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How Jonathan Isaac Found the Courage to Stand After Battling Anxiety

Photo by Emanuel Ekström on Unsplash

How Jonathan Isaac Found the Courage to Stand After Battling Anxiety

By Movieguide® Contributor

Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac found himself thrust onto the national stage after he refused to kneel for the National Anthem in 2020, a decision that would’ve surprised his younger self.

On Sadie Robertson Huff’s “WHOA That’s Good” podcast, he revealed that he dealt with panic attacks throughout his high school and college basketball careers due to the expectations he felt.

“I’d be eating, and I would just freeze, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t eat, and my teammates would be like…’You okay?’ And it would kind of like break out of it, [and I’d] be like, ‘Yeah, I’m good,” he told Sadie and her husband Christian Huff.

But one day, he experienced such an extreme attack that he ended up passing out and in an ambulance. He finally spoke with a therapist and began to find ways to overcome the anxiety he felt, eventually becoming the No. 6 draft pick for the NBA.

Isaac’s struggle with anxiety makes his decision in 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement even more remarkable.

“You know, a lot of people never got the backstory, and that’s really part of why I think the book was so successful,” he told the Huffs. “People got to understand it. Like this isn’t just some guy that, you know — I’m strong in my faith, I know Christ, and I’m doing this self-righteous thing — it was like this is some scared kid who felt convicted in a way and tried his best to do it in a humble fashion.”

“Honestly, it’s so hard to put it into words how scary and how, you know, just trying that time was for me personally,” he added.

“I didn’t want to align myself with the Black Lives Matter movement and organization,” he told Fox News a few years later. “And I felt that a true answer to all the problems that we see, not just racism, was the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, I decided to stand up and share it.”

READ MORE: ‘WE ARE ALL IN NEED OF GRACE’: WHY JONATHAN ISAAC STOOD FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

Isaac’s decision drew ire from his teammates.

“So, after that day is over with — the media, everything. The next day is practice. We go to practice, we’re leaving practice, and on the bus back to the hotel, I get a text to my phone: ‘Hey, team only meeting when we get to the hotel,'” he recalled. “I’m getting off the bus, and one of my teammates is like, ‘Yo, this is a heads up for you. This is about you. Just letting you know.’ So, I’m like, ‘Oh Lord, what’s this going to be?’ So, I get in there, and it’s heated. We had a few guys on our team who were deep in the movement; they went to the protest.”

His teammates told him, “‘Look, we’re not kneeling next to you standing, like we will stay in the locker room,’ and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I wasn’t ready for it.”

Ultimately, Isaac got his point across to his teammates.

“I wasn’t protesting your protest,” he said. “I was just saying I have a different solution, and I respect you guys’ decisions to kneel, just please give me that same respect in return.

After the meeting, Isaac called his pastor in tears because he wasn’t sure if he had handled that situation the right way. His pastor reassured him, “You cannot stand for God and God not stand for you,” a reminder that gave him the strength to continue standing the rest of the season.

God certainly has stood by Isaac. The athlete signed a five-year contract extension with the Magic last fall.

“I’m so thankful that I’m still here,” he said of his contract extension. “I want to be a part of the Magic my entire career if I can.”

He also started a Christian apparel company called UNITUS.

“We believe Jesus offers our world a better way, and we boldly stand for our faith in Him. Our mission is to inspire and empower people to live in greater unity, freedom, strength, and purpose,” he explains on his website.

READ MORE: READING THE BIBLE CHANGES NBA STAR JONATHAN ISAAC’S LIFE. IT WILL CHANGE YOURS TOO. 


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