September 24, 2024 • 37 mins
Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila creates a scene at the traditional Christmas program at his children’s school. Two of Kabeer’s followers are arrested and the news spreads through Green Bay and further afield. It all seems so strange. Kalyn looks into why religion and the NFL are undeniably linked. Plus, when Kalyn receives a strange text, her investigation takes another turn.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Round twenty nine. Is the address of
your emergency, Ladys, Ron Young. I've head master at Providence Academy,
pauled earlier about our Christmas program.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Okay, It's December twenty nineteen and Providence Academy, a small
private Christian school in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is preparing for
its annual Christmas program at the Assembly of God Church.
Headmaster Ron Young is in a church sanctuary surrounded by
little kids dressed in choir robes swirling with excitement, but
(00:35):
Ron is concerned there are two strangers in the audience,
men that he's never seen before.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Okay, and what.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Are they doing that you want them to leave? They're
not parents, they're not anything. I know it's a public event,
but we had some concerns of a video that Your
Pleasure Media has posted, and we're worried that they're going
to do something.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
This is the school that can beer Baja Biamila and
his ex wife Eileen's children attend. Before he found Straightway,
Kabir had been really involved in the close knit school,
a nerdy dad who'd even been a school board member,
but by the time of the twenty nineteen Christmas show,
the couple has divorced. Kabir has limited contact with his kids,
(01:18):
and he's continued in his commitment to Straightway. The day
of the big performance, he posted a video to YouTube
directly addressing the school's headmaster.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I'm telling you right now, Ron, I forbid my sons
and my daughter to participate in any extra crickular activity
that goes against my belief.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Straightway believes Christmas is a pagan holiday, so for Kabir,
his kids celebrating the main event on the Christian calendar
was a big no no. He'd been trying to keep
them out of the show.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm the priest of my home and you are fringe,
and you are trespassing on my property.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Eileen was still a practicing Christian and now the kids
primary caretaker, so she got everyone to the venue on
time for their performances. This was something they'd done every
year at Christmas. She says it was a highlight of
the school year. But now the night of the show,
there are these two guys in the audience, and Headmaster
Ron is pretty sure Kabeer sent them.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I guess what do you think that they're going to do?
Speaker 5 (02:20):
Well?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I have no idea why they're here. I have no
reason to be here other than two. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Ron called nine one one earlier that day to alert
the police about this exact situation. Kabir had called Ron
to demand once again that his kids be pulled from
the program, and they had a volatile conversation. Kabir told
Ron that he should be careful and one more thing.
He said, quote unquote, you don't need to worry about me.
(02:48):
Black people don't shoot up schools. White people do. It
sounded like a threat and now Ron doesn't know if
it means anything, but the two guys in the audience
are white. Good evening, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Former packer Kabir Baja Biamilla explaining what led to the
arrest of his friends on Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Night, Find Desmuth and Jordan saw Me were arrested at
a children's Christmas play, a pageant.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
That is being put on by the private school attended
by Baja Biamilla's children.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Police did respond to Ron's nine one one call and
arrested the two men, Ryan D. Smith and Jordan saw Me.
They were both part of Straightway. Both had a loaded
semi automatic pistol tucked into their waistband. One of them
had an extra magazine of ammunition and a nine inch knife,
and neither of them had a permit to carry a gun.
(03:38):
And Ron was right. They were there because of Kabir.
Speaker 8 (03:42):
KGB says he sent his friends to the program to
take videos of his sons, who he forbide from participating
in the program because he holds vastly different religious views
than the school.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
After the police arrived, Kabir showed up. He started arguing
with the cops about arresting his two friends, who he
calls his quote unquote brothers. The police threatened to arrest
Kabir too. Ultimately they didn't, but there was no way
Kabir was going to let this go.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
No one got hurt, Not one single human being, not
even a fly, got hurt that day.
Speaker 9 (04:17):
The only people that got hurt are my two brothers.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
He live streamed on YouTube two days after everything went down.
In the video, he's sitting at his desk dressed in
a black T shirt that reads commandments over traditions.
Speaker 9 (04:31):
They got their liberty taking from them.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
They were they were literally kidnapped, put into captivity.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Kabir wasn't the only one who was upset. Providence Academy
let out for Christmas vacation two days early. Because parents
were so spooked, some even took their kids out of
the school altogether. This version of Kabir, the one that
sent men with guns to his kid's Christmas pageant, it
was so different from the Kabir who had been on
the school board. And it was a total about face
(05:01):
from the Kabir who had converted to Christianity and been
a fervent believer. This is the moment that Kabir's newfound
faith burst into public view. After a successful career as
a popular player, now he was on the news for
all the wrong reasons. It wasn't about his tackles and
sacks or his local service projects. It was about straightway
(05:24):
and his connection to the people who lead it. The
community was baffled, and so was I. What had happened
that had set him down this path? And as I
got deeper into my reporting, I also had to ask
why were other former NFL players following Kabir's lead. Welcome
to Spirald, episode five, Packer to Pariah. I'm Kaylen Kaylor.
(06:10):
The incident at the Christmas pageant is when I first
started following this story. It was a strange situation on
its face, the police getting called on a former NFL
player's friends armed at his kids' school, But as someone
who's reported a long time on the NFL, I was
also intrigued by the role of faith, something that's kind
of inescapable in the world of football.
Speaker 9 (06:31):
I mean, I always ask God to leave me in
the right direction.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
It's common to see players neil and prayer before a game,
or point up to the heavens after a big play.
Speaker 9 (06:40):
God first. You know, we wouldn't be here without him.
Speaker 10 (06:43):
I think there is a really strong Christian subculture in
the NFL.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
This is Paul Putts. He's the assistant director of the
Faith and Sports Institute at Baylor University.
Speaker 10 (06:56):
I don't think that Christianity in the NFL are intertwined
in sort of ways that NFL league officials have intentionally
sought to cultivate. But I do think that Christian organizations
and groups and leaders, Christian players, Christian coaches have created
a very strong subculture in the NFL that is probably
stronger than any other major sports league.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Paul is an evangelical and he's also an athlete himself.
He played basketball at a small Christian school in Nebraska.
Now he's writing a book about the history of sports
and Christianity in the US.
Speaker 10 (07:30):
I can see the ways and particular things in sports
that cause us to feel something like transcendence. Sport is
for something greater. It means that it's not just a
diversion that you just escape from real life from but
it's also not this thing that you can only engage
in from a critical perspective. The fact that sport is
this full bodied experience that we participate in. We use
(07:51):
all of our bodies when we play. You're sort of
expected to devote the entirety of yourself in that game
to this one thing. I think when you give all
of yourself to something, it feels religious.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Though the league has tried to limit evangelizing by players
and staff, it hasn't made much of a difference. Nearly
every team has a chaplain, and plenty of Christian coaches
and players feel comfortable talking publicly about their beliefs.
Speaker 10 (08:17):
You want people to see sport as a way to,
in the case of Christian athletes, grow in faith in
a particular version of the Christian faith.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
There is no official religion in the NFL, but if
there was, it would likely be a form of evangelical Christianity.
That's the culture you're most often hearing reflected when players
thank God or Jesus for their wins. Some players who
have felt drawn to other belief systems and been equally
vocal about it have not felt as supported.
Speaker 11 (08:44):
I cannot realization that, you know what, if I'm go
find God, I better go find it for myself.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
This is Reggie White, you know, the Reggie White, the
six foot five, three hundred pounds defensive end, the former
Philadelphia Eagle and Green Bay Packer Pro Football Hall of Famer.
There's even a street named after him in Green Bay.
Reggie defined an era of hard hitting football. In his
debut season, he was the NFL's defensive Rookie of the Year.
(09:10):
To this day, he's considered one of the all time greats.
Remember back in episode one, Kabir was chasing after Reggie
from the start of his career in two thousand, even
before he'd played his first NFL game.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Kabir ba Ja bia Milla says he watched to break
Reggie White all time record for sex.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And there was another way in which Kabier looked up
to Reggie. He was a very devoted Christian when he
was just seventeen. Reggie became a Baptist minister and then
he became known as ad Minister of Defense.
