February
2009
In honor of the Super Bowl
In honor of the Super Bowl last weekend, I decided to post something about sports. What you are about to read reflects pretty much my total knowledge of sports. :-)
Anyone who knows me would know that I am not into sports. Never have been. As a child, my parents tried to get me involved in something involving physical exercise (I would have been happy to have been allowed to read all day). Soccer and swim team were bravely attempted, but I was just really bad at it. I’m glad I tried, but, you know, some people just aren’t good at sports.
To some degree, I do enjoy watching sports–as long as I know the rules to the game. My little brother’s basketball games are fun. Football still baffles me. I can’t figure out what the rules are, so it just looks like a bunch of grown men clobbering each other over a ball. Good grief, they just need to go buy their own balls!
I endure sports movies for the most part. They are all the same . . . dumb, rookie player or bad, losing team somehow overcome impossible odds to win the championship.
There is an exception to everything. I loved the football movie, “Facing the Giants.” That movie had me laughing and crying at the same time! My neighbor and her son are coming down to watch it with me this weekend, and I can’t wait!
A friend of mine just told me about Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. Not only was he homeschooled through high school, but he serves with his family’s missionary efforts in the Philippines. And he just happens to be an extremely talented football player whose not afraid to live his faith. That is very cool!
This sports story made me cry tonight. ESPN reported that the “oddest game in high school football history” was played recently in Grapevine, Texas.
It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.
Did you hear that? The other team’s fans?
It was rivers running uphill and cats petting dogs. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.
This is what had the professional sports world amazed: Gainesville State School is a maximum-security correction facility. Every game they play is on the road. Faith’s head coach, Hogan, wanted to do something kind, so he asked his fans to cheer for the opposing team.
“Here’s the message I want you to send:” Hogan wrote. “You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth. . . . Imagine if you didn’t have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”
At the end of the game, one of the Gainesville players asked to pray: “Lord, I don’t know how this happened, so I don’t know how to say thank You, but I never would’ve known there was so many people in the world that cared about us.”
Somehow I think that if Jesus were the head coach of that team, that is exactly what He would have done, too.
So now you know everything that I know about sports! Don’t expect to see another sports post for a long, long time.
I did enjoy the Super Bowl party at Nathan’s house, and I hope YOU enjoy the pictures!
haven’ a blast!
