June 2009

      I noticed while I was on vacation that the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA title for the 15th time. This is confirmation that God isn’t a sports fan.

      God gets called upon during sports quite a bit. Sometimes a batter or foul shooter crosses himself quickly just before the pitch or shot. Or sometimes God’s name will be screamed as an obscenity. And sometimes players thank God afterwards for giving them victory, though you never hear anyone thanking God for defeat. Other times a player will kneel in the endzone for a quick prayer after scoring a touchdown.

      For all the God-talk that surrounds sports, I’m not convinced God is listening. Take the Lakers for instance. They’ve won the NBA Championship 15 times and lost the championship 15 times, meaning they’ve been in almost half of the NBA’s 63 title matches, winning nearly a quarter of the titles. The New York Yankees are just as bad, with a virtual lock on a playoff spot every year. It is harder for colleges to be as dominant because there are so many more teams, but teams from the same group of colleges are nearly always at the top – Florida, Southern California, Oklahoma in football, and North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky in basketball.

      If God had anything to do with answering prayer in ball games those teams would not keep winning and winning and winning.

      We have a David over Goliath type of God. The same God who liberated a motley crew of slaves from Egypt – the most powerful nation in the world at the time. This is the God who told Gideon to get rid of all but 300 of his 22,000 soldiers before going into battle. God picks losers to win.

      If God was a sports fan, Davidson College would have won the NCAA Basketball Championship in 2008, not Kansas. The Arizona Cardinals – who hadn’t won a home playoff game in 60 years – would have won the Super Bowl. And the Orlando Magic – who has never won an NBA Final – would be the champions, now.

      Of course, NC State’s improbable basketball title in 1983 and the miracle Mets of 1969 – who before they won the World Series that year had never had a winning record or finished better than next-to-last place – might tempt you to wonder if every now and then God rests from working on injustice, peace and world hunger and catches a ball game.  

 

August 2008

      Olympic athletes are countercultural. Most of them train in obscurity for the distant chance of competing in the Olympics and the rare opportunity of winning a medal. 

      The four-year cycle of the Olympics creates this drama, which would not be so pungent if the games were held every year. It is the four-year waiting that raises the stakes at the Olympics. One slip, one error, one stumble and you’ve turned a four-year wait into an eight-year wait, or maybe a never-realized wait.

      Whenever the competitors reach the final round, whether it is 8 gymnasts marching into the arena, or 8 sprinters lined in the blocks, or 8 swimmers in their lanes, or 12 divers on the platform, I want to give them all medals. They’ve competed against the best athletes in a 5 billion person world; survived preliminary rounds; won or placed in heats, yet now they’ve reached the final round where the stakes have reached the highest and the chance of winning is still small.

      I think of Lolo Jones, the American hurdler who inexplicably hit the second-to-last hurdle and the gold medal, which was just two seconds away, slipped into another 4-year wait. Or the lone Chinese world-class sprinter, who had the rare chance to win in front of his fellow citizens, but who pulled up lame from the starting block with a pulled Achilles tendon.

      The Apostle Paul, a fan of the ancient Greek games, once wrote, “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.” [I Cor. 9:24-25] 

      In our instant gratification society, the Olympic athlete has much to teach us about perseverance. Would we be willing to save for a desired item for four years? Or to regularly practice an instrument or new language for four years? Or daily pray for a person or situation for four years? Or would we give up if we haven’t received a “trophy” by the end of a few weeks of effort?

      If we would persevere in reaching for our “imperishable” wreaths, the world would be a different place. May the Olympic drama inspire you to practice perseverance in your life.

 

July 2008

      This past weekend was a tennis lover’s dream. The Wimbledon Championship matches were held on the grass courts of the All England Club in London. The match I didn’t see was a four hour, forty-eight minute marathon, the longest final ever at Wimbledon. In the end #2 Rafael Nadal beat #1 Roger Federer and may have marked a switch between these two.

      In the women’s final, which I eagerly watched on Saturday morning, the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena played each other for the championship. Now aged 28 and 26, the Williams sisters have been a fixture in tennis for ten years. Their story is inspirational.

      The sisters grew up in Houston and learned to play on public city courts. Taught by their dad, it was many years before they had any “professional” lessons. Still, today, their mom is their “official” coach. Though they do receive advice from other tennis coaches, Venus and Serena rarely look to the coach’s box during a match. They’d rather figure out strategy and make changes by how they feel the game as they are playing.

      When they started playing tournaments they were often the only African-American girls in the draw. Today, they stand out by their refusal to make tennis their life. Both have followed others pursuits, such as acting and fashion design. The outfit Venus wore for the match was one of her own designs. In a day when tennis prodigies burn out by the time they are 21, the Williams sisters are a breath of fresh air. They entered the tournament ranked #6 & #7 in the world, not because they weren’t any better but because they refuse to play all the tournaments. But on Wimbledon’s centre court last Saturday, it was clear they are the best players in the world.

