One positive outcome of our newly decentralized media is that all of society is now a long tail, with room for far more categories of beliefs and lifestyles, whether someone is Transgender or Libertarian or Atheist.

Case in point: Houston Texans star Arian Foster. Religion goes with football the way it does with war, perhaps because they’re two activities where you might want to pray you don’t get killed, but Foster, who’s played in the heart of the Bible Belt his entire college and pro career, doesn’t believe anyone is watching over him except for the replay assistant in the NFL booth. The former Muslim is now a devout atheist who offers a respectful Namaste bow after a TD but does not pray in a huddle. In an ESPN Magazine article, Tim Keown profiles the running back as he publicly discusses his lack of religion for the first time. An excerpt:

THE HOUSE IS a churn of activity. Arian’s mother, Bernadette, and sister, Christina, are cooking what they proudly call “authentic New Mexican food.” His older brother, Abdul, is splayed out on a room-sized sectional, watching basketball and fielding requests from the five little kids — three of them Arian’s — who are bouncing from the living room to the large playhouse, complete with slide, in the front room. I tell Abdul why I’m here and he says, “My brother — the anti-Tebow,” with a comic eye roll.

Arian Foster, 28, has spent his entire public football career — in college at Tennessee, in the NFL with the Texans — in the Bible Belt. Playing in the sport that most closely aligns itself with religion, in which God and country are both industry and packaging, in which the pregame flyover blends with the postgame prayer, Foster does not believe in God.

“Everybody always says the same thing: You have to have faith,” he says. “That’s my whole thing: Faith isn’t enough for me. For people who are struggling with that, they’re nervous about telling their families or afraid of the backlash … man, don’t be afraid to be you. I was, for years.”

He has tossed out sly hints in the past, just enough to give himself wink-and-a-nod deniability, but he recently decided to become a public face of the nonreligious.•