A Crushing Loss For the Second Straight Year

A couple of frustrations from today's Sam Houston State University National Championship football game (besides the obvious frustrations of being manhandled for the second straight year, by the same opponent, in the title game):

We sat in front of some pretty frustrating fans. "Frustrating" is probably actually putting it lightly, putting a positive spin on it. These were obviously college students who had been drinking for a while . . . before a game that started at noon.

They were obscene, loud, and just plain rude. Times like these always remind me of a game I attended at Georgia Tech a few years ago. A friend invited me to go; and I greatly enjoyed the day with him. One of the highlights was when he turned around to some drunk college students, annoying us all, and let them have it. He's one of the most gentle souls you'll ever meet. And it was awesome. I had a newfound appreciation for him as that happened.

I found myself in his role today. At one point, I actually began to turn around to get on to them, as there were a number of children all around us, hearing some pretty horrible things. But something stopped me. That's probably for the best.

But that whole episode (and our ensuing headaches for the rest of the day) caused me to think a bit more deeply about it. What's sad to me is not their sad state, the incredibly shrill voice the young lady behind me had that caused my head to pound, or anything else along those lines. What's most saddening to me is that the actions of four people not only affected the way they experienced the game. Their actions had a big impact upon the way many of us did.

When do I (and we all) do things similar to that? When do I cause others around me to have a poor experience of something because of my selfishness, because of my not taking others into account.

One of the genius things about the Christian story, to me, is that it causes us to look outside ourselves, to think not only how am I enjoying/experiencing something . . . but how am I/my actions affecting others' enjoyment/experience of something?

And, at the same time, how can I help others around me to experience and enjoy things more deeply?

It goes both ways.

One other observation: the whole thing where everyone holds up 4 fingers at the end of the 3rd quarter really grinds my gears. It has for a while. I've never really been able to wrap my head around why. But something hit me today.

Doing that (when teams along the sidelines, and their fans in the stands, hold up 4 fingers, signifying that the really important time, the 4th quarter, is about to begin) basically says that what happened the previous 3 quarters is not nearly as important as what is about to happen.

Now sure, the 4th quarter is important, it really is. Many times what happens then decides the game. But that's just crazy to place that much importance on it.

Take today, for example: we got our butts kicked in the 3rd quarter . . . really bad. That was the game. We can hold up four fingers all we want to. But in the stands, we all knew it was over at that point. The 3rd quarter, not the 4th quarter, doomed us today.

But bigger than any of that, the whole four fingers thing says to me that the destination, not the journey, is what is important. And I think that's a pretty narrow way to look at life. If what we are really concerned about is what happens at the very end of an event (or life), we're missing out on a whole lot of really good stuff.

Again, the Christian story is genius. It, at its core, implies, that life is a journey . . . not a destination. Life is to be enjoyed, experienced, really lived out all along the way . . . not just at the very end.

But then again, it's difficult to enjoy some parts of life when a twenty-one year old incredibly intoxicated young woman is screaming in your ear :)

I guess, though, that's part of the journey.

As Johnny Cash says, "I don't like it. But I guess things happen that way."

Winning and Losing Gracefully

Seems to me that we do not have the ability to win or lose, gracefully.

A lot of the political problems that we have had for the past decade or so deal directly with people who won or lost elections not being able to deal with reality. If you won, okay. If you lost, okay. Deal with it. If the other party has or doesn't have the majority, deal with it. That's life. Sticking your head in the sand and not dealing with reality not only does not help our country. It teaches our children that if you do not get what you want, you can just scream really loudly until you do get what you want or something like it.

The idea of compromise is completely lost on us today, politically and otherwise. I truly believe this bleeds over into all spheres of life. It happens on Capital Hill. It affects the way people drive and treat traffic like a game, myself included. And it teaches our youngsters that it's okay to bully your way through life. Just look at the news stories. I'm not necessarily saying that bullying is happening in greater proportions in school these days. Bullying has always been around (and it happens with people of all ages). But the affects of bullying are becoming ridiculous, particularly in our schools.

Adults, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We can blame the kiddos. We can blame the school systems and administrators. But they are learning this stuff from us.

And our inability to deal with winning and losing is what it's all about.

So next Tuesday, when plenty of people win and plenty of people lose political races, my prayer is that they deal with those results gracefully. And that we, as the public, gracefully deal with the wins and the loses, as well.

