Basketball Hall of Famer Sam Jones, the Boston Celtics’ “Mr. Clutch” whose sharp shooting fueled the league’s longest dynasty and earned him 10 NBA titles — second only to teammate Bill Russell — has died, the team said. He was 88. 

Jones died Thursday night in Florida, where he had been hospitalized in failing health, Celtics spokesman Jeff Twiss said.

“Sam Jones was one of the most talented, versatile and clutch shooters for the most successful and dominant teams in NBA history,” the team said in a statement.

“His scoring ability was so prolific, and his form so pure, that he earned the simple nickname, ‘The Shooter,’ ” the Celtics said. “The Jones family is in our thoughts as we mourn his loss and fondly remember the life and career of one of the greatest champions in American sports.” 

The Celtics paused for a moment of silence before Friday afternoon’s game against the Phoenix Suns, showing a video tribute on the screen hanging among the championship banners above the parquet floor at the TD Garden. His No. 24, which was retired by the Celtics in 1969 while he was a still an active player, also was displayed on the monitor in the hushed arena before a still photo of him in a suit and the words “Sam Jones 1933-2021.” 

“Another one of my dear friends lost,” Celtics broadcaster Cedric Maxwell wrote on Twitter. “Well, the banks are open in heaven this #NYE.”

Reliable scorer 

Often providing the offense while Russell locked things down at the other end, Jones averaged 17.7 points per game over 12 seasons. The number went up in the postseason, when he averaged 18.9 points and was usually the No. 1 option for the game’s final shot for the teams that won 10 titles from 1959 to 1969. 

“We never flew first class in my 12 years of playing basketball,” Jones told The Associated Press this fall in an interview for the league’s 75th anniversary. “But we always won NBA championships.” 

In 1964, Jones was a member of the NBA’s first starting lineup to include five Black players, joining Russell, Tom “Satch” Sanders, K.C. Jones and Willie Naulls. Although coach Red Auerbach maintained he was thinking only of his best chance to win, the lineup broke with an unwritten rule that pressured teams to have at least one white player on the floor.

Jones, a North Carolina native who served two years in the Army before returning to college, told the AP that the NBA of the 1960s was little different than the segregated South where he grew up and went to school. 

“I’m fighting for the freedom of everybody here in the United States. And when I come back, I still got to fight for my freedom,” Jones said. “Something is wrong with that and has always been and is happening even today.”

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Jones will be remembered as “one of the most prolific champions in all of professional sports.” 

“His selfless style, clutch performances and signature bank shot were hallmarks of an incredible career,” Silver said. “Sam was a beloved teammate and respected competitor who played the game with dignity and class. We mourn the passing of a basketball giant and send our deepest condolences to Sam’s family and the Celtics organization.” 

Born in Wilmington, Jones attended North Carolina Central, a Division II, historically Black university in Durham. Auerbach first heard of Jones when he went to North Carolina to scout the national champion Tar Heels and was told that the best player in the state was at Central playing for Hall of Fame coach John McLendon.

Selected sight unseen

Auerbach selected Jones in the first round of the 1957 draft, eighth overall, despite never seeing him play. 

“Russell and I are the most successful players in winning championships in the NBA. Yet he never saw us play a game because they had no scouts,” Jones told the AP. “The coaches called other coaches to see how other players were playing. They took their word for it.”

Jones led the Celtics in scoring five times — including the 1963 champions, when he was one of eight future Hall of Famers on the roster. When he retired in 1969 at age 36, Jones held 11 Celtics records and was the only player in franchise history to score more than 50 points in a game. 

“You look at the championships and what he did, it’s obviously a big loss for the community here,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said before Friday’s game. 

Using a bank shot that was unconventional even then, Jones came to be known as “Mr. Clutch” after a series of game-winners, including a buzzer-beater to clinch the 1962 Eastern Conference finals. He hit an off-balance, wrong-footed jumper to win Game 4 of the ’69 finals; instead of heading to Los Angeles trailing 3-1, the Celtics tied the series against the Lakers at two games apiece and went on to win in seven. 

Jones retired after that title, having won his 10 championships in 12 seasons. A five-time All-Star, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984. 

