Tennessee center Cooper Mays woke up hoping that he could use his platform at SEC Media Days to share a message about his faith. As it turned out, he was asked about that very thing in one of his first interviews at SEC Media Days.
Mays spoke about the role that religion played in one of the most trying times of his career, his absence last season for four games due to a triple hernia surgery.
“It’s pretty eye opening when you kind of get out of your little normal routine every day,” Mays said. “I’ve spent a lot of my life just doing kind of the same things every day. And when you get a substantial break where you can kind of step back and kind of look at everything, you know it, it changes your perspective a little bit.”
It certainly did for Mays, who wasn’t just sidelined. Mays was forced to lay in a prone position for a week as the sutures healed. With some extra time, Mays could either stare at the ceiling or meet his maker.
“I was raised in the church and went to church most Sundays out of my childhood, but didn’t really invest,” Mays said. “A relationship’s got to be got to be two parties, you know, meeting in the middle. I wasn’t putting forth any effort.”
Mays said he never was an atheist, but there’s a new level in his relationship with God after what he went through last season. Since then, he’s made sure that relationship continues to grow.
“Just kind of been nourishing my faith and just putting it kind of in the forefront of my mind and seeing my life through a different lens has been super different for me,” Mays said, “because I used to kind of think all about me and what I wanted. You kind of just live through your flesh and whatever materialistically sounds good, whatever pleasure sounds good.
“You kind of go with it. But, I feel like later in my life, just kind of getting older, just gotta see life through a different lens. All that stuff that is right at your fingertips kind of leaves you, leaves you feeling empty and doesn’t really fulfil you. But, the Lord is always going to be there for you.”
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