Disgraced Floridian and former congressman Allen West took some time recently to address a Texas conservative group about the dangers of separating church and state—dangers like grievous football injuries, specifically. But thankfully, that ain’t nothing a little prayer can’t fix.

So where does West get off making these claims? Allow him to explain:

Now see, I remember growing up in the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia. I went to Grady High School and I played football and we didn’t have all this high-speed gear and everything like that, there was no such thing about ‘targeting.’ I mean, you were not a tough football player unless you did try to hit someone head-on. And even in high school, before every game at Grady Stadium, the pastor would come down and pray before every football game. I don’t remember catastrophic injuries. I don’t remember anyone getting carted off that field paralyzed.

It appears West’s various head-on attacks did a little more damage than he realizes, because his claims of a lack of “catastrophic injuries” back in his day are demonstrably false. What’s more, the instance he was responding to didn’t even involve removing prayer from football entirely.

West was angry about a letter sent to the University of Tennessee from the Freedom of Religion Foundation, which had complained about explicitly Christian prayers held during practice. In response, the school conceded to hold “non-sectarian” prayers instead.

Prayers that, apparently, aren’t quite godly enough to stave off those annoying debilitating concussions. [Right Wing Watch]