Speaker 12 (09:41):
Was Reggie White was the Minister of Defense? He was
nickname is the Minister of Defense.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
I didn't call it Minister of Defense, but nothing I've
seen signatures of his before. We're friends of mine say,
I found this piece of mabilia of I sketch dad
signature on it, and I don't want to run there
ideal of what it is because I.
Speaker 12 (10:02):
Was like, that's not sick.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
It was like one there's no scripture attached to it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Reggie White passed away in two thousand and four, just
four years after he retired. We talked to his son,
Jeremy White. He told us his dad always paired his
autograph with a Bible verse.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
I believe early in his career it was First John
four to eight, and then it was for the majority
of his career it was First Corimpians thirteen. He had
an eagle that was on his desk for twenty five years.
That eagle was always there when he was studying and
getting deeper in the torre.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
After his football career, Reggie dove deeper into his faith,
and he got curious about the Torah, the first five
books of the Hebrew Bible.
Speaker 11 (10:46):
If I'm go find God, I better go find it
for myself. I got to go back and research the
scripture in his original language to see what it said.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
This is from an interview with NFL Network that Reggie
gave around this time. He wanted to read the Old
Testament in Hebrew to understand it more fully, but in
doing so, he says he felt rejected by the people
with whom he once shared a faith.
Speaker 11 (11:09):
I'm considered a heretic amongst them. I've been accused of
becoming a Jew and converting to Judaism. I've been accused
of so many things because I have decided to study
the Hebrew text.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Reggie became disturbed when he noticed how small differences in
the scripture's translation could change the meaning of a passage.
In the years after his retirement and before his death,
he stopped preaching and stopped going to church.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
He did love to learn about this. I would be
remiss if I didn't say that part of it was
because of the free time that freed up off football.
Speaker 9 (11:42):
He became very lonely due to this process.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
He stopped calling himself a Christian, opting for the term believer.
He also came to see Christmas as a pagan holiday.
Jeremy remembers that friends of the family pretty much ostracized
his dad as his beliefs changed.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Friends of ours who still live in Green Bay, they said,
you know, Susi, as I said, reggis a cult.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
There are a lot of differences between Reggie White and Kabir.
Even though some of their beliefs overlapped, they weren't exactly
the same. Reggie never identified as being Hebrew Israelite, even
if he seems to have been inspired by some of
the same ideas. And he was never part of Straightway
or the Overcomer or any established group. And Secondly, though
Reggie would happily talk about religion if someone brought it up,
(12:32):
he wasn't as aggressive and talking about and promoting his
beliefs as Kabir was.
Speaker 9 (12:36):
H everybody, but that was the type of guy Kabir was.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Remember, Kabir was evangelizing in the locker room and talking
about his faith and interviews in ways that made people
really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
He wanted to hand me religious pamphlets, or he wanted
to talk to me, Bob, Bob, and he wanted to
talk to me about his faith or religion.
Speaker 8 (12:57):
Or my faith.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
But still Kabir could relate to Reggie's journey. Kabir had
also been a devoted Christian before finding Straightway. Like Reggie,
Kabir's religious beliefs had changed after he left the NFL
and had more time to devote to his faith, and
like Reggie, he felt shunned when those beliefs changed. That
religious fervor that's undeniably a part of the NFL can
(13:19):
be a unifying force, but for players like Kabir, joining
Straightway and leaving mainstream Christianity made him an outlier.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
All Right, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,
citizens of YouTube. This is Pastor Dow.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
But Dowell welcomed him with open arms.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
For years years, I actually have been praying that some way, somehow,
that the Most High would allow me to be able
to kind of get a breakthrough to talk to a
lot of brothers as well as sisters or whoever is
involved in the NFL, because I realized that these people
(13:58):
are lost and they need help.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Twenty eighteen, less than a year after his baptism, and
three days after Cabir announced his divorce, Pastor Dowell posted
a video NFL Brothers are Waking Up as a part
of Straightway. Kabir has brought valuable attention to the group,
and he seems to have led several former players to Dowell.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
Well, these men are getting stronger and stronger in that word.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
As a matter of fact, these were because they're so
useless teaking out on the circus and stuff. They will
be good nationals, folkspeople to get people to the truth.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
There are now four former NFL players in Straightway, including
Robert Mathis and Daniel Muir, whose Indiana community we tried
to visit. Kabir and Daniel Muir were teammates and they
both played in Green Bay. Kabir sent Muir a Pastor
Dowell video, but as it happened, this wasn't the first
time Muir had heard of Straightway or Dowell. About a
year before, he'd come across a video and then Mira
(15:02):
shared Straightway with his former teammate Robert Mathis. Mathis had
been questioning his faith and told me in an interview
from my original story that something about Christianity never sat
right with him something was tugging at me. It just
doesn't line up, is how he put it. Then, So,
as of twenty twenty, from what I knew, the NFL
(15:22):
contingent in Straightway was Kabir, Robert and Daniel, but I
had a hunch more players could be involved. In that
YouTube video, Dowell name checks a couple more former players,
and when I combed Dowell's YouTube comments, there were familiar
NFL names, but nothing we could confirm. And then in
January twenty twenty one, I got a text.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
Hey, Caitlin, this is Christiana, the wife whose husband unfortunately
has joined Kabir's cult.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's coming up after the break. After that incident at
(16:19):
the Christmas Show, after I'd reported on Straightway and Kabir's
involvement in the group and a series of articles for
Sports Illustrated, I got a lot of messages from other
people who'd had a brush with Straightway or knew someone
who had My inbox blew up. Some of the senders
were anonymous, Some stopped responding to my emails, so we
had other people read their messages.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I need someone to please help me.
Speaker 13 (16:41):
My ex husband is taking my kids to Straightway and
I'm scared for my kids' safety. Hello, I have a
grandson who started following the YouTube videos of Pastor Dowell.
Fast forward today, he's disappeared.
Speaker 6 (16:55):
Straightway is very strategic when it comes to their cult.
Speaker 14 (16:58):
Charles Dowell said publicly that I and my pastor, who
was trying to help me escape my husband, should be killed.
Speaker 6 (17:05):
I went into hiding for a month.
Speaker 13 (17:07):
He was so into Pastor Dowell that he would go
wherever you would be preaching.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I want to see this group crumble. At the end
of January twenty twenty one, I was hold up in
my studio apartment, gearing up for the last weekend of
NFL playoff action, when I got a text from an
NFL agent. Normally we talk about the latest news around
the league and jokingly critique poor coaching jobs, but this
text had a much more serious tone. I got a
(17:32):
call today from a former client's wife. She said her
husband is living in KGB's compound after joining the cult.
Most my numbing call I can remember getting As an agent.
An NFL agent's job is to manage their clients on
field football careers, but their work often extends into helping
with the transition to life after football. A transition that
(17:55):
can be really difficult for many players, but this was
such a strange scenario that this agent was at a
total loss. He connected me to his ex client's wife,
and she texted right.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
Away, Hey, Calein, this is Christiana, the wife whose husband,
unfortunately has joined Kabir's cult. I would love support the
other women and you could offer and also just have
an understanding what are the next steps this group is
going to do to him to suck him farther into this.
Thank you as well for being willing to help.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
When I got that first text, I had no idea
who Christiana was. I had heard of her husband, but
didn't know much about him. It took a minute to
get on the phone with Christiana. We had to schedule
around several calls she had lined up to help her
get a restraining order against her now ex. When we
did finally talk, she was warm and bubbly and open.
But if you listen closely, she pulls no punches.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
I won't join the cult, and therefore I'm a Josebel. Seemingly,
according to.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Them, Christiana had attended a private Christian college just outside
of Minneapolis. Faith has always been important to her.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
I'd say, like to who I am as a person,
there's three core things that I can recognize and like.
