“Sure Was a Tough Night…”

Stormy…it’s stormy here in Central Louisiana this morning.  Interestingly enough, it is not only stormy on the outside but, it’s a bit stormy on the inside, as well. 

It was billed as the game of the century…# 1 vs. # 2…two defensive titans of football in an epic battle. 

I gotta say it was a tough night if you are an LSU fan…LSU player…LSU coach…LSU maintenance person…it was a tough night if you were an LSU anything…and, the stormy overcast is perfect metaphor for the “morning after.”  And, I must say, it had to be much more than a tough night for those more than one hundred coaches, players and personnel that we call “The LSU Tigers.” 

Just for a moment, let’s put a few things in perspective:

• ·        It was an amazing LSU football season!  13-0…”still the only undefeated team with impressive wins over champs of Rose Bowl, Cotton bowl, SEC champions, and BCS Champs on home field.” (Thank you Rev. Fred Wideman.) 
• ·        Most of us, fans… well, except for maybe buying a new shirt… got our monies worth.  I have already heard a lot about, “what if you had paid $3500 to go and see that???” kind of thinking.  Special note to these:  if you are one of my friends and you have $3500 (or more) to spend on a football game, please put that check in the offering plate of your {or my} church and watch the game at home…just sayin’… Truth is not only did I not pay a penny to see the game, I didn’t even by a new shirt… I was saving my money for the Championship shirt, alas L.  A further truth:  in the days when I went to the stadium on a regular basis and paid for it, my beloved Tigers never got near a Championship. 
• ·        I am not a football coach.  I have been in several situations where I was a leader, however.  Leaders make tough, sometimes unpopular decisions.  It’s what they do.  No matter what the “post-game” rhetoric and morning after quarterbacking, I refuse to believe that any coach, coaching at the level of a “Les Miles,” would bring their team (much less everyone else alongside) to such a battle and simply, “hang them out to dry.”
• ·        (Add your numerous other perspectives here…)

     1.      While you are at it…add your excuses here… it was wrong that we were playing Alabama, etc. etc. etc.

The ultimate perspective:  It’s just a game.  It is just a game:

between two college rivals… most of whom are twenty year old kids

who spend hours and weeks and months and years practicing, planning and preparing to perform at the highest level that can be expected of them

who grace that field every week to play… to offer their particular talent at the expense of personal exertion, exhaustion and potential injury

who, more than likely, once graduated from their college or university, will only pick up a pigskin again for the holiday family game of touch football

and, as much as they do it for themselves, their teammates, their coaches, their schools, their families, their communities…they do it for the fans…the many, many, many of us who follow them and love them and are thankful for their play…

Lest we all take it too seriously, it’s just a game.

Katie D., a former youth, posted this: “As I said at work today, it's just a football game. I like to win (or like for my teams to win), but it's not going to cure cancer, feed the hungry, etc.”  Ah, a resurrection perspective…makes me so proud!

And, here, (while I hate to bring judgment), I have to wonder how so many of my Christian friends would post such intolerable, hateful, crude comments.  Don’t get me wrong, those who know me well know that I like to win.  But, really…so much hatin’ and harsh over a football game…really???  And, we wonder why the world calls us hypocrites. 

Well, I could write and reflect more…but, I am off to teach/lead a discussion in my Christian Believer Bible study, only twelve members (certainly not a stadium full), it’s free (one doesn’t even need a team t-shirt) and no matter what missteps that I may have, there will be no mutiny (if only because they are stuck with me)… This week’s lesson?  A little something called “Salvation.”  I know while on the surface it doesn’t stand up to such an epic battle as the quest for the National Championship…a bright, shiny, crystal ball…

Funny, though, it is the one thing that that we all need, don’t deserve, can’t earn, given freely, without judgment… because God so loved the world… ultimately, so much more important than a game…

Blessings,

tracy