Three years ago, Associate Rector Hannah VanderMale barely needed one when she scouted recruits for the first fantasy football league. The competition now has become so popular that she now serves as commissioner for a trinity of leagues, and fields a team in each (the End Zone Evangelists, Good Shepherds and Mustard Seeds).
Fantasy football “is a great example of the energy and new ideas she’s brought to the church that have been fantastic,” said Richard Hunter, a church member since 1996 who has competed each season despite finishing near last each time.
In late summer 2025, Saint Anne’s issued the preseason call to action. “Training Camp is Open! You must declare for the draft by Sun. Aug. 31.”
And they did, with teams named the Hail Marys, Righteous Ravens and Worship Warriors. VanderMale’s husband’s team is Book of John, which is his name too. Another team is Father, Son and Holy Football.
“It’s been so fun to tell other people outside of our church that Saint Anne’s has a fantasy football league, and not only that, it’s run by our female priest,” said R.J. Briscione, a member for two decades. “People are amazed and they want to know more. It’s a very fun thing to do and more churches should consider it.”
Pumped Up by Priestly Emails
From ages 7 to 84, from inside and outside of the church, the participants compete through the NFL Fantasy app, and there’s no requirement to do anything in person. “No punishment for losing, either,” VanderMale joked.
Each Saint Anne’s participant chooses (drafts) a roster of players with the greatest potential for scoring points. Each of the next 18 weeks, the Saint Anne’s teams go head to head like NFL teams, and each Saint Anne’s team owner activates the players they think will score the most points.
No money changes hands, “only parish pride and bragging rights.” VanderMale pumps up everyone with weekly dispatches to the 36 teams.
“Everybody I talk to at church loves that Thursday afternoon email from Hannah,” Hunter said. “It’s a little different type of pastoral care, but it’s great.”
“Even if you came in last she manages to say something really nice,” said Winnie Pannell. “I did not know Hannah could do that— reflect her knowledge and make everyone feel special. She is a very gifted girl. Without those fun descriptions, you could quickly lose intereSaint”
When an average team faces an undefeated one, VanderMale is likely to mention David and Goliath. During December, she parallels the waiting of Advent with the anticipation of the playoffs. When two regulars from the 8 am service played each other, she celebrated their ritual.
“I try to tie in little aspects of our faith where I can,” she said. “Little stories can build up the bigness and connection to our faith.”
All Saints Day fell during NFL Week 8, inspiring her to write, “Although they may not be canonized, we saw many players with performances worthy of some kind of veneration.”
VanderMale makes it clear that congregational vitality is the point of the league by always signing off with these three words: “Go Saint Anne’s!”
Homegrown Labor of Love
As in sports, game recognizes game: “She’s doing a much deeper analysis than I do on my own,” said Briscione, “And she’s doing it for three leagues. It’s obviously a labor of love.”
VanderMale, 29, has a team in each league too. And her ownership group grew by one on Sept. 30 (NFL Week 4) when she gave birth to her first child, Zoey.
She leveraged her maternity leave to tempt parishioners to sign up for the 2025 league: “All league players will have the opportunity to hear special updates about the NFL’s long-awaited recruit, baby VanderMale, when she makes her football debut.”
Saint Anne’s is VanderMale’s first parish as a prieSaint She grew up acolyting at the Cathedral of Saint Philip, attended seminary at Emory Candler School of Theology and served a chaplaincy at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and as a seminarian at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church.
Those bona fides headlined her Saint Anne’s arrival announcement, which also highlighted her sports fanaticism and her undergraduate years at Duke University, cheering the Blue Devils basketball team. Her experience stokes a belief in sports as community building.
“God is with us all the time,” she said. “And I like to think that, you know, God has a sense of humor, and God cherishes our joy and cares about our interests, and that can be a bigger part of our life.”
At Candler, fantasy football helped her two ways: she stayed connected with her father, and her husband got to know her seminarian friends.
“I thought it would be cute and fun to have fantasy football at Saint Anne’s. And I really aspire to have people bring their faith into day to day life, the Monday through Saturday,” she said. “I think it’s really welcoming for your church to show a little bit of playfulness. That’s just good hospitality and a good way of welcoming people.”
