A Game to Remember for Many Reasons

In a very cold and loud Montana stadium this past Saturday, the University of Montana Grizzlies and the Wofford College Terriers played a football game. It was played among some of the most hospitable people in this country; they are loyal, fierce Montana Griz fans who love their team but who don't let their intensity in the stadium turn to animosity before or after the game.

The game was one of the best played on Saturday with several lead changes and a heart breaking finish as a young man missed a field goal that would have won the game for his team. But in spite of the hard-fought game, and in spite of what we hear about athletes and college football, there was a lesson at the end of the game. Perhaps it is a lesson for all of us in our world today, as we make our own hurtful if not deadly rivalries out of words and blood. We deride others across the political aisle or on the other side of the world, but perhaps in this Holy Season for so many of us, we can learn a thing or two from two rivals that found time to kneel together at midfield after the game. The picture above was taken following an euphoric victory for one team and a sudden season ending play for the other; Griz and Terrier team members form a circle and offer prayer together. This was a good game for many reasons.



PS- Wofford won 23-22.

Go West

Wofford was selected to go to Montana for the first round of the playoffs (might as well be the fourth ring of hell for lots of reasons). Anyway, as my holiday and church activities have kept me busy, I thought I would submit something I found on the terrier fans message board a couple of days ago. It is part of a speech by Wofford President Bernie Dunlap after Wofford's defeat in the semifinals in 2003. I think it speaks not just of football but of Wofford as well.

Enjoy. I thank bestofbreed for posting this on terrierfans.com

Included below are the remarks from Wofford president Dr. Benjamin Dunlap at today's campus convocation honoring the Terrier football team for its 2003 Southern Conference championship and trip to the Division I-AA semifinals.


"We all know what Vince Lombardi said: “Winning isn’t the most important thing. It’s the only thing.” And you know what? That’s true in a lot of college athletic programs—mostly in ones with low graduation percentages and high incarceration rates for their athletes. If they don’t win, somebody gets fired. And if they do win, somebody gets investigated. At Wofford, winning is not the only thing. It’s just one of a lot things our student-athletes learn from Mike Ayers and his coaching staff.

The first thing they learn is that they’re students first and athletes second. The next thing they learn is that the secrets to success on the playing field are the same ones that will make them successful in life long after they’ve graduated. The third thing they learn is that they’re too small and too slow, with too few scholarships and too tough a schedule to be competitive in the Southern Conference. Oh, yeah, and then they learn that no mountain is too tall to climb, no opponent too big or too quick or too highly touted to be beaten by a team that’s smart, disciplined, and determined to win by playing together as team, not as a collection of prima donnas.

Don’t get me wrong. Wofford has its stars—what it lacks is prima donnas. When you play for the best coach in the United States, you play to learn as well as to win and you play together. When you lose, you know there’s something to be learned in that experience too—about your performance and about yourself. Vince Lombardi, who truly was a great coach, also said, “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”

I’ve had the privilege of joining our team in the dressing room after almost every game over the past four years, and some of those games were bitter losses. I’ve heard Mike Ayers in victory and defeat, and some of his most inspiring lessons have been taught when we lost. Coach Lombardi had a comment about that as well: “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” That sounds like the heart of a terrier to me. It doesn’t matter how many times a bigger dog knocks a terrier to the ground. As long as it has a breath in its body, that little dog will get back to its feet and go on fighting, just as Wofford did in the closing seconds of our national semi-final play-off game against the University of Delaware. It was not our best game of the season, but those closing moments were among the most gallant in a season studded with victories.

We all know the tagline that has turned up everywhere, from the New York Times to ABC Television: “Wofford is the only football-playing Division I school whose average SAT score is higher than its total enrollment.” Look at our football success and you see what is true of every aspect of our college: we do more with less than anybody. And it’s especially gratifying to read in a nationally syndicated report that you can expect next year’s pre-season I-AA poll to list among its top five teams the “usual national powers”—Delaware, Wofford, and teams like that.

But even in that august company, there’s an important difference. Our players are not hired gladiators or Division I-A transfers. They don’t live in special dorms and major in specially designed pseudo-academic disciplines. They’re students like everyone else in this auditorium today, and they embody all the traits we would like to lay claim to ourselves—they are quick, intelligent, fiercely loyal competitors. They played their hearts out in every game, and, sometimes, they had the ball bounce off the ground right into their hands at a crucial point in the game. The difference between a great season and an unforgettable one is often a matter of a little luck here and there, and we had that too this season. Now we have the glory. We’re champions—all of us, not just the players. We’re all champions because that’s what they’ve given to us. They’ve brought these trophies home and they’ve made us all winners in the minds of people who couldn’t even pronounce our name at the beginning of the season.

