Tag: football

Isolated in the back parking lot of our church is a dumpster. This dumpster is clearly marked for recycling materials.

Despite our attempt to be good neighbors, the dumpster was periodically contaminated by people who loaded it with items that can’t be recycled. As a result, we had to add padlocks on both sliding doors.

I don’t understand how a person can misunderstand the purpose of this dumpster.

Late on the afternoon of Friday, January 3, I walked across the parking lot with some cardboard to recycle.

When I unlocked a padlock on one of the sliding doors, I noted on the floor of the dumpster a small, tied off plastic bag. It was loaded with dog poop.

Disgusted, I asked myself how could a person do this?

Growing up in Burlington, North Carolina, I will always cherish playing baseball, basketball, and football with neighbors, friends, and cousins.

An empty field behind two houses became our “field of dreams” where we played baseball.

Out front, two lawns merged together nicely to form our football field.

And of course, whether dirt, concrete, or an asphalt court even on the coldest of winter days, we played basketball.

That love of sports made it easy to follow the basketball and football teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference(ACC).

Four of the founding schools, the University of North Carolina, N. C. State, Wake Forest, and Duke were in close proximity to Burlington.

I read newspaper accounts, listened to radio broadcasts, or watched on television games with the ACC teams.

Founded in 1953, the original conference has been destroyed by an expansion that completely disregarded geography, but was entirely grounded in a full court press for money.

That fixation on money has trickled down into the athletes too.

Now Name, Image, and Likeness—NIL allows college athletes to profit not only from their skills, but by marketing and promoting themselves.

Additionally, a transfer portal allows athletes to freely shop their skills. Loyalty to the school that originally wooed the gifted athlete is no longer a consideration.

Just before Christmas, several media outlets reported that Duke University’s athletic department will be paying Darian Mensah, a redshirt, transfer quarterback from Tulane University eight million dollars to play at Duke for two years.

I guess a degree from Tulane or Duke means nothing when stacked against eight millions dollars.

I wonder what Duke University employees who work behind the scenes for the football program think about this eight million dollar deal.

And I also wonder if those program sustaining employees ever see any extra pennies in their paychecks from the payout when the football team plays in a post season bowl game?

While we’re talking about paying millions for a college football quarterback to play for a couple of years, a school might opt to spend several million dollars to build a team in hopes of winning a national championship.

Again, media outlets have reported that the current edition of the Ohio State University Buckeyes football team came from twenty million dollars raised by “the school’s collectives.”

With these millions floating around in the pursuit of gifted players and national championships, I find it interesting that at these two prestigious universities, both schools have food pantries for their students who are food insecure.

Back on December 28, 2024, the football teams from East Carolina University and N.C. State University played each other in the Go Bowling Military Bowl.

An exciting hard played game was marred by a brawl as the last seconds of the fourth quarter were ticking away.

Players involved in this fray were out of control. It took too much effort and time for the coaching staffs and game officials to get the players on both teams under control.

One of the referees was injured as he tried to help settle down the players from both teams.

Watching this melee on television, I was disappointed by the lack of self-control from individual players, and their disrespect for the coaching staffs and officials who tried to quell the disorder.

In this madness, sportsmanship was dead. I kept hoping that the referee would stop the game, and send both teams to their locker rooms.

When order was finally restored, a few players from both team were ejected. The final seconds of the game were completed. Then the teams were directed toward their respective locker rooms.

I’m heartbreakingly disgusted with bagged dog poop in a recycling dumpster, money driving collegiate athletic conferences and their student athletes, and a college football bowl game marred by players in a brawl.

Disgusted as I might be, I should not be surprised. We’ve been losing our minds for a long, long, long time.

Yes, what’s left of my old brain shows that I’m losing my mind too, but losing my mind is grounded in worry.

December of 2024 brought us more to worry about than bagged dog poop and athletic madness.

The CEO of United Health Care was brazenly murdered in New York City.

At the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison Wisconsin two students were murdered by one of their classmates.

And just as the New Year started more innocent people were murdered by a traitorous driver who plowed his vehicle into the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Yes, we continue to break hearts, we continue to be disgusted, and we continue to be paralyzed to solve our madness.

At this point, you must be thinking, Bill, with these blog posts, all you do is whine, whine, whine, whine. Is your whining ever going to stop?

Fair question, and I don’t disagree with your assessment.

Maybe my whining is grounded in these questions for myself from Isaiah Chapter 1 verse 17: “when am I going to become better at helping to cease evil, when am I going to become better at doing good, when am I going to become better at seeking justice, and when am I going to become better at rescuing the oppressed?”

Perhaps, the answer can be found in Fritz Knapp’s book— The Book of Sports Virtues.

In one chapter, Knapp writes about Branch Rickey. Early in the 1940s, Branch Rickey was the general manager for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. Mr. Rickey helped to break the color barrier in major league baseball when he signed Jackie Robinson to be the first African American player to play major league baseball.

Mr. Rickey’s motto was “Education Never Stops.”

If I want to stop my heartbreakingly disgusted whining, then I must not let my education stop.

That learning is the only chance I have to become better at working toward ceasing evil, doing more good, seeking justice, and rescuing the oppressed.

In the time I have left in this wobbling old world, I will be heartbreakingly disgusted with myself if I don’t use my learning and my voice to keep poking at those challenges.

How about you?

Maybe your answer can be found in these words from Stephen Hawking: “Quiet people have the loudest minds.”

Thanks for putting up with me, love, Bill