Where Two, Three,–or 11–Gather
While 11 players on each NFL team focus on the pigskin each play, Saint Anne’s fantasy league thrives on “where two or three are gathered, there I am.” (Matt. 18:20). Unlike IRL football, fantasy games can be decided by fractions of a point.
For the Brisciones, Sundays mean competition between dad R.J. (team: You Like That) and sons Bo, 17 (Atlanta Train Wreck); Will, 14 (Pigskin Prophets); and Jack (ATL Pitt-Stop). Dad was the defending Super Bowl champion, but his youngest son Pitt-Stopped him by .78 point.
“If not for a catch that was overturned on replay, I would have won,” R.J. said. “But all of us playing in one league creates so much fun at home.”
“The leagues have had a wonderfully positive impact on the parish,” said Saint Anne’s Rector, The Rev. Buddy Crawford. “They engage people who might not otherwise be involved in parish life, while also offering something new to active parishioners who may not know much about football.
“By giving everyone a shared interest, the leagues create opportunities for real connection. That’s when the real magic happens—parishioners get to know one another in ways that might never have happened otherwise.”
Winnie Pannell, who is in her 80s and joined Saint Anne’s in 1973, didn’t know anything about football or apps, but she and friend Nancy Brown agreed to meet VanderMale for coaching.
“Two old ladies sitting there with pregnant Hannah, and she sets us up and said, ‘OK, now give your team a name,’” said Pannell, who replied with Winnie’s Winners.
“The enticement was when I said I don’t watch football or know any of the teams, but my son Andrew does, and Hannah said, ‘Well, he’ll be your coach.’ So, he helped us go through the draft, and it was fun. Every week, he’d say, ‘We’re going to look at your team.’ And so, I learned some of the players’ names and to tell if they were injured by the little symbols. I actually ended up learning a lot about football.”
Brown’s first pick in the 2025 draft illustrated the power of belief.
She drafted New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, who VanderMale called “a really silly decision at the time, because you know you’re supposed to draft running backs and wide receivers first, and because Jaxson Dart was a backup quarterback and wasn’t even ever expected to play at all. She probably could have gotten him in the 10th round and probably shouldn’t have played him in the first place, but her team ended up doing really well, and Jaxson Dart ended up having a really great season, but she just picked him because she liked him from college.”
Likewise, Hunter (team: TricksPicks) was surprised by joy after choosing Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens. “I thought he’d be okay this year he just had a monster season,” he said.
“The excitement and uncertainty of fantasy football is kind of a reflection on life. There’s going to be ups, downs, accomplishments, failures. You know in life, you have your deepest valleys and high mountain tops. It’s kind of a wild ride.”
VanderMale makes another theological point: “It’s a good discipline to do something you’re not good at and to experience the grace and humility of that.”
A Place for Non-Flashy Episcopalians
VanderMale has long pondered the meaning of faith in sports, especially when a football player points up to the sky after they get a touchdown. She notices that less-flashy Episcopalians don’t get seen in American culture like the vocal players and coaches who bring God into the big games.
Enter her dry sense of humor. In her weekly message, she regularly pokes fun at the intersection of football and God. A staff member in the league “did ask for me to ‘pray for [San Francisco 49ers running back] Christian McCaffrey to have a bad game’ and he was limited to 9.8 points, so I didn’t completely fall short,” VanderMale wrote.
The Jesus is My Coach Award is a tongue-in-cheek reference to this perception of hyper-spiritualization of sports. So are the spontaneous prop bets by her guests at her personal Super Bowl party such as whether the MVP will thank God his teammates or his family firSaint
Spoiler: “It’s almost always God,” she said.
With the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks sparring in Super Bowl LX, Saint Anne’s fantasy football participants are gearing up for next season with lessons from the past.
“Next year I’ll just pray that I’ll get an early draft number,” Pannell said.
But they won’t have that long to wait for sports to bring them together again. In a few weeks, VanderMale will invite them to pick college basketball winners for March Madness.