My first one I would say is like my desire
to know the Lord and be close to him and
know his word. The second one I'd say is like
I have a strong sense of like integrity injustice. The
last thing I would say it probably I always wanted
(19:23):
to be a mom and a wife that always since
I was young, Like that was a huge desire of mine.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And Christianna felt like she was on the right path
getting everything she prayed for when she met the man
who would become her husband, TJ Clemings. TJ was an
East Coast guy from te Neck, New Jersey. He played
football and basketball. He was goofy. His parents were from
Jamaica and his dad is a pastor.
Speaker 6 (19:47):
One of the first times I met his parents, they
like legitimately did an interview with me. They sat me
down and the mom didn't talk the entire time. The
dad talked and asked me all sorts of questions like
if we got married, mind you, we don't even own
each other five weeks when they did this.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
TJ played football for the University of Pittsburgh and in
twenty fifteen, he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, and
then one day during his rookie training camp, into his
hotel room walks Christianna Cook, a massage therapist who'd been
hired to work with some of the players.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
So I was actually working on his roommate and he
was whining and crying. He's like, TJ, help me. This
Eva white lady's trying to kill me because the style
of my massage is not pleasant.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
At the time, TJ was at the very start of
his NFL career.
Speaker 15 (20:31):
TJ Clemings was an incredible physical prospect coming out of
the draft. He was built in the exact way that
football people dream that left tackles are built.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
This is Matthew Kller from Purple Insider, a podcast and
substack about all things Vikings.
Speaker 15 (20:49):
He has incredibly long arms, he has a giant upper body.
He's flexible. He can move in ways that normal human
beings or even normal NFL players cannot move.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
TJ first started playing for the Vikings, he was every
bit the rookie.
Speaker 12 (21:03):
The feelings changed every game. Some days butterfly, some days,
it's nervous in some days.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Here he is in a postgame interview.
Speaker 12 (21:10):
It all depends on just how I'm feeling that day.
It's a good feeling to have those feelings and no
before a game, because it means you care.
Speaker 15 (21:17):
He was supposed to be a developmental player. The Vikings
saw in him someone that they could take and that
they could develop into star because of his physical sealing.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But that's not how it worked out. Injuries to other
players along the offensive line forced the Viking's hand and
they made TJ a starter before he was ready.
Speaker 15 (21:37):
It went exactly how you would expect for a rookie,
where he was tentative and he wasn't technically sound enough
to take on really good defensive pens in the league.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Not a good debut, and the hits kept coming on
and off the field. The Vikings head coach at the
time was Mike Zimmer. Zimmer is well respected for his
football acumen, but he was also really hard on his players.
Another player who played on the Vikings with TJ remembers
that coach Zimmer played a compilation of highlights and low
lights every Monday at the team meeting. Players who didn't
(22:10):
defend the quarterback and gave up sacks featured prominently in
these video sessions, and TJ was a regular in those reels,
so he became one of coach Zimmer's favorite players to
pick on.
Speaker 15 (22:20):
Mike Zimmer would do something to the effect of worst
play of the week, and the worst play of the
week was always TJ Clemings.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Week after week, TJ sat with his teammates while his
coach shined a spotlight on his errors. Everyone was critiquing TJ,
his coach, and especially the fans, because his mistakes played
out on national television Top one.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Number sixty eight offense fifteen years tidy.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
Watch them all plumbies.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
And when TJ came home battered body and bruised ego,
Christiana was there.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
I was always praying for Lord home, get out of
his head, help him to just brush it off and
to do better and to you know it. It's I
don't know, it's such a hard thing because it's not
like a normal job, or if you make a mistake,
you're gonna get fired and cut and then now all
of a sudden, your life is uprooted. Sundays we're not relaxing.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
The couple got married after knowing each other for just
over a year, and then after three disappointing seasons, the
Vikings cut TJ. He bounced around the league, played for
a handful of other teams, but things didn't get much better.
He hadn't become the player that coaches and scouts thought
he could be, and he was plagued with injuries. He'd
had at least one serious concussion during his time on
(23:34):
the field.
Speaker 12 (23:35):
You guys are wondering why I'm walking so silow.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
This is TJ talking on a vlog that he and
Christiana had back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 12 (23:43):
I got her yesterday in a game on field goal
turned my MCL and my ACO. So my season's over.
But it's all right. It happens.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
He looks right into the camera, raises his eyebrows and
frowns slightly.
Speaker 12 (23:58):
Every time you step on the football, Phil, there's one
hundred percent chance that you can get hurt.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
TJ's much hyped career as a pro football player slipped
away faster than he ran the forty yard dash of
the combine. At the age of just twenty eight, TJ
left the NFL for good, and with his time on
the field behind him, TJ started focusing on other things.
Speaker 12 (24:18):
It's a really nice day here on the farm. Yeah,
I live on the farm.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
He and Christiana had a small twenty five acre hobby
farm where they lived with their two kids. He wanted
a homestead.
Speaker 12 (24:32):
This is all very new to us. Never had chicken before.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
They raised chickens and planted a vegetable garden. They bought
Scottish Highland cows.
Speaker 12 (24:41):
We have three cows coming today.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
It's Nova, that's Nikki right next to her, and that
is Loa.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
After the crushing blows of the NFL, they were seeking
a quiet, idyllic family life in Minnesota.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
So he was never like a particularly emotional guy, but.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And Christiana started noticing some changes in TJ.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
And after his concussion. Like we could be sitting there
watching the WWE and like I'm feeding Tray and Trace
sit in his little high chair. He'll just start crying
watching his son eat food, and I'm like, well, what's wrong.
He's like, I don't know. Something about Trey eating food
is just and he just be crying about it.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Christiana knew that some of these changes were likely the
result of the head injury that TJ got while playing.
He was anxious and depressed. He had trouble focusing given
all of this. They thought it would be difficult for
him to hold a regular job, but they already had
two kids and a set of triplets on the way.
TJ had had an average NFL career, meaning he didn't
(25:43):
make millions like Kabir did. The Clemmings needed financial support,
and it turns out there is a way for former
players to apply for full disability payments through the NFL's
disability plan, but it's not easy. The player's benefit plan
is jointly managed by the league and the player's union.
A twenty twenty three Washington Post investigation found that they
(26:05):
work aggressively to deny claims and repeatedly shirk legal obligations
to fairly review cases. So Christiana and TJ wondered was
it even worse? Starting the lengthy process, They got in
touch with the lawyer who detailed the steps and he
had a recommendation.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
I remember he called and he was like, hey, TJ.
You know, I think for us to have a better
chance of you winning total in permanent disability, you're going
to need to go to an impatient treatment facility. I
know this really great place in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The lawyer suggested a swinky rehab facility, up in the
Rocky Mountains with a program specifically for athletes. It's the
kind of place that shows happy people lounging with cups
of coffee on the website. The lawyer thought participating in
the rehab program would bolster their claim, but TJ would
have to go away for a few weeks to do it,
and it was expensive.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
I'm like, I look at it, my go, well, if
this is something like you feel like we're going to do,
I go. I can hold it down for two weeks.
I go, And it'd be better just sooner than later,
because the more pregnant I get, the less capable I'm
going to become. So he literally left I think five
days later.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Christiana stayed on the farm in Minnesota. They'd have nightly
check in calls and pray together before she went to bed.
But without his family to take care of or the
farm to tend to, TJ had a lot more spare
time than usual, so he did what most of us do.
He started scrolling on his phone. He had come across
straightway before.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
It was from the algorithm. It was just recommended to him.
I mean, if you think about what he watched a
lot on his thing was a lot of homesteading videos
because that's what we're doing. A lot of gun videos
because that's what we had a lot of in Sermonts,
because that's what we did. So if you mix homesteading
with guns and church and then a little bit of
(27:47):
the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, Huailla, it
got Straightway.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
But Christiana didn't feel pulled to Straightway the way that
TJ did.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
He had only shown me one video, so that's how
I knew it, knew about it. He showed me a
video of Pastor Dowell, and I just remember thinking, my
guys seems really combative.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
While he was staying in the rehab center, TJ watched
more of these Straightway videos, a lot more. He immersed
himself in them, and then one evening before their nightly
phone call.
