Pacers' Ryan Carr: From the bench to NBA-VP
Updated: Sep 10
Imagine not making your high school varsity basketball team. You stand just 5’7”, and you think your dream of succeeding in the game you love is unrealistic. This was Ryan Carr’s reality. However, what seemed hopeless was actually the beginning of a much larger story. It took him from writing a bold letter to coaching legend Bobby Knight to working side-by-side with Larry Bird. Eventually, he became the Senior Vice President of Player Personnel for the Indiana Pacers. Ryan’s journey proves that when God has a plan, no obstacle is too great.
The Impact of NBC Basketball Camps
Ryan was one of hundreds of incredible basketball and life success stories that emerged from NBC basketball camps, founded by Fred Crowell. Our guest on Episode #10 of Amazing Greats, Fred passed away from cancer in August 2021. If you haven't listened to it yet, you need to check it out.
In this episode of Amazing Greats, Ryan shares how God’s fingerprints have been evident throughout his journey. This is not just in the surprising career breaks, but also in the valleys he faced. He opens up about the moment he gave his life to Christ at age 30. Faith carried him through personal loss and depression. Now, he sees every success as an opportunity to glorify God. With honesty, humility, and wisdom from years inside the NBA, Ryan’s story is one of perseverance, grace, and the transforming power of faith.
Overcoming Setbacks
If you’ve ever faced setbacks, wondered about your purpose, or questioned if God could truly use your story, this conversation will inspire you to trust His game plan. Ryan's life exemplifies how challenges can lead to growth and understanding.
The Role of Faith
Faith played a crucial role in Ryan's journey. It provided him with strength during difficult times. When he faced rejection and disappointment, his belief in a higher purpose kept him moving forward. This aspect of his story resonates with many who seek meaning in their struggles.
Lessons from the NBA
Ryan's years in the NBA taught him valuable lessons about resilience and teamwork. He learned that success is not just about individual talent. It’s about collaboration and supporting one another. These lessons extend beyond the court and into everyday life.
A Message of Hope
Ryan's story is a beacon of hope. It shows that dreams can be realized, even when the odds seem stacked against you. His journey encourages others to pursue their passions relentlessly.
Conclusion
Ryan Carr's journey is a testament to the power of faith and perseverance. His experiences remind us that obstacles can be overcome. With determination and belief, anything is possible.
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RYAN CARR AT A GLANCE
Indiana Pacers Senior Vice President of Player Personnel • Former College Coach • Christian Testimony
Topics
Christian faith • NBA • Basketball • Indiana Pacers • Bobby Knight • Larry Bird • Fred Kroll • NBC Camps • Adversity • Conversion • Depression • Leadership • Faith and sports • Character
His Faith Journey
Non-Christian upbringing → Seeds of faith through family, friends and NBC Camps → Basketball dreams → Disappointment and searching → Life-changing encounter at age 30 → Faith in Christ → Grief and depression → Deeper dependence on Scripture → Living boldly for Christ in professional basketball
This Episode Explores
The 5'7" kid who didn't make varsity—and eventually reached the NBA
His unlikely path to Indiana and relationships with Bobby Knight and Larry Bird
The life-changing moment at a North Carolina basketball game
Fred Kroll's profound influence on his faith and life
Walking through the loss of both parents and depression
Living out Christian faith in the NBA
Questions Answered
What is Ryan Carr's Christian testimony?
How did he get into the NBA?
What happened at the North Carolina game?
Who was Fred Kroll to Ryan?
How did faith help him through depression and grief?
How does he live out his faith in professional basketball?
Podcast Transcript:
Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen
The 5'7" Underdog: Ryan Carr on Basketball, Bobby Knight, Larry Bird and Finding Christ
Guest: Ryan Carr — Indiana Pacers Vice President of Player Personnel
From the Heart to the Mic
Ric Hansen:Rick Hansen here on Amazing Greats with Indiana Pacers Vice President Ryan Carr.
From the heart to the mic, on the field, on the stage. Faith in their step as they turn the next page. Athletes, actors, musicians, authors, and more, sparking the flame. Lifting up Jesus, unashamed of His name. Life stories of struggle, redemption, and grace. Victories rising from a broken place. Legends of life with a purpose to show how God shows up when you let Him flow.
Amazing grace, shining bright. Living the faith in the spotlight. Hearts on fire, now let it go. Turn it up!
