Tryouts

This Friday and Saturday I will be going to the combine for the Detroit Mechanix. The Mechanix are a professional ultimate frisbee team in the AUDL (American Ultimate Disc League). Ultimate is one of the largest growing sports in the world, and the competition level is getting pretty high. I don't really know if I have a shot of making this team or not, but I'm not too optimistic. The Mechanix and the AUDL have even gotten some attention from ESPN. Here are some of the best plays that made the highlight reel.

In this play the assist came from a buddy of mine that I've been playing with for a number of years. The reciever, Ben Ayres, is the former captain of Kalamazoo College Ultimate.
Kraght to Ayres

In this video the play is #3 on the ESPN Top10.

I can't pass up on the chance to play a professional sport, and since I will never make it to the NBA I think this is the next best thing. Like I said before, there is a lot of talent emerging to come and try out for these teams, so I don't know what my chances are like. In anticipation that I will be getting cut from this team next week, I'm going to save that discussion for then. This week I want to talk about making the team, or just winning in general.

Throughout my athletic career I would have to say that one of my proudest moments was when I made my 7th grade team. I know that this seems a little silly to most people, but in seventh grade I was 6'0" and about 135 lbs. Needless to say, I was a scrawny little kid. I was also going to one of the largest middle schools in the state of Pennsylvania at the time, so it was a little harder than it sounds. I was so excited that I made that team that I don't think I broke a smile for about a week. I was on the top of the world, and I'm sure that everyone around me could tell.

So how do we handle situations like that as Christians? I'm now thinking of every Quarterback in their post game interview after winning the Superbowl saying, "I want to thank God for this awesome opportunity." I'm pretty convinced that there has got to be a better way of conducting yourself than just using cliches and thanking your mom. I think that humility is important, but what does true humility look like?

I personally believe that true humility is when you just take the stinking complement and say thank you. Don't be afraid to tell people how hard you worked for something. Your not being selfish by receiving compliments in a moment that you have worked hard to be able to enjoy. It is true though that you must turn the attention back to God at some point, but be specific. There is a reason that God has given you your athletic ability and put you in that situation. You can even tell a short story about how God got you through a difficult time to get you to this place. This is called a testimony, and it is something that will direct the attention toward the great works of God in your life, and possibly even in the lives of your teammates and coaches. Hopefully this time next week I'll be posting something that sounds an awful lot like what I just described, so wish me luck. 

Going All Out

I don't typically get in altercations with other players, but I see it happen with other people all the time.

Playing sports can get a little rough at times. If I'm trying to win and your trying to win, then there is going to be some incidental contact. I for one happen to love it. There aren't too many times in life where you are aloud to push someone around a little and they can push right back, and then you can step out of the game and have a very casual conversation. When I play basketball I kind of like playing against someone who is a little bit bigger than me. I know that I am going to have to toughen up a little bit in order to contain him. It's kinda fun.

Having said that, I hate playing against someone who is intentionally doing illegal things in order to beat me. I love playing in a really physical match-up. I hate playing against cheaters. There is a fine line between these two types of players, but it means a world of difference to your opponent. I believe that people who cheat have humility issues, and people who play hard have competitiveness issues. The person who cheats doesn't want to beat you. Rather, they just want the recognition for themselves. The person who plays hard just wants to beat you fair and square.

It's okay to be competitive. But what if I'm playing competitively and he is cheating? What should the right response be? The response should not be to cheat right back. If you hit him/her back harder, then you've already escalated the situations. An eye for an eye will not help you resolve the situation. It will actually make it worse. You are no longer there to have fun playing a sport that you love. You are now there for your own pride.

My solution is to just smile. I don't really have to force myself to smile, I just simply think that it is funny that someone needs to cheat in order to prove themselves. It is not secret that this guy is cheating. Everyone else on the floor and in the stands can see it. Just because your opponent is ruining their reputation, that doesn't mean that you should ruin yours.

As Christians we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and not treat sports as a part of life that is completely separate from the Christian life. You should be the same person on the floor as you are off the floor. People should be able to tell that you are a Christian in day-to-day life, and the same should be true when you step our onto the court or field. It's fun to be competitive with other people and to give it your all, but it must be done in the context of the Christian life.

Spike It!

