Former NFL MVP Shaun Alexander is opening up about the remarkable God story behind his marriage-and how faith became his family's anchor through unimaginable heartbreak.
In a moving appearance on CBN's Heaven Meets Earth podcast, the former Seattle Seahawks superstar and his wife, Valerie, shared intimate details of their love story, their radical encounters with Christ, and the devastating loss of one of their children that ultimately deepened their trust in God.
Long before he became one of football's biggest stars, Alexander says a family member made a stunning prediction.
While preparing for the NFL Draft, Shaun recalled that a spiritually minded relative told him he was about to meet his future wife in the very city where he would play professional football.
At the time, he brushed it off.
"I was just trying to play football," Alexander laughed.
But after being drafted by the Seattle Seahawks instead of the New York Giants, everything unfolded just as he had been told. A teammate introduced him to a young woman named Valerie-and the rest is history.
For Valerie, however, God had already been preparing her heart.
Just six months before meeting Shaun, she experienced what she described as a radical salvation after battling depression and feeling hopeless as a college basketball player.
Crying out to God in desperation, she says everything changed.
"It was as though God stepped in that room," Valerie recalled, explaining that she began hearing God's direction for her life and walking away from the things that had held her back.
Today, the couple have built a remarkable family together, raising 14 children while navigating seasons of extraordinary joy and profound grief.
Although the interview touched on the heartbreaking loss of one of their children, the Alexanders said God's faithfulness has sustained them through every chapter of their lives.
Alexander also reflected on one of the defining lessons from his Hall of Fame-caliber NFL career.
Asked years ago whether it was difficult to be a Christian in professional football, the former MVP offered an answer that has stayed with interviewers ever since.
"It's easy to be a Christian in the NFL if you go all out," he said. "If you don't go all out for Christ, it's very difficult."
For the Alexanders, that wholehearted commitment has shaped not only their marriage and parenting but also the way they've endured life's greatest victories-and its deepest sorrows.