All right, welcome to the Amazing Greats podcast, where we share the powerful stories of athletes, authors, actors, musicians, and leaders whose lives have been transformed by the grace of God.
And today we have the pleasure of talking with a key decision-maker for the Indiana Pacers—the very red-hot Indiana Pacers.
Our guest has not only been there in recent years, but for more than two decades. Ryan Carr is currently Senior Vice President of Player Personnel, and he's worked alongside legends like Larry Bird and Bobby Knight.
An incredible story.
But beyond the scouting reports and the picks and the bright lights of the NBA, Ryan Carr has built his life on something far greater than all of that.
He is a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.
So that's where we're at today, and that's who we're going to talk to. I'm so excited, Ryan, that we have an opportunity to chat today.
Thank you for being here.
Ryan Carr:It's my pleasure, Rick. I'm honored to have this conversation with you.
What Does a VP of Player Personnel Actually Do?
Ric:Cool deal.
We were talking a little bit about your past and how you got started in the whole area of basketball. But tell us, first of all, for those in our audience who aren't into what these titles mean, what does a Senior Vice President of Player Personnel do?
What's your job?
Ryan:Yeah, essentially it's really to help put our team together—the guys that are on the court.
I would say my main responsibility to the team is the draft and making sure that we're prepared for the draft and working with our scouts to get ready for that.
That's my number-one responsibility.
I've also been fortunate to be trusted to jump into some of the higher-level decisions the last couple of years in terms of other things as well, and I'm grateful for that.
But essentially, just making sure we're ready for the draft would be the main thing.
Ric:So scouts—you have multiple scouts that work in for you in that whole area of player personnel, right?
How many scouts? What do they do? What's their job?
Ryan:Yeah, so we have about ten guys, and we have them really all over the world.
We have most of them around the country, but then we have two that are based in Europe.
They basically travel around and watch players and, I joke, half of their job is also to be like an FBI agent and find out everything about the players off the court.
They're writing reports, they're ranking players, and we're working together to find the best prospects to add to our team.
It's a hardworking group of guys. They're kind of nomads all winter as they travel around and fulfill their responsibilities.
I'm super grateful for those guys and how hard they work.
I started when I came back to scout. We divide up the country into different regions, and then in 2009 I got the chance to lead the group. I've been leading the group ever since.
I'm recently kind of handing off some of the day-to-day responsibilities so I can be a part of some higher-level stuff, which is really fun for me—to be a little bit more with our team than just, again, being out all the time seeing other players.
So this past year, being able to be around the team most of the time when we made that run to the Finals was just surreal and just a lot of fun.
What Makes a Pacer?
Ric:Yeah.
So to be an Indiana Pacers player, is there like a checkbox—things that you look for specifically to fit your style and your team?
Ryan:For sure.
We have a lot of discussions in terms of that, to make sure that the guys that we bring in, on the court and off the court, fit.
There are certainly certain skills on the court that fit with what Coach Carlisle and what our team does, but also off the court.
We've really dove deeply into that side of it and kind of hedged our bets on really good guys.
And it's worked out well, which aligns with me as a person and kind of what I believe.
So it's just a great fit.
I'm super fortunate.
I've been back here—I think this will be my 23rd season, my second stint here, but 23rd season overall.
That's really just unheard of in anything, but in particular professional sports.
So very grateful.
God has been kind to keep me in a place where I've been able to raise twins. They're in college now, their second year at Liberty.
I've got a 14-year-old, and maybe she'll even be able to grow up in one place where we're not moving around.
And in athletics, that's pretty rare.
So I'm super thankful for that. I do not take that for granted one day.
The Kid Who Didn't Make Varsity
Ric:Well, let's go back into the early life of Ryan Carr.
You were a Northwest guy, a Supersonics fan back in the day.
And you've also been described as a 5'7" scrappy basketball player who didn't get to play varsity his senior year.
You didn't make the team.
It's a very unlikely scenario for a guy who's doing what you do today.
Ryan:Oh, man. Yeah, I think about that.
I guess the benefit of being so many years down the road is you can look back and see how God uses all of that.
Nobody loved basketball more than me growing up.
If you could go back and talk to kids I grew up with, I'm pretty sure they would say that I knew from probably the time I was 11 or 12 years old I wanted to be a coach.
I'd spent every waking hour as a kid trying to be a good basketball player.