When I started this blog, this is one of the main topics that I had in mind. What compels someone who plays a team sport to spike the ball and do a little dance? Football is a team sport, and I don't think I have ever seen a play where the player that scored did it completely on their own. There is always someone who helped them get there, but that person is rarely ever recognized. I can completely understand the excitement of someone getting up after making a big play and being pretty pumped about it. But that excitement does not result in an elaborate dance that was choreographed beforehand. It is easy to tell the difference between the two. 

Barry Sanders was the best running back to ever play the game . Sorry Walter. It's true. The NFL Network recently did a countdown of the best end-zone celebrations of all time. The winner was Barry Sanders who had a very unique end-zone celebration. Take a look:

It has become so much of a part of the game to spike the ball and do a dance. So, what Barry did was so out of the ordinary that it is actually the #1 best touchdown celebration. Every time he scored I knew that it wasn't his first time in the end-zone and it wasn't going to be his last. The way that most guys celebrate, you would have thought that they never score touchdowns. Barry was humble enough to not draw attention to himself, but everyone still knows his name. But it isn't just enough to not draw attention to yourself, we should also try to draw attention away from ourselves and to the people that assist us in team sports. 

If you read my previous post, then you know that I am an ultimate frisbee player, and that ultimate players hold themselves to a higher standard due to the sport being self-officiated. However, spiking the disc has become a more prevalent occurrence where it was once heavily frowned upon. It is still frowned upon outside of the national spotlight. I hate seeing players spike the disc, because ultimate is a team sport at its core. You cannot move once you have the disc, therefore there is an assist with every point scored. By spiking the disc you take all the attention away from the person who threw it to you. At the lower levels of ultimate there is an unwritten rule that awards the assistor with the "pull" (an ultimate term for a "kickoff") on the next point. As a scoring player, you can do one of two things. You could spike the disc and walk off the field, or you could toss it back to the person who assisted your score. You tell me which one uses your athletic gifts in order bring praise to God. 

How many times do we see basketball players get an awesome pass for a big dunk and then pound his own chest on his way back down the court? Occasionally you will see a player point to the person with the assist to recognize their pass to you as the better play than their own easy dunk. 

Pointing at your own awesomeness is not humility. Play the game for those on your team. Live life for those around you and not for yourself. We should always look first to put others before ourselves, even when we are the ones that everyone is looking at and praising. 

The Culture of Ultimate Frisbee

I have two sports that I really love to play, and one way more than the other. I play competitive Ultimate Frisbee more than I play any other sport. In the winter months it becomes a little more difficult to play, but I do still play a bit at indoor soccer complexes. I really play a lot more basketball in the winter time given that it is difficult to play indoor ultimate regularly. I know that there might be a lot of criticism about whether or not ultimate is a 'real' sport. I hope that this video puts that criticism to rest.

There is a huge difference in the culture of ultimate and basketball. Basketball is a sport that is officiated, so it becomes a sport where people believe that they can get away with whatever the refs don't see. I mostly just play pickup basketball, where there is no referees. It makes it so you have to call your own fouls, but the culture of the sport is so competitive that there are constant arguments and disagreements. 

Ultimate is a self officiated game at all levels except for the AUDL (American Ultimate Disc League. That's right. There is professional ultimate, and we have our own team that plays in the Pontiac Silver Dome. The Detroit Mechanix.) This means that players must take on a certain amount of sportsmanship in order to make the game fun to play. It truly is a remarkable sport because people are always able to solve their disputes without getting into fights or lengthened disagreements. 

Ultimate has really taken on the importance of sportsmanship and respect for others. The game is still played at a high level, but the players still recognize that treating each other with respect is more important than the outcome of any particular play. Basketball is focused on the outcome of the game, and it doesn't really matter how you get there as long as you come out on top in the end. If you were to act out of this mindset in the ultimate world, then no one would ever want to play against you and especially with you. 

No matter what sport you play, try to adopt the ultimate mindset. Be much more concerned about treating each other well than with winning the game. Tomorrow nobody will remember who won your pickup game at the gym, but they will remember how they were treated and what kind of person you are. This is how we are able to be Christians on the court/field. We go against the way that our culture is telling us to treat each other and become much more sensitive to God's command to love our neighbor as ourselves even in the midst of intense competition. Competition does not need to equal cheating, poor sportsmanship, and disrespect. 

Parents

Throughout my life I have been a part of many different sports teams. In high school I was a three sport athlete. I ran cross country in the fall, high jump in the spring, and during the winter months I played basketball. I can't remember a single game or meet where my parents weren't there. They traveled all over the state to see me compete in all these sports. Many parents of high school athletes come to all their kids games, but our situation was very unique.

