Many athletes have spoken about their faith, taking advantage of a post match win interview (such as after the NCAA finals) to profess their belief and yet, to my memory, none of them have elicited anything near the type of reaction that Brooks has. Jason Nolf, David Carr, Stephen Buchanan, Alex Marinelli are just the few wrestlers that come to mind who where very vocal about their faith in Christ. Some of these wrestlers have their fair share of detractors but I have yet to see anybody criticize them for their religion (other than Marinelli, who is ragged on for everything, including the audacity to have a wife, apparently). Carr seems to be a universal favorite in fact. The only thing I have seen negative about him are jokes about his boogers.
What Brooks did was obnoxious, pompous, "you-are-wrong" preaching. He could have been Muslim, buddhist, rastafarian, hell, he could have been preaching about veganism and it still would have come off as obnoxious due to the tenor and intensity of the message. If anything, if he were Muslim the reaction would have been far more heated.
you also have the interview where he said his underhook "was from the holy Spirit" and therefore superior to Yazdani's who only got his from "some coach". Not only is that obnoxious, I would say that ventures on the edge of delusion.
Then there's the Basch interview following Olympic trials which has been brought up a few times. Dissing on your teammate is one thing (note that this was the eggsact thing Bartlett was dumped on by PSU fans when he made his first and only message board post) but then to claim DT isn't faithful enough in the same breath as comparing yourself to Jesus was just a wild ride of delusion.
Finally, have you seen his YouTube channel? I haven't watched nearly every video because they are literally painful to get through but the parts that aren't legitimately unhinged are so aggressive in their "you are lacking" (therefore I know the way) messaging it makes a man wince.
You mesh these things together, along with a few other interviews I've seen over the years, and you get the portrait of a generally unlikeable person who loves preaching and telling people about all the ways they are lacking (implying he is better) while breaking rules repeatedly. In all the videos I've seen of Brooks, he does not come across as a guy that is fun to be around. That's why I called him an asshole and that's the crux of this discussion. To try and twist this into something political is smooth brained and pu$$y sh!t
Now to be fair, I thought Brooks came off as very personable in this interview and I felt true sympathy when he talked about his struggles this past year. I can no longer say that Brooks comes off as an obnoxious asshole in every video I've seen of him. Perhaps he's turning a corner