Jones was named to the NBA’s 25th, 50th and 75th anniversary teams. His death comes a year after teammate Tommy Heinsohn died and 13 months after the death of K.C. Jones. 
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Comedic actress Betty White, who capped a career of more than 80 years by becoming America’s geriatric sweetheart after Emmy-winning roles on television sitcoms The Golden Girls and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died, less than three weeks shy of her 100th birthday, People magazine reported Friday, quoting her agent. 

Her agent and close friend Jeff Witjas told the magazine, “Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever.” 

In a youth-driven entertainment industry where an actress over 40 is facing career twilight, White was an elderly anomaly who was a star in her 60s and a pop culture phenomenon in her 80s and 90s. 

Playing on her imminent likability, White was still starring in a TV sitcom, Hot in Cleveland, at age 92 until it was canceled in late 2014. 

White said her longevity was a result of good health, good fortune and loving her work. 

“It’s incredible that I’m still in this business and that you are still putting up with me,” White said in an appearance at the 2018 Emmy Awards ceremony, where she was honored for her long career. “It’s incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that at home.” 

White was not afraid to mock herself and throw out a joke about her sex life or a snarky crack that one would not expect from a sweet-smiling white-haired woman. She was frequently asked if, after such a long career, there was anything she still wanted to do, and the standard response was “Robert Redford.” 

“Old age hasn’t diminished her,” The New York Times wrote in 2013. “It has given her a second wind.” 

Betty Marion White was born on January 17, 1922, in Oak Park, Illinois, and her family moved to Los Angeles during the Great Depression, where she attended Beverly Hills High School. 

Start of career 

White started her entertainment career in radio in the late 1930s and by 1939 had made her TV debut singing on an experimental channel in Los Angeles. After serving in the American Women’s Voluntary Service, which helped the U.S. effort during World War II, she was a regular on Hollywood on Television, a daily five-hour live variety show, in 1949. 

A few years later she became a pioneering woman in television by co-founding a production company and serving as a co-creator, producer and star of the 1950s sitcom Life With Elizabeth. 

Through the 1960s and early ’70s, White was seen regularly on television, hosting coverage of the annual Tournament of Rose Parade and appearing on game shows such as Match Game and Password. She married Password host Allen Ludden, her third and final husband, in 1963. 

White reached a new level of success on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, playing the host of a homemaking television show, the snide, lusty Sue Ann Nivens, whose credo was “a woman who does a good job in the kitchen is sure to reap her rewards in other parts of the house.” White won best supporting actress Emmys for the role in 1975 and 1976. 

She won another Emmy in 1986 for The Golden Girls, a sitcom about four older women living together in Miami that featured an age demographic rarely highlighted on American television. White also was nominated for an Emmy six other times for her portrayal of the widowed Rose Nylund, a sweet, naive and ditzy Midwesterner, on the show, which ran from 1985 to 1992 and was one of the top-rated series of its time. 

Guest appearances 

After a less successful sequel to The Golden Girls came a series of small movie parts, talk-show appearances and one-off television roles, including one on The John Larroquette Show that won her an Emmy for a guest appearance. 

By 2009 she was becoming ubiquitous with more frequent television appearances and a role in the Sandra Bullock film The Proposal. She starred in a popular Snickers candy commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, taking a brutal hit in a mud puddle in a football game. 

A young fan started a Facebook campaign to have White host Saturday Night Live, and she ended up appearing in every sketch on the show and winning still another Emmy for it. 

The Associated Press voted her entertainer of the year in 2010, and a 2011 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that White, then 89, was the most popular and trusted celebrity in America, with an 86% favorability rating. 

White’s witty and brassy demeanor came in handy as host of Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, a hidden-camera show in which elderly actors pulled pranks on younger people. 

“Who would ever dream that I would not only be this healthy, but still be invited to work?” White said in a 2015 interview with Oprah Winfrey. “That’s the privilege … to still have jobs to do is such a privilege.” 

White, who had no children, worked for animal causes. She once turned down a role in the movie As Good as It Gets because of a scene in which a dog was thrown in a garbage chute. 

 
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Pope Francis ended the year by attending a vespers service Friday where he praised those who responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with responsibility and solidarity rather than an attitude of “every person for themselves.” 

The pope did not preside at the service as had been expected, leaving that to a senior Vatican cardinal. 

The Vatican did not explain why the change was made, seemingly at the last minute because the program for the ritual said Francis, 85, was to preside. 

Francis, who walked in unassisted and appeared to be in good condition, used a white chair to the side, sitting for most of the service. 