Speaker 6 (28:17):
I was texting him. I was like, hey, you know,
let's pray and he was just like I'm on the
phone and I'm like on the phone, I'm like okay,
And I was like, who on earth are you talking to?
Like what is going on? He's like, Oh, I'm talking
to my friend Kabir And I'm like, who's Caber? And
he's this guy from that church group I showed you
on YouTube. He's like, I've been watching a lot of
(28:38):
that in my spare time here, and so he's been
like talking to me about the Bible and oh Ona,
he knows so much about the scriptures, like just blowing
my mind.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Christiana was happy that her husband sounded excited, but she
was disappointed and honestly annoyed that he missed a call.
Christiana was maintaining the farm and looking after their two kids,
all while pratt and then it happened a second time
TJ missed a call with his wife to talk to Kabir.
Christiana felt like TJ didn't have his priorities straight. They
(29:09):
were supposed to be in this together. She wanted him
to focus on his family and the Christian faith that
they shared. After rehab, TJ came home to Minnesota. The
family was excited to have him back, but after just
a few days, TJ told Christiana that he wanted to
take another solo trip. So TJ leaves his Minnesota farm
(29:29):
and drives to Kabir's home in Green Bay, the one
known as Praise Land. He wants to meet Kabir in
person and see what straightway was really all about it's
a short visit, and not long after he gets home,
TJ's itching to go again, this time with the whole family.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
He wanted me to go with him, and he goes,
if you can go, and You're still have the same
mindset that it's not right. He goes then to all stop,
and I was like, I wasn't going to be fooled.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
So Christiana started preparing for the trip.
Speaker 6 (29:56):
I had even ordered clothes to wear there because he
wanted me to were you know, almost head coverings and
crap like up.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
She wasn't thrilled about having to wear long dresses and
cover up, but she went ahead and bought one.
Speaker 6 (30:07):
It was red velvet and it was flora length, because
I was like, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna be as
sexy as I can be in this clothes, just to
stick it to them.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
But the dress never actually made it out of the package.
Christiana had prayed about the visit and had a prophetic
dream that she interpreted as a bad omen, and she
talked to a few people she trusted about this trip
and they told her they were worried about her safety.
They thought she shouldn't go. She decided to stay back,
but TJ decided again to go visit Kabir Anyways, leaving
(30:40):
her home pregnant with their two small children. When he
came back, Christiana says TJ seemed agitated, wanting to implement
new rules in the family. After just a few weeks,
he wanted to go back to Straightway.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
They came in there and he said, I'm leaving tomorrow
for an unknown amount of time, for an undisclosed location.
I go, Will you be back for the birth? He's like, maybe,
just let me know when it is.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
The next morning, TJ said goodbye to the kids.
Speaker 6 (31:10):
And then he left before their nap, and he was
saying goodbye, goodbye to Trey, and I was like, tray J,
give your daddy a hug, say goodbye. He's like, why
are you acting like he's never going to see me again?
I go, because he might not.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
TJ made it seem like this was a temporary thing,
but to Christiana it was the beginning of the end.
She didn't see how they could make their marriage and
family work if he was choosing to leave now.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
And then I went into the bathroom and he tried
to give me a kiss on the forehead and he's
not like, I'm leaving forever and I go I don't
know that.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
But Christiana was right. TJ never came back to rejoin
the family. For a while, he called and facetimed the kids,
but eventually even that stopped. He missed the birth of
the triplets. He's never even met them.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
I think going to the cult brought a lot of
security for him, Like he didn't have to worry about
the food because they were already growing their own food,
they were already butchering their own chickens. They were doing
everything we were doing at the farm, but had more
people had and also somebody else to be in charge.
Like I think having the weight on his shoulders of
oh my goodness, I have no job. My wife, who
(32:16):
thought we're having one baby is now having three, you know,
and the world is ending. And I think that was
just a lot on them. And I think he just
wanted somewhere where he could feel safe, and unfortunately he
didn't give that to the Lord. Instead, he took the
hand of Dowel and what Dowell offered him Dowel's protection,
(32:39):
Dowell telling him who to be, what he was, how
the world ran.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
TJ had been seeking something, and he seems to have
found it, but it took him someplace his family wasn't
willing to follow. And it's hard not to see the
parallels with Kabir's story. Both men found straightway after retirement
from the NFL. Both had been dedicated Christians married to
other dedicated Christians, and both left their families when they
had pregnant wives, and like Eileen, Christianna, filed for a divorce.
(33:09):
She took back her maiden name and moved in with
her parents. Now she's back in school. She dropped out
when she got married to TJ, but she's gone back
for her bachelor's and she has her sights on law school.
She wrote a final paper for her psychology class titled
NFL Breaks Men. In it, she details the challenges NFL
players have and transitioning out of the league and the
(33:30):
impact of the brain disease CTE her concluding sentence, one
could say that the NFL ruins the personalities slash identities
of most of the men that walk their field.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
I have like, for some reason, this image in my
mind that one day he'll realize what he did. For
some reason is a dramatic I envisioned him standing outside
of my new house, which is nice. I'm me married
and like that man loves the children and he's just
like out there and it's like he's all like, oh,
I rude my life. That's what I vision. But do
(34:05):
I actually think he'll ever leave the call? I think
that's difficult because TJ. He gave up his life for nothing, Like,
what did he gain?
Speaker 9 (34:15):
Nothing?
Speaker 6 (34:16):
So for him, he really has to convince and lie
to himself all the more to make it okay to
even be inside his own skull. So do I see
him ever waking up from this.
Speaker 9 (34:29):
On his own?
Speaker 5 (34:31):
No?
Speaker 6 (34:31):
I think if he were to, would be a miracle
of God.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
TJ. Kader Robert Daniel. Life after the NFL is tough.
Men go from having their days weeks, months, and even
years schedule. Stepping away is daunting. These men are unprepared
for the crush of normal life. They are not alone,
and this is where Dowell thrives. When people feel overwhelmed,
Dowell offers them an illusion of simplicity. Sometimes people feel useless,
(35:00):
Dowell gives them a purpose. Sometimes people just want it out,
and straightway is definitely a way out. That's the thing
about charismatic leaders They can be whatever it is you
need them to be. They can seem to offer you
just whatever escape you need. If you are a strong,
accomplished NFL player transitioning into retirement, a single mom, a
(35:20):
young dad, there are always going to be a lot
of lost souls out there, and Dowell knows how to
find them with a lot of help from YouTube. And
in his wake, people like Christiana and Eileen wind up
trying to make sense of their worlds after they have
been completely turned upside down and they're left to deal
with the consequences. And more consequences were coming. Remember that
(35:41):
Christmas program. There was another twist to this story, one
strange enough for Court TV.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Jordan Thomas Sowmi State of Wisconsin versus Jordan Thomas Soumi.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Next time on our final episode of Spirals, I.
Speaker 9 (35:57):
Don't understand what you're saying.
Speaker 12 (36:00):
Don't speak your language on the speak man and men, Sir,
I'm not.
Speaker 10 (36:03):
A certain have a seed butt it be known this
day see for i'mman, Jordan saw me m in the
State of Man.
Speaker 13 (36:09):
Now passing forward, I'm asking in word.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
We set an extensive list of questions to Kabir, Baja,
Bamila and TJ. Clemings to get their responses. We Never
heard back.
Speaker 14 (36:22):
Spiraled is a production of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts
and One on One Studios podcast The show was reported
by me Kaylen Kaylor, with additional reporting by senior producer
Buffy Gorilla.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design,
mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier. Sarah Sneath is our
fact checker. Scott Stone is our executive producer, and Daniel
Waxman is Director of Podcast Development and podcast Production Manager
at One on One Studios. At iHeart Podcasts, Shawn Tutone
is our executive producer. Special thank you to Michelle Newman,
(36:54):
David Glasser, and David Hudgin from One on one Studios.
