Just when J.R. House thought things couldn't possibly get any worse. . . . they did. "Not only wasn't I sure I'd ever see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I was worried if I'd ever even see the tunnel," House said. "You find yourself face down on the floor. You're as low as you can get. For the first time in my life, people were feeling sorry for me."That was in early February after House had just undergone major shoulder surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and labrum and was faced with a 6-8 month rehabilitation. But the Pirates had something longer in mind. On March 8, 2005, House was given his unconditional release. 

"It's crazy going from the fast track to the big leagues to a complete stop," House said. "People can pass you by while you are on the disabled list. That's the nature of the game. I left everything I had on the field. There wasn't anything else I could do." 
So House had to make the short trip from the Pirates' spring training facility in Bradenton to his home in Daytona, but it felt like the longest ride of his life. "After a serious surgery you have time to think, maybe too much time. That's when I got it in my head: What are people going to write about me? Will they write me off?" House said. "You get used to how people look at you, treat you, talk about you and all of the sudden it's gone. You wonder what are you going to do with the rest of your life because you're probably not going to play in the major leagues. I had to grow up fast. When you're a kid you don't look ahead. You just think all your dreams will come true." With his dreams of playing again in the major leagues put on hold, House decided to pursue another dream -- to play quarterback for the University of West Virginia. 

House,a national record-setting quarterback at Nitro High School in West Virginia, turned down many football scholarship offers -- including the Mountaineers -- to sign with the Pirates after he was drafted in the fifth round of the 1999 draft. That's when House was still only 18. He is now 25. "I've heard all the radio talk shows when people are telling me I should stick with baseball and that I'm too old to start playing football again," House said. "But my grandma gave me some good advice. She told me not to worry about all that stuff. That she went back to school when she was 44; graduated when she was 48, and taught school for 13 yeas. So it's never too late. The rest of my family isn't so sure because they're afraid I might get hurt and end any chance of playing baseball again. But I went into baseball because I thought I'd have a longer career with less chance of getting injured and look what happened. "Football has always been in my blood and I just need to know if there is a future there. Maybe my arm won't be ready to play this season, and then I might try baseball again and play in the winter leagues and hopefully impress somebody. But if my arm is ready, I'd really love to play football. I'm just not really sure what is going to happen, I've just put myself in God's hand and see where the journey takes me." 

Ironically, House was released after coming off perhaps his best season. He hit .288 in 92 games with Tripla-A Nashville with 15 homers and 49 RBI. He hit .395 over the last month of the season before making his third trip up to Pittsburgh. Along the way, he became the first player in Nashville history to hit three grand slams in one season, and on May 21 became only the second Nashville player to ever hit for the cycle. He says that was even better than his 2000 season in Hickory when he fell just eight RBI short of being the first to ever win the South Atlantic League Triple Crown, and that despite missing a month with mononucleosis. His .348 batting average was fifth best among all minor leaguers. That was enough to earn House the rating as the Pirates' top prospect and number 21 in the entire minor leagues. "No matter how much you don't like to admit it, you get caught up in all the hype and think you're all high and mighty," House said. "You think you are going to be in the bigs before you're 20 years old. I had built myself up so high with my ego and pride. Then reality hits. People can't wait to knock you down. I learned that you can't get so high that you are going to fall down hard and you can't get so low that you can never get back up." House had to learn that the hard way. He had his share of ups and downs. All in a matter of months. 