My parents love Michigan State football. After I graduated from high school, my parents bought season tickets to MSU football games.I said that my parents love MSU. What you should also know is that a tailgate for a MSU football game is actually more like an extended family reunion every week. Every year I get the chance to go to one of these games and I get to see how much fun my dad, and especially my mom, have every week at these games. 

I mentioned that I ran cross country in high school. If you are not familiar with the sport cross country meets are day-long events, and most of the time they take place every Saturday throughout the fall. Cross country is not a great spectator sport. If you go to a meet, you'll get to see the start, finish, and maybe one section of the actual course. My parents would often joke that they run more than I do during my races. 

I say all this because my parents gave up a lot in order to be there to support me and cheer for me at all my sports events. Cross country is not a fun sport to spectate, and high jump is a lot of waiting for a little action. But they were there through all of it, often times in terrible weather. This has meant a lot to me and shaped the way that I will support my future children. It has shown me that they care more about family than they do about college football. I know that they had their priorities right, and it was a lesson to me at a very young age that supporting my family is more important than the sports I like to watch. 

I love watching MSU football and basketball games, but I married a U of M fan who likes to watch Michigan football games. We make our little rivalry fun, but because of the way that I was raised I know that supporting my wife is much more important that voicing my dislike of the Wolverines. Football rivalries are fun, and we enjoy teasing each other about it, but we know that game day shouldn't run our lives. 

So even though I will never be interviewed after a super bowl victory: I'd like to take this chance to thank my mom and dad. And I'm going to Disney Land! 

The Replacement Officials

I told myself when I started this blog that I was going to try and avoid the world of professional sports. But there is such a unique and important discussion that is going on in the National Football League. So, let's talk about officials. If you a conscious American, then you are at least aware that there have been replacement officials working in the NFL. Regardless of whether you side with the NFL or the NFLRA (NFL Referees Association), you should be able to tell that these replacement officials are not doing the greatest job,

and they are getting a lot of flack. Yesterday the NFL and the NFLRA came to an agreement and the replacement officials were relieved by the normal NFLRA officials.

In the hockey world, when the officials take the ice they are traditionally booed. They haven't even done anything wrong yet and they are already hated by everyone in the stadium. Last night for Thursday night football on the NFL Network the NFLRA officials took the field for the first time this season. For the first time in the history of sports the officials were given a standing ovation by the entire stadium. These are the same officials that football fans have been screaming at through their TV set for years, but now we have something to compare them to. We realize that they are the best and that they deserve our appreciation. But here's the kicker. I'm probably still going to yell at my TV this weekend. 

I have a couple of years of experience officiating both basketball and baseball, and I have been yelled at plenty of times while officiating. Yet I still yell at the officials all the time. It has become part of the culture of sports. 

It all boils done to our own issues. Our dislike of officials is a combination of our selfish desires to support our team in whatever way possible, and our egotistical nature to always be right. Selfishness and lack of humility are both issues that we as Christians should be trying to avoid. Our culture tells us that it's okay to hate the officials, but our scripture tells us that we need to love the officials. 

I introduced this blog as a way to share the ways in which we are able to use athletic ability to worship God. I realize that this post is slightly off topic, but it is important. If you simply a fan, then give the officials a break. As an athlete, I know that there is a temptation to disagree with a referee while playing in a sporting event. In these moments we must realize that all eyes are on us, and our response to a particular call can effect the way that the church is perceived. Furthermore, we honor God when we treat our officials with respect and share the love of Christ with them even in a competitive and intense situation. 

The Kickoff

If you are at all like me, then you have spent a considerable amount of time wondering how to use the gift of athletic ability to serve the Lord. It seems like some people are lucky enough to be blessed with the gift of musical talent, preaching ability, or relational skills. God has molded me in such a way that I am not particularly gifted in many of those areas; but I can run fast, jump high, and I have good hand-eye coordination. How in the world am I supposed to use those gifts in order to serve God? That is question that I will be attempting to answer with every post. Feel free to join in on the discussion and share how God has used your athletic abilities in order to shine Christ's light through you. Even if you don't consider yourself to be athletically gifted, please feel free to chime in. Participation in sports is not just for those who are good at them, it is also for those who simply enjoy playing the game or getting a good workout. Regardless, I believe that there are many people out there who both love Christ and love sports. This is your space just as much as it is mine.