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Hey, this is Round twenty nine. Is the address of
your emergency, Ladys, Ron Young. I've head master at Providence Academy,
pauled earlier about our Christmas program.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Okay, It's December twenty nineteen and Providence Academy, a small
private Christian school in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is preparing for
its annual Christmas program at the Assembly of God Church.
Headmaster Ron Young is in a church sanctuary surrounded by
little kids dressed in choir robes swirling with excitement, but
(00:35):
Ron is concerned there are two strangers in the audience,
men that he's never seen before.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Okay, and what.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Are they doing that you want them to leave? They're
not parents, they're not anything. I know it's a public event,
but we had some concerns of a video that Your
Pleasure Media has posted, and we're worried that they're going
to do something.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
This is the school that can beer Baja Biamila and
his ex wife Eileen's children attend. Before he found Straightway,
Kabir had been really involved in the close knit school,
a nerdy dad who'd even been a school board member,
but by the time of the twenty nineteen Christmas show,
the couple has divorced. Kabir has limited contact with his kids,
(01:18):
and he's continued in his commitment to Straightway. The day
of the big performance, he posted a video to YouTube
directly addressing the school's headmaster.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I'm telling you right now, Ron, I forbid my sons
and my daughter to participate in any extra crickular activity
that goes against my belief.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Straightway believes Christmas is a pagan holiday, so for Kabir,
his kids celebrating the main event on the Christian calendar
was a big no no. He'd been trying to keep
them out of the show.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm the priest of my home and you are fringe,
and you are trespassing on my property.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Eileen was still a practicing Christian and now the kids
primary caretaker, so she got everyone to the venue on
time for their performances. This was something they'd done every
year at Christmas. She says it was a highlight of
the school year. But now the night of the show,
there are these two guys in the audience, and Headmaster
Ron is pretty sure Kabeer sent them.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I guess what do you think that they're going to do?
Speaker 5 (02:20):
Well?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I have no idea why they're here. I have no
reason to be here other than two. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Ron called nine one one earlier that day to alert
the police about this exact situation. Kabir had called Ron
to demand once again that his kids be pulled from
the program, and they had a volatile conversation. Kabir told
Ron that he should be careful and one more thing.
He said, quote unquote, you don't need to worry about me.
(02:48):
Black people don't shoot up schools. White people do. It
sounded like a threat and now Ron doesn't know if
it means anything, but the two guys in the audience
are white. Good evening, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Former packer Kabir Baja Biamilla explaining what led to the
arrest of his friends on Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Night, Find Desmuth and Jordan saw Me were arrested at
a children's Christmas play, a pageant.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
That is being put on by the private school attended
by Baja Biamilla's children.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Police did respond to Ron's nine one one call and
arrested the two men, Ryan D. Smith and Jordan saw Me.
They were both part of Straightway. Both had a loaded
semi automatic pistol tucked into their waistband. One of them
had an extra magazine of ammunition and a nine inch knife,
and neither of them had a permit to carry a gun.
(03:38):
And Ron was right. They were there because of Kabir.
Speaker 8 (03:42):
KGB says he sent his friends to the program to
take videos of his sons, who he forbide from participating
in the program because he holds vastly different religious views
than the school.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
After the police arrived, Kabir showed up. He started arguing
with the cops about arresting his two friends, who he
calls his quote unquote brothers. The police threatened to arrest
Kabir too. Ultimately they didn't, but there was no way
Kabir was going to let this go.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
No one got hurt, Not one single human being, not
even a fly, got hurt that day.
Speaker 9 (04:17):
The only people that got hurt are my two brothers.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
He live streamed on YouTube two days after everything went down.
In the video, he's sitting at his desk dressed in
a black T shirt that reads commandments over traditions.
Speaker 9 (04:31):
They got their liberty taking from them.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
They were they were literally kidnapped, put into captivity.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Kabir wasn't the only one who was upset. Providence Academy
let out for Christmas vacation two days early. Because parents
were so spooked, some even took their kids out of
the school altogether. This version of Kabir, the one that
sent men with guns to his kid's Christmas pageant, it
was so different from the Kabir who had been on
the school board. And it was a total about face
(05:01):
from the Kabir who had converted to Christianity and been
a fervent believer. This is the moment that Kabir's newfound
faith burst into public view. After a successful career as
a popular player, now he was on the news for
all the wrong reasons. It wasn't about his tackles and
sacks or his local service projects. It was about straightway
(05:24):
and his connection to the people who lead it. The
community was baffled, and so was I. What had happened
that had set him down this path? And as I
got deeper into my reporting, I also had to ask
why were other former NFL players following Kabir's lead. Welcome
to Spirald, episode five, Packer to Pariah. I'm Kaylen Kaylor.
(06:10):
The incident at the Christmas pageant is when I first
started following this story. It was a strange situation on
its face, the police getting called on a former NFL
player's friends armed at his kids' school, But as someone
who's reported a long time on the NFL, I was
also intrigued by the role of faith, something that's kind
of inescapable in the world of football.
Speaker 9 (06:31):
I mean, I always ask God to leave me in
the right direction.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
It's common to see players neil and prayer before a game,
or point up to the heavens after a big play.
Speaker 9 (06:40):
God first. You know, we wouldn't be here without him.
Speaker 10 (06:43):
I think there is a really strong Christian subculture in
the NFL.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
This is Paul Putts. He's the assistant director of the
Faith and Sports Institute at Baylor University.
Speaker 10 (06:56):
I don't think that Christianity in the NFL are intertwined
in sort of ways that NFL league officials have intentionally
sought to cultivate. But I do think that Christian organizations
and groups and leaders, Christian players, Christian coaches have created
a very strong subculture in the NFL that is probably
stronger than any other major sports league.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Paul is an evangelical and he's also an athlete himself.
He played basketball at a small Christian school in Nebraska.
Now he's writing a book about the history of sports
and Christianity in the US.
Speaker 10 (07:30):
I can see the ways and particular things in sports
that cause us to feel something like transcendence. Sport is
for something greater. It means that it's not just a
diversion that you just escape from real life from but
it's also not this thing that you can only engage
in from a critical perspective. The fact that sport is
this full bodied experience that we participate in. We use
(07:51):
all of our bodies when we play. You're sort of
expected to devote the entirety of yourself in that game
to this one thing. I think when you give all
of yourself to something, it feels religious.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Though the league has tried to limit evangelizing by players
and staff, it hasn't made much of a difference. Nearly
every team has a chaplain, and plenty of Christian coaches
and players feel comfortable talking publicly about their beliefs.
Speaker 10 (08:17):
You want people to see sport as a way to,
in the case of Christian athletes, grow in faith in
a particular version of the Christian faith.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
There is no official religion in the NFL, but if
there was, it would likely be a form of evangelical Christianity.
That's the culture you're most often hearing reflected when players
thank God or Jesus for their wins. Some players who
have felt drawn to other belief systems and been equally
vocal about it have not felt as supported.
Speaker 11 (08:44):
I cannot realization that, you know what, if I'm go
find God, I better go find it for myself.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
This is Reggie White, you know, the Reggie White, the
six foot five, three hundred pounds defensive end, the former
Philadelphia Eagle and Green Bay Packer Pro Football Hall of Famer.
There's even a street named after him in Green Bay.
Reggie defined an era of hard hitting football. In his
debut season, he was the NFL's defensive Rookie of the Year.
(09:10):
To this day, he's considered one of the all time greats.
Remember back in episode one, Kabir was chasing after Reggie
from the start of his career in two thousand, even
before he'd played his first NFL game.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Kabir ba Ja bia Milla says he watched to break
Reggie White all time record for sex.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And there was another way in which Kabier looked up
to Reggie. He was a very devoted Christian when he
was just seventeen. Reggie became a Baptist minister and then
he became known as ad Minister of Defense.