In 2001, House jumped from low Class-A to Double-AA Altoona, leading them in RBI and second in homers despite two stints on the disabled list with strained left rib cage muscles. He was an Eastern League All-Star and even played in the MLB's Futures game in Seattle. Only to miss most of the 2002 season wtih a serious abdominal injury that required two surgeries. He suffered the injury while lifting weights in December of 2001, but six cortisone shots, four MRIs and even exploratory surgery in May couldn't cure the problem. When all other options failed, it took a second surgery to finally discover a golf-ball sized hernia buried under scar tissue at the wall of his stomach. Doctors had to line his stomach with a mesh lining so it wouldn't happen again. 
House did his rehabilitation back home in Daytona, but it was more like spring break in Daytona. "I got preoccupied with what I thought was the lifestyle of a major league baseball player. I wanted to be the big shot. I'd throw the big party or rent the limo," House explained. "I was turning to the wrong things. I got caught up in the party scene; everything was about drinking and girls. I put everything ahead of baseball. "It was all about me first. I didn't give much thought to anything or anybody else. I had a false sense of security because when I was home everybody was always building me up; telling me how good I was. I found out they didn't really care about me. They just wanted that scene that I provided them. They were just my party friends. 
"I guess I didn't handle things very well. I needed help and guidance but I didn't know where to get it. I just knew I wasn't where I needed to be. I was a mess. It was the worse time in my life." And things were only going to get worse. 

House had injured his elbow during the 2001 Arizona Fall League, but figured since he'd sat out most of the 2002 season that his elbow should be rested and the injury should go away. He figured wrong. "My elbow was killing me, and when I threw out a runner at second base it felt like like my elbow went with it," House said. House went to Birmingham to see noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews, perhaps the preeminent specialist on the "Tommy John" procedure or a total reconstruction of his right elbow. After the surgery it was back to Daytona, but this time it wasn't only his elbow that he rehabbed. 

One night, a few of his friends asked House to go with them and listen to a guy who was speaking at their church, but he refused -- again. "It wasn't the cool thing to do," House said. "I had never really gotten into religion so I didn't understand it. I thought it was something that people who can't relate to the real world would run to." But House had his interest peaked when he found out that night's speaker was former Buffalo Bills quarterback Frank Reich. House thought Reich "was finally somebody I could relate to." So House went to the talk that night and things have never been the same since. "God got hold of me that night and hasn't let me go. Instead of running away from my problems again, I ran to God," House explained. "Whereas I might have said the injuries were the worse thing that could have happened to me, now I say that in a sense it was the best thing. I might never have allowed Him into my life if this hadn't happened because I was so hard-headed and this took a huge breakdown of my ego. 
"Instead of thinking I had the world in the palm of my hand, I had to put my life in God's hands. Every bone in my body wanted to be in control of my life, but I had to admit to myself that I wasn't in control of everything. God gave me back my arm and a new frame of mind. 

"Before, the game was about me and what I could get out of it. I didn't love playing the game. I took success for granted, but I won't make that mistake again. Now I love playing. It's not all about me anymore. It's all about serving God." After recovering from the surgery, House took a quick tour of the Pirates' minor league system. The first stop was Bradenton, Fla. in the Rookie League; then to Altoona for the final three weeks of the season and the Eastern League playoffs, where he hit .333, and finally to Nashville in time for the Pacific Coast League playoffs. House was back in Bradenton getting ready for the Arizona Fall League, when on Sept. 22 he got an unexpected call-up to Pittsburgh. During a series against the New York Mets, House never got past the on-deck circle, but he still had to take part in the annual rookie initiation. All the rookies had to wear costumes and walk through the crowded streets of downtown Chicago for the five blocks from the hotel to Wrigley Field. "Some were dressed as cheerleaders or bunny rabbits. One guy was even a banana," House recalled. "I got lucky because I was a pirate so people probably thought I was the mascot." 

