A bias towards football...(continued)

My joy in coaching football and other sports was based in my joy of teaching.  Seeing a young man "get it" and respond in the correct fashion was and is immensely satisfying.

My time coaching high school sports, specifically football, taught me that there was and is a great need for father figures.  A large number of my students had fathers who were either absent physically, mentally, or spiritually.  Many of these fathers were just as mature as many of the high school guys I taught and coached.

Many young men in our high schools are on the cusp of becoming men, and completely unsure of what it means to act, think, or behave as a grown man.  Sports went a long ways in teaching many of these fatherless young men what it means to be responsible, to be committed, and to follow through with proper actions.  However, my impression was that football took these things a step further and inspired young men to learn how to be warriors. Not violent, arrogant killers, but warriors in a chivalrous sense.

A bias towards football...

As my family and many of my friends know, I have been a fan of the sport of football for nearly my entire life.  I was born in Dallas and remember watching Cowboy players like Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, and Tom Landry at a very early age.  Many a day was spent playing tackle football in the back yard with my brother Chad and boys that lived down the road.  I played as soon as I could, starting my freshman year in full pads for the first time.  I was a cornerback and a quarterback, and not that good at either one.  Football was not the only sport I played though, as basketball and baseball both kept me busy during my high school years.  I grew quickly and thoroughly during high school and ended up playing tight end and defensive end by the time I was a senior.  I then went on to play tight end, offensive tackle, and linebacker in college, along with every special team there was.  I loved the sport, though I must admit I got a little burnt out by the time I was a senior in college.

Seminary followed college and with it came football.  My first year in seminary I quarterbacked an inter-mural team that wiped out everyone we played.  I continued to watch football, but I thought my time with the sport was at an end.

Not long after seminary, I ended up teaching and coaching in high school sports in Oregon.  Football drew me back into coaching and I found that I enjoyed the sport from the vantage point of  the coach as much as I had enjoyed it as a player. (to be continued)... 

Sports and Christianity

Sports and faith have been around since the beginning of mankind.  What and how we play often mirrors what and how we believe and vice versa.  

In the USA, football has overtaken baseball as the national past time in the sports arena.  And football has also, much like baseball, become an idol for many, promising riches and fame that is both fleeting and false.  

It is my contention that football, more so than any other sport, has at it’s heart Christian ideals and theology, but like many other concepts, ideas, and tools in our country, it has become an idol for the many.

It is also my contention that football is a Christian good for young men and older boys.  

This blog is an attempt to explain how football (and sports in general) and Christianity are closely related.  This blog is also an attempt to bring back to center the basic concepts of football from their idolatrous abuses.  Football and Christianity can be excellent partners in explaining practical Christian living to young men and can also explain American Christianity.