THIS REV. IS A TEAM PLAYER
Robert Gray gives C’s guidance all season long
It’s Sunday afternoon, and the Rev. Robert Gray preaches to his congregation wearing a stiff clerical collar and palming a wellworn Bible.
The reverend is dressed for church, but his congregation wears warm-up pants and T-shirts in green, black and burgundy. Gray wraps up his sermon and members of the Celtics and Cavaliers bow their heads as the reverend leads them together in prayer. It’s 40 minutes until Game 1 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals tips off in TD Garden.
To keep their bodies healthy, the Celtics have trainers, coaches and doctors. To keep their hearts and spirits lifted, they have Pastor Gray.
“Really, I’m there to make sure they get some spiritual food,” Gray said. “We all have a spiritual side, and we try to tap into that.”
Gray has provided spiritual support and guidance to the Celtics as the team’s chaplain for 18 seasons. Before that, he spent a decade with the Red Sox and Patriots. He’s been in locker rooms with Michael Jordan and LeBron James. In 2010, Ray Allen developed a superstitious pregame ritual in which he asked Gray to pass him a basketball before every home game.
The reverend said he doesn’t view NBA players who seek his counsel any differently from the people who fill the pews at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, where he preaches most Sundays.
“The players are the same people that sit there on Sunday. They just get paid a little more, have a little higher profile,” Gray said.
On his right hand, he wears a 2008 Championship ring with his name engraved, a gift from Paul Pierce. Leon Powe, the hero of Game 2 in those 2008 finals, said “the Rev,” as he calls him, helped that team tune out the noise around them to become champions.
“Everybody that year was saying we were going to be a great team one day, but we’re not going to be able to win it all in our first year,” Powe said. “Reverend Gray, he told us, ‘You can do anything you put your mind to.’ He lifted us up.”
Lifting people up is Reverend Gray’s core mission, going back to his first career as a juvenile probation officer. He was ordained as a deacon in the AME church in 1994. He never dreamed of a job in locker rooms, and even now, he describes himself as a casual fan.
“With Reverend Gray, it’s not just basketball,” Powe said. “There’s more to it than basketball. He doesn’t just look at you as athletes, he looks at you as a human being, from the bottom of his heart.”
Gray preaches anywhere from 40 to 60 pregame sermons a season, and everyone in the Garden is welcome. Beyond that, there are phone calls from NBA players on the road, looking for counsel. There are countless private discussions about rookie walls and personal discouragement. Gray lends an ear and says a prayer.
“You have highs and lows, and sooner or later everybody hits a low and needs a little encouragement,” he said.
Sometimes the deepest lows have nothing to do with basketball. That was the case when Isaiah Thomas lost his beloved younger sister during the 2017 playoffs, and the November morning when Jaylen Brown learned his best friend had passed away, just hours before Boston played in prime time against Golden State.
“You’re there and you talk with them,” Gray said. He wouldn’t speak specifically about his personal counsel with players but added, “we tried to be there for both of those guys.”
“I was always thankful to Reverend Gray for always being there. He was there the whole time, he preached moral character, doing the right things on and off the court — being humble, winning with class and losing with class,” Powe said.
Who knows how much longer this miraculous postseason will last for the Celtics? Not even Danny Ainge can say. But when the lights over the parquet go dark for the last time this season, the Rev will be there to make sure everyone can find the light.