But yeah, you mentioned it—size, athleticism limitations.
I grew up in Sumner, Washington, and transferred to Rogers High School in the middle of my junior year, which is a little wild. It's not an opportune time to transfer schools.
But I did it as much for culture reasons from one school to the next as anything else.
I wanted to go to school with some close friends. One of them is still one of my best friends.
I was a point guard on that Rogers team. His dad was actually the coach.
So I knew why I wanted to go there.
But they had a really good team coming back.
They had eight seniors coming back my senior year.
I knew all of them. I had grown up going to camps with them and was friends with many of them.
So I knew it was going to be a tough task to make that team.
They ended up going to the state tournament, winning the West Central District. They were a really, really good team.
I was devastated.
After two or three days of tryouts, my name wasn't posted on the locker-room door.
But it kick-started this whole thing.
The coach there, Rod Iverson, knew I loved the game. He had known me since I was much younger, probably since middle school.
He allowed me the chance to be a student assistant coach.
And that was a great experience—being able to be around the coaches and learn from them, and him trusting me with doing some things that maybe he wouldn't have trusted other students to do.
And in that timeframe, I still wanted to pursue being a coach. I was trying to write letters to colleges and figure out where I could go to be a coach.
So it was a really good time.
There was some adversity there, but again, looking back, God had that all as part of the plan.
The Letter to Bobby Knight
Ric:Basketball was God's gift. Faith is his passion.
We're talking with Indiana Pacers Vice President Ryan Carr.
Then there was that fateful letter that you sent.
Out of nowhere, you sent letters to several places, but one was to Bobby Knight.
Tell us that story.
Ryan:Again, getting to that point, I was going to graduate from high school and I wanted to coach.
I actually had an opportunity that I had set up with the head coach of the University of Puget Sound to go there and be a student assistant with him.
But then this opportunity with Indiana came up.
One of my—I'll call him a teammate, but one of the players at Rogers High School—Jamie Haag, his grandfather owned Baden Basketballs.
And Baden Basketballs had Coach Knight under a commercial agreement to use the balls and do commercials for him and all this stuff.
When I wrote all these letters, I really...
As an 18-year-old, Coach Knight was not on my radar.
I loved North Carolina. I loved a bunch of other teams.
But my dad was a Marine, and he loved Indiana. My mom loved Indiana.
They're the ones that really pushed me to write a letter to Indiana.
Indiana wasn't on my original list of places to send them, but lo and behold, that is where it went.
And I have the letter hanging on the wall back here that he wrote.
It described the manager program they had at Indiana. If I went to school there, I could interview and all this stuff.
And Jamie's grandfather was really nice enough to go out of his way, without even knowing me, to talk to Coach Knight and kind of get it all arranged so it was set.
I didn't have to interview and do all that because back then, Rick, Indiana was the top of the world in college basketball.
When I showed up in the fall to go to school, there were well over 100 kids trying to be a manager for that team.
It was, you know, for like four spots.
If I would have just gone without Mr. Schindler's help, there's no chance that I would have had that opportunity.
So again, looking back, just an amazing thing.
A door opened up.
Seeds of Faith at NBC Camps
Ric:Yeah.
And what's interesting is that you didn't have a real Christian childhood.
So God wasn't in the picture in your mind at that point.
He definitely was in the picture, but you didn't know it until much later, right?
Ryan:Yeah, for sure.
It's funny. My parents both grew up in homes where they felt forced to go to church and forced religion and whatever.
Which makes sense, because anytime that my brothers and I would stay the night with our grandmothers, we would definitely be in church and be reading the Bible and stuff.
So that was an influence on me.
In the summertime, I would go to NBC Camps, which is big in the Northwest and around the whole country and world. They're basketball camps, and they're Christ-centered.
My best friend at Rogers, the coach's son, Kyle Iverson, was and is a strong Christian.
We would tool around and do different things, and he'd have TobyMac or DC Talk. We'd have all kinds of Christians.
I wasn't opposed to it, but I wasn't...
The Spirit hadn't taken hold of me.
I did not have a regenerated heart or anything like that.
I stayed out of trouble. I was moral. I was pretty black and white on right and wrong.
But definitely not until much later was I saved.
Fred Kroll: The Christian Version of Coach Knight
Ric:So let's freeze-frame there for just a second and go back to NBC Camps.
It's a basketball camp.
