But as my Playboy article hit newsstands, he was in Samoa, praying with his tribe. One short scene that I wrote in an early draft that didn’t make the final piece reveals a side of him I didn’t know about until I visited Susanville, where he is a coach, conductor, and pastor. I didn’t know how deep his religiosity was, nor was I aware of his fundamentalist beliefs. It speaks, I think, to the genuine nature of the beliefs we’ve seen become part of his game this season, even when they’ve manifested themselves in questionable ways (e.g. praying to find the immunity idol when he had it). “I went through a lot, man,” Ben tells me. “I really feel like they really damaged me, and if I weren’t a Christian, I’d be screwed, man.” He shifts his Jeep, his hand on the steel bulldog that’s perched atop the stick shift. Ice patches on the two-lane road breathe steam into the early morning February air, and in the forest of well-spaced evergreens, translucent walls of white appear and fade as gravi...