Speaker 12 (09:41):
Was Reggie White was the Minister of Defense? He was
nickname is the Minister of Defense.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
I didn't call it Minister of Defense, but nothing I've
seen signatures of his before. We're friends of mine say,
I found this piece of mabilia of I sketch dad
signature on it, and I don't want to run there
ideal of what it is because I.
Speaker 12 (10:02):
Was like, that's not sick.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
It was like one there's no scripture attached to it.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Reggie White passed away in two thousand and four, just
four years after he retired. We talked to his son,
Jeremy White. He told us his dad always paired his
autograph with a Bible verse.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
I believe early in his career it was First John
four to eight, and then it was for the majority
of his career it was First Corimpians thirteen. He had
an eagle that was on his desk for twenty five years.
That eagle was always there when he was studying and
getting deeper in the torre.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
After his football career, Reggie dove deeper into his faith,
and he got curious about the Torah, the first five
books of the Hebrew Bible.
Speaker 11 (10:46):
If I'm go find God, I better go find it
for myself. I got to go back and research the
scripture in his original language to see what it said.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
This is from an interview with NFL Network that Reggie
gave around this time. He wanted to read the Old
Testament in Hebrew to understand it more fully, but in
doing so, he says he felt rejected by the people
with whom he once shared a faith.
Speaker 11 (11:09):
I'm considered a heretic amongst them. I've been accused of
becoming a Jew and converting to Judaism. I've been accused
of so many things because I have decided to study
the Hebrew text.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Reggie became disturbed when he noticed how small differences in
the scripture's translation could change the meaning of a passage.
In the years after his retirement and before his death,
he stopped preaching and stopped going to church.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
He did love to learn about this. I would be
remiss if I didn't say that part of it was
because of the free time that freed up off football.
Speaker 9 (11:42):
He became very lonely due to this process.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
He stopped calling himself a Christian, opting for the term believer.
He also came to see Christmas as a pagan holiday.
Jeremy remembers that friends of the family pretty much ostracized
his dad as his beliefs changed.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Friends of ours who still live in Green Bay, they said,
you know, Susi, as I said, reggis a cult.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
There are a lot of differences between Reggie White and Kabir.
Even though some of their beliefs overlapped, they weren't exactly
the same. Reggie never identified as being Hebrew Israelite, even
if he seems to have been inspired by some of
the same ideas. And he was never part of Straightway
or the Overcomer or any established group. And Secondly, though
Reggie would happily talk about religion if someone brought it up,
(12:32):
he wasn't as aggressive and talking about and promoting his
beliefs as Kabir was.
Speaker 9 (12:36):
H everybody, but that was the type of guy Kabir was.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Remember, Kabir was evangelizing in the locker room and talking
about his faith and interviews in ways that made people
really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
He wanted to hand me religious pamphlets, or he wanted
to talk to me, Bob, Bob, and he wanted to
talk to me about his faith or religion.
Speaker 8 (12:57):
Or my faith.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
But still Kabir could relate to Reggie's journey. Kabir had
also been a devoted Christian before finding Straightway. Like Reggie,
Kabir's religious beliefs had changed after he left the NFL
and had more time to devote to his faith, and
like Reggie, he felt shunned when those beliefs changed. That
religious fervor that's undeniably a part of the NFL can
(13:19):
be a unifying force, but for players like Kabir, joining
Straightway and leaving mainstream Christianity made him an outlier.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
All Right, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,
citizens of YouTube. This is Pastor Dow.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
But Dowell welcomed him with open arms.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
For years years, I actually have been praying that some way, somehow,
that the Most High would allow me to be able
to kind of get a breakthrough to talk to a
lot of brothers as well as sisters or whoever is
involved in the NFL, because I realized that these people
(13:58):
are lost and they need help.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Twenty eighteen, less than a year after his baptism, and
three days after Cabir announced his divorce, Pastor Dowell posted
a video NFL Brothers are Waking Up as a part
of Straightway. Kabir has brought valuable attention to the group,
and he seems to have led several former players to Dowell.
Speaker 9 (14:20):
Well, these men are getting stronger and stronger in that word.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
As a matter of fact, these were because they're so
useless teaking out on the circus and stuff. They will
be good nationals, folkspeople to get people to the truth.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
There are now four former NFL players in Straightway, including
Robert Mathis and Daniel Muir, whose Indiana community we tried
to visit. Kabir and Daniel Muir were teammates and they
both played in Green Bay. Kabir sent Muir a Pastor
Dowell video, but as it happened, this wasn't the first
time Muir had heard of Straightway or Dowell. About a
year before, he'd come across a video and then Mira
(15:02):
shared Straightway with his former teammate Robert Mathis. Mathis had
been questioning his faith and told me in an interview
from my original story that something about Christianity never sat
right with him something was tugging at me. It just
doesn't line up, is how he put it. Then, So,
as of twenty twenty, from what I knew, the NFL
(15:22):
contingent in Straightway was Kabir, Robert and Daniel, but I
had a hunch more players could be involved. In that
YouTube video, Dowell name checks a couple more former players,
and when I combed Dowell's YouTube comments, there were familiar
NFL names, but nothing we could confirm. And then in
January twenty twenty one, I got a text.
Speaker 6 (15:45):
Hey, Caitlin, this is Christiana, the wife whose husband unfortunately
has joined Kabir's cult.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
That's coming up after the break. After that incident at
(16:19):
the Christmas Show, after I'd reported on Straightway and Kabir's
involvement in the group and a series of articles for
Sports Illustrated, I got a lot of messages from other
people who'd had a brush with Straightway or knew someone
who had My inbox blew up. Some of the senders
were anonymous, Some stopped responding to my emails, so we
had other people read their messages.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
I need someone to please help me.
Speaker 13 (16:41):
My ex husband is taking my kids to Straightway and
I'm scared for my kids' safety. Hello, I have a
grandson who started following the YouTube videos of Pastor Dowell.
Fast forward today, he's disappeared.
Speaker 6 (16:55):
Straightway is very strategic when it comes to their cult.
Speaker 14 (16:58):
Charles Dowell said publicly that I and my pastor, who
was trying to help me escape my husband, should be killed.
Speaker 6 (17:05):
I went into hiding for a month.
Speaker 13 (17:07):
He was so into Pastor Dowell that he would go
wherever you would be preaching.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I want to see this group crumble. At the end
of January twenty twenty one, I was hold up in
my studio apartment, gearing up for the last weekend of
NFL playoff action, when I got a text from an
NFL agent. Normally we talk about the latest news around
the league and jokingly critique poor coaching jobs, but this
text had a much more serious tone. I got a
(17:32):
call today from a former client's wife. She said her
husband is living in KGB's compound after joining the cult.
Most my numbing call I can remember getting As an agent.
An NFL agent's job is to manage their clients on
field football careers, but their work often extends into helping
with the transition to life after football. A transition that
(17:55):
can be really difficult for many players, but this was
such a strange scenario that this agent was at a
total loss. He connected me to his ex client's wife,
and she texted right.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
Away, Hey, Calein, this is Christiana, the wife whose husband,
unfortunately has joined Kabir's cult. I would love support the
other women and you could offer and also just have
an understanding what are the next steps this group is
going to do to him to suck him farther into this.
Thank you as well for being willing to help.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
When I got that first text, I had no idea
who Christiana was. I had heard of her husband, but
didn't know much about him. It took a minute to
get on the phone with Christiana. We had to schedule
around several calls she had lined up to help her
get a restraining order against her now ex. When we
did finally talk, she was warm and bubbly and open.
But if you listen closely, she pulls no punches.
Speaker 6 (18:50):
I won't join the cult, and therefore I'm a Josebel. Seemingly,
according to.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Them, Christiana had attended a private Christian college just outside
of Minneapolis. Faith has always been important to her.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
I'd say, like to who I am as a person,
there's three core things that I can recognize and like.
