I love sports. I have played some form of athletics, recreationally, since I was around at least 7 years old. It began with basketball in the backyard with a make-shift goal that my dad built himself. He built the backboard out of plywood and then nailed it to a tree. Creative! I did play one year of baseball at 7 years old, but I was not very good at all, thus, the one year! I have played full-court basketball in a variety of leagues, or pickup games, in some form or fashion, for 30 years now. I’ve played ping pong (“table tennis” for those who know!) off and on for around 30 years, recreationally. Recently I have greatly enjoyed playing pickleball and have even been brave enough to enter myself into a few tournaments (2 individual tournaments, which were both rained out, and then a doubles tournament, which was a disaster due to my own poor playing). As I have become a little bit older, I’m actually seeing great value in sports to keep my body in shape and to keep my limbs moving and active, since, “If you don’t use it, you lose it!” Plus, when it comes to exercise, it is a WHOLE lot more fun to chase a ball than it is to get on a treadmill and stare at a wall!
Also, I enjoy watching sports. Some of my fondest memories growing up was watching the Atlanta Braves baseball team in the 1990s. If you know anything about baseball in the 90s, the Braves had a really good pitching staff that was unparalleled (Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux, and even Avery). I can remember watching game 7 of the NLCS, in 1992, with my family and the exhilarating moment when Sid Bream, slower than molasses, slid in just before Barry Bonds’ throw from left field to win the series and go on to the World Series. I can remember my mother in the floor, hugging me and screaming, because the Braves won the game. It was quite a moment for Braves’ fans and I guarantee you that anyone who was a Braves fan during that time-period remembers that event. It truly was a great moment in sports, especially hearing Braves’ announcer Skip Carey make the call. Sid Bream’s slide even has it’s own Wikipedia entry called, “The Slide!”
I have also enjoyed watching the Alabama Crimson Tide over the past 17 years, and I’ve recently enjoyed watching this big, slow guy, who can barely jump, win 2 MVPs in the NBA (his name is Nikola Jokic). I was intrigued watching Jokic play because he doesn’t “fit” the NBA “athletic” type and he has, as a “big man,” blown out all stereotypes when it comes to what centers can do in the NBA. Also, I really enjoy watching the Olympics. Watching Katie Ledecky swim so far ahead of her competition that it looks like she is swimming alone, is truly an amazing display of athleticism. The endurance to swim 1500 meters like that is simply astounding to me. The dedication to a sport, and then the thrill of victory within a sport (an Olympic medal, a trophy, a championship, etc.) has always been emotional to me because it is the fruit of much unseen hard work.
I say all of that to say this: I believe sports, athletics, and competition, are all a gift from God. It is a gift to play sports, and it is a gift to watch sports. Indeed, sports seems to fall under the general concept of “play,” and that truly is a gift from God. God has given us the capacity to “play” which, ultimately, can be good for our bodies, good for our minds, and even good for our souls, if we will let it be. So, I am not a “Debbie Downer” when it comes to sports, nor would I condemn the good uses of, and good results from, sports. Play them! Enjoy them! At the same time, hopefully, we are also aware that sports can become an idol. We can become consumed with “wanting to win” whether we are on the playing field ourselves, or we are watching someone else on the playing field. It can consume way too much time to the neglect of other matters such as family time, family duties, personal/mental health, or even work. Recreation is good and, I’d say, even needed in the fast-paced society we live in, but we must not worship at the feet of recreation. It is a very poor god that will disappoint us every time.
Deeper Questions about Sports and the “Youth, Sports, Healthy Families, and the Future of the Church” podcast episode
I have pondered much about sports (and the larger topic of “play”) and their use in our lives, especially as it relates to God and His glory. Some of my questions have been:
- “Why did God give us sports?”
- “Why did God give us the capacity to ‘play’?”
- “What does the capacity to play sports, or to play in any capacity, say about who God is?”
- “What is the purpose (or purposes) of being competitive?”
- “To what extent can being competitive be good, and to what extent can being competitive be wrong?”
- “How can I compete, properly, for the glory of God?”
- “Did Jesus play sports?”
- “Did Jesus have a favorite sport He enjoyed to play more than others?”
- “Was Jesus better than other players in the sports He played?”
- “What was Jesus’s attitude on the playing field?”
- “Was Jesus, Himself, competitive?”
I don’t have an answer to most of these questions. I really wish that we had encounters of Jesus playing sports in the gospels, assuming He even did play. I recently listened to a program on the “Recorded” podcast entitled “Youth Sports, Healthy Families, and the Future of the Church,” and I found it refreshing and enlightening. So, I want to share just a few thoughts from the podcast that I’ve been thinking about for some time. The podcast affirms athletics, but reveals its limitations and drawbacks. I highly encourage you to listen to it if you have kids (or grandkids!) in athletics and/or if you have ever thought about some of the deeper purposes and meaning behind sports.
- We are burning our kids out by playing too many sports. The podcast mentions that kids are simply burning out at a higher rate than ever because we are pushing them too hard, and the kids don’t FEEL like they can stop, for a multitude of reasons. Injuries are increasing, and some kids are coming to a place of despising the sports they once loved. Give the child, therefore, a permission to stop, if needed. This doesn’t mean we don’t encourage them to work hard, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t encourage them to stay on the team when they want to quit. It also doesn’t mean that we teach them to stop when it gets difficult, but maybe, every once and a while, have a “check in” and ask how the child how she or he is doing related to their chosen sport(s). Maybe they are doing too much. The program mentioned that injuries are increasing at an alarming rate because they are practicing and playing too much. As far as our own family goes, my wife and I agreed years ago that each child (we have 4!) would only have 1 extracurricular activity per semester (whether sports, art, music, etc.) because we knew that it would be “too much” to do more than that. We have stuck to that and that has worked for us. We are not the standard since our 4 kids’ sports would “add up” quicker on the calendar than someone with one or two kids. You have to figure out what is best for your own family, but also keep the children’s health, as well as the family’s health overall, in mind when planning sports or any extracurricular activity.
