October 27, 2025
‘I’m a football coach disguised as a pastor,’ Gray said. ‘My staff are the coaches, and you are the team, and we are equipping you to play.’
Former NFL player Derwin Gray, who once ran on the football field, now runs the scriptures to his congregation as the lead pastor at Transformation Church.
According to Queen City News, the former defensive player left his athletic dreams on the gridiron to preach to the masses after losing his love for football. While playing for the Carolina Panthers in 1998, Gray says a voice spoke to him during a game, and he heard the message and decided to change, not his defensive patterns on the field, but the path that led him to the ministry.
“We were playing the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo, and their running back broke through the line,” Gray said. “I just came up and smashed him. But at the bottom of that pile, I heard a voice say, ‘What are you still doing out here?’”
That voice was the catalyst for the transformation he needed to change careers.
He suffered a knee injury that year, and instead of rehabbing it to get back on the field, he used the time to read the bible.
“The desire to play was leaving. So during injured reserve, I was in the cold tub and all I did was read the bible,” he recalls.
Now, instead of waking up to prepare for football games on Sundays, he is getting up to preach the word to his church members in South Carolina. The Transformation Church has two locations, Indian Land and Lake Wylie. The congregation has more than 12,000 parishioners.
“I’m a football coach disguised as a pastor,” Gray said. “My staff are the coaches, and you are the team, and we are equipping you to play.”
According to the Transformation Church website, Gray and his wife, Vicki, the church’s co-founder, met at Brigham Young University (BYU), where both were athletes; he played football, and she threw the javelin on the track team.
Gray played in the NFL for two teams during his five-year career: the Indianapolis Colts (1993–1997) and the Carolina Panthers (1998).
The football mindset is still in his blood, even if he isn’t on the field making plays.
“Coaches are teachers. Pastors are teachers. Inspiration will only last for a moment. Transformation will last for a lifetime.”
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