Comments on: The “sports-challenged” among us

By: Random Name

Random Name — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:12:23 +0000

I saw a cricket game going on in Vancouver, B.C.

Even though a pleasant gentleman with a British accent tried to explain it to me, I find this “sport” utterly baffling and incomprehensible. Why it’s not a Finnish sport I do not know.

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By: Make it Man

Make it Man — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:35:55 +0000

I’d have to say that my wife is more apt to listen to a football game than I am. And she understands the game, whereas I’m apt to ask questions….

Who cares? I’m blissfully ignorant.

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By: Travis Birkenstock

Travis Birkenstock — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:31:42 +0000

“For the sports challenged Christians who want to reach men you should either get a good grasp of different competitive sports, or maybe grasp the basics of military operations, command and rank structure etc.

Or both. Mr. George Carlin would concur with you on the importance of military metaphor to sport. (below)

“In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.”

It’s best to hear Carlin do his “baseball vs. football” bit live. You can probably find a clip on YouTube. Or you can read the text here: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

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By: Sawgunner

Sawgunner — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:52:57 +0000

I think sports are such a deep well of metaphors and symbolism for communicating in a wide arrange of fields and disciplines. For that reason, if you ever get the chance to hear any speakers from Athletes in Action do so.
I’m not familiar with seminary curricula, but I would recommend a good knowledge of sports among future preachers/evangelists as a way of striking an inroad among listeners just as Jesus tailored his parables to farmers and fishermen.

For the sports challenged Christians who want to reach men you should either get a good grasp of different competitive sports, or maybe (if the young men you witness to are in uniform) grasp the basics of military operations, command and rank structure etc.

These days they no longer offer degrees in PE. Today its kinesiology or recreational sports. I always figured that PE majors had to really grasp the rules for officiating different sports. Is that so?

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By: Sawgunner

Sawgunner — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:45:31 +0000

Michelle, I was surprised when a gal acquaintance confided how little she understood about American football. Not in itself a major confession until I realized she had been a cheerleader on the sidelines for several years in high school.
A lot of us guys are not as well versed in the rules of football as you ladies might think. I was in the marching band and would often cheer in admiration for someone’s yardage gained or a miraculous mid-air interception. But I caught the ire of others for cheering the opponents!
I’d like to learn more about cricket. It seems to be all the rage among Paki and Indians I meet, esp when India defeated the Paki team recently.

My daughters have definitely got the sports gene from their mom who played field hockey as a kid. That’s a game I never heard of but it is quite the rage in the NE USA.

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By: Anlir

Anlir — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:26:49 +0000

If you want to know what’s going on in the world of sports, you can’t go wrong with espn.com. While it doesn’t go into the intricacies of how various sports are played, it does give you all of the games, scores, stats, and rankings.

For a primer on football, you can’t go wrong with:

phillyburbs.com/football101 (note the football one-o-one)

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By: Pauline

Pauline — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:24:25 +0000

I don’t think I understand football any better now, but it does help me understand how they manage to make calls covering so many different aspects of the game. I knew there were multiple refs on a football field but I had no idea there were that many.

I am very much sports-challenged, both when it comes to playing or watching. I finally found a word, several years ago, for my difficulty in terms of physical coordination – I have poor “proprioception” – which means that I don’t have a good idea where the different parts of my body are at any given time. I am used to walking into doorways and walls and getting arms and legs caught in car doors or banging them against furniture – my husband jokes that he hopes people aren’t going to blame him for all my bruises. The amount of coordination it takes for most sports is way beyond me. (Though I did finally learn to play volleyball as an adult, not well but I stopped trying to get away from the ball.)

I’ve never seen the appeal in watching other people play, unless one or more of the players are people I know personally (like my kids, and they’re not real sports enthusiasts either). When we had cable TV, I occasionally watched football with my husband because he doesn’t like to watch alone, but I never could keep track of the ball, and it takes sooooooooooo long to get through a game.

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By: michelle

michelle — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:15:00 +0000

My mom was a junior high PE teacher and she always taught a football unit for the girls, “because they want to appear knowledgable when they go to games with their boyfriends.” (She retired in 1985). And you know what, she was right–about understanding the game after taking her class. After six years of watching soccer, I still can’t tell when someone is offsides or not . . .

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By: paula

paula — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:13:20 +0000

Thanks for the link. Very informative. This will spare my sweet husband a few questions during football games.

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By: royclay

royclay — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:04:59 +0000

I’m waaay more active now than in HS – cycling, canoeing, walking, hiking. But I am proudly “sports-challenged” when it comes to football, baseball, basketball and so on. The only sport I’ll watch or pay to see is hockey. I’ll be glued to the set watching the Sabres play on 01/01/08, in a way I’d never do for college bowl games.

I might watch soccer, too, were there a pro team in my area.

There are just so many more interesting things to do on a Sunday afternoon, getting out of doors ourselves, fiddling, marching band, reading the Sunday paper…

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