You can learn much about yourself and about others through playing competitive sports.\u00a0 Today, coaching a\u00a09\/10 year-old basketball team\u00a0in a “recreational” league,\u00a0was a reminder of that fact of life.<\/p>\n
When I was younger, I played competetive sports — football, baseball, and tennis.\u00a0 One sport that I did not play nor have I ever even faked liking is the sport of basketball.\u00a0 However, due to\u00a0divine Providence and God having a sense of humor, my wife\u00a0and I volunteered to coach not one, but two, basketball teams\u00a0for our sons’ Christian school.<\/p>\n
Our teams are part of the “Recreation” League in our community.\u00a0 I put “recreation” in quotes because there is nothing recreational about the league, contrary to the\u00a0letter and, most importantly, the spirit of how the game is supposed to be played.<\/p>\n
Stressed at the\u00a0beginning of the season — and even reinforced by the local high school coaches — the league is supposed to be about fun, fundamentals, and winning, in that order.\u00a0 The rules, as written,\u00a0require every player on a team– no matter how good or not-so-good\u00a0he or she is — to have equal playing time.\u00a0 That certainly goes along with the stated purpose\u00a0of\u00a0getting kids —\u00a0especially at young ages — to\u00a0learn about basketball and to have fun while doing it.<\/p>\n
Our team, known as the Eagles, are a\u00a0great group of kids.\u00a0 However, most of them have never played competetive basketball before and have never played together as a team.\u00a0 Despite the “recreational” nature of the league, there are some teams who have played together for years and who continue to\u00a0“weed out” bad players and “recruit” new players.\u00a0 I’m not quite sure how that helps with the spirit of the game at this age.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During our practices, we stress four goals for our team:\u00a0 fun,\u00a0fundamentals, winning, and fun (yes, it should be really fun).\u00a0 That is in keeping with the spirit of the game which those in charge say they want for the kids at this age.\u00a0 If all teams do not have an understanding of the spirit of the game, then is it any wonder that many (most) of these kids will not want to continue playing basketball when they are older?<\/p>\n
When many of the teams in the league — and the league officials — do not even have a pretense to abide by the spirit of the game as stated, then the question becomes, “How do you respond when other teams and those in charge of the league, blatantly violate that spirit?”\u00a0\u00a0In life, whether in politics, religion, or sports, when\u00a0others violate the spirit of the\u00a0“game,” we\u00a0have several options.\u00a0 We can choose to ignore the flagrant violations, choose to walk away (thus handing an easy victory to those who are in the wrong), or choose to stand up for the integrity of the game and the spirit by which it should be played.<\/p>\n
Of course, those in charge — who violate with impunity the spirit (and sometimes the letter) of the “game,”\u00a0always prefer that you ignore their violations or that you just walk away.\u00a0\u00a0Put another way, they just hope you sit down and\u00a0shut up.\u00a0 I don’t know whether it’s my upbringing or the values that\u00a0were instilled in me by my parents — particularly my father — but\u00a0when I see others violating the rules of the game, particularly the spirit of the game, I am not one to sit down and shut up.<\/p>\n
Whether\u00a0standing up to entrenched powers within Southern Baptist life\u00a0or to governing officials in \u00a0“recreational” basketball league, I will\u00a0continue to defend the\u00a0integrity and spirit\u00a0of the “game.”\u00a0 When the opposing team, up 19 to 0 going into the last quarter, is egged on by their coach to keep pressing at the half-court and taking three-point shots, I will not be silent.\u00a0 When referees, who should be helping the kids have fun and learn fundamentals — after all, that’s the stated purpose for this “rec” league” — call cheap violations at the end of a game, I will not be silent.\u00a0 When officials feign that they have no power to enforce the rules of the game or\u00a0to see that the games are played in the spirit that they themselves intend, then I will not be silent.<\/p>\n
I guess I have too much of my dad in me, which at times is good and at other times is bad.\u00a0 When I see “leaders”, be they in charge of the community rec. basketball league or in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention,\u00a0take actions which violate the spirit of the “game,” I will not sit down and shut up.\u00a0 Ignore?\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 Walk away?\u00a0 No chance!\u00a0 Stand up and be counted?\u00a0 Absolutely!\u00a0 How would you respond?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You can learn much about yourself and about others through playing competitive sports.\u00a0 Today, coaching a\u00a09\/10 year-old basketball team\u00a0in a “recreational” league,\u00a0was a reminder of that fact of life. When I was younger, I played competetive sports — football, baseball, and tennis.\u00a0 One sport that I did not play nor have I ever even faked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,37,38],"tags":[133,236,787,3393,929,3394,931],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-southern-baptist-convention","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-coaching","tag-playing-the-game","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-spirit-of-the-game","tag-sports","tag-sportsmanship"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-pW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}