Our purpose today is to bask in their achievement—to thank them for everything it cost them from the first day of practice to the last seconds of that game in Delaware. These are our guys, our coaches, our terriers.

Even beyond the gates on Church Street, even among those who graduated from institutions in distant places beset by ice and snow, there is pride in our team’s 2003 season. "

And in Sports

Yesterday Wofford claimed at least a share of the Southern Conference football title with a victory over Chattanooga and the automatic qualifier position from the Southern Conference for the FCS playoffs. Next Sunday afternoon (the 18th), the 16 playoff teams and schedule will be announced. It would be neat for Wofford to get a home game, but I don't know that will happen. The games start the Friday after Thanksgiving with the Championship game to be held December 14th.

Momma Deacon has agreed to preach for me (once) if Wofford makes the playoffs should I have to travel for a road game. Of course, with gas being $3 a gallon, I don't know how far I will go!
Maybe it will play out well.

Removing a Silent Witness

This past Tuesday, the heritage tree was taken down from the churchyard. These pictures were taken by April, our youth director, moments before the highway crew came. The tree was taken down in about 15 minutes with a track hoe.

I am far from being a tree-hugger, but one of the ways I navigate the world is by trees. I grew up in a small, rural community without many street signs on country roads. I learned where to turn on those roads by the positions and kinds of trees. A couple of years after Hurricane Hugo, Kathy and I tried to take a short cut from Columbia to Hemingway for my class reunion; with all the trees gone after the storm, I got lost. Don't worry, I believe I can find my way to the church now, even without this green landmark!!

I appreciate trees because trees are more than travel markers and monotonous pieces of the landscape. Trees span generations as countless people pass by them busy with their own thoughts and lives. This heritage tree, planted by Sherwood Cannon in the 1980s, has witnessed many a person come through the church doors---people who came from all walks of life, for all kinds of reasons, at different stages of life and faith. The tree has stood as pallbearers and groomsmen sought its shade from the noonday heat. It stood as a silent witness as the community around the church grew from rural community to booming suburb.

I am sure we could calculate the number of Sunday services that have occurred since its planting, but I doubt we could estimate the life it has seen. Now all that remains of this silent witness is several sections of the trunk sitting on a trailer, waiting to be transported to the saw mill. In a few months, a remnant of this tree will come inside the church sanctuary to hang as a cross--- a different kind of silent witness.

I'll be...right...there.

The telephone call is never expected. It can come early morning, late at night, or in the middle of a busy day. My last words before saying goodbye to the caller are usually, "I'll be right there." These are calls made in an emergency room waiting area from the family or friends of a loved one undergoing life-saving care. It is a crisis time...an anxious time...a time of uncertainty.

"I'll be right there."

Those are the words heard on the other end of the telephone line. They are words that speak of geography and speed... right there...present ASAP. For me, however, it is not just about speed and geography. Frankly, there are times I am thankful for the time alone to drive some distance to the hospital. It is in those moments alone that I can picture the person in the center of this crisis as well as the family around them. It is in those moments that I can pray. As I drive those miles to the hospital it is also a time to focus and see where my own spirit is. Am I anxious? angry? scared? What should I say? What should I not say? What will it mean to be truly present with these children of God, without my own expectations or agendas? What will keep me from seeing and hearing the things I need to see and hear?

"I'll be right there."

I cannot hide from myself and my life; they are part of me and make me who I am. But in those holy moments those things need boundaries that keep my stuff from intruding on the ground that I will walk on with those in crisis. The Apostle Peter often missed what the Lord was saying because of his own fear, because the Lord often worked in a way Peter did not expect. How can I learn from Peter's mistakes? If I do not learn, and if I don't have my own boundaries, I may miss hearing the family and being a vessel of God's care in that tender moment. In order to be fully present, it helps me to get right, before I get there.

"I'll be right there."

Being there is always an honor. Pastors are often there because they claim the ministry of the Incarnational Christ, the One who took human form and dwelt among humans. We remember how Christ was right there with the poor, the hurting, the lost and the dying. In these crisis settings we are reminded and we remind others that God's love and power and healing have not abandoned us in these trying moments. These are moments when words are precious and few, when listening skills are the best used gift. There will be time for prayer; there is always time to be a non-anxious presence in the middle of high anxiety moment. I wish I were better at it than I am; sometimes I realize too late what I should have done or said. But despite my failings, I continue and try to grow in grace and be more fully present next time. For I realize the words I have given to many a distressed telephone caller, Christ has offered to all who work in the name of God...who step alone with awe and humility into waiting rooms and through ICU doors or jails and nursing homes...

I'll be right there.