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Athletic Religion

"He bleeds blue!", it was often said, to indicate someone's loyalty to the college.   It had nothing to do with royalty.  It smelled of sweat and shoulder pads.

People at Luther loved blue.  The roof to the fieldhouse is blue.  The track around the football field was blue.  The tennis courts were blue.  Sweatshirts were blue.  And, it was often said, some people bled blue.

One scarcely dared say that enough was enough.

Last night, the Arizona basketball team lost a game in the NCAA tournament.  Even though I love sports, I shall have to admit that the pain did not run deep.
I believe it has something to do with age, and arthritis; that I cannot even pretend to be an athlete, or that I ever was much of one, for that matter.

Maybe it is that the women's softball team looks really great, again, or that the new women's basketball coach looks promising.  Or that. . . .

No.  I bleed neither blue, nor red and blue.  In fact, my doctor says I have a shortage of red blood cells.  I think that is it.

It is odd, isn't it, how fervently we identify with sports teams, and sports heroes?  We collapse sports with religion, praying in the locker rooms, over the public address systems, and even in our churches.  I heard a priest in Berkeley, California admonish the congregation to pray for those in the congregation who needed help and health, and for the Forty-Niners who were playing a game that afternoon.  It sounded, at the time, like a bad health care plan, and a bad game plan.

I do not know about the parishioners, but the Forty-Niners still need help.

I have no solution for it, but even our great universities have a sports tail wagging the dog.

Something there is, though, in the way sports and religion come together.  I suppose that is why I am neither as athletic nor as religious as I used to be, before I began to use Lime-A-Way on my knee and shoulder joints.  

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 27, 2017 at 8:06 PM

    As always, you are full of wisdom ... U of A will rise again, though definitely NOT Phoenix-like. ^
    |^ Chuck

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Conrad RøyksundMarch 28, 2017 at 8:55 AM

      In my earlier reply, which seems to have gotten lost, I wanted to say that I have never seen a hillside in America with a plywood, painted, or rock sign that did not look demeaned, with one exception: I do have a soft spot in my memory for a spray painted retaining wall in Hokah, Minnesota, that read, "Hokah Forever".

      Delete

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