God works in mysterious ways. My cousin, Ron, sent me a link to a blog with a 90 second stick figure recap of 24, just for giggles. It was funny, but the blog itself really interested me and I read several other posts. As the matter of fact, I'm linking it now and thanks to Brant Hansen for his blog and this wonderful story.
Remember that Christian high school basketball team recently in the news that destroyed the opposing team and keep right on going until the final score was 100-0? From ABC News:
And:
During the lopsided Jan. 13 game, spectators said the Covenant School ran up the score, playing aggressive offense, even with their 59-0 lead at halftime. The girls kept on the pressure until they scored the 100th point.
The Dallas Academy, a small private school with 20 girls, is for students with learning disabilities. With eight girls on the varsity team, these young women are used to challenges on and off the court. Despite hours in the gym practicing each week, the Bulldogs haven't won a girls basketball game in five years.
I wanted to write about this earlier in the week, because both my older kids played on teams with 8 players at the varsity level. The basketball teams weren't as bad as the 8 player football team, needless to say, but we've lost nearly as ugly here at the guillotine. I'm a sports fan, so I understand playing the kids hard and working not only for the current game but also the next game. I can understand Covenant up to the half, but beyond that, what the hell were they thinking?
What Covenant did to Dallas Academy was unsportsmanlike, tacky, and at the very least, beneath the values that Christian parents hope for when they send their kids to private school hoping to take care of their children's academic and moral training. Not a single player came out a winner in this game, as Covenant showed absolutely no class, let alone Christ-like qualities.
After reading about that game, imagine my delight in coming across this story at Letters from Kamp Krusty. It seems a Christian football team from Grapevine, Texas decided to do the right thing and their coach initiated it. This is a Christian school I'd want my kids to attend:
It was rivers running uphill and cats petting dogs. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.
"I never in my life thought I'd hear people cheering for us to hit their kids," recalls Gainesville's QB and middle linebacker, Isaiah. "I wouldn't expect another parent to tell somebody to hit their kids. But they wanted us to!"
Who were these Gainesville boys?
But then you saw the 12 uniformed officers escorting the 14 Gainesville players off the field and two and two started to make four. They lined the players up in groups of five—handcuffs ready in their back pockets—and marched them to the team bus. That's because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility 75 miles north of Dallas. Every game it plays is on the road.
This all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score. After all, Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.
So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the Faithful to do just that. "Here's the message I want you to send:" Hogan wrote. "You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth."
Do yourself a favor and find out what it meant to the Gainesville boys by reading the whole thing.
God's talking to us every day. Coach Hogan was listening and everyone was a winner that night.