From Kings to Mediocrity: DFW Professional Sports

A little less than a year ago, it seemed that the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was about to become the center of sports, the mecca of professional sports teams.

The Dallas Mavericks were fresh off a NBA championship, in somewhat improbable fashion, having taken the NBA playoff calendar by storm.

The Dallas Cowboys were by no means front-runners. But they weren't too shabby, either. There was much football to be played. But the playoffs were most definitely within the realm of possibility, perhaps even a run into the playoffs. And when a team gets hot, we all know what could happen: Lombardi Trophy (see the NY Giants' recent run of playoff success).

And the Rangers were right there, about to become World Series Champs, a phrase that no die-hard Rangers fan could have ever imagined would be uttered about his/her team. Once that phrase was christened with a Game 6 victory, who knows what sort of momentum could ensue. A DFW Sports Triple Crown (NBA, MLB, NFL)? Very possible. Sports mania in DFW-land hitting an all-time high? You betcha. A run of consecutive World Series titles? Why not.

But then Game 6 happened. Then Holland gave up the eighth inning home run. Then Feliz's nerves got the best of him and he forgot how to paint the outside of the strike zone. And yes, then Nellie decided to turn ballerina in right field for fear of contact with the wall.

We now sit at the complete opposite end of where we were a year ago.

The Rangers? Whoa. This year's late-season collapse was epic. The stuff that people will talk about for, well, maybe forever. That coupled with the Game 6 collapse will have people wondering if they will ever be able to win the big game. Curse of the . . . Ballerina?

The Mavs? I really do not follow their day-to-day stories much. I have to admit that. But Dirk's knee issues seem like they could be pretty bad. I wonder if from here on out, he is a shell of what he used to be. Without Dirk, what is the team? Really? A team built around a superstar without said superstar. Things do not look good in Mark Cuban-land, at least for this NBA season.

And the Cowboys? They are taking things to new lows. Sure, Jerry Jones is a curse upon this franchise. Ever since their last Super Bowl title, some almost twenty years ago, Jones has really jacked this team up. With him as GM, we have no chance. But we still have done some things right, even in spite of him, e.g. the rise of Romo from an undrafted free agent. But their ability to lose games this year is taking things to a new level.

Yep, we really have done a complete 180 from the morning of October 26, 2011.

Who Ya Rootin' For? Baseball.

Finding someone to root for in the LCS round is difficult.

Giants? Nope. Cardinals? Heck no. Tigers? Neh. Yanks? Well . . . no.

But to be honest, I'm kind of warming a little to the Yanks. As sacreligious as that sounds, I have been a little impressed by them this year. Girardi gained a lot of cred, with me (I'm sure he's concerned about that) by pinch-hitting and then benching A-Rod this past week. Wash could learn a lot from that. And I've been able to listen on in some Yanks games this year, via MLB Nework. Their broadcasters are great. Pretty unbiased and seem like all-around great people. Now, I'm no Yanks fan. And if you ever see me wearing any of their gear, please immediately pull me aside and beat me senseless.

But I really have no one to pull for in the ALCS or NLCS. And I think that's okay. I look forward to watching baseball just to enjoy it . . . to, in a sense, pull for baseball. My past two Octobers have been so emotionally-charged that a break from being so invested in any particular teams is something that I kinda look forward to (though having the Rangers in the mix would be much, much, much, much, much better than this).

It will be an interesting experiment: watching sports just to watch it, not to pull for anyone or any one team. I think I just might like it.

"I Hate the Way I Watch Games"

That was a quote from one of the recent Sklarbro Country podcast episodes. Jason & Randy Sklar do a fine job of mixing comedy, sports, and all around awesomeness in their podcasts. I am particularly fond of the way they are confessional about their sports-watching.

They are huge University of Michigan football fans and St. Louis Cardinals fans (consequently, I have had to turn it off when they start talking about the Cards because it almost always comes around to the 2011 World Series, which almost always comes around to Game Six. Still ain't over it. Probably never will be.

Anyway, a number of times, they have talked about their passion (over-the-top passion) for sports. I completely understand what they are talking about. So on the episode that this quote comes from, they talk about their emotions while watching Wolverines football. They are either ecstatic over the way their team is playing . . . or furious over the way their team is playing. They noted that rarely, if ever, do their emotions have to do with the way the other team is playing.

