The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is an international non-profit Christian sports ministry founded in 1954 and based in Kansas City, Missouri. It has staff offices located throughout the United States and abroad.[1][2]
History
FCA was founded in 1954 by Eastern Oklahoma A&M basketball coach Don McClanen, who later resigned to become its full-time director.[3] After watching sports stars
use fame to endorse and sell general merchandise, McClanen wrote to 19 prominent sports figures asking for their help in establishing an organization that would use the same principle to share the Christian faith. Among the first supporters was Baseball Hall of Famer Branch Rickey, who was most known for breaking the MLB color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, and professional athletes including Otto Graham, Carl Erskine, and Donn Moomaw. FCA held its first advisory board meeting in September 1954 and was officially incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in November.[6]
After two years in Oklahoma, McClanen moved FCA's headquarters to Kansas City, Missouri. That year (1956), FCA also conducted its first national camp‚ then referred to as a national conference‚ drew 256 athletes and coaches to Estes Park, Colorado. The ministry continued its expansion by adding additional camp locations, establishing a national magazine, and beginning school campus groups called "Huddles‚" within ten years of the first camp. In 1979, FCA completed and dedicated a new headquarters facility overlooking Kansas City‚ Truman Sports Complex, and the building was officially renamed the FCA National Support Center in 2011.
