Why Sports #1: MMA and Me

I've been writing bits and pieces of a post in my head over the last couple of month about the evils of sports. The evidence was piling up on the negative side of sports, as I felt like I was being inundated with ways athletics has been tainted for participants and fans alike. The youth sports culture has exploded, demanding more family time, family money, and family priorities. Athletes seem to have become less committed and more entitled. Contests are increasingly tense, with players, fans, and coaches angrily demanding to have their way. The heroes in the national spotlight keep falling. Money is changing everything about the college game. And it all takes so much attention, energy, and emotion away from what really matters. Right?

When push comes to shove, however, I just can't do it. I can't put the nail into the coffin of the goodness of sports. If it's so bad, why am I coaching? If the evil is there, why do I watch? Why do I let my kids watch? Why do I hope for them many athletic experiences? I decided to make a list.

My next several posts in February are going to be my response to this question, with each devoted to explaining why sports are good for our culture, our youth, and me.

So what's right with sports? I begin the series tonight with an observation I stole from Ted Kluck's book The Reason for Sports. One thing sports does for us is provide real, visual examples of many aspects of faith. Sanctification and self-control, for instance. I've never been a huge fan of MMA ultimate fighting, but perhaps I should be more of one. Writes Kluck:

"You may wonder how men who fight for money in a cage can embody the biblical concept of self-control, but indeed self-control is, I think, the whole idea of the sport. Like boxers, MMA fighters have been stripped of the luxury of emotional outbursts. Basketball players frequently jaw at referees, football players can dance around on the field and express themselves emotionally, and baseball managers routinely enter into dirt-kicking tantrums on the base paths. Conversely, if a fighter allows himself a split second to whine to the official or engage the fans, he will probably end up concussed (at worst) and a loser. Fighting requires long stretches of unbroken concentration.

It also requires a sort of boring, plodding commitment to a goal. Contrary to popular Christian writing, our faith lives aren't always wildly adventurous and revolutionary. They're often hard and frustrating. There's a sort of plodding commitment involved in prayer, Bible reading, church life, service, and other spiritual disciplines."

Success in life, specifically in one's faith journey, involves a series of decisions to forge on when no one is watching, to do what you least feel like doing, to admit weakness and shine a light on it. The athletes worth watching are the ones who remind us that the drudgery of daily struggles and workouts and practices may actually, one day, fill us with the joy of victory.

In my coaching career of eleven years I can count on one hand the number of kids who I feel like truly reached their potential. When I think of what they did with what they had, I'm inspired. None of them were all-staters; few were even all-conference. But they got everything possible out of themselves. They worked when no one was watching. Several took all those steps, spent all those hours, did all those drills, and listened to all of my quips and speeches and directions, all to take huge steps from mediocre to simply competitive. Those are the ones that I know are going to make it in life, who are going to do whatever it is they decide they want to do. They've faced hardships, they've dealt with a lack of natural ability, and they've heard doubters. They kept working anyway and didn't have to wonder about what could have been or make excuses about the teammates or coaches who screwed them over. They committed.

And sports taught them that.