That's so true, at least I know it is for me. When I watch games, my emotions rarely have anything to do with the other team. For instance, my normal way of doing things would be to go crazy when the Cowboys score tonight and to be furious when they give up a touchdown to the Giants tonight (I expect many of those). So when they lose (which is my prediction), I am prone to blame everything on the Cowboys, rather than praise the job the Giants did. Same goes for the Rangers. If they win tonight, it's because they're awesome. If they lose, it's because they're horrible, not because of the Royals' greatness. Well that may be a bad example. "Royals" and "greatness" doesn't really go all that well together.

I would do better to allow more for what happens from the other team, not just what happens to my team. Unless the Yankees are playing. The Yankees deserve no credit :)

The Good Guys Win Again

I surprisingly enjoyed watching some of the Yankees game yesterday. Yes, I used enjoyed and Yankees in the same sentence.

I was doing some things around the house yesterday afternoon and had the MLB Network on TV  (if you have the means to watch it, I highly recommend it). The Yanks/Blue Jays game was the only baseball game on at that time, so they showed a good bit of the game.

I was happily surprised to hear what the Yanks broadcasters had to say. They commended great Blue Jays plays, time and again. The Blue Jays beat the Yanks yesterday. Because of that, they had better plays going on throughout the broadcast. Normally when that happens, the team broadcasters would be down on their own team, rather than praising the opposing team. But I have to give it to the Yanks broadcasters. It almost sounded like the broadcasters were neutral.

You don't see (or hear) that too often. The extreme is the White Sox broadcasters. If you have ever had the non-pleasure (I can't think of the opposite word for pleasure), you know what I mean.

When I was young, we got WGN on cable TV. WGN carries Sox & Cubs games. I can remember the Sox broadcasters always overly praising their team and trashing the other team. They're still notorious for it today. I could be wrong; but I think they still have the same play-by-play guy. He sounds the same as he did fifteen to twenty years ago. He refers to the Sox as the "good guys." So when they win a game, it's always: "The good guys win again."

I think that's trash. Well maybe not trash. But it is disrespectful, especially if you're watching the game with those broadcasters as a neutral fan or fan of the other team.

Unfortunately, that's the way it is with many things these days. I told myself that I was going to sit down and watch the Republican National Convention last night. I'm not much of a fan of watching either convention. I plan on watching one or two speeches in each . . . and that will probably be it.

But last night, I decided I was going to give it a go. I listened for a couple of minutes to one particular speech. I won't say who it was . . . but he used to be a pastor. That's troubling because the parts of the speech I heard were blatant lies. Words used to get the crowd going, regardless of their truth or their outright meanness when trying to describe the other side of politics (particularly coming from a former pastor!).

The same thing will probably happen throughout the convention. And then it'll happen again when the Democratic National Convention happens.

And it will continue to happen until we demand more from our politicians . . . and from our baseball broadcasters.

Honey Badger Maybe Making Amends?

I was impressed to read about the latest twist from the story of the Honey Badger, former LSU cornerback, Tyrann Mathieu. Mathieu is an incredible football talent that has had trouble with substance abuse, among other things. His university, or the coaching staff, anyway, finally had enough and kicked him off the team, a fairly shocking thing to do considering how much of a blow to the team it will be.

Most people expected Mathieu to transfer to another school, possibly McNeese State, and play football elsewhere. The part of the story that I am impressed with is that he is, reportedly, considering staying at LSU, paying his own way through school this year, to get his life on track and prove to the football team, especially, I assume, Les Miles, that he is worthy of another shot:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8264350/tyrann-mathieu-interest-staying-lsu-sources-say

You don't hear stories like this much in sports. You hear stories of things going wrong, sure. But you do not generally hearing athletes saying they messed up and then trying to do something about it.

Charles Barkley was correct when he said that athletes are not role models. But, nonetheless, kids, and even adults, look up to them. So when you hear of something like this, you want to applaud and pat Mathieu on the back.

Some Mistakes Are Bigger Than Others

I know virtually nothing about water polo. But I do know that a mistake with one second left in an Olympic semifinal match that leads to overtime when your time was about to win is big. Huge. Bigger than probably any other mistake imaginable.

I turned the U.S. Women's seminfinal match on this morning just in time to see the Americans win it . . . almost. I turned the TV on with about two minutes left in the match, with the match tied. The Americans score a goal to go up by one. The Australians later shoot and miss with one second left in the game. The U.S. coach calls a timeout. The only problem is the Americans don't have the ball, possession.

