The wheelchair rolled into the Green Bay Packers locker room, and some of the veterans assumed the young man sitting in it was a Make-A-Wish visitor. He was not. He was their newest draft pick, only two days into his NFL career and already recovering from surgery on both feet. That was Vince Biegel's welcome to professional football, and it was the first of many moments that would teach him where his real strength came from.

For a kid who had spent his life dreaming of the NFL, it was a humbling introduction. But humility turned out to be the whole point. On the latest episode of Why We Believe, Vince sat down with host Nathan Gwilliam to trace a journey that carried his faith through the highest highs and the lowest lows a football career can offer, and to explain why, through all of it, he never stopped believing in Jesus Christ.

Roots on a Hundred-Year-Old Marsh

Vince grew up in Wisconsin Rapids, in the middle of Wisconsin, on a cranberry marsh that has been in his family for more than a century. The family rule was simple. There is no such thing as a free lunch. He watched his great-grandfather, well into his eighties, still working the marsh, and the lesson landed without a word being spoken. If a man in his eighties could put in that kind of work, who was Vince to say he could not?

That work ethic became the foundation of everything. Named after the legendary coach Vince Lombardi, he grew up rooting for the Packers and dreaming of the game. He carried the grit of the marsh onto the field, earning two-time All Big Ten honors at the University of Wisconsin before being drafted into the NFL.

But as Vince tells it, the marsh gave him more than muscle. It gave him a way of understanding hardship. The valleys of his career would demand the same quiet, unglamorous endurance he had learned as a boy, the kind that shows up and keeps working when no one is watching.

A Decision Made on His Knees

Coming out of high school as one of the most recruited linebackers in the country, Vince faced a choice that meant more than football. His father, his uncle, and his grandfather had all been part of BYU, and the pull toward that heritage was strong. Yet as he prayed about where to go, he felt a clear prompting to choose the University of Wisconsin instead.

It was not the easy answer. Wisconsin was known as a party school, a place where his faith would be tested daily. But Vince came to see that as the assignment rather than the obstacle. He wanted to stand as an example of a believer in a place where believers were rare. He wanted his faith to be visible, and he wanted the challenge of keeping it.

Looking back more than a decade later, he calls it the best decision he ever made. It shaped him as a player, positioned him for the NFL, and placed him exactly where he needed to be to meet the person who would change his life. He is convinced the choice came through prayer and revelation, and that when we follow the Spirit, the Lord arranges pieces we could never have seen coming.

A Prayer Over a Sandwich

One of those pieces was a young woman named Sarah. She was not a member of the Church, and when Vince took her to dinner early in their relationship, he made a quiet decision to be himself. Before they ate, he asked if he could say a blessing on the food. It was a small, honest moment, and it told her exactly who he was.

Sarah's family had no background in the faith. To them, the word the world uses for Latter-day Saints called to mind a reality television show, not a covenant path. Yet over more than two years of attending church, meeting with the missionaries, and wrestling with the decision for herself, Sarah came to her own conviction. Vince was careful to tell her the choice had to be between her and the Lord, not something she did for him.

She was baptized, and Vince had the privilege of performing the ordinance. He often says she became a stronger member than he could ever be. Their family, he is quick to point out, would not exist if he had ignored that prompting to attend a party school in Wisconsin. The seeds he planted by simply living his faith had taken root in ways he could never have engineered.

Seven Surgeries and a Stronger Kind of Faith

The NFL did not hand Vince an easy road. After breaking his hand on day one and both feet on day two, he met his new teammates from a wheelchair. Over the course of his career he endured seven surgeries. He was cut by the Packers, the very team he had grown up loving, after a single season. He was traded to the Saints, then to the Dolphins, moving his young family across the country on a few hours' notice.

Football, he learned, is full of things a player cannot control. Rosters change. Coaches change. Bodies break. The one thing Vince could control was his relationship with the Lord, and he found that he was never closer to God than in the moments he needed Him most. The trials did not weaken his faith. They pressed him into it.

He also came to understand that football was never his identity. As a member of the Church, he knew he was more than a linebacker long before the game ended. That knowledge became a kind of anchor, steadying him through the injuries and uncertainty that pull so many athletes off course when their playing days are over. Today, through his work with Pro Athlete Community, Vince helps other players navigate that very transition.

When His Faith Became His Own

For all the faith he inherited, Vince points to one ordinary day as the moment it became truly his. As a sophomore in high school, he made a choice he regretted, and he woke up the next morning feeling the weight of it in body and spirit. In that low place, he decided who he wanted to be. He committed to leave that behind for good, and he never went back.

More than the decision itself, it was the ownership that mattered. He realized that a relationship with the Lord could not be built on other people's expectations. It had to be his own. Repentance, he discovered, is not the end of a story but the beginning of a real one, and the forgiveness that follows is unmistakably the work of a loving Savior.

That conviction is what he returns to when Nathan asks why he believes. Through the highs of draft night and the lows of the surgery table, through career changes and personal challenges, Vince says he has felt the Savior with him every step of the way. He knows, without a doubt, that Jesus Christ is real, and he knows he could never have walked this road alone.

Key Takeaways

Vince Biegel's story offers a few reminders worth carrying. When we put the Lord first, He places us exactly where we need to be, even when the path makes no earthly sense. Living our faith openly, without shame, plants seeds that can take root in the people around us. Genuine repentance can turn our hardest fall into the moment our faith finally becomes our own. The Savior draws closest in our lowest moments, when we at last choose to lean on Him. And a patient, steady example of belief can help those we love find their own testimony of Christ.

Thank you for reading this week's blog post inspired by the Why We Believe show. If you are interested in more stories like this, you can check out our other blog posts and episodes at WhyWeBelieve.com, or listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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