His son, Clyde, will coach the Indianapolis Colts wide receivers as they take on the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
“For as long as I can remember, Clyde has been sports-oriented,” says Dick, 82, and who is a 1948 graduate of North Park University and 1952 graduate of North Park Theological Seminary. “If we lined up a lot of toys for him to play with, he would always go for a ball.”
After a successful college football career as a player, Clyde coached at the college level for 16 years. He made the leap to the National Football League (NFL) when a friend he knew through his longtime involvement with Fellowship of Christian Athletes – Head Coach Tony Dungy – offered him an assistant coaching position with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Six years later, when Dungy was hired by the Indianapolis Colts, he asked Clyde to come along as the wide receivers coach.
Dungy and Clyde not only have guided successful football teams, but since the late 1990s they have worked together to build strong families. Both have been leaders in All Pro Dad, a program of Family First, a nonprofit research and communications organization dedicated to strengthening the family. Clyde is married and has three daughters.
“Working as a coach in the NFL has been incredibly exciting, challenging and demanding, but it doesn’t compare to the responsibility, effort, and fulfillment of trying to be a top-flight dad,” Clyde shares on the website.
Clyde learned to be that kind of father from Dick, who “was always there when I needed him.” In the area of athletics, he not only came to all of Clyde’s sporting events, but to all of his practices too. Even now, Dick calls Clyde every couple of weeks to express his love and affirmation.
Dick and June Christensen adopted Clyde shortly after he was born in 1958. “All of the good things I learned came from them,” he says.
Dick enrolled in North Park College, then a two-year junior college, in 1946. After an internship at First Covenant Church in Seattle, Washington, he graduated from the University of California-Berkeley and then returned to North Park to attend seminary in 1950.
He went on to pastor Evangelical Covenant churches across the country, including a congregation in San Pedro, California, which is today’s Rolling Hills Covenant Church.
This year will not be the first that Dick has rooted for someone close to him to win the Super Bowl. The Christensens have been family friends with Kathy and Mike Holmgren. The Christensen cabin was “just across the creek” from the cottage once owned by Mike’s parents at Mission Springs Christian Camp and Conference Center in Scotts Valley, California.