That creates a situation in which the Australians get a free shot at the goal, with one Australian and our goalie. Sort of like a technical foul in basketball. Chris Webber, anyone?

The Australian player makes the goal; and the match goes to overtime.

Wow. What a mistake. Mistakes were made all throughout the match . . . and all throughout the Olympics. But none bigger than that one.

So it is with life. We make mistakes all day-long (or at least those of us who admit to them). But some mistakes are bigger than others.

What we need is people around us like the U.S. coach had around him. As soon as the foul/penalty was assessed, his players rallied around him and encouraged him to shake it off. The players all knew the enormity of it. But they also knew that it could have just as easily been them to make a huge mistake. And I would imagine they all realized the good things their coach had done for them.

Who do you have around you that encourages you to shake it off, to move on, to keep on going, even after you mess up worse than you could ever possibly imagine?

Water Polo Experts

It's funny how we all become experts in the most random of sports every four years.

Olympics time is awesome because we get to watch sports that are never on except for during the Olympics: water polo, kayaking, synchronized swimming. Okay, maybe not synchronized swimming.

What is not quite as awesome is how we all become experts in each of these sports. I can remember over the years having conversations with others about results in these various sports. During these conversations, we suddenly become experts in the respective sports, noting how and why certain athletes finished the way they did.

I thought about this as I saw a poll on TV the other day, asking viewers to text in what they think Jon Daniels  (Texas Rangers General Manager) should do at the trade deadline: whether he should get a pitcher, a position player, do nothing, etc.

Seeing that got me to thinking: JD has done a pretty darn good job during his tenure to help make the Rangers the team they are today. He has pulled off some moves that no one could have seen coming. And his success has translated into unprecedented success. Who are we, as fans, to suddenly be the expert in what needs to happen to the team?

I understand what was going on: the TV poll was simply a way to get viewers to interact and to buy in to what they were watching. But things like this can easily lead us to believe that we really are experts. And when we carry that to other things, like watching the Olympics, we know everything about every sport. And then, when we make the simple connection to the way we live our lives, we become the experts on everything: not only sports and news stories . . . but also the way others live their lives.

We would do well to put a break on our expertise of things like water polo. Let's just sit back and watch . . . and enjoy.

The Groesbeck Golfer

Yesterday, I drove through the thriving metropolis of Groesbeck, on my way to a golf tournament with some good friends of mine. As I passed through the out-skirts of town, I passed by a house with a young man out front. As I got closer to the house, I could see something was in his hand. Having just seen a handful of people out mowing their yards, in town, I figured he had a weed-eater in his hand. But as I passed by, I was taken a bit back as I noticed it was a golf club.

Looking in my rear-view mirror, I saw him tee a ball up and proceed to hit a shot across Hwy. 164 after the road had cleared. My first thought was something along the lines of: crazy twelve year-old . . . or that must be how golf is played in Groesbeck . . . or redneck golfer. I surely thought, "Who would do something like that?"

Then my mind immediately jumped back to my childhood, when I was twelve. My friend Kyle and I got onto a kick (that he taught me, I must insert) of playing golf around the neighborhood. We would tee the ball up at his house and play down a few streets, turn around, and come back.
In other words, I remembered teeing the ball up and hitting it across the road, too.

Before we rush to too quick of a judgment of others, we need to put ourselves into their shoes. Or maybe we don't need to judge at all. Perhaps we would do better to just let people do their thing and not always have to rush to some sort of critique or thought about it.

At least I know I would be better off doing something like that.

Everybody Hurts

Last night, we turned on the television a little after 7:00. It was on NBC from something we watched earlier in the day. The show that was currently on was "Whitney." I really don't know much about the show. I have heard of it. It may be a great show. But at that particular time, it was really annoying. Seemed like a mid-20s girl probably living in NYC, complaining about life. Had no stomach for that. So I turned it. To anything besides that show.

The TV flipped to the ESPYs. I didn't really want to watch it. But it was better than Whitney to occupy the time it took us to find something else on. I've never really understood the ESPYs. Does the sports industry really need an awards show? It has always seemed like an attempt by ESPN to Hollywood sports. Sports doesn't need that. Anyway, I digress.

