The 58 year old, who is now a pastor at The Rock Church in San Diego, became a Christian nearly 40 years ago, after having a reality check about how cocaine had influenced his life.
McPherson told Fox news: "I decided I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to commit myself to Christ and that day, at 5 o'clock in the morning, I asked Christ to be my saviour and I never did cocaine again,"
As a teenager, he was introduced to Christ through other football players at the San Diego Chargers who told him the gospel and were in Bible studies with him.
He described how he came to faith: "There were guys in the team who had a relationship with Christ and they were witnessing to me, talking about Jesus and I knew about the Lord and one day at 5 in the morning I was laying on my couch and I had been doing cocaine all night and I just said 'Jesus, I'm gonna give my life to you'"
He described how he thought he was going through a heart attack and decided to turn his life around.
"I think what happened was God opened my eyes to what my purpose was; to speak and share the gospel" he said.
He likened church to a huddle in American football, saying it's where 'you call the play', but said the actual game is where you execute that plan, which is what motivates him as a speaker at a church.
"No one goes to the game to see the huddle, they go to see the play".
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