He later walked to a podium and read his homily, both without apparent difficulty. 

Last year, Francis had to skip the service because of a flare up of a sciatica condition that causes pain in his leg. 

Presiding would have required standing, kneeling and holding aloft a monstrance, a heavy gold vessel used to hold the communion host during vespers. 

The pandemic loomed large at the service, with a cap of several hundred on the number of people allowed into St. Peter’s Basilica for the traditional year-end thanksgiving service known as the “Te Deum.” 

COVID-19 also forced the pope to cancel his traditional visit to the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square afterwards. 

The Vatican announced that change on Thursday, saying it was to avoid a causing a crowd to gather. 

In his homily, Francis said the pandemic had caused many to feel lost and that in some cases “a temptation of every person for themselves” had spread. 

“But we rose up again with a sense of responsibility,” he said. 

Italy reported a record 144,243 coronavirus related cases on Friday and has recently imposed new restrictions, including wearing masks outdoors. 

With Rome Mayor Roberto Gualteri behind him, Francis, who is also bishop of Rome, also used his homily to lament the decay of the Italian capital. 

For several years Romans have been living with a garbage collection crisis and with bins overflowing, particularly in residential areas. Herds of wild boars have invaded some neighborhoods to feast on the rubbish. 

“Rome is a wonderful city that never ceases to enchant. But for those who live here, unfortunately it is not always dignified,” Francis said. 

 
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The new year signals the beginning of the Oscars race. Oscar nominees distinguish themselves in categories such as film direction, cinematography and acting. The message of these films is also significant, especially in relation to the times we live in. VOA’s Penelope Poulou looks at some of these promising contenders.
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Good riddance to 2021. Let 2022 bring fresh hope.

That was a common sentiment Friday as people around the world got ready to welcome in the new year.

In many places, plans for New Year’s Eve celebrations were muted or canceled for the second straight year due to a surge of coronavirus infections, this time driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Even before omicron hit, many people were happy to say goodbye to a second grinding year of the pandemic. 

But so far, at least, the omicron surge hasn’t resulted in the same levels of hospitalizations and deaths as previous outbreaks — especially among vaccinated people — offering a glimmer of hope for 2022. 

In Japan, writer Naoki Matsuzawa said he would spend the next few days cooking and delivering food to the elderly because some stores would be closed. He said vaccinations had made people less anxious about the pandemic, despite the new variant.

“A numbness has set in, and we are no longer overly afraid,” said Matsuzawa, who lives in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo. “Some of us are starting to take for granted that it won’t happen to me.”

Like many other people, Matsuzawa hopes that life will improve in 2022. 

“I hope the restrictions can disappear,” he said.

Across Japan, many people planned to take new year trips to spend time with their families. On New Year’s Eve, people thronged temples and shrines, most of them wearing masks.

Some appeared to be shrugging off virus fears, however, by dining and drinking raucously in downtown Tokyo and flocking to shops, celebrating not only the holidays but a sense of exhilaration over being freed from recent virus restrictions.

Because of where the international date line sits, countries in Asia and the Pacific region are among the first to usher in each new year.

 

Australia was planning to go ahead with its celebrations despite an explosion in virus cases. The centerpiece of festivities is the renowned fireworks display from the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House.

Hours before the celebrations were due to begin, Australian health authorities reported a record 32,000 new virus cases, many of them in Sydney. Because of the surge, authorities were expecting far smaller crowds than in pre-pandemic years, when as many as 1 million revelers would crowd inner Sydney. 

In neighboring New Zealand, where there hasn’t been any community spread of omicron, authorities took a precautionary approach by canceling several fireworks displays, including a popular one from atop Auckland’s Sky Tower. Auckland instead will mark the new year with a light display projected onto the tower and other city landmarks.

In South Korea’s capital, Seoul, the annual New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ceremony was canceled for the second straight year due to a surge in cases.

Officials said a pre-recorded video of this year’s bell-ringing ceremony would instead be broadcast online and on television. The ceremony had previously drawn tens of thousands of people. Last year’s cancellation was the first since the ceremony began in 1953.

 

South Korean authorities also planned to close many beaches and other tourist attractions along the east coast, which usually swarm with people hoping to catch the year’s first sunrise. On Friday, South Korea said it will extend tough distancing rules for another two weeks.

