Pastor Steve's thoughts

Saturday morning I saw a father screaming at a basketball official. The 7th grade basketball game was turning ugly as emotions reached the pre-volcanic levels of Mt. Saint Helen’s. The father in front of me criticized most of the referees decisions. His anger became evident as his blood pressure boiled and his face turned red. When the buzzer sounded his team had lost and the crowd began to disperse. You would’ve thought the Ducks lost another game. My first thought was, “I’m glad he’s not a member of our church.” lol But what if he was? I would say something like, “I understand your frustration with the basketball team. Maybe there is a better way to look at these things. I prefer to look at this from a comparative perspective. 250,000 people live in our county and they don’t know anything about this game. There are millions of people starving and dying from Aids in Africa. Perhaps the game isn’t that important.”

I don’t have kids in middle school anymore but I’m still coaching basketball at the 8th grade level. I want to be a part of instilling values into kids by using basketball as a metaphor for life. We teach kids to make good decisions on the court and after practices we talk about life decisions. We encourage kids to decide now about drugs and alcohol. Make good choices now. Maybe when you’re an adult you won’t be an embarrassment to your own children at their sporting events. Perhaps sports has become our national religion.