      Their match displayed tennis at its highest level. Nearly flawless, both sisters sent blazing shots back and forth until one shot was finally an unreachable winner. Serena had beaten her older sister the last few times they had played, but on this day Venus was one step ahead, winning 7-5, 6-4.

      In her victory speech she mentioned concern about her sister’s disappointment, adding, “My other job is being the big sister.” Venus had a chance to console Serena three hours later when the two of them stood on the same side of the net and won the Women’s Doubles Championship. Chalk one up for the American Dream, the underdog, the outsider, the unconventional. A lesson in sports for the living of life.

 

October 2007

      Watching early elementary school children play team sports is like watching a microcosm of human nature. All the elements of relational dynamics are right there in this little field or court laboratory. More important than the dribbling and kicking and shooting skills they learn are the lessons in teamwork they embrace.

      Learning teamwork is hard. It is easier to dribble and shoot, kick and pass. Learning teamwork is especially hard when you find dribbling, kicking and shooting easy. It is hard to pass the ball away to a teammate, when you have the ball and you want to be the star. Of course the opposite can also true. It’s hard to take the open shot, when you are afraid and don’t want the ball. Learning teamwork involves both of those practices.

      Mistakes happen in kids’ sports – lots and lots of mistakes. (Just like real life.) What separates teams is how they handle the mistakes. When something goes wrong, the first thing we want to do is blame. I’ve seen it happen on ten different teams from ages as young as 6 to as old as 12. 

      Who messed up? Why did she do that? Can’t he do anything right? It so quickly moves from identifying a mistake to making a scapegoat, which absolves everyone else from their mistakes. If it is the scapegoat’s fault, then I’m okay. Of course the kid that gets scapegoated feels rotten. And then he plays worse.

      The strong teams build up their weaker players. They encourage them. They don’t let them get discouraged. They keep trusting them. You can say all the right things when a teammate drops the ball, but if she’s wide open the next time and you don’t pass her the ball your words soon fall on deaf ears.

      On strong teams the star players pass the ball to open teammates and wait for a teammate to pass to them before showing their skills. When good plays happen, praise is quickly shared. Attention is placed on good play, not on mistakes. The better players give tips to the weaker players; they add confidence; they build up. 

      These lessons, of course, are not just for school-aged soccer. They are lessons for life. Kids’ sports are not really about athletics. They are about learning how to make “teammates” in life. Anybody up for a game?

 

March 2006

The NCAA Basketball Tournament’s three-week run reaches its climactic ending this Saturday and Monday, crowning the 2006 national champion. Always a thrill for sports fans, this year’s “March Madness” has been an especially good year to root for the underdog, which is an American pastime.

For the first time since 1980 and the first time since the tournament went to a 64-team format, none of the #1 seeds from the four regionals made the Final Four. UCLA, Florida and Louisiana State were #2, 3 & 4 seeds respectively, meaning they were thought to be close to the top, though not expected to win their regional. But none of those three can match the story of George Mason University, a small university on the edge of Washington, DC’s metro line in northern Virginia. 

George Mason doesn’t play in one of the power conferences like the ACC or the SEC. They don’t have a million dollar coach, who flies charter jets across the country to recruit the best high school players in the nation and around the world. Their starting lineup all came from a short drive away in Maryland. They were seeded #11, which meant they were supposed to lose their first game. Instead, they beat three big-time colleges, including UNC, to become just the second #11 seed, and the first in twenty years, to make the Final Four. Commentators have called them a David beating Goliath, which brings to mind that old Bible story.

The story of the shepherd-boy David beating the giant Goliath is indicative of a biblical theme. God chose a slave people, the Israelites, and liberated them from an ancient super-power. The patriarchs and kings are almost always the younger or youngest sons, not the expected oldest son. God enters the world not as a ruling monarch, but as an infant born to a couple too poor to pay for a decent place for him to be born. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. A part of that spirit is bred in Americans, who gained freedom when a ragtag army held off the most powerful army in the world in the years after 1776. Of course, now the United States is the superpower.

While you are rooting for George Mason over Florida, and maybe against UCLA or LSU in the championship game, you’ll get just a glimmer of the feeling of how much of the world feels towards us. And if you’re brave, give a thought about how God may feel about us, as a nation, too.

 

October 2005

      Everyone loves a winner.

      Loveable losers are few and far between. Outside of Chicago Cubs fans I can’t think of another city that so warmly embraces losers (and even Cubs fans went bezerk two years ago when that infamous fan interfered with a foul ball that would have put the Cubs four outs away from the World Series).

      Saturday, before the last period in my soccer team’s match, just prior to announcing the final set of players, I asked the team if they were having fun. One kid piped up, “We’re winning!”

      “Yeah,” I responded, “but are you having fun?” 

      “We’re winning,” he said again, this time in a voice that meant, “Hey, coach, when you’re winning it’s obvious that you’re having fun.”

      Everyone loves a winner. Everyone loves to be a winner.