My first one I would say is like my desire
to know the Lord and be close to him and
know his word. The second one I'd say is like
I have a strong sense of like integrity injustice. The
last thing I would say it probably I always wanted
(19:23):
to be a mom and a wife that always since
I was young, Like that was a huge desire of mine.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And Christianna felt like she was on the right path
getting everything she prayed for when she met the man
who would become her husband, TJ Clemings. TJ was an
East Coast guy from te Neck, New Jersey. He played
football and basketball. He was goofy. His parents were from
Jamaica and his dad is a pastor.
Speaker 6 (19:47):
One of the first times I met his parents, they
like legitimately did an interview with me. They sat me
down and the mom didn't talk the entire time. The
dad talked and asked me all sorts of questions like
if we got married, mind you, we don't even own
each other five weeks when they did this.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
TJ played football for the University of Pittsburgh and in
twenty fifteen, he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, and
then one day during his rookie training camp, into his
hotel room walks Christianna Cook, a massage therapist who'd been
hired to work with some of the players.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
So I was actually working on his roommate and he
was whining and crying. He's like, TJ, help me. This
Eva white lady's trying to kill me because the style
of my massage is not pleasant.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
At the time, TJ was at the very start of
his NFL career.
Speaker 15 (20:31):
TJ Clemings was an incredible physical prospect coming out of
the draft. He was built in the exact way that
football people dream that left tackles are built.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
This is Matthew Kller from Purple Insider, a podcast and
substack about all things Vikings.
Speaker 15 (20:49):
He has incredibly long arms, he has a giant upper body.
He's flexible. He can move in ways that normal human
beings or even normal NFL players cannot move.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
TJ first started playing for the Vikings, he was every
bit the rookie.
Speaker 12 (21:03):
The feelings changed every game. Some days butterfly, some days,
it's nervous in some days.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Here he is in a postgame interview.
Speaker 12 (21:10):
It all depends on just how I'm feeling that day.
It's a good feeling to have those feelings and no
before a game, because it means you care.
Speaker 15 (21:17):
He was supposed to be a developmental player. The Vikings
saw in him someone that they could take and that
they could develop into star because of his physical sealing.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But that's not how it worked out. Injuries to other
players along the offensive line forced the Viking's hand and
they made TJ a starter before he was ready.
Speaker 15 (21:37):
It went exactly how you would expect for a rookie,
where he was tentative and he wasn't technically sound enough
to take on really good defensive pens in the league.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Not a good debut, and the hits kept coming on
and off the field. The Vikings head coach at the
time was Mike Zimmer. Zimmer is well respected for his
football acumen, but he was also really hard on his players.
Another player who played on the Vikings with TJ remembers
that coach Zimmer played a compilation of highlights and low
lights every Monday at the team meeting. Players who didn't
(22:10):
defend the quarterback and gave up sacks featured prominently in
these video sessions, and TJ was a regular in those reels,
so he became one of coach Zimmer's favorite players to
pick on.
Speaker 15 (22:20):
Mike Zimmer would do something to the effect of worst
play of the week, and the worst play of the
week was always TJ Clemings.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Week after week, TJ sat with his teammates while his
coach shined a spotlight on his errors. Everyone was critiquing TJ,
his coach, and especially the fans, because his mistakes played
out on national television Top one.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Number sixty eight offense fifteen years tidy.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
Watch them all plumbies.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
And when TJ came home battered body and bruised ego,
Christiana was there.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
I was always praying for Lord home, get out of
his head, help him to just brush it off and
to do better and to you know it. It's I
don't know, it's such a hard thing because it's not
like a normal job, or if you make a mistake,
you're gonna get fired and cut and then now all
of a sudden, your life is uprooted. Sundays we're not relaxing.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
The couple got married after knowing each other for just
over a year, and then after three disappointing seasons, the
Vikings cut TJ. He bounced around the league, played for
a handful of other teams, but things didn't get much better.
He hadn't become the player that coaches and scouts thought
he could be, and he was plagued with injuries. He'd
had at least one serious concussion during his time on
(23:34):
the field.
Speaker 12 (23:35):
You guys are wondering why I'm walking so silow.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
This is TJ talking on a vlog that he and
Christiana had back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 12 (23:43):
I got her yesterday in a game on field goal
turned my MCL and my ACO. So my season's over.
But it's all right. It happens.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
He looks right into the camera, raises his eyebrows and
frowns slightly.
Speaker 12 (23:58):
Every time you step on the football, Phil, there's one
hundred percent chance that you can get hurt.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
TJ's much hyped career as a pro football player slipped
away faster than he ran the forty yard dash of
the combine. At the age of just twenty eight, TJ
left the NFL for good, and with his time on
the field behind him, TJ started focusing on other things.
Speaker 12 (24:18):
It's a really nice day here on the farm. Yeah,
I live on the farm.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
He and Christiana had a small twenty five acre hobby
farm where they lived with their two kids. He wanted
a homestead.
Speaker 12 (24:32):
This is all very new to us. Never had chicken before.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
They raised chickens and planted a vegetable garden. They bought
Scottish Highland cows.
Speaker 12 (24:41):
We have three cows coming today.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
It's Nova, that's Nikki right next to her, and that
is Loa.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
After the crushing blows of the NFL, they were seeking
a quiet, idyllic family life in Minnesota.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
So he was never like a particularly emotional guy, but.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And Christiana started noticing some changes in TJ.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
And after his concussion. Like we could be sitting there
watching the WWE and like I'm feeding Tray and Trace
sit in his little high chair. He'll just start crying
watching his son eat food, and I'm like, well, what's wrong.
He's like, I don't know. Something about Trey eating food
is just and he just be crying about it.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Christiana knew that some of these changes were likely the
result of the head injury that TJ got while playing.
He was anxious and depressed. He had trouble focusing given
all of this. They thought it would be difficult for
him to hold a regular job, but they already had
two kids and a set of triplets on the way.
TJ had had an average NFL career, meaning he didn't
(25:43):
make millions like Kabir did. The Clemmings needed financial support,
and it turns out there is a way for former
players to apply for full disability payments through the NFL's
disability plan, but it's not easy. The player's benefit plan
is jointly managed by the league and the player's union.
A twenty twenty three Washington Post investigation found that they
(26:05):
work aggressively to deny claims and repeatedly shirk legal obligations
to fairly review cases. So Christiana and TJ wondered was
it even worse? Starting the lengthy process, They got in
touch with the lawyer who detailed the steps and he
had a recommendation.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
I remember he called and he was like, hey, TJ.
You know, I think for us to have a better
chance of you winning total in permanent disability, you're going
to need to go to an impatient treatment facility. I
know this really great place in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The lawyer suggested a swinky rehab facility, up in the
Rocky Mountains with a program specifically for athletes. It's the
kind of place that shows happy people lounging with cups
of coffee on the website. The lawyer thought participating in
the rehab program would bolster their claim, but TJ would
have to go away for a few weeks to do it,
and it was expensive.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
I'm like, I look at it, my go, well, if
this is something like you feel like we're going to do,
I go. I can hold it down for two weeks.
I go, And it'd be better just sooner than later,
because the more pregnant I get, the less capable I'm
going to become. So he literally left I think five
days later.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Christiana stayed on the farm in Minnesota. They'd have nightly
check in calls and pray together before she went to bed.
But without his family to take care of or the
farm to tend to, TJ had a lot more spare
time than usual, so he did what most of us do.
He started scrolling on his phone. He had come across
straightway before.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
It was from the algorithm. It was just recommended to him.
I mean, if you think about what he watched a
lot on his thing was a lot of homesteading videos
because that's what we're doing. A lot of gun videos
because that's what we had a lot of in Sermonts,
because that's what we did. So if you mix homesteading
with guns and church and then a little bit of
(27:47):
the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, Huailla, it
got Straightway.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
But Christiana didn't feel pulled to Straightway the way that
TJ did.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
He had only shown me one video, so that's how
I knew it, knew about it. He showed me a
video of Pastor Dowell, and I just remember thinking, my
guys seems really combative.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
While he was staying in the rehab center, TJ watched
more of these Straightway videos, a lot more. He immersed
himself in them, and then one evening before their nightly
phone call.
