, same guy. But a new person.

“He’s really taken a leadership role this season,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said of Scott. “He’s been through a lot and I’m proud of the man he’s become.”

The tight end is projected to start this season after catching 20 passes the previous three years. But that's not what Scott focuses on when he thinks about what he is “becoming.”

He knows he is far from perfect, but there is freedom in knowing his imperfection does not define him. Love God. Love others. That’s the call. If that means preaching from the pulpit, great. If it means answering faith questions from curious teammates, go for it.

And if it means working with Henderson to outfit 30 teammates in “Jesus Won” T-shirts, which players wore as they checked in to the team hotel Monday during training camp, well, that’s a perfect fit for the “new” Scott.

The selfish son who once wore anger on his sleeve now proudly advertises on his chest belief in the selfless Son.

roller@dispatch.com

@rollerCD

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football tight end Gee Scott Jr. preaches, prays, baptizes