      “It’s great to be winning,” I pressed on in the philosophy debate, “but we can’t always win. We can always play our best and always have fun playing. We do that and we’ll be winners no matter the score.”

      At that point the kids began begging to know who was going in the last period. My mini-sermon lost them after “It’s great to be winning….”

      I’ve enjoyed athletics most of my life, but I’m afraid the high profile of sports contributes to a “win at all costs” attitude in our society. Contrary to popular notions life isn’t a game to be won. Sometimes such an attitude is counter-productive. A short-term outlook on stock prices will cut R & D and undercut long-term stability in many a company. Churches that toss out long-lived traditions for fads in hopes of boosting attendance often undermine the deeper spiritual needs of the congregation. And “winners” rarely make the best partners or friends. You’re better off befriending or marrying a good sport.

      As Michael and I were leaving the soccer field, I ruffled his hair and asked, “Did you have a good time playing?” 

      “I scored two goals,” he said and I replied, “Yeah, but did you have…”

      “Daddy,” he interrupted, “I played my best and had fun even before I scored.” 

      Well, at least I’m winning at brainwashing my son. 

 

September 2004

      My family and I have been enjoying the Olympics the last few days. The games have proven to be more education than I would have imagined. 

      We’ve moved the globe that is usually in my study to the den in order to show the kids where the other countries are in relation to the United States. If USA is not playing, the children like to root for the country closest to us. When Argentina played Tunisia in a soccer match, we were stumped – the two countries are roughly the same distance away. Hannah suggested that since Argentina is on the same side of the ocean with us, that we should root for them. Besides their light blue uniforms were much prettier than Tunisia’s.

      My children also noticed that the Chinese volleyball players, gymnasts and ping-pong players all have black hair and a similar shape to their faces, whereas the USA athletes have a variety of skin tones and facial features – just like we see around Charlotte. So, we’ve talked some about biology, how parents pass on traits to their children (Michael has my blue eyes, the girls have Magay’s brown eyes), about history and geography, where people’s ancestors came from, and how the United States has invited people from all over the world to come, live and work here and enjoy our freedoms.

      From volleyball and gymnastics, field hockey and fencing, to table tennis and diving, Hannah, Michael and Abby never had any idea there were so many games you could play. Before they could go to bed last night we had to unstack the pile of pillows in the playroom that served as the gymnasts’ arena and the volleyball balloons were popped and thrown away. Michael thinks we should buy a ping-pong table and they all want to take diving lessons at the pool next summer. All these dreams and we haven’t even gotten to cycling and the track and field events yet. I’m a little nervous about discus throwing and pole-vaulting in my backyard.

      The apostle Paul probably watched the ancient Olympian Games. In a letter to the Corinthians he speaks of boxers and runners racing to win the prize. In Philippians he again used the imagery of runners in athletic competition. For Paul the training and discipline exhibited by an athlete was a model for the discipline a believer should have in following Christ.

      It seems the ancient Olympic Games could be as educational as the modern ones.

 

September 2001

College football begins this week and my hometown college, Marshall University, plays the #1 ranked University of Florida. Marshall football has come a long way since flying back from East Carolina in 1970. An inexperienced pilot came in too low at Huntington’s mountaintop airport killing all 75 persons aboard the team plane. 

Daddy and I bought season tickets the next fall and held them until I left for college. I fondly remember the mile walk through our neighborhood to the stadium. My grandmother’s house was on the way; we’d always stop for a visit. On cold days she’d have hot chocolate waiting. Most of the time Marshall lost, badly. They lost more games in the 1970’s than any other college in the country. And I made my dad sit till the end of every single one of them. True love is sitting with your 11-year-old in the rain with the score 0-49. “We can’t leave, yet, they might score. They might.” They didn’t.

But, they do now. They won more games in the 1990’s than any other university. Five years ago they moved up to the major college ranks. The ’99 team finished #10 in the nation. Saturday, they get to play #1. They are certainly underdogs, but have the potential to pull off the big upset.

I figure God’s on their side, because the Bible likes underdogs. Just look at David and Goliath, or Gideon’s 300 dumb soldiers who defeated Canaan’s whole army. Moses’ great escape through the Red Sea. The Jericho walls falling at the sound of trumpets. A peasant baby born in an animal stall who becomes savior of the world. Sometimes something as insignificant as a ballgame reminds us that obstacles can be made low, small deeds may have a transforming impact, the odds can be beat, or we should never give up.

My first game was the first home game after the crash. As the last seconds ticked off the clock, Marshall’s Reggie Oliver took the snap. Daddy put me on his shoulders so I could see over the standing crowd. A perfect little spiral landed in the hands of Terry Gardner who ran the final five yards into the endzone. Marshall 15, Xavier University 13. People streamed onto the field, crying, cheering. Ten months of mourning erupted like the laughter that comes from hearing a good story about a late loved one and ends with your fingers wiping your eyes. It was like a miracle. 

I still watch Marshall games like a schoolboy walking through falling leaves listening to my daddy’s voice. Keeps me believing in miracles.