We had Fred Kroll, who was the founder and ran the camp for decades, on the program on Amazing Greats. It's one of our episodes.
If our audience hasn't listened to that, they definitely should.
And that's how I came to know you.
So let's talk about Fred Kroll as a role model and a mentor.
Even though he's himself said that he taught basketball, it was so much deeper than that.
He was a devout Christian and had Christian principles, but he didn't necessarily influence you in that way.
Tell us how he did—morally, character-wise.
Ryan:Yes.
He had a huge influence on me later as a middle-school kid and high-school kid going to his camps.
Obviously, you hear the gospel preached on Thursday night. The counselors were young Christian men and women who were in college and players or whatever.
There was definitely that message being sent.
But what kept me coming back was how good the basketball camp was.
I got better in five days.
And for me, even though I had my limitations physically, I could tell that I was getting better.
I just loved the encouragement and people believing in you.
So I went there growing up.
It had enough of an impact on me that, in the summers when I'd come home from IU, I would spend all summer working at those camps.
I would coach.
I would spend all summer traveling all over the place, coaching at those camps as a counselor.
Before my senior year in college, I had to do an internship. I did my internship with the camps.
And during those summers, when I was a camper, Fred was super intimidating.
He was intense.
He was the Christian version of Coach Knight, maybe.
But then when I came back to coaching the summers, we really started to develop a good relationship—a much closer relationship.
And that just grew all the way up until a few years ago.
It got deeper and deeper and deeper until the very end.
Whatever he said about himself, I guarantee was very humble because there were hundreds of people that he was like a first or second father to, an uncle, a grandpa, whatever.
He was a heck of a man.
We could probably do several of these episodes speaking about him.
“Ryan, I'm Your Dad Now”
Ric:In fact, we have planned several other guests that we're going to be talking to here as well.
But he was even there later in life.
And this is not that long ago.
Your father passed away, and that was a very emotional and grief-stricken time for you.
Fred was there for you then, too.
Am I right?
Ryan:Yeah, for sure.
Backing up a little bit, I think I was saved in 2004, which is the year I turned 30 years old.
I can't tell you that it was an exact moment, but I feel like that's what it was.
And so, really from that point, not too much later than that, he started getting treatment for some cancer that he had.
That's when we really started to deepen our relationship.
And that went on for quite some time.
Between September of 2017 and March of 2018, I lost both my parents within six months of each other.
And in March of 2018, that was the start of a tough period for me.
I just remember getting a call from Fred.
I was in the airport on the way home from Seattle back to Indiana after probably burying my father.
And he just said, “Ryan, I'm your dad now.”
And he was sick. He was not doing well.
For the next several years, I probably talked to him two or three times a week, at least.
I mean, the wisdom—we were raising kids. I had a son. His wisdom in helping me raise my kids, and just me myself getting through things.
I'm sure, if you spoke to him, he talked a ton about gratitude.
He helped me a lot with focusing on gratitude and just biblical truth.
The last time I spoke to him was in 2021.
After COVID, the draft was pushed a month back, and he called and left me a message to tell me that he really liked who we picked in the draft.
It was a player from Oregon.
I think he left that message on a Friday. I was wiped out, and so I think I called him back on the following Monday afternoon.
He was telling me he really wasn't supposed to be speaking on the phone, but things were getting pretty tough for him, and he was getting into hospice.
I was like, “What? You just left me this message.”
But it was just a testimony to even as sick as he was getting, he was just giving and giving and giving.
A month later, on August 11, 2021, I know the day.
I remember I was sitting in a hotel room in Las Vegas getting ready for Summer League when Jennifer, his daughter, called.
She kindly let me whisper some last thank-yous to him and pray for him before he passed away.
It was super sweet.
But that man, again, we could go on and on.
I would love to tell you that I was some special person, but he was doing that kind of stuff for so many people.
You couldn't even track them all down.
I'm sure he must have been on the phone all day, every day.
You'd go with him to pick up his dry cleaning, and he would become best friends with the lady handing him his clothes.
Everywhere you went, it was such a gift.
I'm a little bit more of an introvert than him, but one example of representing Christ everywhere you go and boldly proclaiming the gospel—and just not even thinking twice about it.
He was a gift to me in many ways, and in particular through that time, for sure.
Living the Gospel
Ric:A Cinderella story that has brought him to the top of the ranks in the NBA.