In India, millions of people were planning to ring in the new year from their homes, with nighttime curfews and other restrictions taking the fizz out of celebrations in large cities including New Delhi and Mumbai. 

Authorities have imposed restrictions to keep revelers away from restaurants, hotels, beaches and bars amid a surge in cases fueled by omicron. 

But some places, including Goa, a tourist paradise, and Hyderabad, an information technology hub, have been spared from night curfews thanks to smaller numbers of infections, although other restrictions still apply.

Many Indonesians were also forgoing their usual festivities for a quieter evening at home, after the government banned many New Year’s Eve celebrations. In Jakarta, fireworks displays, parades and other large gatherings were prohibited, while restaurants and malls were allowed to remain open but with curfews imposed.

Vietnam also canceled fireworks shows and celebrations. In Hanoi, authorities closed off central streets, while in Ho Chi Minh City, audiences were banned from watching live countdown performances, which instead were to be shown on social media.

In Hong Kong, about 3,000 people planned to attend a New Year’s Eve concert featuring local celebrities including boy band Mirror. The concert will be the first big New Year’s Eve event held since 2018, after events were canceled in 2019 due to political strife and last year because of the pandemic.

In mainland China, the Shanghai government canceled events including an annual light show along the Huangpu River in the city center that usually draws hundreds of thousands of spectators.

There were no plans for public festivities in Beijing, where popular temples have been closed or had limited access since mid-December. The government has called on people to avoid leaving the Chinese capital if possible and requires tests for travelers arriving from areas where there are infections.

 

Popular temples in the eastern Chinese cities of Nanjing, Hangzhou and other major cities canceled traditional New Year’s Eve “lucky bell-ringing” ceremonies and asked the public to stay away.

But in Thailand, authorities were allowing New Year’s Eve parties and fireworks displays to continue, albeit with strict safety measures. They were hoping to slow the spread of the omicron variant while also softening the blow to the country’s battered tourism sector. New Year’s Eve prayers, which are usually held in Buddhist temples around Thailand, will be held online instead.

In the Philippines, a powerful typhoon two weeks ago wiped out basic necessities for tens of thousands of people ahead of New Year’s Eve. More than 400 were killed by Typhoon Rai and at least 82 remain missing. Half a million homes were damaged or destroyed.

Leahmer Singson, a 17-year-old mother, lost her home to a fire last month, and then the typhoon blew away her temporary wooden shack in Cebu city. She will welcome the new year with her husband, who works in a glass and aluminum factory, and her 1-year-old baby in a ramshackle tent in a coastal clearing where hundreds of other families erected small tents from debris, rice sacks and tarpaulins to shield themselves from the rain and sun. 

Asked what she wants for the new year, Singson had a simple wish: “I hope we won’t get sick.”
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New York City will ring in 2022 in Times Square as planned despite record numbers of COVID-19 infections in the city and around the nation, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.

“We want to show that we’re moving forward, and we want to show the world that New York City is fighting our way through this,” de Blasio, whose last day in office is Friday, said on NBC’s “Today” show.

After banning revelers from Times Square a year ago due to the pandemic, city officials previously announced plans for a scaled-back New Year’s bash with smaller crowds and vaccinations required.

While cities such as Atlanta have canceled New Year’s Eve celebrations, de Blasio said New York City’s high COVID-19 vaccination rate makes it feasible to welcome masked, socially distanced crowds to watch the ball drop in Times Square. “We’ve got to send a message to the world. New York City is open,” he said.

Thanks to the highly contagious omicron variant that was first identified as a variant of concern last month, new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have soared to their highest levels on record at over 265,000 per day on average. New York City reported a record number of new, confirmed cases — more than 39,590 — on Tuesday, according to New York state figures.

De Blasio said the answer is to “double down on vaccinations” and noted that 91% of New York City adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.

The city’s next mayor, Eric Adams, will take the oath of office in Times Square early Saturday. Adams, a Democrat like de Blasio, planned a news conference later Thursday to outline his pandemic plan.
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Amanda Gorman is ending her extraordinary year on a hopeful note. 

The 23-year-old poet, whose reading of her own “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration made her an international sensation, released a new work Wednesday to mark the end of 2021. “New Day’s Lyric” is a five-stanza, 48-line resolution with themes of struggle and healing known to admirers of “The Hill We Climb” and of her bestselling collection “Call Us What We Carry,” which came out in early December: 

“What was cursed, we will cure. 

