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CHRISTIAN SPORTS REPORT
The Heart of Sports
No Losers Here
 By
Brad Locke
(AgapePress) - Boise State's upset of Oklahoma in the
Fiesta Bowl vividly illustrated what I, and most people, view as
more a nice sentiment than a hard and fast truth: It doesn't
really matter if you win.
On the scoreboard, Boise State had won 43-42 (in
overtime). Ian Johnson's two-point conversion run, on the old
Statue of Liberty play, capped one of the most exhilarating
finishes I've ever seen, in any sport and at any level. But what
if he'd been stopped shy of the goal line? Would that have made
Boise State's effort any less heroic?
Sure, they would've been lauded for almost pulling off the upset,
but the praise would have been minuscule compared to the accolades
victory brought.
Oklahoma deserves a lot of
credit, too, for showing poise and fortitude when it fell behind
by 18 points in the second half.
Instead, it's been thoughtlessly
bestowed the role of Goliath. Think how ridiculous this scenario
is: If Johnson scores those two points, Boise State is declared
the better team; if he doesn't, Oklahoma is the better team.
It sounds trite to us when a
coach says, "Neither team deserved to lose this game." That
statement can be very true in one sense, but very misleading in
another. Certainly one cannot truthfully say that Boise State is
even a marginally better team than Oklahoma, because point totals
are not truly indicative of a team's overall effort and execution.
The way both teams exerted themselves and performed so admirably
makes the final score almost an insult, a weak quantification of
what transpired.
Indeed, neither team deserved
the fate of defeat.
However, that sentiment -- which
I've heard uttered only after intense, close games -- implies that
more often than not, somebody deserves to lose. That's true much
of the time, but I've seen games where an overmatched team still
played as hard and as passionately as -- and sometimes more than
-- its opponent. But a final score of 42-7 won't prompt a coach to
say, "Neither team deserved to lose."
What has been lost amongst the
closely scrutinized standings and rankings is the heart and soul
of sports. The sabermetric, stat-parsing, hyper-analytical mindset
that now dominates the sports world can't measure effort, heart,
sportsmanship, or any of the other qualities that make for true
greatness. I've seen losing teams that, because they possessed
those qualities in abundance, I thought possessed far more
greatness than their conquerors.
The Boise State-Oklahoma game
reminded me of how such greatness is achieved. In no way can the
BCS rankings or the AP poll or anyone else's opinion define either
of these teams or what they did on that night of January 2. Not
that people won't try.
I find myself guilty of such an
approach in my everyday living. Like the concept of "winning isn't
everything," I know in my head that receiving praise for good
works or for my writing will not make me a winner. It might to the
world, but not to God.
I'm not going to win first place
all the time, and I'm not going to win all my spiritual battles. I
too often find myself despairing because of what I perceive as
defeat, either because of a sin I'm struggling with or because I
failed to effectively witness to someone.
With all the losing I
experienced during my youth athletic career, you'd think I'd have
learned by now that defeat, and the pain it brings, is temporary.
When it comes to my real-life struggles, defeat isn't merely
temporary. It isn't real.
God doesn't grade me on my
spiritual performance, but on how well I let Him perform through
me. Whatever spiritual defeat I experience in this life isn't
defeat, but an opportunity to grow; it brings me a step closer to
realizing the victory that is already mine in Jesus.
That's the only kind of winning
that matters.
Brad Locke (checkswinger@gmail.com)
is a sports journalist in Tupelo, Mississippi.
CG
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