Hoops and the gospel: Ex-Buckeye Aaron Craft ministers at Marion prison

It was pretty much like any other basketball game on a weeknight in Marion County.

Two teams getting after it hard. A vocal home crowd giving the visitors and the referees the business. In the end, it was a high-scoring affair with the home side earning a 93-92 win thanks to some late-game heroics.

Only this basketball game wasn't played on the hardwood floor of a local high school or even at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. This game was played inside the confines of the Marion Correctional Institution (MCI) between a team of inmates and a visiting team headlined by former Ohio State standout Aaron Craft.

And the main purpose of the contest was to provide a setting for Craft and his compadres to share "the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ" with the incarcerated men. Halftime included members of Craft's team sharing the gospel message with the men and the postgame highlight was a prayer circle comprised of both teams and men who came to watch the game. A lot of high fives, fist bumps, and hugs were exchanged before Craft and his team departed for the evening.

"It's a humbling experience for us to come in here," said Craft, who played at Ohio State from 2010 to 2014 and then played professionally, both domestically and overseas, from 2014 to 2020. "Basketball's an amazing game. I've played all over the world, but playing with these guys and finding common ground and being able to talk about something that's even more important than basketball is what it means for us. We love it and it's why we continue to to come back. We don't have to search very hard to get guys to come play."

Games like this are part of the Faithful In Serving Together (FIST) ministry, founded by Marysville resident Kent Money, which provides outreach programs to prisons. Ministering to the incarcerated runs in the family for Money. His wife Christine Money was a former warden at MCI and is now the executive director of Kindway, a ministry to prison inmates that is based in Westerville.

For nearly a decade, Kent Money conducted a prison ministry at North Central Correctional Institution (NCCI in Marion, during which time he said the rates of violence - both inmate on inmate and inmate on staff - decreased significantly. FIST was created out of that ministry at NCCI and has been in operation for about a dozen years. It's now in six state prisons and he hopes to expand it to ten prisons soon.

"Our goal is to help reduce the violence," Money said. "We seek out the 'men of negative influence' that don't belong to anything. So I get rival gang leaders together, basically, and we try to teach them to look at themselves how God sees them and also to look at each other how God sees them. ... I'm bringing together men that most people think wouldn't even be seen in the same room together. But I think I've learned from (his wife's experience as a prison warden) what works and what doesn't work and we apply that to the situation."

Craft's team became involved with the FIST ministry earlier this year and has played games at three prisons, including MCI. Other games were played at Ross Correctional Institution in Chillicothe and Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield.

"This was our first loss, so we've got some work to do if we're going to come back," Craft said with a grin after the game on Jan. 3 at Marion Correctional. "It's a little overwhelming when you first get inside (a prison), going through all the gates and locked doors, but once you get on the court and you're playing basketball and talking with the guys here, all that other stuff just melts away. I think that's the beautiful part about this. Common ground. Figuring out that these guys are people, too.

"I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned. You don't say it, but deep down, we tend to put people in prison in a box and write them off. They are human beings with hopes and dreams and loved ones. It's great to know that and to see the humanity."

Kasey Plank, warden's assistant at Marion Correctional Institution, said prison officials are glad to have programs like FIST operating at MCI. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic and even in the aftermath, all outside programming was shut down.

"It was a really rough couple of years here when we couldn't get these volunteers in. We couldn't bring in churches, musicians, or anything like that, but we're starting to get that back up and running," she said. "These guys appreciate it. They feel like they're actually human again. Just watching these basketball players treat (the inmates) like they're one of God's people, it just really uplifts the institution as a whole."

And the FIST program in particular has made a significant difference at the prison, noting that officials have witnessed a decrease in violence among inmates, Plank said.

"During COVID we had some drug issues and problems with violence, but once we started bringing these volunteers back in and the (inmates) just feel like somebody cares about them, their minds shift and they go away from the drugs and the violence and fighting," Plank said.

For information about the Faithful In Serving Together (FIST) ministry, contact Kent Money through his Facebook page.

Email: ecarter@gannett.com | Twitter: @AndrewACCarter

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Hoops and gospel: Ex-Buckeye Aaron Craft ministers at Marion prison