What was plagued, we will prove pure. 

Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree, 

Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee, 

Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake; 

Those moments we missed 

Are now these moments we make, 

The moments we meet, 

And our hearts, once all together beaten, 

Now all together beat.” 

Poets rarely enjoy the kind of attention Gorman received in 2021, but in an email to The Associated Press she reflected less on her own success than on the state of the country. Gorman wrote that the “chaos and instability” of the past year had made her reject the idea of going “back to normal” and instead fight to “move beyond it.” She mentioned Maya Angelou’s poem “Human Family” and added, “To be a family, a country, doesn’t necessitate that we be the same or agree on everything, only that we continue to try to see the best in each other and move forward into a shared future. Whether we like it or not, we are in this together.” 

 

Gorman offered an alliterative response when asked what inspired “New Day’s Lyric,” telling the AP that she “wanted to write a lyric to honor the hardships, hurt, hope and healing of 2021 while also harkening the potential of 2022.” 

“This is such a unique New Year’s Day, because even as we toast our glasses to the future, we still have our heads bowed for what has been lost,” she wrote. “I think one of the most important things the new year reminds us is of that old adage: This too shall pass. You can’t relive the same day twice — meaning every dawn is a new one, and every year an opportunity to step into the light.” 
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John Madden, the Hall of Fame coach turned broadcaster whose exuberant calls combined with simple explanations provided a weekly soundtrack to NFL games for three decades, died Tuesday morning, the NFL said. He was 85. 

The league said he had died unexpectedly, and it did not provide a cause. 

Madden gained fame in a decadelong stint as the coach of the renegade Oakland Raiders, making it to seven AFC title games and winning the Super Bowl following the 1976 season. He compiled a 103-32-7 regular-season record, and his .759 winning percentage is the best among NFL coaches with more than 100 games. 

But it was his work after prematurely retiring as coach at age 42 that made Madden truly a household name. He educated a football nation with his use of the Telestrator on broadcasts; entertained millions with his interjections of “Boom!” and “Doink!” throughout games; was an omnipresent pitchman selling restaurants, hardware stores and beer; became the face of “Madden NFL Football,” one of the most successful sports video games of all-time; and was a best-selling author. 

Most of all, he was the preeminent television sports analyst for most of his three decades calling games, winning an unprecedented 16 Emmy Awards for outstanding sports analyst/personality, and covering 11 Super Bowls for four networks from 1979 to 2009. 

“People always ask, are you a coach or a broadcaster or a video game guy?” he said when he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “I’m a coach, always been a coach.” 

Unpretentious style 

He started his broadcasting career at CBS after leaving coaching in great part because of his fear of flying. He and Pat Summerall became the network’s top announcing duo. Madden then helped give Fox credibility as a major network when he moved there in 1994, and he went on to call prime-time games at ABC and NBC before retiring following Pittsburgh’s thrilling 27-23 win over Arizona in the 2009 Super Bowl. 

Burly and a little unkempt, Madden earned a place in America’s heart with a likable, unpretentious style that was refreshing in a sports world of spiraling salaries and prima donna stars. He rode from game to game in his own bus because he suffered from claustrophobia and had stopped flying. For a time, Madden gave out a “turducken” — a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey — to the outstanding player in the Thanksgiving game that he called. 

“Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others. There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today.” 

When he finally retired from the broadcast booth, leaving NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” colleagues universally praised Madden’s passion for the sport, his preparation, and his ability to explain an often-complicated game in down-to-earth terms. 

“No one has made the sport more interesting, more relevant and more enjoyable to watch and listen to than John,” play-by-play announcer Al Michaels said at the time. 

For anyone who heard Madden exclaim “Boom!” while breaking down a play, his love of the game was obvious. 

“For me, TV is really an extension of coaching,” Madden wrote in Hey, Wait a Minute! (I Wrote a Book!).”My knowledge of football has come from coaching. And on TV, all I’m trying to do is pass on some of that knowledge to viewers.” 

Rise to the top 

Madden was raised in Daly City, California. He played on both the offensive and defensive lines for Cal Poly in 1957-58 and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the school. 

Madden was chosen to the all-conference team and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but a knee injury ended his hopes of a pro playing career. Instead, Madden got into coaching, first at Hancock Junior College and then as defensive coordinator at San Diego State. 