Ryan Carr from the Indiana Pacers on Amazing Greats.
The classic example from what I know—and you are obviously very close to him—is that he's the kind of guy who never avoids the opportunity to share the gospel.
But he lived the gospel every single day.
And I think that's what sells the love for Jesus: seeing somebody apprentice after Jesus.
Ryan:Amen.
And the thing, Rick, that was super—one of the things that he was so good at was asking forgiveness.
The stories within his family are amazing about he and Susie and just the relationship they had and how he would ask forgiveness.
Even with his kids, it's been huge.
Because Fred could lose his temper.
Fred was not perfect by any means.
You'd be with him and he'd get real mad about something or whatever.
But immediately, he would ask forgiveness.
He would want to make sure that people understood that, yes, you're going to make a mistake. You're going to do something that, in a moment, maybe you don't want to do.
But you can turn right around and heal that.
That was a big, big deal to him.
And he lived that out probably better than anybody I've ever seen.
The North Carolina Game That Changed Everything
Ric:Really?
Well, let's jump back now into your story and what happened in March of 2004.
As you'd said earlier in this interview, you loved UNC.
You'd followed them, but you'd never actually seen them live in the deep end, right?
And that was your 30-year-old turnaround right there.
Tell us about that.
Ryan:Yeah.
I got this job in July of 2003, and obviously it was a dream.
I had worked for the Pacers for a couple years, working for Larry Bird when he was coaching.
Again, like I said earlier, I had always dreamed of being a coach.
I had a chance to go into college coaching and do that, which is probably not the best decision I've ever made in my life.
But it was what was on my heart.
It was a desire that I'd had since I was a little kid.
So I went and did it.
Those four years there were up and down—a couple of decent years, good years, a couple of really bad years.
But in 2003, Larry came back after retiring from coaching to run the Pacers as president.
He and I had kept in touch from when I had worked for him before.
He knew I was struggling a little bit.
He called to tell me, “Hey, I'm not sure where I'm going back to work. It's going to be one of a few teams. I can't tell you who. It's all kind of secret. But wherever I go, you're coming with me.”
It was more like a statement.
Which was pretty crazy.
You never know.
I mean, I'm just me.
Larry doesn't ever owe me anything.
So I just kind of waited to see what happened.
Then one day, he's back with the Pacers and it hit ESPN.
It's obviously huge news in the sports world.
So I talked to him later that day, just kind of hoping that he would remember what he said and do it.
And he did.
He said he'd have somebody call me and wanted me to come up in the next week and we'd talk about what I was going to do.
And so I did.
He put me in scouting and all that.
So to get to this—the long-winded answer to your question—I got started scouting, traveling around.
I mean, amazing job.
Kind of surreal in a way.
And in March, I had a chance to go see a game at the University of North Carolina, which, as you alluded to, was my favorite team growing up.
Even before Michael Jordan, players like Jeff Lebo and J.R. Reid and Pete Chilcutt and all these different guys that I had watched growing up.
I just loved it.
So I went to a game there.
I was super excited.
I sat down in my seat, got there really early for the game.
And as soon as I sat down at that game, I just felt a massive hole in my soul.
Immediately a thought:
“I'm here, but this is it?”
I guess I was expecting something more.
I don't know.
God definitely used that.
It was almost like a panic attack.
The amazing part was, we talked a little bit earlier about all those different seeds that had kind of been planted—my grandmother, NBC Camps, my best friend Kyle.
I immediately knew what to do.
I had one more game on that trip at Georgia Tech.
Then I got home, and my wife, Kim, and I still kind of joke about this.
I walked in the door. I didn't even say hello or anything.
I just looked at her and told her, “We have to find a church.”
Then I went on a huge search to find a church in the area.
I met with local pastors, said a prayer of repentance, and I don't know if it was that exact prayer or whatever, but in that time was definitely when I think I was saved.
I was still, like any of us at those moments, looking back and thinking, “Man, I was just a baby in the faith.”
I didn't know.
I had a long ways to go.
I still do.
But in particular back then.
Yeah, that game at North Carolina was life-changing.
Faith Keeps Growing
Ric:Isn't that crazy?
It happened at your favorite place.
I love those stories.
Some people gradually work their way into the faith, and that's how God planned it.
Others, it's like, bingo—that's done. It's a done deal.
And then, like you say, you're still learning, you're still maturing, and we all are, right?
