It was an all around nightmare scenario for Tennessee pastor Josh Sullivan.
Last Thursday, while Sullivan was preaching at Fellowship Baptist Church in South Africa, four armed and masked men entered into the building and abducted the pastor at gunpoint. They used Sullivan’s own car that was on the premises as a getaway vehicle, and it was believed to be a financially motivated kidnapping.
Authorities in the area immediately began investigating and attempted to track down the missing pastor, and it was on this past Tuesday that they were able to track down Sullivan’s missing vehicle. When police started to approach the car outside the abductor’s safe house, shots were fired, as the South African Police Service’s statement explained:
“The operation followed verified intelligence wherein a coordinated team (of police units) moved swiftly to the identified location. As officers approached the house, they observed a vehicle on the premises. The suspects inside the vehicle upon seeing law enforcement allegedly attempted to flee and opened fire on the team. The officers responded with tactical precision, leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded.”
Fortunately, and one might even say miraculously, the pastor was unharmed. After being checked by medical personnel, Josh Sullivan was returned to the church to see his family. The pastor hailing from Maryville, Tennessee also started checking back in with people in East Tennessee who had heard he was kidnapped.
One person that he talked to was pastor Tom Hatley, and he was surprised to hear that Sullivan was so upbeat and relaxed following his almost week-long kidnapping. In fact, the thing Sullivan was apparently most upset about was some news that hit the Knoxville area while he was being held captive, as Hatley explained:
“He was upset over Nico.”
That’s right. Pastor Josh Sullivan – who probably went through one of the most traumatic experiences of his life last weekend – was most rattled by the fact that University of Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava was no longer going to be playing football for the Vols.
The UT QB missed meetings and practice last Friday, and reports quickly revealed that he allegedly skipped out on the team events because he was interested in (or rather demanding that he receive) $4 million dollars in guaranteed NIL money to continue playing for the Volunteers. That ultimately resulted in Tennessee moving on from the junior quarterback, and after testing the waters of “college football free agency,” he ended up signing with UCLA for a measly $1 million NIL deal.
Hatley said of all the conversations post-kidnapping, the one surrounding the Tennessee QB was the most talked about:
“And they said, well, you know, Nico left, didn’t you? And his wife told me last night that the biggest conversation they’ve had has been about Nico. Hey, the boy was raised in East Tennessee, what can I tell you.”
If that doesn’t tell you how crazed some people are about college football, I don’t know what will.
Pastor Tom Hatley then used the interview with WVLT 8 to try and get the attention of the University of Tennessee. He called out the head coach and the athletic director on behalf of his pastor friend who just survived an abduction in South Africa in hopes that Sullivan could get to a game next season:
“If Josh Heupel is listening to me or the athletic director, Danny White, let’s get this man in to see the team, let’s let him run through the T, let’s do something because he deserves it.”
Hey University of Tennessee… you’ve got to make that happen.
You can hear more about the terrifying incident – and the hilarious, sports fan response to it all – in the video below:
