Scott Drew and the Jayhawk Pre-game Video

In the interest of full disclosure, I should reveal that I have a degree from the University of Kansas. But I've also long admired Baylor Basketball Coach Scott Drew. So I watched with interest last night as Drew pulled his team off James Naismith Court just after they were introduced at Allen Fieldhouse. Drew apparently gave his starters final instructions in the much quieter hallway underneath the Fieldhouse stands. This decision ruffled more than a few Jayhawk feathers, however, as Drew's pregame talk was held during the Kansas player introductions and viewing of the Jayhawk pregame video.

I thought Drew's move was sheer coaching genius, and I'll bet he'd been planning it since he walked out of the building after a 100-90 loss February 9, 2008. I've watched a number of games at Allen Fieldhouse over the last several years. The pregame video is like nothing I've ever seen. It gives goose bumps to the most stoic college basketball fan. It's a fascinating, motivating, comprehensive history lesson in Kansas basketball. Even those who aren't Jayhawk fans usually watch it with at least a modicum of admiration and awe.

The video is designed to reinforce KU's traditions of All-Americans, conference championships, Final Fours, and national titles. But lets face it, the video has two other, perhaps primary, purposes. The first is to get the crowd as jazzed as possible, to create a euphoria and decibel level that will dizzy the opposition until the first television timeout. The second purpose is to intimidate the opposing team as much as possible, and the video does that, par excellence. I've observed several teams which have come into the storied arena with video cameras and picture phones, appearing to believe they are fortunate just to be able to suit up in the place (some, undoubtedly are). They've then watched the pre-game video with their heads cocked, looking upward to the scoreboard in a trance-like state. Then they've promptly been run out of the gym.

So to the Jayhawk fans that feel like Scott Drew dissed them and Coach Bill Self's team, I say: let's get over ourselves. Scott Drew came to Lawrence as a man on a mission. He was on a business trip, and he did not feel obligated to participate in Kansas's pre-game pep rally. Perhaps he'd learned something about his teams in previous contests at Allen Fieldhouse. Perhaps he'd seen in his players' eyes not a steely resolve to win, but instead a fear that they were to become yet another notch in the storied program's belt.

Since when should we expect any team to participate in the other team's lovefest? Scott Drew is obligated to take every fair, legal, and ethical measure necessary to give his team the best chance to win. I don't see how subjecting your team to "The Video" does that. This isn't the Harlem Globetrotters vs. Washington Generals. These guys don't hang out together after the game. They don't ride the same bus or fly the same airplane. No one should be forced to join the other team's admiration society. Kansas fans shouldn't expect any team to bow down to the statue of Phog Allen.

I'm sure Drew would have preferred to not co-mingle missing the video with missing the Jayhawk introductions. The two are almost inseparable, however, so that would have been difficult. And, the jury is still out on whether or not it ended up being a good move in the end. Kansas's Sherron Collins's outstanding play last night was reportedly fueled by the perceived disrespect Baylor showed by skipping the video. Other teams may decide to skip the video at their peril. Be that as it may, Baylor schooled the Jayhawks in most phases of the game during the first half. They bettered Kansas in many of the game's final statistical categories as well. The Bears were the first team to shoot over 50% from the field (52%) against the Jayhawks over Kansas's last 92 games. They almost ended the Jayhawks' home court winning streak at 52. So despite irritating Collins (and apparently Self), Drew's decision still probably gave the Bears their best chance to win.

I must say I think the issue going forward is not whether or not the other team is watching the Jayhawk pre-game video. The issue, instead, is whether or not the Jayhawks should be watching their own video. No matter how storied a program, the only game that matters is the next one. It appears the Jayhawks sometimes think watching Mario's Miracle or Danny and the Miracles is enough to make the other team take a dive. Scott Drew proved it is not.

The Jayhawks should bask in their tradition but forget about it come game time. They need to do that before their upcoming Big Monday contest with Missouri. Fortunately I get to go to that game as well. It will be interesting to see whether or not Mike Anderson and his Tigers will hang around after they're introduced. And it will be equally interesting to see whether or not the Jayhawks think the video will be enough to get them their 54^th consecutive win at home. To do so, it may take an effort superior to the one Kansas delivered last night against Baylor.

Colt McCoy and the Rock

I am not a fan of the University of Texas, and  I wasn't necessarily a fan of Colt McCoy as he suited up for the BCS Championship game against the University of Alabama last week in Pasadena. I wanted Texas to win the game, but my interest in that outcome came from a moderate allegiance to the Big XII Conference and a moderate distaste for Alabama given my wife's family's ties to Alabama's arch rival Auburn.

