Profile of Alex Legion's mom: Basketball prophecies

UK player's mom sees Final Four

By Jerry Tipton - JTIPTON@HERALD-LEADER.COM

During a recent conversation about University of Kentucky basketball freshman Alex Legion, his mother repeatedly made references to God.

The Almighty steered him to prestigious Detroit Country Day, a private high school that has produced such basketball stars as Chris Webber and Shane Battier. Then the Holy Spirit let it be known that he should transfer to prep school powerhouse Oak Hill Academy for his senior year. Divine intervention brought him to UK, a college he had not been considering.

"I had no clue Kentucky was a basketball school. No clue," Annette Legion said. "But God knew."

When asked about God's interest in her son, she quietly, almost as an aside, made a startling claim.

"Me being a prophet, he has truly ordered my son's steps," she said matter-of-factly.

Prophet? Did you say prophet? Like Isaiah and Ezekiel of the Old Testament?

"I'm a prophet," she said, "someone who can prophesize about your future and what's going on in your life."

Although she has more important concerns, especially now as an evangelist for a Lexington church, Legion volunteered a look into the basketball future that's sure to please the Wildcat faithful.

"The Lord has shown me: They're going to the Final Four," she said, before adding a qualifier, "providing they play together."

Was this a prophecy? A prediction? Merely wishful thinking?

"I have spoken these things into existence," she said. "It's not by accident that my son is here and now the Final Four is in Michigan."

Prophets get a little leeway

Actually, such a triumphant return to Detroit for Alex Legion would have to come in 2009. That's when the Final Four is at Ford Field.

But that factual misstep seems well within the historical leeway given prophets, according to Ben Witherington, a New Testament professor at Asbury Seminary.

"Almost all prophecy of the ancient sort involved analogy, metaphor and indirectness," Witherington said. "You have to puzzle the meaning. Very seldom was it 'this is going to happen in the next five minutes, get ready.'"

Prophecy must be "weighed and sifted" to determine its reliability and the legitimacy of the prophet, the Asbury professor said. "It could be mostly true. Then see what you think about that."

Witherington divided prophecy into two categories. Auditory prophecy comes to those who repeat messages they've heard from God. "Often verbatim," he said. "Thus they have a Yahweh quote."

Then there are apocalyptic prophets, who not only hear messages but have visions of the future. The author of the Bible's last book, Revelation, was an apocalyptic prophet.

Many Christian churches believe that God stopped using prophets after Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy in the first century.

Yet modern-day prophets abound in Pentecostal and charismatic churches, which typically do not require a formal degree from a divinity school for their ministers and leaders. In these churches, modern-day prophets are believed to possess the same powers the Holy Spirit bestowed on Jesus' disciples at Pentecost.

"You can be ordained simply because the spirit moved someone to lay hands on you," Witherington said.

Witherington discouraged the association of sweeping apocalyptic prophecies with modern prophets.

"Normally, it's not something that will end up in a holy book," he said. "It deals with some particular person's situation. Very personal and mundane things. 'Will God heal my marriage? Will I be well next year?'"

'Churched' out

Legion began her religious life as a Catholic, the faith of her grandmother.

"My mother had me at 16," she said. "I guess she didn't want me. I mostly stayed with my grandmother."

As she spoke, a pained expression crossed her face. She paused to wipe the tears that suddenly flowed from her eyes.

"When you're rejected by your mother, that's something you can't get by," she said after composing herself. "You have a wall no one can get by."

That wall eventually separated Legion from the Catholic church.

"I was 'churched' out," she said. "Seeing people going to church and coming home being something else, that turned me off."

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