Buffs players will have to work a little harder to communicate with the Lord this football season.

For the first time in years, the University of Colorado football team does not have a chaplain — at least not officially.

When former Buffs player Mike Spivey left as the team's chaplain at the end of last season, coach Dan Hawkins didn't seek a replacement for him.

It's not that Hawkins — a Catholic — isn't spiritually minded, but the second-year CU coach said he simply didn't see a need for a full-time chaplain this season."I think it's very important, but I also think there are different avenues for that, different places for that and different times for that," Hawkins said. "We want to make it available to those who want it, but don't want to make anyone do anything they don't want to do."

Instead, the coach is allowing Chip Simmons, a chaplain with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, to have a limited presence with the team.

But don't call Simmons the Buffs' chaplain, Hawkins said.

He won't travel with the Buffs like Spivey did and he won't hold prayer groups or worship activities in the locker room, the coach said.

Hawkins also emphasized that Simmons, a chaplain with the Colorado School of Mines and Colorado Crush football teams, is not paid by the university.

A spokeswoman for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which provides chaplains to athletic teams at private and public universities and colleges throughout the country, confirmed that Simmons' salary comes from the organization.

Simmons referred all questions to Hawkins.

"He's just around — more than anything else, he's a football fan kind of guy," Hawkins said.

However, Simmons will still hold services for the players at Broomfield's Omni Interlocken Hotel, where the team spends the night before home games. Hawkins said the services are strictly "voluntary" for those players who want to attend.

"I feel like there is no problem with that," junior wide receiver Patrick Williams said. "I'm a really spiritual person. I always connect what I do on the field with my faith. You see me pray every day when I get off the field."

Church and state

Yet Simmons' unofficial status with the team is still too much for William Corn, a retired public accountant and longtime Boulder resident, who said there should be no official ties whatsoever to religion on a public university football team.

He faxed two letters to Hawkins this summer asking that the Buffs do away with its chaplain program, claiming it violates the Constitution's separation of church and state.

Corn said simply changing the job title and removing a few responsibilities from the post doesn't alter the fact that the team is choosing to retain a connection to a Christian religious figure.

"These guys who want to bring religion in, it's a scandal," Corn said. "You cannot have religion in a public institution. Whose religion should you have?"

The issue over team chaplains at public universities came to a head this past spring in Ames, Iowa.

More than 130 members of the faculty and staff at Iowa State University signed a petition against appointing a chaplain to the school's football team — even if he or she was paid with private funds.

Last month, ISU's administration conceded somewhat on the issue by naming a Texas pastor as the football team's non-denominational "life-skills assistant."

Judd Golden, chairman of the Boulder County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said public universities have to be careful when drawing religious leaders into school programs.

"The idea that football has some transcendental need for spiritual guidance that is different than what other students at the university need is constitutionally flawed," Golden said. "Football should be treated no differently than an English class."

He said giving a Christian spiritual figure special access to the players runs the risk of excluding nonbelievers or players of other faiths.

"When you're trying to recruit Jewish athletes, Muslim athletes, atheist athletes, do they feel that this is their place?" Golden asked. "This is a state school, this is not Brigham Young University."

Ongoing issue

CU has faced criticism in the past when former men's basketball coach Ricardo Patton and former football coach Bill McCartney were accused of promoting Christianity among players.

Ariel Solomon, a former CU offensive tackle who went on to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings, said he remembers open displays of Christian worship among his teammates in the late 1980s under McCartney's leadership.

"I didn't know what football had to do with religion," said Solomon, who is Jewish. "If it was up to me, people would go outside of the football program to get those sorts of services."

However, Solomon said neither players nor coaches forced their religion upon him and he still felt very much a part of the team.

Hawkins said that's all he's trying to do — provide an environment for his players where they can still get religious inspiration without excluding anybody that doesn't need or want such inspiration.

"It's more about implementing a program which I was comfortable with," said Hawkins, whose football team at Boise State, where he coached for five years before coming to CU last year, was without a chaplain.

The coach said he is completely open to giving an imam, rabbi or Buddhist monk the same kind of access to the team that Simmons has if his players asked for it.

Camera Sports Writer Kyle Ringo contributed to this report.

Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at 303-473-1389 or aguilarj@dailycamera.com.