I had cautiously admired from a distance the outspoken brand of Christianity practiced by McCoy and his fellow quarterback from Florida, Tim Tebow. They seemed to be the real deal, never neglecting an opportunity to give glory to Jesus Christ. Those opportunities were fairly prevalent as they have torn through most of their opponents over the last two-to-three seasons.
But in my observation the relationship between sports and Christianity has always been a bit tenuous.  Athletes point to heaven after home runs and touchdowns and field goals as if God had just pulled some sort of cosmic lever, thus changing the outcome of the game, ushering in their success not unlike the bartender in a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial. After these wins the glory would also be given to "God," but it is often uncertain whether that "God" was the Sovereign King of the Universe as revealed through Jesus Christ or simply some nondescript deity fashioned in the player's image. So any spiritual reference uttered by an athlete, no matter how apparently solid, was usually sifted through my suspicious grid.

My own personal experiences had reinforced this disconnect. I'd been party to numerous pre-game prayers designed to curry God's favor in the imminent contest. These were usually vain repetition, verbal insurance policies designed to cover the proverbial bases of preventing injury and pleading for victory. During and especially after the game, God was usually forgotten. There appeared to me no motivation to pray had it been known beforehand that we were going to a.) win the game, and b.) be injury-free.

In an article entitled God is the Gospel, Minneapolis-based pastor John Piper discusses how people often do not want God for God, but simply want him for the benefits he might provide them. He observes how many desire forgiveness, or a job, or a spouse, or to be healed from a disease--all reasonable things to seek--but they don't seem much to want God. He appropriately questions the efficiency and efficacy of these motives and provides these chilling words: God will not be used as currency for the purchase of idols.

But do we do that? I have. I've wanted God to close a real estate deal or give me a listing or help me shoot one last 74 without really wanting Him, for Him. I'd like to sugarcoat it, but I can't. That's idolatry. I might as well worship a golden calf. And my assumption is that many athletes, not unlike us, simply want to leverage their relationship with God to secure their earthly desires, their earthly fames and fortunes.

This assumption is bolstered by the conspicuous absence in sports of Christians giving glory to God in defeat. In fairness, we don't usually care much what the loser has to say and the networks don't always seek out comments from losers. After all, they're losers. What do they have to offer us? And, often defeat is so stunning, so painful, that it renders a believer speechless. In some small way, even the strongest believer probably expected God to come through for him, and doesn't know how to explain why He didn't. This is understandable, but in some cases I fear defeat exposes a counterfeit faith that was only manufactured to engender God's blessing. A faith that may have only been legal tender at the idol store.

Enter Colt McCoy on January 7 in Pasadena.  McCoy took five snaps from under center before leaving the game with a nerve injury in his shoulder. He couldn't feel his arm, so he was forced to watch the final and most important game of his career from the sidelines.  He had to watch his inexperienced understudy compete gallantly but unsuccessfully in their 37-21 loss.

When interviewed after the game, a devastated McCoy took a few seconds to compose himself, then said, "I always give God the glory. I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life, and I know that nothing else, I'm standing on the Rock."

How refreshing. McCoy's "Rock" is Jesus Christ. In Matthew 7 and Luke 6 we find the "Parable of the Two Builders." In both these passages, Jesus speaks of the wisdom of the man who follows obediently after Himself. Jesus says "the man who hears My sayings and does them...he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock." 

The wise man who built his house on the rock is contrasted with the unwise man who built his house on sand. When the floods came upon that man, "the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall." 

The Apostle Peter calls Jesus Christ "a rock of offense." (I Peter 2:8) Indeed He is. I observed some Facebook animosity this season spewed toward Christian athletes, particularly Tebow. I believe the venomous comments were grounded in the "offensive" way in which the players like Tebow and McCoy proclaim Christ—their Rock.

An equally memorable depiction of Jesus Christ as the rock is found in the 1836 hymn by Edward Mote called The Solid Rock. The hymn is based on the parable of Matthew 7:24-27 and its chorus reads:

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

McCoy of course is fallible but he challenges me to live a genuine faith, a sincere pursuit that looks the same in season and out. A faith that is identical in winning and losing. A faith that is not shaken by anything the world can dish out because it comes from a world that is wholly other than this one. In this lifetime, we'll undoubtedly have more opportunities to give glory to God through disappointment than through triumph. And the trials, disappointments, and even devastations we experience are the crucibles through which God's grace shines most brilliantly. It's through these experiences that we learn to want God, for God, and we look to the eternal at which we may now only glimpse dimly.

May we too follow after and cling to the Rock, certainly in victory, more so in defeat. All other ground is sinking sand.