Ryan:Yeah, for sure.
There have been, even in the past five years, things I've learned.
One of the things that I learned, Rick, was that a real burden on me was that the church we ended up going to for a long time wasn't necessarily the most biblical church.
And then during COVID, God really used my kids and some different things to move us to a really sound biblical church.
That's something now that I'm incredibly thankful for.
So, yeah, He continues to work. He continues to move.
It's amazing to end up when your kids get to a point where they understand, they figure things out.
In some ways, you're looking to them.
My kids, I think, in many ways, have already taken the baton of the faith.
The two older ones, and in particular the twins.
And man, it's a lot of fun.
My daughter's a theology major at Liberty, and I love, love, love hearing what she's learning and her sending me her notes and just being able to devour good teaching over the past five years.
I think I've come a long way in terms of God's character—His true character, who He is.
My son is at Liberty as well. He's managing the basketball team there for Richie McKay, who's an incredibly godly man.
He actually went to college at Seattle Pacific, and I would love to have a conversation with him at some point.
I'm really, really excited that my son gets to, in his college years, be influenced and led by a man like that, even as a student manager.
Breaking Generational Patterns
Ric:Yeah.
How amazing for you, at the age of 30—which is a little later in life—to now introduce your tribe to the love of Jesus Christ at an early age so that they have a longer life with Him.
It's a testament to you, Dad, for sure.
Ryan:Yeah.
Kim and I, because this was all happening right before they were born—they were born in 2005.
As we really dove deep into it, praise God for my wife.
When I walked in and just belted out, “We need to find a church,” she was all for it.
I don't think we had really talked about going to church one time before that.
And us sitting down and really talking about it, we were together on this:
Let's try to hold back whatever stuff we had in our past.
Let's try to not carry forward whatever generational things we've had.
I always picture us kind of holding back a wall that could crumble, and that's kind of all the generational stuff that maybe we've had.
And let's, God willing, hopefully give them a much clearer, cleaner path.
They'll have struggles—we know that.
But let's not try to add in extra things that, by hard work and being faithful and obedient, we can kind of keep from them.
And praise God, to this point, it's worked like that for those two and Brian, who's 14.
We're blessed.
We don't have any prodigals at this point.
And may it stay that way.
Looking Back and Seeing God's Hand
Ric:Rick Hansen here with a chance to share the faith story of Indiana Pacers Vice President Ryan Carr.
So now that you're where you're at in life, are there certain spots where you could say, “There was God. There was God. There was God,” even though you didn't know who God was at the time?
What would be maybe the two highlights where you said, “That was really God working within me, for me, and I didn't even know it”?
Ryan:Man, I think there's a ton of them.
I think it starts—I mean, through good and bad.
I was born in the Bay Area. My mother and father were divorced when I was somewhere around kindergarten.
Just the fact that I ended up moving to Seattle.
My stepfather ended up being a huge basketball fan, and that's where I gained my love of basketball through him.
Then the basketball camps and my grandma.
I don't know where to start there.
The line of opening a door for me to come to Indiana University and serve that basketball team at that time.
To, out of the blue, get a call from the Indiana Pacers that they needed a video intern at the exact year Larry Bird was taking over.
There are so many different ways.
He is sovereign.
He has everything under control.
This past week in this country is crazy.
God is in control.
There is not one thing that happens that surprises Him.
And so as I've matured in my view of Him and His character, you look back at all of these things.
How do you not worship a God that would choose to do that?
I mean, let alone His Son on a cross.
That's the bottom line of it all.
So, you know, it's humbling.
I think basketball isn't everything in life.
Basketball is a gift.
But He has used it.
And to this day, I would say that the last few years in particular, just opportunities like this and other opportunities I've had to speak publicly.
I got asked to give a chapel address at Grace College up here in Indiana last year.
Just different opportunities, the different people He's continued to put in my life.
Even through basketball, there's a ton of basketball fans in this world, and a lot of them love Christ.
So it's a lot of fun.
I just continue to be amazed and also really wonder what other things maybe will come up.
And I pray every morning.
Every morning, I end my prayer when I wake up with:
“Help me deny myself, take my cross, follow You, and whatever happens today, help me to be faithful and obedient.”
Whatever happens.
And I fail at that for sure.
But I think He's allowed me to carry that better than maybe I would have in the past.
So, yeah.