Finally, on Sept. 27, House got his first major league at-bat, pinch-hitting against Cubs pitcher Matt Clement. "It felt like before I even stepped into the box, I was down 0-and-2. He threw me sliders that looked like 100 mph," House recalled. "I took a deep breath and got back in the box. Fortunately he threw another slider and I was able to hit it up the middle. "So now I'm standing on first and thinking, 'Now what?' I've been there a million times but this time I just froze like I didn't know what to do." After being forced out at second base, House walked down to the bullpen and some of the Cubs fans stood and applauded. From the Pirates, House went to the AFL where he finished 10th with a .338 average, fourth with 17 extra-base hits and 10 doubles, and led all hitters with a .730 slugging percentage. Then it was straight to the Dominican Republic for winter league play, getting back just in time for spring training. "There was no off-season, but that was fine with me. I already had enough time off to last a lifetime," House said. Yet, last spring for the first time House was hearing people seemingly question his work ethic. Pirates catching instructor John Russell told a Pittsburgh paper: "He has a different attitude, a different work ethic. When he was called up last year I think he realized it was time to go to work." Yet House wasn't upset upon hearing that -- which he might have done in years past. "You can't really dwell on the bad things. If I was mad about everything that was written bad about me, I'd be mad the rest of my life," House said.Instead, he said he understood the criticism. Afterall, that was the first major league spring training that House went into healthy. "Their first and maybe only impression of me was like I was earning a paycheck by eating the spread, sitting in front of my locker and just taking up space. It's not a good feeling," he admitted. "Other players resent you because while they are working out, I'm sitting in a nice air-conditioned training room appearing to be very lazy. So you get that label of someone who gets hurt a lot and doesn't care if he's playing or not. "So I went to the field early and got all my treatments done before everybody else got there. Then I kept my mouth shut and got out of their way, hoping they didn't notice me. I just wanted to get away from it all and leave reality behind, but I didn't have anywhere to run." 

House was sent to Triple-A Nashville for the 2004 season. Not only was he the Sounds' starting catcher, but House was also very active off the field. That season, the Sounds became the first team to host Faith Night promotions. They included a pregame concert by a Christian band and fireworks after the game. Over the seven Faith Nights, which were some of the largest crowds of the season, fans were given bobblehead doll version of Biblical figures, Moses, Samson and Noah. Another night, the first 4,000 fans were given copies of "The Bible for Sportsmen." House always participated in the pregame activities, giving testimonials during the concert of how he became a born-again Christian. "People may be a little surprised about how outspoken I am because unfortunately not many are. I feel compelled to share my faith but I won't shove it down anybody's throat," House explained. "Some people look down on me because I talk publicly, but I have a platform that gives me an opportunity that most people don't have." Stories of Nashville's Faith Nights appeared all over the country, even in USA Today and on ESPN. 
House was recalled by Pittsburgh in mid-July and it just so happened that the day before he was to make his first major league start, ESPN aired it's show "Outside the Lines" which focused on Nashville's Faith Nights and House was prominently shown throughout the program. 

The next day, as he entered Turner Field in Atlanta, the security guards stopped him to say they'd seen him on ESPN and how happy they were that he wasn't afraid to talk about his faith. It seemed that wherever he went that day, people wanted to talk to him. They all had words of encouragement. A person with ESPN told House that more than 400,000 people were watching when the show first aired, and at least one million people have watched it since. "I've seen both sides of what happens when you don't hide being a born-again Christian. You have to be willing to stand up for God and make a difference. You must walk the walk and not just talk the talk. It makes some people feel uncomfortable and some of my teammates hesitate to be around me," House said. "And because I don't drink anymore and I don't go to the strip clubs some of my teammates might think I act like I'm better than them but I'm not. I'm under a microscope because some might want to see me fail. "It might scare some players away, but some trust me more now. I've always had people around me, but I felt very lonely. I'm not lonely anymore. I wouldn't be where I am without giving my life to Jesus Christ. I've learned how priceless success can be. I think I can handle success better, but more importantly, I now can handle failure better. "Sure I've been through some injuries and setbacks, but I haven't struggled nearly as much as people were are facing real life problems like cancer or heart problems. What I've been through is nothing even close to that. The way God has blessed me, I'd be crazy not to be happy. It's been a great ride so far and I look forward to waking up every day and living for Him." 

Story provided coutesy of : Joe Domagalski 

J.R. House is an active Board Member of Athletes In Christ, Inc. and currnently enrolled in classes at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV.