I agree with Kriegel that I have hard time buying that any supreme deity cares about an NFL game but it is an interesting insight on how faith might help you succeed on the field. Of course I'm still waiting for the player in the losing locker room interview to say "God just didn't want us win today..." http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/...Warner-in-another-Super-Bowl-pursuit?MSNHPHMA Faith driving Warner in another Super Bowl pursuit By Mark Kriegel I'm less than comfortable with the apparent epidemic of religiosity among our nation's quarterbacks. First, Colt McCoy, fresh from a thrilling win over Ohio State, begins his post-game comments by thanking his "lord and savior Jesus Christ." Then there's Tim Tebow, whose game and demeanor I rather like, changing the Bible verse he endorses on his eye-black, from "Philippians 4:13" to "John 3:16." As if that might make the difference. Personally, my own taste in quarterbacks runs toward the epic old-school debauchers, guys like Kenny Stabler and Joe Namath. If I go to Hell for that, then so be it. I refuse to believe that God — anyone's God — has a rooting interest in the outcome of something as secular and perverse as a BCS game. But now football fans direct their attentions to Arizona, where one of American sports' most prominent God Squaders — Arizona Cardinal quarterback Kurt Warner — takes on the Philadelphia Eagles for the right to go to the Super Bowl. And I can't help but think that the religious guys are, well, blessed with an advantage, a big one at that. Actually, the issue isn't really religion. It's faith. I don't care what or whom a ballplayer believes in: Jesus, Moses, Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard. I don't care what his position is on stem cell research, abortion, gay rights. But a system of belief — any system, really — that stills the mind and quells doubt is of obvious benefit, particularly if you're an athlete. Warner's case is as instructive as it is well-known. In 1994, after being cut by the Green Bay Packers, he found himself working the nightshift at a Hy-Vee grocery store near his alma mater, that noted football factory known as Northern Iowa. By 1999, he'd won a Super Bowl ring and the first of his two MVP awards. His appearance as the starter in Sunday's NFC championship game marks yet another absurdly improbable comeback. Warner had been let go by the Rams and the Giants. His career as anything but a spot starter had been pronounced dead years ago. In his several years in Arizona, he's been a backup to Josh McCown and Matt Leinart, who was named the starter for the 2008 season. Now, having thrown for more than 5,000 yards this season, Warner has a chance to deliver the Cardinals — the Cardinals! — to the Super Bowl. On some cognitive level, Warner had to know what the rest of us understood too well. Grocery clerks don't often make it to the NFL. Iowa Barnstormers don't go on to become Super Bowl MVPs. Nor do old men beat out Heisman Trophy winners. For Warner to have considered his predicaments in rational terms might well have killed his dream. Statistical analysis frequently inflicts a death by discouragement. But, then, a guy like Warner isn't playing the odds. He's working on faith. "It's an advantage for any individual, when you have faith and believe in something," Warner told our Greg Boeck Thursday after the Cardinals broke practice. "In my case, it's the power of Jesus ... "I walk by faith and not by sight. I walk according to what I believe, and what I believe the power of God is, as opposed to what the world tells us, or what circumstances appear to be." Put another way, belief can liberate you. You need not dwell on the long odds. You're free of the thoughts that crush so many comebacks — the assortment of self-involved, self-inflicted self doubts. "So much of this business is 'Me, me me,'" Warner told Boeck. "... My faith has allowed me to step back from that and say, 'Hey, this isn't about me.'" There are too many examples in too many sports to ignore, from 2007 Masters winner, Zach Johnson (who, interestingly enough, went to the same high school as Warner), to the soccer player, Kaka (that a religious name? I wonder), an evangelical Christian who'd been badly injured in a pool accident, to Josh Hamilton, a recovering drug addict who may yet become a perennial major league All-Star. But, as usual, the best examples come from boxing. Muhammad Ali believed he was chosen by Allah, and looking back, who's to say he wasn't? Evander Holyfield, born with a cruiserweight's frame, believed it was a Christian God's will for him to reign as the heavyweight champ. (It occurs that perhaps it's time for God to have a heart-to-heart with Evander on the subject of retirement.) Mike Tyson, for his part, believed in nothing. And it showed. Perhaps you recall Tyson's sudden and short-lived stint as a Muslim. Of course it didn't do him any good. Pious proclamations for the sake of PR or damage control don't do an athlete any good, unless he can con himself along with the sportswriters. Warner's not conning anyone, least of all himself. The Cardinals were 9-7 in the dreadful NFC West. The Eagles were 9-6-1 against a much more formidable schedule. The teams met in Philadelphia, not two months ago, and the Eagles won by 28. A change of venue shouldn't make too much of a difference, though the oddsmakers have Arizona as mere four-point underdogs. A guy like Warner, though, isn't working off the betting line. He doesn't care what circumstances appear to be. He's got faith. If not for that, he'd still be bagging groceries.
In 2001, after the Yankees won the ALCS, Mariano Rivera said that God wanted them to win (due to 9/11, etc) and that it was destined for them to win the World Series. I really wish, after the World Series, someone had interviewed him and asked him if God had changed his mind. That, along with Roger Clemens' "I thought it was the ball answer" which should have been followed up with "then why were you throwing the ball at Mike Piazza" fiasco are the two times I really wished I were a sports journalist in that room. I think thanking God for the opportunity or whatever makes perfect sense. Saying God was the reason you won, though, implies that God wanted the other team to lose. That part seems weird. As for the article itself, I agree - having that faith probably gets people through a lot of the rough times when you're benched or things aren't going well.
To kick things off. One of my Judo coaches was studying to become a Buddhist Monk and he used to apply Zen ideas into his coaching. Besides the usual "no mind" things that you hear coaches like Phil Jackson talk about he would talk about doing things in Judo as what is appropriate in the moment. The idea was that in Zen your actions become natural that they perfectly fit the moment whether that is meditating or washing dishes. He talked about that if you are completely in tune with what is going on your technique will be appropriate to that moment so that what you do isn't just a no mind reaction but one that comes about spontaneously as the result of everything taking place then. Using a example from baseball this would be if the pitcher throws a fastball down the middle you make contact with the ball in the sweet spot of the bat and follow through on your swing the appropriate result is a homerun. Zen ideals don't equate exactly to Western faith ideals but part of what my coach was getting at was the idea that if you can remove the focus on yourself and immerse yourself into something greater than you can succeed. This way you remove doubts and self-questioning that can stand in your way.
During the 90s in many of the Michael Chang - Pete Sampras tennis matches, you saw Chang prayed like a Orthodox Jew before match (maybe after too). Sampras, whose father is half-Jewish, never gave a crap and usually ended up a winner. If we are talking about the Rockets, it seems that god is testing our faith in Rafer.
Um, let's hope not (if that itself is seen as a prayer). In 1995 Bud Collins wrote a piece in Tennis magazine on Chang's faith, Job was specifically mentioned.
I once asked Steve Francis if he had a personal faith in Jesus Christ and he told me 'we have some kind of chaplain guy for that' God had him traded shortly after that lackluster answer.
While I'd Never Ever agree with anyone who says "God wants us to win", I do believe that Faith has really helped many athletes deal with struggles on and off the court/field & has helped them to get better at their respective sport. I'm lucky enough to have talked to / been around Josh Hamilton and Chad Hennings very recently while they were being interviewed about their lives, faith, and professional careers. Even though Hennings didn't go through all the crap Hamilton did, it was evident that his Christian Faith played a large role during his days on the Cowboys and helped him through some very stressful times. Many of these athletes use their faith as a strengthening tool and a way to get them through times that drive other athletes to self-destructive behaviors (drugs, excessive partying, etc) that can greatly affect their careers. Most Christian Athletes rarely speak about their faith in public (Biggio, Jeff Gordan, Avery Johnson, Oral Herscheiser, etc), but they will tell you that their faith played a large part in their careers. If your interested, you can watch our Daystar Sports Special (a show I'm producing for the Daystar Network - the worlds 2nd largest Christian Network). Later this month we will be airing 6 of these 1/2 hour specials with many professional/former professional athletes). Monday January 26 Show #1 - Josh Hamilton Show #2 - Avery Johnson & Art Monk Tuesday January 27 Show #1 - Chad Hennings Show #2 - Herschel Walker & Roy Williams (the Safety, not the WR) Thursday January 29 Show #1 - Team Impact Show #2 - Ted Dibiasse (Formerly the WWF's The Million Dollar Man) No Date set yet Jim Sundberg (former 7-time Golden glove winning Catcher)
You know in a way, he did sort of talk about this later on. Enrique Wilson, who was on the Yankees at the time, was going to take AA Flight 587 back to the DR if they had won Game 7. So I think Rivera actually did later attribute the loss in Game 7 to God, though I'm not sure.
I think it is clearly obvious that McCoy and Tebow are thanking Jesus for the opportunity to be where they are at right now. They know that God doesn't want one team to win over the other. I think having faith is to live for a higher power, and not for yourself. It gets pretty damn difficult when you try to control how you want your life to go, to get the results you want.
I appreciate that view, and I want to believe it, but I don't get the feeling that either of those guys even think this carefully about it. And that's what bothers me in the end: incredibly young, undeveloped spiritual beings spouting off (repeating) things they don't seem capable of having considered very deeply. [rant]And by the way, the heavenward pointing salute does not seem to say: "Thank you, Jesus, for this opportunity to kick a field goal." If that was the message, the kicker should point heavenward after each miss also, and after each coin toss, etc. The heavenward pointing suggests "thank you for this field goal / touchdown throw, Lord!" That's sadly the (ridiculous) way most of us are left to interpret it.[/rant] When I read the teaching of Christ, I just find it hard to believe he would enjoy this particular type of outreach for the faith. "Yes, please associate Me with a primitive, violent sporting event where beer is served in large plastic cups. Thank you." I am more sympathetic to "pray in a closet" but this proves it ultimately just gets down to a personality thing. I don't like it when players thank their dead or limbless relatives either. I just enjoy it when they talk about the sport and their teammates and their rivals on the field. That's why I tune in, after all.
Interesting takes...here's my 2 cents. I think God is deeply deeply interested in the lives of human beings. I think if your career is in sports...and you have been given immense talents...then He cares deeply about that. And how you use your gifts...and to what aim you direct them...I believe He cares about that. I DEEPLY DEEPLY DEEPLY reject the notion that stems for "prosperity gospel" crap that God returns material blessings for faith...that there's a cosmic quid pro quo. That stuff makes me vomit. And I see a lot a lot a lot of that in sports. And find that athletes often find their way on stage with the "pastors" who teach that bull. Blessed be your name When the sun's shining down on me When the world's all as it should be Blessed be your name Blessed be your name On the road marked with suffering Though there's pain in the offering Blessed be your name As for someone like Colt...I don't know his heart. And he is young...I know what I was like in my faith at that age. But clearly it's important to him to give credit to God, who he believes put him in that position. I'm fine with that, frankly. I find myself doing that every day...though not on a public stage...but if you ask me, I'll tell you. And one more thing on prosperity gospel: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PTc_FoELt8s&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PTc_FoELt8s&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
There is nothing more annoying than an athlete going off about god in post game interviews -- I just want to smack Colt McCoy sometimes. Kurt Warner got the memo and toned it WAY down, but he used to be unbearable.
Nothing could be cooler by me. B-Bob, train passenger: thanks, that was a smooth commute today. MadMax, train pilot: you're welcome. have a good day! (note: no pointing to the sky and quoting scripture.) B-Bob, train passenger: by the way, you seem like such a calm, balanced and happy train pilot. How do you achieve that? MadMax, train pilot: I have a deep and abiding faith, and humility, based on my relationship to Jesus Christ. B-Bob, train passenger: that's cool. glad I asked a question that would be relevant to that very cool answer. See you later. MadMax, train pilot: May I pull the train whistle for you?! It rocks. I hope the difference is pretty clear. There's plenty of appropriate time for Colt (or whomever) to talk about their faith in interviews. It just seems really odd (to a lot of us) to bring it up when asked about that last touchdown pass.
I understand that point entirely. I just think Colt is about 20 years old. I don't have great expectations for guys at 20 years old. I am surprised by some, though. By the way...I love that you made me a train pilot in this scenario. Totally awesome.
that's a good point. and in the end how can I have a beef with someone who is at some basic level saying "it's not all about me and pounding my own chest about how great I am" ? And no worries on the scenario. I do often take the trains here, and I do talk to the guys who drive them sometimes. I don't think they are called pilots.
Yeah...that part of it is a good thing for sure, in my view. As for trains...I thought you put that in there because you knew my love of trains.
I think God cares about every little thing we do and our careers are obviously a part of that. I think God may want some people to lose a football game - we can't sit here and pretend that the losing team couldn't have possibly learned a better lesson from losing than they would have from winning. The guy who lost may develop a deeper faith. He may try harder next year. He might need to be reminded to focus on his family more. It could be ANYTHING really. What we do know is that failing in your career doesn't make you a bad person. You might try your best and lose, that is life. The only important thing is to take the lessons out of every single thing that God presents you with - whether that's failure or success is not always important. IMHO the most important ting is to keep your faith and, in this case, remember that God is on everyone's side.
I hadn't even thought about the Prosperity Gospel in regard to sports figures but I can see how that would play into tying faith with sports success. I don't fully understand the Prosperity Gospel but if the idea is that through the power of prayer you can succeed wouldn't there be a basic problem that in sports there are winners and losers so wouldn't that mean that God has to favor one or the other?
