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.