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Jason’s outstanding career in both League and Union will long be remembered but it is his Christian faith that really has the staying power. When Jason Robinson injured his shoulder and walked off the rugby pitch during the World Cup Final, it was the last time he would play competitive rugby. At the end of last season Jason decided, at age 33, to end his career. After 15 years in professional rugby, he announced that he would not play club rugby again. He would be available for England until the 2007 World Cup ended and that would be it. A less-than-confident England entered the World Cup and ended up in the final-a third-time experience for Jason (2 Rugby Union and a Rugby League). Despite an injury and a South African victory, it was still an impressive exit.
Jason was a star of Rugby League before he was 20 but soon his personal life was out of control. “I “People wanted to be associated with me. People probably thought, ‘I want what he’s got’, but inside I was empty. I was searching for something. I was looking for happiness in money, in possessions, in drinking, in relationships. But none of these could fill the space within me. Drinking was a vicious circle. I had problems so I drank, yet the more I drank, the more problems I had, and the more problems I had, the more I drank. I was getting away with it because on the field I was playing as well as ever”. When the New Zealand player Inga Tuigamala joined Wigan, Jason noticed that there was something different about his team mate. Inga was under the same pressures as Jason but did not need to go out drinking. Jason knew that Inga was a “Bible basher” and expected Inga to try to convert him. Inga didn’t say a word but his life seemed different, happy. “He never pushed his views on me, but if I ever wanted someone to talk to he would always be there for me. He spoke to me much more by how he lived, than by anything he said. He had something special about him. I didn’t quite know what it was, but I knew he had something that I wanted. “Then one day he told me that he had had a dream about me. I was curious. He told me he could see me standing on top of the world. I had the world at my feet but gradually the world started crumbling beneath my feet. I was amazed. The dream was uncannily true. It stopped me in my tracks. I knew that I had to get my life sorted out. It was just the jolt that I needed”.
Jason rang a Christian friend and said, ‘I can’t go on like this. I don’t want to live like this. I need help.’ His friend listened and then asked Jason a question. “He said, ‘Do you want to invite Jesus into your life?’ I just knew that I could not continue what I was doing. That morning I asked Jesus into my life. The words from the Bible ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28), summed up exactly how I was feeling. At that moment, when I gave my life to the Lord, I felt a burden lifted”.
Incredulous team mates gave him a week or a month at most before he was back in the pub. A dozen years on Jason is still going strong as a follower of Jesus and has found the peace he lacked. Career summary
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was extremely successful at my job. I was financially secure. I had everything material that I could want but I had relationship problems. I was having great success on the park but off it my problems were overpowering me. It got to the stage that I would be out drinking six nights a week. On the outside everything was great. I was earning a lot of money, I had a fast car, nice clothes.
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By age 7, I was regularly smoking, drinking and stealing. It seemed like I’d already been through hell. My mother died when I was a baby, and at six weeks old I was adopted. Five years later, death struck again; I lost my adoptive mother.