Al Davis brought him to the Raiders as a linebackers coach in 1967, and Oakland went to the Super Bowl in his first year in the pros. He replaced John Rauch as head coach after the 1968 season at age 32, beginning a remarkable 10-year run. 

With his demonstrative demeanor on the sideline and disheveled look, Madden was the ideal coach for the collection of castoffs and misfits that made up those Raiders teams. 

“Sometimes guys were disciplinarians in things that didn’t make any difference. I was a disciplinarian in jumping offsides; I hated that,” Madden once said. “Being in bad position and missing tackles, those things. I wasn’t, ‘Your hair has to be combed.'” 

The Raiders responded. 

“I always thought his strong suit was his style of coaching,” quarterback Ken Stabler once said. “John just had a great knack for letting us be what we wanted to be, on the field and off the field. … How do you repay him for being that way? You win for him.” 

And boy, did they ever. Many years, the only problem was the playoffs. 

Madden went 12-1-1 in his first season, losing the AFL title game 17-7 to Kansas City. That pattern repeated itself during his tenure; the Raiders won the division title in seven of his first eight seasons but went 1-6 in conference title games during that span. 

Memorable games 

Still, Madden’s Raiders played in some of the sport’s most memorable games of the 1970s, games that helped change rules in the NFL. There was the “Holy Roller” in 1978, when Stabler purposely fumbled forward before being sacked on the final play. The ball rolled and was batted to the end zone before Dave Casper recovered it for the winning touchdown against San Diego. 

The most famous of those games went against the Raiders in the 1972 playoffs at Pittsburgh. With the Raiders leading 7-6 and 22 seconds left, the Steelers had a fourth-and-10 from their 40. Terry Bradshaw’s desperation pass deflected off either Oakland’s Jack Tatum or Pittsburgh’s Frenchy Fuqua to Franco Harris, who caught it at his shoe tops and ran in for a TD. 

In those days, a pass that bounced off an offensive player directly to a teammate was illegal, and the debate continues to this day over which player it hit. The catch, of course, was dubbed the “Immaculate Reception.” 

Oakland finally broke through with a loaded team in 1976 that had Stabler at quarterback; Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch at receiver; tight end Dave Casper; Hall of Fame offensive linemen Gene Upshaw and Art Shell; and a defense that included Willie Brown, Ted Hendricks, Tatum, John Matuszak, Otis Sistrunk and George Atkinson. 

The Raiders went 13-1, losing only a blowout at New England in Week 4. They paid the Patriots back with a 24-21 win in their first playoff game and got over the AFC title game hump with a 24-7 win over the hated Steelers, who were crippled by injuries. 

Oakland won it all with a 32-14 Super Bowl romp against Minnesota. 

“Players loved playing for him,” Shell said. “He made it fun for us in camp and fun for us in the regular season. All he asked is that we be on time and play like hell when it was time to play.” 

Madden battled an ulcer the following season, when the Raiders once again lost in the AFC title game. He retired from coaching at age 42 after a 9-7 season in 1978. 

 
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The Rev. Athanasius Chidi Abanulo — using skills honed in his African homeland to minister effectively in rural Alabama— determines just how long he can stretch out his Sunday homilies based on who is sitting in the pews.

Seven minutes is the sweet spot for the mostly white and retired parishioners who attend the English-language Mass at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in the small town of Wedowee. “If you go beyond that, you lose the attention of the people,” he said.

For the Spanish-language Mass an hour later, the Nigerian-born priest — one of numerous African clergy serving in the U.S. — knows he can quadruple his teaching time. “The more you preach, the better for them,” he said.

As he moves from one American post to the next, Abanulo has learned how to tailor his ministry to the culture of the communities he is serving while infusing some of the spirit of his homeland into the universal rhythms of the Mass.

“Nigerian people are relaxed when they come to church,” Abanulo said. “They love to sing, they love to dance. The liturgy can last for two hours. They don’t worry about that.” 

During his 18 years in the U.S., Abanulo has filled various chaplain and pastor roles across the country, epitomizing an ongoing trend in the American Catholic church. As fewer American-born men and women enter seminaries and convents, U.S. dioceses and Catholic institutions have turned to international recruitment to fill their vacancies.