- Dr. David Prince is interviewed on the program and he was a former college baseball player and has loved sports his whole life. He is also a pastor and a seminary professor as well. Dr. Prince said, “Competition is a gift from God” and he says “Your opponent needs you.” In what way does my opponent need me? Sports doesn’t always build character, but it always reveals character (Prince). He mentions that if sports “always” built character, then every athlete in the world would be the most holy and sanctified people on the planet, but that is certainly not the case! Whenever we lose, or if we play poorly, what is our reaction? Do we get angry? Do we sulk? Do we pout and complain? Sports reveals what’s in our hearts, and the pressure of competition will “squeeze out” what’s inside of your heart. Use sports to show you your own sin, especially whenever you lose. On the other hand, winning can also reveal our sinful hearts in the way that we gloat or mock our competition. That is pride and that is wrong. We will, soon enough, be on the losing side of a game, so we should treat our neighbor as we would want to be treated whenever we lose. We certainly don’t want to be gloated over whenever we play poorly, so neither should we do it to others. We can have a tendency to glorify ourselves and say, “Look what I did” instead of being aware that God Himself has given us this gift to play, therefore, we should thank God, which we do see some very public athletes do after a match.
- “Benchwarming for the glory of God” (Dr. Prince). I believe this idea was one of the best I heard on the podcast. Prince said that one of his boys wanted to play on the school(?) basketball team and he said (again, paraphrasing), “Ok, but you’ll have to get in shape because you are currently not in shape to play this game. Get up every morning and run for 2 miles, and then we’ll see.” And, so his boy did this routine. He tried out and did make it on the team, and he was pumped, but as the season went on, game after game went by, and he wasn’t playing. Instead, he was warming the bench. Prince noticed that his boy’s excitement for the game dropped dramatically. His energy was quite low. Prince asked his boy, “What’s wrong, son?” His son said, “I’m not playing!” And Prince replied, “Of course you’re not playing. You’re not good enough!” So, Prince had a talk with his boy about “How to Bench-Warm for the Glory of God.” He encouraged him to sit on the edge of seat instead of leaning back in “sulking mode.” He told him to be the first one to give all his teammates a high five and to cheer for each basket or each play made. After a while, his energy returned for the game. These were a few simple tips on how to “bench-warm” for the glory of God. Indeed, if Paul says that we can “eat or drink” for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), then surely we can warm the bench for the glory of God, lose in a way that glorifies God, as well as win in a way that glorifies God.
- As a guide for Christian parents, Dr. Prince also said that at the beginning of any team that his kids was on, he would tell the coaches that they were not going to miss a Sunday due to any game. He said that they would be there for Saturdays, but they would miss Sundays because they made church a value for their family. If that is mentioned up front to the coach beforehand, the coaches have (in Prince’s case) always respected that and understood that. As he said (paraphrasing), “Travel ball doesn’t keep your kids from church, you do. The lake doesn’t keep someone from going to church, the individual does.” We have to also remember that whatever we model for our kids, they are likely to repeat. We have to think hard about what our values are when it comes to balancing sports out with other matters of life. When our kids are 95 in the nursing home, will they wish that they had one more play on the field, or that they had spent more time with God? Viewing sports today from the end of life helps to put many things into a clearer perspective.
- One testimony on the podcast was from a college tennis athlete who burned out due to the strenuous nature of the training. One comment rang true: “If you play college athletics, it IS a full time sport!” The time it takes to do a sport is immense, and players can quickly (as this athlete attested) lose the excitement for the game. Eventually, he transferred to another college and quit playing college tennis and eventually joined several intramural sports. He now had the time to not only play, and actually enjoy, many other sports, but he also had time to participate in college campus ministries, make new friends, and even participate in serving at the local middle school in the Christian club there. While sports is a good endeavor, sometimes there might be something better to do. Sometimes there are other matters to which we should attend.
- I wonder if one reason we are so busy with sports several nights a week is due to the fact that we don’t know what it means to be a family anymore? Do we see the value in eating together, as a family, at our own homes? Certainly we can chat with each other at the ballfields while we are eating hot dogs from the concession stands (and all of that is good), but I wonder if we have lost the meaning and concept of “family” in the flurry of all of our busy activities?
- I’ve noticed with my own boy that, whenever we play, he simply enjoys free, unstructured playtime. We might be on the pickleball courts, or we might be playing ping pong (a makeshift table converted from an air hockey table!) and he will say, “Daddy, let’s just play and hit the ball without keeping score.” What I have noticed is that he just wants to play. Whenever we are competitive, sometimes it’s stressful (because one of us is losing!) and that can tend to suck out the joy of playing and being with each other. I’ve observed that we are both happier simply hitting the ball, making the best shots we can, and not keep score while doing so. When do kids get to simply play without it being so structured? Are there places in our lives where we play without a clock and without a scoreboard? Certainly, we do still play at times when keeping score, but we tend to have more fun, and we tend to laugh more, whenever we are simply playing together. I believe this is something we have missed in our society today, even with all the good that can come from competition.