CLEVELAND — Nobles Darby IV’s job is to encourage athletes to find inspiration, hope, and faith. But this journey began with his own athletic story at Maple Heights High School, playing basketball, baseball and football.
“I always found myself in the locker room being the guy that my teammates and coaches always be like, ‘Hey, Dar, give us a prayer before we run out on the field. Give us a prayer before we run out on the court.’ And I was just trying to be one of the guys,” he recalled. “I was trying to love God how I was, but still fit in. But it showed me early that there was purpose and connectivity of faith to sports.”
And this connectivity is something that Nobles believes doesn't get highlighted enough.
“A lot of athletes are looking for their identity and sometimes your identity as athletes you think is connected to who you are and what you do on the field to play. But I really think the true value is athletes have to find out who they are outside of their accomplishments. The Bible tells us we were fearfully and wonderfully made then his image. And so I believe that faith in sports correlates directly.”
Nobles currently serves as co-Chaplain for both the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers, and he is also the Metro Cleveland Director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA).
As part of his work with FCA, in 2022, he launched Full Court Faith, a program that allows young people to hear from their favorite athletes. And just recently the program has expanded.
“Last summer, we were able to evolve and expand the efforts of Full Court Faith into an inner city youth basketball league where we're serving right here in the city of Cleveland, third through sixth grade, boys and girls through championship caliber basketball, while also promoting Christ-centered values. So it's been a blessing just being able to one, give back to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio and really to just be a source of inspiration, a source of hope.”
And Nobles believes he's already seeing the work pay off.
“Being from Cleveland, you hear all the negativity around our city. There's been a dark cloud over Cleveland for the longest we've been the butt of everybody's jokes. But I love, there's a scripture that talks about can anything good come out of Nazareth? Well, we like to believe that there's good things and great things that are coming out of Cleveland, and I'm just blessed to be able to play a part of that story.”