Putting the FUN Back in Sports

The Number One Son is Lucky Number 13 on the far left-hand side.

Random observations from the beginning of sports season at Casa de Johnson.

We play small sports. What I mean is that our school is small. As in we have 67 kids in the high school from 7th to 12th grades. From that pool, we populate all of our sports. All of them.  Small.

Coaching: 

Yeah, okay, so we are losing across the board in every sport this season, but when the coaches and support staff are paid for the quantity of hours they expend (like at Hoover) then we can complain. Until then, remember that the coaches and support staff mostly volunteer to coach and lead and line the field and cut the grass and drive hours and hours to games and practices with little or no help. They cannot be rewarded adequately for the amount of effort expended, so it must be motivated by something else, like, oh, I don't know, love of the kids/love of the game. In fact, we don't have a "real" coach in the group--it's parents and teachers volunteering.

Soak in that for a second.

David by Michelangelo

So, we don't win all of the time. Big whoop. I'm not sure that's the main point in the first place of small Christian school athletics. Sure, it would be nice to win more than we lose, but I'm not sure that even Michelangelo could have sculpted David without the proper tools. I'm just staying that maybe it's just what it is.

Notes to Our Opponents: 

If your team is ahead 49 to 0 I think it's safe to pull your starters and let the second string play awhile. No really. I think it's okay. Especially since I can see from this rickety bleacher where I am balancing precariously, afraid that it might give way any second, that your second string is still bigger than our starting line up. Why not let 'em have a chance to at least get those uniforms dirty, Coach.

Also, if you are ahead by that much, you should probably stop screaming like The Incredible Hulk from the sidelines trying to pump up the team--there's clearly already enough testosterone in the air. We get it. You won.

Giving your opponents rickety bleachers or making them stand seems to contradict that whole 'esteem others as more than yourself' thing that the Bible had rolling. (I'd have been embarrassed to death to offer those seats to company in my house.) The Bible is a book of literal interpretation. I know exactly how you feel about God by looking at your spending habits and how you treat your visitors.

Also, if your players are pushing off of other people to stand up and not checking on players they have just turned into creamed corn, same. We aren't in the Iron Bowl. It's a six-man football game. You aren't Bo Jackson, dude. You are a 155-lb kid who wouldn't have made the team in 11-man ball. Seriously.

Notes to Our Teams:

Big E (background player) and Naynuh (foreground player)

If you realize that it's David and Goliath (for example when we play Kingwood in volleyball), perhaps the goal should shift a little--maybe we ought to be known as the Team That Has the Most Fun EVER--All of the Time.  As in, "Did you see those girls? They had matching socks and hugged each other when the ball when flying out of bounds and ended with a sweet spirit even if the score was 6 to 25 and why didn't we have Swedish meatballs and Chick-fil-a at our snack table? What a joyful and Christlike group of young ladies! I can't wait to play them again."

Like last night on the football field--the team we played were just competing as an 8-man team and have gone down to 6-man. They were physically bigger. There were more of them. They had an entirely separate offensive and defensive line. They weren't playing iron man ball like we were. They even came down to our jamboree game and videotaped us to prepare (who has time for that?). It would have been a total Hoosiers moment if we had kept that game even close. David and Goliath.

So, while focusing on basics and trying our very best to prepare and win, why don't we make up some insane new crazy fun plays that don't follow the rules of normal football and practice them in the dead of night? It couldn't hurt any and it might just be FUN.

Why don't we get shirts made that say: 

We might not be #1,

but our cheerleaders 

are all 10's.

or

 

Our football season: 4-5.

Volleyball: 6-18.

Our average ACT score: 28. 

Winning.

 

(Gosh, I love smack talk.)

Maybe we ought to laugh and encourage one another and just get over it--it can't be that serious since we haven't had a winning season in volleyball in the four years I've been at the school. Maybe it ought to be a FUN season. If we love it, and we listen to coaching and apply what we've been taught, maybe it will be fun and the natural consequence will be wins. Maybe. If not, well, them's the breaks, Baby.

Why don't we strive to be the most Christ-like teams instead of the most winning teams? Then I can get a shirt that says:

You only won because God

ordained it. That's why we took

it easy on you; we always seek to 

do God's Will at CCA.

Just sayin'.

And in other news, The Little Flower just rushed in here to proclaim that she finally beat the final level in Plants Vs. Zombies. Put that on a T-Shirt and wear it.