UNMASKING
THE MASKED SAINT by Chris Whaley
I grew up in a Christian home, but it would be
years before I shared my parents’ faith. I was a
young man with things to do in this world.
I was a sickly child. I suffered for many years
with chronic pneumonia as well as polio and
viral encephalitis. In junior high, I didn’t even
weigh 100 pounds! As you can imagine, this
resulted in a lot of bullying.
Thankfully, I had an incredible doctor who
pushed me to never give up. Dr. Raymond LaRue
made me go to the gym and work out so I would
get strong. He also had the wisdom to send me
to a specialty clinic, where we discovered I was
highly allergic to just about everything. I started
taking allergy shots, put on weight, and grew in
strength and confidence.
I met my wife, Verna, when I was 16. She and
her sister sang in church, and I would sit in the
pew and listen to their perfect harmony. It was
love at first sight. I wrote her several letters before
I worked up the nerve to ask her out. Because
she had met me at church, she assumed that I
was a Christian and agreed to go out with me.
Boy, did I have her fooled.
We dated for a while, but then I did something
that really broke her heart, and she moved away
to attend college at Palm Beach Atlantic in West
Palm Beach. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever talk to me
again. Over the next year, I continually begged
Verna for a second chance. I even enrolled at
Palm Beach Atlantic, so I could be near her. I was
relentless in my pursuit, and in September 1973,
we got back together.
It was during my first semester at Palm Beach
Atlantic that I finally came to the faith of my
parents and girlfriend. I was attending church
with Verna when I heard a message preached by
Dr. Jess Moody. Suddenly, a spiritual light bulb
came on, and I finally understood the gospel.
Before this day, every preacher I had ever
heard had yelled and screamed and slung sweat
three rows back to get their message across.
But not Dr. Moody. He simply told stories, just
like Jesus, and through the stories he told and
the Word of God he lovingly preached, I finally
understood the goodness of God. I gave my life
to Jesus and accepted God’s free gift of salvation.
And not long after that, Verna accepted my
proposal for marriage. We were married May 2,
1975.
We graduated a year later and moved to
Central Florida to fulfill God’s call on our lives.
Verna felt called to be a math teacher; I felt
called to be a pastor.
Verna immediately found a teaching position
at her high school alma mater in Plant City;
I struggled to find a pastoral position. No church
wanted to hire a preacher in his early twenties
with no experience. Like most pastors,
I’d have to start out as a youth minister. I took
a
job driving a truck for Coca Cola and started
searching for a youth minister position.
THE ONLY THING
NECESSARY FOR THE
TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS
FOR GOOD MEN TO
DO NOTHING.
~EDMUND BURKE
Money was tight in those early days. One day,
as I was reading the Tampa Tribune newspaper,
I saw an ad that I was sure would solve our
financial troubles. It said, “Wanted! Professional
wrestlers.”
I ran to my wife. “Look at this!” Not sharing
my excitement, Verna just rolled her eyes and
continued grading papers.
Since I was a kid, I had loved watching
professional wrestling. It had helped pass all the
time I’d spent stuck in hospital beds. I had seen
all the moves and felt confident in my athletic
abilities. So why not try?
I drove to the wrestling gym in Tampa, where
I met The Great Malenko, a villain wrestler from
my childhood. He trained me along with the
other guys who had answered the ad.
I began competing as a professional wrestler
in 1978. A year later, I finally got a call from a
church looking for a full-time youth pastor. I
decided to stop wrestling to focus on youth
ministry. That is, until my wife shared the
greatest news I had ever heard. We were going
to have a baby!
Then it hit me. How could we survive with
a new addition to the family? We were barely
making ends meet with just the two of us.
The next day, I sat at my desk, pondering my
situation. And then I thought, I get a couple of
days off a week. I am still in good shape. Why
can’t I wrestle?
To avoid controversy at the church, I decided
to wrestle under a white hood and a new identity
called The Saint. Verna reluctantly agreed to
my new plan. All went smoothly for a while,
although it was hard to explain away my bumps
and bruises.
Serving as a youth minister was probably
the worst experience of my life. Youth ministry
Chris’s adventures as The Masked Saint have been shared in his book, The Masked Saint,
published by Morgan James Publishing. A movie was produced in 2016 under the same title
and can be found at amazon.com and on Netflix.
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24 kojministries.org Issue 1 2018
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