The ESPYs were just coming on, so they were showing the top plays of the year. The second thing we saw was Neftali Feliz on the mound, David Freese in the batter's box, and Joe Buck declaring, "The Texas Rangers are one strike away from their first World Series Championship." We all know what happens next.

I'm still not over it. I may never be. Anytime someone mentions or shows clips from that game, I have to turn it. Immediately. By now, I have seen replays of the play: the Cruz miss, Feldman giving up the home run, all that stuff. I still don't understand how it happened. But perhaps more importantly, I'm still not okay with it.

I wonder how long it took Red Sox fans to get over the ball squirting between Buckner's legs in '86. I think that might be the only thing that compares with the feeling of the ball going right over Cruz's glove. I want to be over it. But that's going to take years. And that's okay. We, or at least I know that I do, try to rush through tramatic events, things that shake our very core, our very being.

People who have lost loved ones (which yes, I know, far eclipses a sports event) do not need to be told things like: "It's okay." "He/she is in a better place." "Time will heal." Those things may be true, to some extent. But what they really need to hear is things like: "I'm here for you." "This stinks."

We surely do need to take steps to get over things. But we can't just get over it because we want to. We have to allow things to run their course. The reality is there are some things we will never completely get over. I don't care if the Rangers win it all at some point or win 27 World Series Championships. I'll never get over that feeling of what happened last year. And there is nothing that will ever make it feel better. That simply is the way it is.
As the R.E.M. song says: "Everybody hurts sometimes."

Why People Don't Like Tebow

Tim Tebow was in the news yesterday . . . again.

He was traded to the New York Jets. I truly do not think he would be in the news so much if he was not so divisive. I believe he is so divisive because he is so showy with his religion.

He has been this way since college. Some people in his ear must have told him to tone it down, from a P.R. standpoint, in the NFL. But the fact remains that he wears his religion on his sleeve. And in our culture today, be it right or wrong, that sells well. People in the Bible belt eat that up. Every time he goes down on a knee to pray on the field, even though Jesus told us to pray in secret in our closets, millions of people think he is being a true witness of their faith. And when he goes on a commercial during the Super Bowl to promote so-called the "pro-life" camp, some people just can't get enough of it.

This year will truly tell whether Tebow is just a fad or is here to stay. He had quite a story, from a sports perspective, last year, as he led the Broncos to the playoffs. Now comes his biggest test of all, as he will be put under the NYC sports microscope.

Best of luck, Tebow . . .

Grace For All People

After news broke last week of Josh Hamilton "relapsing" with alcohol, I did not have much grace for him. I have not been a big Josh Hamilton fan for the last year or so. I have grown tired of the way he wears his religion on his sleeve, particularly since it is a brand of the Christian faith that I do not exactly identify with. Then, last season, when he injured himself, he blamed it on the third base coach. That did not seem to be the stand-up, Christian characteristic that I would have hoped for in him.

Then, I heard some details about his relapse with alcohol on local sports radio in the DFW area a few days ago. These details were, well, raunchy, to say the least. It showed me why I thought there was more to this relapse when he sort of apologized in his press conference. That's because there was more to it than alcohol. I let Hamilton have it pretty hard, even if it was only in my own head.

But that doesn't really matter. It took another radio program, on that same sports radio station, this morning to show me that I was the one, in fact, who was being hypocritical. The guy on the radio program, who is admittedly not enamored with the Christian faith (or at least the version of it he sees in popular culture), talked about how impressed he has been by the Christians who surround Hamilton that continue to stick by him throughout all of his ups and downs. The radio personality said that these people should be commended for continuing to encourage Hamilton, even when the details of his relapses are as scandalous as they are.

I was wrong. I might disagree with Hamilton, on a whole host of issues. But it is not my job to judge him. I root for the Texas Rangers; so I should root for Hamilton, both on and off the field. I preached a sermon a while back about judging others. In it, I used the illustration of Heathcliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby's character in The Cosby Show) trying to be a professional plumber in an episode of the show by attempting to fix a leak in the bathroom, when he should have let the professionals come in and do the job. It's the same with those who follow Christ. It's tempting, sure, but it's not our job to judge. We have no idea what it's like to be in the other person's shoes. The sad reality is that we often do much worse than Cliff, who jacked his bathroom up pretty good. We can easily demonize others and do both harm to them and to us . . . even if it's someone we don't even personally know, like Josh Hamilton.

