Should Christian Athletes Ever Quit? A Biblical Look at Perseverance in Sports
A week before the 2026 Winter Olympics, Lindsey Vonn, a downhill skier for the United States, revealed that she tore her ACL on a training run. She competed in the Olympics anyway, attempting to win a gold medal at 41 years-old. Unfortunately, 13 seconds into her downhill run, she crashed and was airlifted to a nearby hospital. After multiple surgeries (and more to come), Vonn stood by her decision, saying “That’s the gamble of chasing your dreams.”
Despite the crash, Vonn embodied the idea that “Winners never quit.”
If you grew up in sports in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, you probably heard that phrase so often it felt like Scripture. Vince Lombardi preached that winning was a habit. Rocky Balboa ran before dawn and willingly absorbed punch after punch. Coaches told us to do one more rep, one more sprint, one more drill. Our cultural heroes were grinders.
Quitting wasn’t just discouraged—it was moral failure.
And yet, if we’re honest, that mentality sometimes led us to unhealthy places. We played hurt. We tied our identity to performance. We believed exhaustion was proof of virtue.
Today, the pendulum has swung.
Should Athletes Quit Sports?
Now, perseverance can feel almost…optional. If you don’t like your coach you can just switch teams. If you’re not getting enough playing time, there’s another club across town. If you have a problem with teammates or the practices are too intense, you can stay home. The cultural wind has shifted from “grind harder” to “protect comfort.”
So which is it? Do we encourage and celebrate a “grind at all cost” attitude? Or are we OK with keeping the door cracked open to avoid discomfort whenever possible?
The answer (surprise, surprise) is more complicated—and more biblical.
What the Bible Says About Perseverance in Hard Times
As Christians, we love to put God’s promises in picture frames and hang them around our houses. Christian bookstores make a killing every year putting a promise on an artistic backdrop. And there are some great ones worth hanging up:
He promises to strengthen us (Ephesians 3:14–16).
He promises to provide for our needs (Philippians 4:19).
He promises to forgive our sins (1 John 1:9).
He promises eternal life (John 3:16).
But there’s another promise we rarely hang above the fireplace:
“In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33)
Jesus promises hardship. It’s not “You might have.” It’s “You will have.” And that’s not because God is indifferent to our comfort. It’s because comfort is not His highest goal for us.
Romans 5:3–5 gives us the progression of how God makes this work: Suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance produces character. Character produces hope.
Perseverance is forged in difficulty. It’s a co-dependent relationship in the best sense of the term. Without hardship, perseverance doesn’t develop. What does this mean for those of us involved in sports? It means a growing recognition that God’s ultimate aim is not championships, scholarships, or trophies. It’s Christlikeness. And Christlikeness is shaped through enduring trust. Let’s do a quick thirty second timeout and make one clarification. Don’t read that “God’s ultimate aim is not championships…” and think that we are saying God never uses those for our sanctification or that He can’t be glorified through success. We are not saying that. What we are saying is that more often than not, in His Word, we see God uses hardship to draw His people closer.
Even Jesus was “made perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10). And if suffering was part of His formation, why would we assume it won’t be part of ours?
The Dark Side of “Never Quit”
Perseverance is a virtue. But like every virtue, it has a shadow side often referred to as a vice. And the shadow side of perseverance is a two-sided vice marked by pertinacity and effeminacy.
Pertinacity is also known as access or bullheadedness. It’s staying locked into a goal regardless of the circumstances. It’s the undertrained (or under talented) runner who insists on sprinting out with the leaders. It’s the defensive tackle who blasts through the line as the opposing quarterback takes a knee to end the game. It’s the coach who leaves the starters in when the game is out of hand just to run up the score. Pertinacity is refusing to stop, even when wisdom calls for it.
Effeminacy is equated with being weak-minded or soft. This is a failure to persevere because bowing out is the easier option when the heat gets turned up. It’s choosing to quit, when “the going gets tough.” Effeminacy is quitting whenever something becomes too difficult.
Youth sports parents, coaches, and many of the “old head” athletes were formed within the context of the first extreme. We equated toughness with holiness. We believed that pushing through pain—physical or emotional—was always the right move.
But not knowing when to stop can be just as unhealthy as quitting too soon.
Perseverance is not stubbornness. It’s not self-destruction. And it’s certainly not blind loyalty to a toxic environment. In fact, biblical perseverance is something far deeper.
The Youth Sports Problem
Here’s where youth sports complicates things.
Research shows that 70% of kids quit organized sports by age 13. Many leave because it’s no longer fun. The pressure to specialize early, perform constantly, and treat every weekend like a college showcase drains the joy out of what used to be play.
That’s one extreme: burnout.
The other extreme is escape. When a child feels discomfort—limited playing time, conflict with teammates, hard practices—the system offers an easy exit. Another club. Another team. Another league. And honestly, both of these extremes are represented not just at the youth, but all throughout the college and professional level as well.
The structure of sports often undermines perseverance in two ways:
It crushes athletes with pressure until they quit altogether.
It gives them so many options that they never have to work through difficulty.
In both cases, perseverance loses.
The Christian’s Goal: Forming Christlike Competitors
Our goal as Christians isn’t simply to keep playing sports. It’s to use sports as a training ground for life. Sports offer something rare: controlled adversity. A missed shot doesn’t end a career (You do believe that, right?). A tough coach doesn’t ruin a future. A losing season doesn’t define a life.
But those moments feel real. That’s the beauty and transformative power of sports. They sting. They make us vulnerable. They expose insecurity and pride and fear. And that’s precisely why they’re powerful.
The question isn’t: “How do we make sure athletes never struggle?”
The question is: “How do we help athletes struggle well?”
Perseverance as a Christian virtue lives wisely in the middle. It refuses to quit every time something gets hard, while at the same time refusing to idolize grinding.
It leads us to ask better questions:
Is this hardship forming character?
Is this environment healthy but challenging?
Is this discomfort temporary growth or long-term harm?
What might God be doing through this?
What is my role, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, to build perseverance, even at the cost of comfort?
Yes, sometimes perseverance means staying and other times it means leaving wisely. What we don’t want is reflexive quitting or reflexive grinding. We want to be Spirit-led and Spirit-shaped—not sport-shaped.
Becoming More Like Jesus
The world tells athletes that winning is everything. The gospel tells us—and them—that becoming like Jesus is everything. The same Jesus that endured betrayal, rejection, injustice, suffering. The same Jesus who had friends turn their back on Him. And in all of it, He trusted His Father.
When athletes learn to persevere—not to prove themselves, not to earn love, but because they trust God—that’s formation. That’s discipleship.
And that matters far more than whether they ever stand on a podium.
ps. If this topic peaked your interest we take a much deeper dive into the issue in a new eBook titled The Virtue Between Quitting and Hardening Your Heart: What is Biblical Perseverance for Athletes, Coaches, and Parents? You can access it below.
