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.