Even that I'm sitting here talking to you, Rick, is a testament to God.
And if there's another 5'7", 110-pound high-school basketball player in Seattle in 1990 to 1992 that's in professional basketball, I want to meet him.
I just don't think you can find one.
And that's not because of me.
It's not all about me.
It's all Christ, and it's through me.
Whatever He wants to do.
If He wants to take this career away, I used to worry a lot in this profession because it can be very volatile.
And yet He's kept me in the same place for 23 years and allowed me to lead others and hopefully do that well.
I certainly make mistakes, but...
Standing for Christ in a Worldly Profession
Ric:Have there been challenges being in the whirly-swirly world of professional basketball and working with superstar basketball players and coaches?
Are there times when you felt like you had to make a stand on your faith that was maybe a little bit questionable?
Ryan:Yeah.
I think in the last few years, as Christians, there have been certain things that our society and world want to normalize or whatever that are not biblical.
And I think there's times where you are putting spots in grace and truth.
You know, speak truth.
And I try to do that for sure.
I don't ever want to deny Christ.
I don't want to do that.
I don't think there's anything that makes me feel worse than when I feel like I've done something to deny Him.
We're obviously told in Scripture not to do it, or else He'll deny us.
And that's a pretty scary thought.
So grace covers a multitude of sins.
We're all...
It's okay.
But just try not to do that.
The NBA is a very worldly place, and I try to live a biblical-based life and try to represent Christ well.
Whatever happens that day.
Faith in the Pacers Locker Room
Ric:The superstar Tyrese Haliburton has been outspoken.
I found a couple of spots in my research where he's very Christian himself.
And that's not always been the case.
I think you mentioned in one interview that he was kind of a seeker, kind of close.
But clearly he is a believer.
Ryan:Yeah, that's exciting for our team.
Tyrese was on the Olympic team a couple of summers ago—or last summer.
And the chaplain for the U.S. Olympic team is based in Dayton, Ohio. He works for Athletes in Action.
And so he's come over and taken an active role in being a chaplain for our team, along with some other partners here in town.
Obviously, anytime anybody shows interest in Jesus, you get really excited.
We have several other guys on our team who profess Christ and are Christian.
In fact, there's an NBC tie-in.
A player that we signed—or traded for this summer—Jay Huff.
Jay's dad was a vice president for NBC Camps when I was going there as a camper.
So now we have another NBC tie-in with the Pacers.
But there are several guys who profess Christ and are Christian.
So we have a great culture around our team.
We have a servant culture.
We have a culture that these guys play for one another.
And it's really a fun group to be around.
Depression, Darkness and Finding Hope Again
Ric:Basketball was God's gift. Faith is His passion.
We're talking with Indiana Pacers Vice President Ryan Carr.
One challenge—the challenge maybe of your life—through those periods that you kind of alluded to earlier, when your parents had passed away and you had some serious bouts with depression at that point, right?
Ryan:Yeah, absolutely.
Right after we talked about when my parents had passed away, I had gone on some antidepressants.
My doctor had prescribed them—daily medications.
I was on those for about a year and a half.
They definitely helped my mood, but my brain felt foggy.
I didn't feel like I could think as quickly.
A year and a half went by, and I went back to my doctor and just asked him, “I think I'm doing okay. Can we look at going off of these?”
So I followed the directions and went off of them.
Initially, it felt fine. It felt good.
And then a few months later, I just crashed.
A big, big time.
This was in February or March of 2021.
And this was all coinciding at the same time with moving churches, which was a blessing.
But I was really struggling.
I'd been a Christian at that point for 17 years, and I felt really awful.
I thought, “Why is my faith failing me?”
And again, almost like that experience with the North Carolina game, I was immediately drawn to, “I need to know God. I need the Scripture. I need my Bible.”
So as hard as those days were—and they lasted—I mean, up until pretty recently, honestly, not to that degree, but it's been a long, slow process.
It's taken a lot of patience and discipline and really diving deep into God's Word.
But, yeah, just really hard days.
And God is good.
His Word, His character, is enough.
There is peace in that.
This whole world is always searching for what's going to make us whole.
You can chase a million different things.
All you have to do is watch the commercials of any show or sporting event or whatever.
There's a lot of stuff that's put out there to help you feel fulfilled.
But there's only one thing that fits that hole.
And I'm still working on that.
I wouldn't say that every day I'm perfect.
