Jan 27, 2009

Winners are losers?

By now most people who read yahoo, msn or any other type of online news has caught wind of a shellacking of Dallas Academy High School at the hands of Covenant, a Christian high school. Here are the facts. Covenant pretty much wiped the floor with Dallas for a 100-0 victory. Something unheard of in most sports at a high school, college or professional level, unless you’re a team from Bratislava playing the Harlem Globetrotters, that’s just how the game goes.

OK, so what should be an interesting side note in national press is quickly becoming a juicy wtf story because of Covenant’s administration. Here’s what happened: Covenant’s administration posted a comment on its website, regretting the victory they attained and the manner in which it was obtained. To use a direct quote: "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition."

In response to this post, the winning team’s coach replied with this:

"In response to the statement posted on The Covenant School Web site, I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

Ok, so here’s the part where some Christian people might consider flagging this site again (wait for the post on this, trust me). I agree with the coach and to top it off, I think the administration of the high school owes him an apology if the only reason to fire him (yeah, he got fired) was his reaction to the website’s post. If a team sucks, that’s just the way it is. If the winning team did ridicule, mock, make mean faces, call the other team nasty names or burned a bra to show they were more apt women than the others, then yeah, they might have deserved some type of reprimand. But if the only crime in this game was to be better, not miss shots, strive for excellence and such, then I can only scratch myself at the dick comment made by the high school and reiterate my stance that society has become too weak, too apologetic and too hypocritical for its own good. The statement on the website possibly reflects all the things that piss me off from holier than thou believers of God that genuinely miss the point when it comes to reading the bible. Yes mercy, kindness and other such values are virtues, but pity? I don’t think Jesus treated anyone differently because of pity.

Label this a judgment call if you will, but even as confused in faith as I am, I still think Jesus was a pretty cool cat, misinterpreted throughout the ages and used as an excuse to promote false values and shitty wars two millennia and going strong. Though I have my doubts in a higher power, I have actually read the Bible and do find some things interesting and some valuable lessons to be learned, much like any other good book. That my upbringing is Catholic only establishes that my reference points to give thanks, praise, and pray are Judeo-Christian by nature, and I cringe every time I read people saying that x or y attitude or behavior is Un-Christlike in nature. For those that need cliff notes, Jesus didn’t hang out with hookers and lepers because he pitied them, but because he valued them like any other human being, because it is their right to be treated as equals. The moments he showed “pity” or mercy, were times when people begged for their fallen loved ones and in different situations.

Look, I’m not about to proclaim myself a theologist since that was not my major, nor is it my interest, but I do find it troublesome and tiresome to hear a statement like that declared in reference to a wide margin victory. The girls from Covenant should have nothing to feel ashamed about if they stayed true to the nature of the game and just played and showed some skill, and hell if they trash talked, maybe that was part of the strategy though that could be considered Un-Christ like, if it happened. But what of the Dallas Academy team? Few people have mentioned them in ANYTHING except as the team that got their asses kicked.

Do you know how hard it has to be to keep trying or to stay on the floor even when you’re getting beat that bad? Do you know how hard it has to be to be losing, to be in pain, to have to endure humiliation of such magnitude? No? I didn’t think so. But guess who might have a good idea about how to relate? Don’t know? Then feel free to look at the cross you so boldly wear, remember the signs you point across your body and realize that maybe the lesson to learn doesn’t necessarily come from the winning side of life.

2 comments:

Keven said...

I can see your point, but there's something more to this story.

Covenant is a State Championship contender high school with 402 students. Dallas Academy has 20 students (total) and is winless in EIGHT YEARS.

Now the problem here is that these two teams have no business playing each other, and if they do have to play each other then wouldn't that be the Covenant's coach's chance to play some of the players he wouldn't usually use?

But no, this was all about the teaching the kids that excellence is all that counts. The Covenant coach talks about not running up the score, but what the hell was that if it's not running up the score. There's winning, and there's this.

Joker said...

Wow... definitely more to the story than meets the news article. And woe is me for having a quasi rocky morning where I saw some hypocritical bastards that in combination with the news article prompted me to offer my unsolicited two cents.

First and foremost, I have to agree that these two teams shouldn't have met in a game (the globe trotters theme still seems to apply, even more so now). If they ahd to meet anyways, it should have been an exhibition match and I definitely think the Covenant coach shouldn't have revelled in the victory as he did. As I understood it, I thought it was a game between two like ranked teams. Maybe it was my mistake in reading in a rush or maybe the article was skewed more towards manipulating my reaction to the events.

Either way, it just goes to show that it's never about winning or losing even though the Covenant coach whole heartedly disagrees.

So my apologies to the administration and I'm foreseeing an apologetic post soon lol. Oh well, at least I have writing material. :D

Thanks for the clear up Kev. Appreciate it and then some.

Cheers

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