The Diocese of Birmingham, where Abanulo leads two parishes, has widened its search for clergy to places with burgeoning religious vocations like Nigeria and Cameroon, said Birmingham Bishop Steven Raica. Priests from Africa were also vital in the Michigan diocese where Raica previously served. 

“They have been an enormous help to us to be able to provide the breadth and scope of ministry that we have available to us,” he said. 

Africa is the Catholic church’s fastest-growing region. There, the seminaries are “fairly full,” said the Rev. Thomas Gaunt, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which conducts research about the Catholic church. 

Falling numbers

It’s different in the U.S. where the Catholic church faces significant hurdles in recruiting home-grown clergy following decades of declining church attendance and the damaging effects of widespread clergy sex abuse scandals. 

Catholic women and married men remain barred from the priesthood; arguments that lifting those bans would ease the priest shortage have not gained traction with the faith’s top leadership. 

“What we have is a much smaller number beginning in the 1970s entering seminaries or to convents across the country,” Gaunt said. “Those who entered back in the ’50s and ’60s are now elderly, and so the numbers are determined much more by mortality.”

From 1970 to 2020, the number of priests in the U.S. dropped by 60%, according to data from the Georgetown center. This has left more than 3,500 parishes without a resident pastor. 

Abanulo oversees two parishes in rural Alabama. His typical Sunday starts with an English-language Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church in Lanett, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Birmingham along the Alabama-Georgia state line. After that, he is driven an hour north to Wedowee, where he celebrates one Mass in English, another in Spanish.

“He just breaks out in song and a lot of his lectures, he ties in his boyhood, and I just love hearing those stories,” said Amber Moosman, a first-grade teacher who has been a parishioner at Holy Family since 1988.

For Moosman, Abanulo’s preaching style is very different from the priests she’s witnessed previously. “There was no all of a sudden, the priest sings, nothing like that. … It was very quiet, very ceremonial, very strict,” she said. “It’s a lot different now.” 

Abanulo was ordained in Nigeria in 1990 and came to the U.S. in 2003 after a stint in Chad. His first U.S. role was as an associate pastor in the diocese of Oakland, California, where his ministry focused on the fast-growing Nigerian Catholic community. Since then, he has been a hospital chaplain and pastor in Nashville, Tennessee, and a chaplain at the University of Alabama. 

Amid the U.S. clergy shortage, religious sisters have experienced the sharpest declines, dropping 75% since 1970, according to the Georgetown center.

Culture shocks

When Maria Sheri Rukwishuro was told she was being sent from the Sisters of the Infant Jesus order in Zimbabwe to West Virginia to work as a missionary nun, she asked her mother superior, “Where is West Virginia?” 

She was scared, worrying about the unknowns.

“What kind of people am I going to? I’m just a Black nun coming to a white country,” Rukwishuro told The Associated Press from Clarksburg, West Virginia, where she has been teaching religious education to public and Catholic school students since arriving in 2004.

Rukwishuro vividly remembers that at her introduction, a little girl walked to her and “rubbed her finger on my fingers all the way, then she looked at her finger and she smiled but my heart sank. … She thought I was dirty.” Despite that, Rukwishuro says most people have been very welcoming. She’s now a U.S. citizen and says, “It feels like home.” 

One of her first culture shocks was an overnight snowfall. “I really screamed. I thought it was the end of the world,” she said. “Now I love it. I do my meditations to that.” 

During their integration into American life, it is commonplace for newly arrived clergy to face culture shocks.

For Sister Christiana Onyewuche of Nigeria, a hospital chaplain in Boston administering last rites for the dying, it was cremation. She recalled thinking, “Like really? … How can they burn somebody? I can’t even imagine.” 

She came to the U.S. 18 years ago and previously served as the president of African Conference of Catholic Clergy and Religious, a support group for African missionaries serving in the U.S.

‘Jesus necks’

Onyewuche said African clergy can face communication challenges with the Americans they serve. To address this, many dioceses have offered training to soften accents, she said. Abanulo, who went through the training in Oakland, says it helped him slow down his speech and improve his pronunciations.

Abanulo, who moved to Alabama in 2020, admits he was initially apprehensive about his latest posting, which meant exchanging a comfortable role as university chaplain for two rural parishes. 

“People were telling me ‘Father, don’t go there. The people there are rednecks,'” he said.

But after a year, and a warm reception, he says he now tells his friends, “There are no rednecks here. All I see are Jesus necks.” 

 
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