Coping With Loss

Well that was a pretty pitiful sports weekend. The Rangers had the worst World Series collapse in history. The Cowboys-who knows how they ended up. I turned it off at 21-0. In fact, I turned off two very important games for two very important teams to me mid-way through the games. That's a first. But it just hurt too much to keep watching.

That's the word that I think best describes all of the bad feelings that came along with that horrible weekend of sports: hurt. There's anger, sure, and embarrassment and shock and denial, all that stuff. But hurt seems to be the most prevalent feeling and emotion.

Hurt because I watched just about every Rangers game since early August; and I kept up with every Rangers game that I didn't get to watch, all season long. I put lots of time and energy into going to games and keeping tabs on Rangers' news and happenings. The Rangers players became sort of like family, as I knew what was happening to them and saw them virtually everyday. Of course, all of this goes back for almost thirty years. I have been a fan of every Rangers team for as long as I can remember.

All the while, I have dreamed of a championship. Dreamed but never really expected it to happen. Then there it was. We had it. It was ours. It was so much ours that Twitter-land and Facebook-land and, for that matter, all of internet-land had already proclaimed the World Series trophy to be ours. Then it wasn't. Then it was again, one inning later. Then it wasn't. Then it really wasn't in the 11th inning.

Sure, there was a Game 7. But after the collapse of Game 6, we never really had a chance. That's why I had to turn it off in the fifth inning of Game 7. Just couldn't bear to watch it anymore. Why? I guess it hurt too much.

So what do you do now? After a season of being so close, so attuned to everything that happened with a sports team. After being so stinkin' close to a championship that it was basically already ours only to have it stolen away at the last possible second? Many people, it has been reported, have given up. Not only on the Rangers but all of sports. And that is totally understandable and really doesn't seem like all that bad of an idea. Because this hurt is too deep, too painful.

But for me, I have to keep on keeping on. A wise man once told me that the pain of losing is a far greater feeling/emotion than the joy of winning. That was told to me after watching the Braves fall apart and lose a playoff game and a playoff series at the same time. The Braves have become my adopted NL team. And it hurt at the time, when they lost. But this . . . this Rangers collapse is just ridiculous. And that wise man is right: the pain of losing, especially this way, must be a feeling that is much stronger than what I would feel if Nellie would have made that catch in the 9th inning . . . or if Feldman could have just gotten one more strike in the 10th. The joy of winning it all would have been great. But this pain from the collapse is a much more intense feeling.

I have to keep on keeping on because sports really is the ultimate reality show. Sports mirrors life in so many ways. And now I understand that it can really help us cope with life in ways that are really profound. That's because this is life. Things go good, things go bad. Just when it seems that something incredibly good might happen, it's snatched right away from us . . . and vice versa.

There are other lessons to learn from this season, too. For many people, myself most definitely included, they invested too much of themselves in the Rangers. Sports is good-but I need to balance my love for it and passion for it. It needs to be kept in check. That's tough when your team is having such a good year. And there's nothing wrong with rooting for them and getting behind them. But it needs to be kept in balance. If that doesn't happen, your life can be completely shaken when your team seems to fail you. Sports teams are made up of people, doing their best (or at least we hope they are)--nothing more, nothing less. Sports is supposed to be entertainment. When taken too seriously, sports becomes something that it shouldn't be.

So, we move on. I'm already wondering what will happen for next year: Will we keep C.J.? (I hope not.) Will we sign C.C.? We move on because . . . well because that's really all we can do, no matter how much it hurts.

First Entry

Last night, I watched the first half of a documentary about Steve Bartman, the guy who supposedly kept the curse alive on the Chicago Cubs by interfering with a foul ball in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series. I had no idea the guy took such a beating from the public. I mean, I knew he was made fun of and received threats. But the people at that game acted like little children.

It's easy to sit back and watch them and think, "Those idiots." But I was an idiot, too. I'm sure I made fun of him at the time. The issue here is letting things like sports take us completely out of who we are. Sports are fun. Sports can be entertaining. But we have to keep things in balance. When we pour all of who we are into something like sports, we're finished. We're completely at the control of a random sports team to tell us how we should feel. When we step back and think about it, we see how silly this really is.

This is the same thing that the guy who wrote the book, God and Football, was trying to say a couple of years ago with this survey of how people react to SEC football. Sports is sports. What matters is how we react.