5:30AM Basketball

I hate waking up early. I'm becoming more and more accustomed to it though. I recently started working at Christian school in Ann Arbor, which means that I have to get up early. For the time being it is nice to get up and see the sunrise in my review mirror on my way to work. I love seeing how God is going to paint the sky in a completely unique way each and every morning. It gives me a sense of joy that I never received before because I would simply sleep straight through it.

But a couple of days a week I get up at ten 'til five so that I can meet a group of guys to play some basketball in Ann Arbor before I head off to work. I got hooked up with this 5am group through my dad who also plays there a few days a week. I'm not usually real great at getting up early in the morning to do anything on a regular basis, but playing basketball every Wednesday and Friday has been great.

When it comes to getting physical exercise I prefer playing sports (if that isn't obvious from the theme of this blog). But it is difficult to find a group of people that play on a regular basis at a time that works well for everyone involved. So 5:30am it is then. However, I've found that it is so nice to get my exercise out of the way in the morning. I'm a big sports fan, so at night I like to watch sports. Between that and dinner there isn't much time for a quick run, let alone an organized sport. I love just being able to relax knowing that I've already got my workout in for the day.

Those are all real great reasons why I like to play at this ridiculous hour in the morning, but the real reason that I go is to play with my dad. For the last eight or so years I have been living on the other side of the state, and haven't been able to see my parents face to face a whole lot. If you had told me this time two years ago that I would be playing basketball every Wednesday and Friday mornings with my dad I would have thought that you were crazy.

God has blessed both me and my wife with our dream jobs in a city that is very close to both of our families. I love the fact that I get the opportunity to see them on a weekly basis and play a little ball with my dad. Mom, I'm working on it. But I promise we'll find our 'thing' soon. I would have never imagined that both me and my wife would find such perfect jobs in Ann Arbor and be in a place to share so much time with our families, but that is just the way God works. I am very thankful.

The Jump

In high school I played a bunch of different sports. Of the sports that I played, high jumping on the track team was the thing that I was most skilled at. I ran cross country and played basketball, but I was never a stand out athlete in those sports. I would have never drawn the attention of college recruiters in those sports, but in track I had a chance.

My freshman year I jumped 5'10", which is pretty good for a freshman. I really enjoyed running track in high school. I did it mostly for fun and because I was good at it, but I never would have thought that it would have changed my life.

I was a junior and I had a teammate high jumper that was a year younger than me, but jumping at the same level as I was. That year we pushed each other to new heights, hehe. We started the season both jumping around 5'8"-5'10" consistently. The question was always, who was going to break the 6'0" barrier first? I ended up being the first person over the bar, but I was upstaged a week later when my teammate jumped 6'2". I never again cleared 6'0". Only once have I been over that bar, but it was enough to get me recruited by the Hope College.

Both of my parents and my sister went to MSU and are die hard Spartan fans. I grew up a fan and always thought that I would end up a Spartan. When it came time to apply to colleges, I only applied to two schools: MSU and Hope College. I visited Hope and fell in love with the campus and the community. I was excited to go to Hope and be a college athlete.

I had a disappointing senior track season and that ended up discouraging me from joining the track & field team at Hope. When I arrived at Hope I was on my own and my faith was tested. I'm confident that I would have never been able to be the person that I am today if I would have gone to MSU. God used my athletic skills to bring me to hope, but I never ended up using that skill at the college level. I like to think that God sent his angels to lift me up over that bar my junior year so that he could place me in the school that I was supposed to be in.

It was a home meet, and I had already had two failed attempts. I ran the hook shaped pattern and jumped as high as I could, just as I had done a thousand times before. But it was that split second in time, where I was able to get that extra inch, that changed my life forever. It was the jump that changed my life.

Winning and Losing

In my latest post I told y'all about my tryout with the Detroit Mechanix. There is going to be another tryout in mid March, so unfortunately I have no updates on whether or not I made the team. Rather than waiting until then to post again, I thought that it would be best to bring another issue to the table.

In this post I want to talk about what it means to win or lose as a Christian. In our culture, and specifically in our sports culture, everything rests on winning and losing. We define our success on whether or not we win games. Coaches can lose their jobs if they don't bring home a certain number of Ws each year. If my job rested on winning and losing, then my priorities would change a little too. But is this what God is calling us to do? Certainly winning is more fun and should be one of our goals; but aren't there other goals that we should be focused on as Christians in sports?

My dad is a varsity women's basketball coach and he has proposed an interesting scenario. Its the final seconds of the game. Our team is up by one point and the other team has the ball. The point guard drives down the middle of the lane and puts up a shot at the buzzer and misses. But wait...there is a shooting foul called against our team, which puts the other teams point guard at the free throw line for two shots with no time left on the clock. What is our response as Christians? Do we pray to God that this person misses the free throws? Or, do we simply step back and hope that this player in this high pressure situation doesn't crumble? 

If we are motivated only by receiving the W in the win column, then yeah. Let's go ahead and pray that God makes him miss those shots. But what about that player at the free throw line? He/she has then ability to win and lose the game all by themselves. If they miss, then they will feel the criticism from their team and school for a while. If they make it, then they are a hero among their teammates while our team has to deal with defeat. My concerns are more for the individual on the foul line. I wouldn't openly cheer for him, but I don't ever wish, or pray for failure upon anyone. 

Lastly, I want to talk about how we should win and how we should lose. All of us have won games, and all of us have lost games. Every athlete has to deal with failure at some point. How we deal with that failure reflects our character. We need to be able to lose well. Making excuses about the referees and specific situations is not a good way to lose. Jim Harbaugh has given us a good example of losing poorly in this years Super Bowl as he jumps up and down the side-line signaling for holding. We could probably talk about the call itself for a while, but the result will still be the same at the end. When our only desire becomes winning the game, then we are more likely to complain and make excuses when we lose. If we are concerned with doing our best and playing our hardest, then we are much less likely to make excuses when things don't work out the way we want them to. I'm not saying that we shouldn't complain about bad calls every once and a while (I am still a little irritated about Galaraga's "perfect game" that was blown on a bad call with two outs in the bottom of the ninth). What I am saying is that we need to take responsibility for our losses and try not to let it happen again. The 49ers didn't deserve to win that game, but I would have so much more respect for them as an up-and-coming young team in the NFL if their coach and fans would just stop complaining. Those players don't deserve to have people dislike their team just because Jim Harbaugh is a bit of a jerk. We must remember that how we handle losses and wins reflects on the teams that we play on and cheer for.

Winning well is also important. When our teams win we should never rub it in the face of our opponent or a opposing fan. When we do that it reflects the reputation of our team and our faith. We shouldn't rub our salvation in other people's faces, so why should we rub in a simple rivalry win? The end result is never good. If you dish it, get ready for it to come right back around next year. Part of that is just plain fun, but as Christians I think that we are better than that. If we start arguing about sports more than living into the kingdom of God, then we have a real problem. If that rival team and their fans become our primary enemies, then you have already lost against sin. And that is the "game" that counts. If we start hating our sports rivals, even though they are fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, then what have we become?