Speaker 6 (28:17):
I was texting him. I was like, hey, you know,
let's pray and he was just like I'm on the
phone and I'm like on the phone, I'm like okay,
And I was like, who on earth are you talking to?
Like what is going on? He's like, Oh, I'm talking
to my friend Kabir And I'm like, who's Caber? And
he's this guy from that church group I showed you
on YouTube. He's like, I've been watching a lot of
(28:38):
that in my spare time here, and so he's been
like talking to me about the Bible and oh Ona,
he knows so much about the scriptures, like just blowing
my mind.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Christiana was happy that her husband sounded excited, but she
was disappointed and honestly annoyed that he missed a call.
Christiana was maintaining the farm and looking after their two kids,
all while pratt and then it happened a second time
TJ missed a call with his wife to talk to Kabir.
Christiana felt like TJ didn't have his priorities straight. They
(29:09):
were supposed to be in this together. She wanted him
to focus on his family and the Christian faith that
they shared. After rehab, TJ came home to Minnesota. The
family was excited to have him back, but after just
a few days, TJ told Christiana that he wanted to
take another solo trip. So TJ leaves his Minnesota farm
(29:29):
and drives to Kabir's home in Green Bay, the one
known as Praise Land. He wants to meet Kabir in
person and see what straightway was really all about it's
a short visit, and not long after he gets home,
TJ's itching to go again, this time with the whole family.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
He wanted me to go with him, and he goes,
if you can go, and You're still have the same
mindset that it's not right. He goes then to all stop,
and I was like, I wasn't going to be fooled.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
So Christiana started preparing for the trip.
Speaker 6 (29:56):
I had even ordered clothes to wear there because he
wanted me to were you know, almost head coverings and
crap like up.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
She wasn't thrilled about having to wear long dresses and
cover up, but she went ahead and bought one.
Speaker 6 (30:07):
It was red velvet and it was flora length, because
I was like, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna be as
sexy as I can be in this clothes, just to
stick it to them.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
But the dress never actually made it out of the package.
Christiana had prayed about the visit and had a prophetic
dream that she interpreted as a bad omen, and she
talked to a few people she trusted about this trip
and they told her they were worried about her safety.
They thought she shouldn't go. She decided to stay back,
but TJ decided again to go visit Kabir Anyways, leaving
(30:40):
her home pregnant with their two small children. When he
came back, Christiana says TJ seemed agitated, wanting to implement
new rules in the family. After just a few weeks,
he wanted to go back to Straightway.
Speaker 6 (30:55):
They came in there and he said, I'm leaving tomorrow
for an unknown amount of time, for an undisclosed location.
I go, Will you be back for the birth? He's like, maybe,
just let me know when it is.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
The next morning, TJ said goodbye to the kids.
Speaker 6 (31:10):
And then he left before their nap, and he was
saying goodbye, goodbye to Trey, and I was like, tray J,
give your daddy a hug, say goodbye. He's like, why
are you acting like he's never going to see me again?
I go, because he might not.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
TJ made it seem like this was a temporary thing,
but to Christiana it was the beginning of the end.
She didn't see how they could make their marriage and
family work if he was choosing to leave now.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
And then I went into the bathroom and he tried
to give me a kiss on the forehead and he's
not like, I'm leaving forever and I go I don't
know that.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
But Christiana was right. TJ never came back to rejoin
the family. For a while, he called and facetimed the kids,
but eventually even that stopped. He missed the birth of
the triplets. He's never even met them.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
I think going to the cult brought a lot of
security for him, Like he didn't have to worry about
the food because they were already growing their own food,
they were already butchering their own chickens. They were doing
everything we were doing at the farm, but had more
people had and also somebody else to be in charge.
Like I think having the weight on his shoulders of
oh my goodness, I have no job. My wife, who
(32:16):
thought we're having one baby is now having three, you know,
and the world is ending. And I think that was
just a lot on them. And I think he just
wanted somewhere where he could feel safe, and unfortunately he
didn't give that to the Lord. Instead, he took the
hand of Dowel and what Dowell offered him Dowel's protection,
(32:39):
Dowell telling him who to be, what he was, how
the world ran.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
TJ had been seeking something, and he seems to have
found it, but it took him someplace his family wasn't
willing to follow. And it's hard not to see the
parallels with Kabir's story. Both men found straightway after retirement
from the NFL. Both had been dedicated Christians married to
other dedicated Christians, and both left their families when they
had pregnant wives, and like Eileen, Christianna, filed for a divorce.
(33:09):
She took back her maiden name and moved in with
her parents. Now she's back in school. She dropped out
when she got married to TJ, but she's gone back
for her bachelor's and she has her sights on law school.
She wrote a final paper for her psychology class titled
NFL Breaks Men. In it, she details the challenges NFL
players have and transitioning out of the league and the
(33:30):
impact of the brain disease CTE her concluding sentence, one
could say that the NFL ruins the personalities slash identities
of most of the men that walk their field.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
I have like, for some reason, this image in my
mind that one day he'll realize what he did. For
some reason is a dramatic I envisioned him standing outside
of my new house, which is nice. I'm me married
and like that man loves the children and he's just
like out there and it's like he's all like, oh,
I rude my life. That's what I vision. But do
(34:05):
I actually think he'll ever leave the call? I think
that's difficult because TJ. He gave up his life for nothing, Like,
what did he gain?
Speaker 9 (34:15):
Nothing?
Speaker 6 (34:16):
So for him, he really has to convince and lie
to himself all the more to make it okay to
even be inside his own skull. So do I see
him ever waking up from this.
Speaker 9 (34:29):
On his own?
Speaker 5 (34:31):
No?
Speaker 6 (34:31):
I think if he were to, would be a miracle
of God.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
TJ. Kader Robert Daniel. Life after the NFL is tough.
Men go from having their days weeks, months, and even
years schedule. Stepping away is daunting. These men are unprepared
for the crush of normal life. They are not alone,
and this is where Dowell thrives. When people feel overwhelmed,
Dowell offers them an illusion of simplicity. Sometimes people feel useless,
(35:00):
Dowell gives them a purpose. Sometimes people just want it out,
and straightway is definitely a way out. That's the thing
about charismatic leaders They can be whatever it is you
need them to be. They can seem to offer you
just whatever escape you need. If you are a strong,
accomplished NFL player transitioning into retirement, a single mom, a
(35:20):
young dad, there are always going to be a lot
of lost souls out there, and Dowell knows how to
find them with a lot of help from YouTube. And
in his wake, people like Christiana and Eileen wind up
trying to make sense of their worlds after they have
been completely turned upside down and they're left to deal
with the consequences. And more consequences were coming. Remember that
(35:41):
Christmas program. There was another twist to this story, one
strange enough for Court TV.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Jordan Thomas Sowmi State of Wisconsin versus Jordan Thomas Soumi.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Next time on our final episode of Spirals, I.
Speaker 9 (35:57):
Don't understand what you're saying.
Speaker 12 (36:00):
Don't speak your language on the speak man and men, Sir,
I'm not.
Speaker 10 (36:03):
A certain have a seed butt it be known this
day see for i'mman, Jordan saw me m in the
State of Man.
Speaker 13 (36:09):
Now passing forward, I'm asking in word.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
We set an extensive list of questions to Kabir, Baja,
Bamila and TJ. Clemings to get their responses. We Never
heard back.
Speaker 14 (36:22):
Spiraled is a production of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts
and One on One Studios podcast The show was reported
by me Kaylen Kaylor, with additional reporting by senior producer
Buffy Gorilla.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design,
mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier. Sarah Sneath is our
fact checker. Scott Stone is our executive producer, and Daniel
Waxman is Director of Podcast Development and podcast Production Manager
at One on One Studios. At iHeart Podcasts, Shawn Tutone
is our executive producer. Special thank you to Michelle Newman,
(36:54):
David Glasser, and David Hudgin from One on one Studios.
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Host
Kalyn Kahler
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