But I know where the answer lies.
I know where my hope rests.
That was, again, why I'm really burdened by being in a really good church with good biblical teaching and really being committed to the Word.
This is a crazy world.
It's a broken world.
Depravity is real.
There are battles that we can't see going on.
All of that's true.
You live enough life and you understand it and you see it.
And the more biblical you are in your worldview, the more clearly you see it, I think, because it's all in the pages of Scripture.
It really is.
So, by God's grace, during that time, during COVID, I found some really good teaching—John MacArthur, Voddie Baucham, Alistair Begg—and some really gifted Bible teachers that I would just devour.
And I still do.
I love learning more and more about it.
I love understanding the depth of the Word.
I would still say that I'm probably 90 to 95 percent pretty good.
But there are still those moments where stuff creeps in.
That's real.
When I went through that, I never understood the depths of darkness until then.
I'd always kind of been a bulldozer.
A little bulldozer.
Put your head down and battle through whatever it is.
And in that, God has taught me a lot.
God has taught me patience.
God has taught me discipline.
He's still doing that.
God has taught me to love His Word and rely on that.
What Ryan Carr Would Tell the Next Generation
Ric:Well, Ryan, you're such an inspiration.
It's just been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit, even in this short amount of time.
And because you've kind of been through this and you're now a seasoned—what, 50-year-old?
Ryan:Yeah, 51.
Ric:51.
Maybe are there things that you would offer up, maybe that you've already offered up to your teenage kids, to young people who might prepare them for living in a competitive world—a world with Jesus as the foundation?
Ryan:Yeah.
I think what I've learned—the thing that even being saved at 30 that I worried about was, “Would I have to compromise?”
And what I've learned is that you can be a follower of Christ, do a phenomenal job, work very hard at your job, and try to be excellent at your job.
I think as Christians, we're called to perform whatever it is that God's gifted us to do at a high level.
But you can be different.
You don't have to live by the rules of the world and the win-at-all-costs mentality.
I think that you can have character, and at the end of the day, people respect that.
People may not be Christians.
People may not see eye to eye with you on your core beliefs and why you do it.
But they will respect the discipline and the way you go about it.
Grace and truth is a powerful thing and a way to live that people are intrigued by, even if they're not Christians and may not know it.
They wonder.
And those opportunities then hopefully lead to a chance to share the gospel and see if the Holy Spirit will do to them what He's done to you.
So I would just say, be bold with love, with grace.
But be bold.
Be unashamed.
I'm inspired by younger people now that do that naturally.
I feel like because I came to faith later, there was more fear in doing that than hopefully, like we talked about, my kids would have.
I don't think my kids are fearful at all of it.
But we had to...
I felt like I was reorienting my life in midstream and kind of how that would work.
Ric:What will people think?
Ryan:Yeah, exactly right.
Will I be judged?
Ric:Yes.
All those things.
For sure.
I totally get that.
I was raised Catholic myself, but my kind of reconversion happened when I was in my early 60s.
So I'm a later bloomer than you are.
Ryan:Well, let's stick together.
Ric:Let's do it.
Final Thoughts
Ric:Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiration and your story.
I know it's going to resonate with all kinds of people in our audience.
And it's just, to me, a gift that you shared your time with us today.
So thank you so much.
Ryan:Well, I'm honored you would ask.
And I never want to say no if I get to talk about Christ.
So that's kind of my philosophy on that.
Ric:Have a great day, and God bless you.
Ryan:You too.
Ric:Thank you.
Wow.
What an inspiring conversation with Ryan Carr from the Indiana Pacers—from his earliest days chasing basketball dreams to his leadership in the NBA.
Incredible.
Ryan reminds us that success isn't all about the stats and the titles and the glare and the excitement, but about living every day with Christ.
If today's episode encourages you, share it with a friend, and don't forget to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts so you won't miss our next story of faith and inspiration.
I'm Ric Hansen, and this has been Amazing Greats.
Thanks for joining us.
And remember, God's amazing grace is for all of us.
This one has some killer promotional material, too. My three favorite hooks are:
“The 5'7" kid who didn't make varsity eventually became an NBA decision-maker.”
“Ryan, I'm your dad now.”
“I walked into my favorite basketball arena—and felt a massive hole in my soul.”
That last one is probably the best podcast/social hook, because it immediately creates the question: How could your favorite place suddenly feel completely empty?
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