My church basketball entries have traditionally garnered little attention here on my blog. So, I'm going to write them as soon as possible after the games in order to make sure I get the maximum amount of angst into the entries. (Because for some reason, the minute I express an opinion on my blog, people are all over it.)
So as to not be incredibly whiny I'll volunteer right now that while I played ok during much of the game, I played pretty poorly in the final 2 minutes. I had multiple turnovers, multiple fouls and blew a really easy layup that played a part in costing us the game which we lost by 2 points.
Now the complaining!
By some amazing feat, the other team managed to play a full 19 minutes of basketball before being whistled for a single foul. I know, because I checked the stat sheet. Anyone familiar with church basketball will appreciate that 19 minutes of foul free basketball is impossible. It was violent, and we didn't get any of the calls. At one point, in response to our griping about the calls, one of the refs pointed out that our ward wasn't supplying any refs for the church basketball games. That sure sounds like he was implying that the wards who supply refs for games somehow get fewer fouls called on them. We sent our team lawyer out on the court to let him know that he was making the game personal. And, I will point out that I know with 100% certainty that absolutely no refereeing requests have been made of our ward, despite two names being supplied to the stake, and no refereeing schedule has found its way into the hands of the ward athletic director.
In the end, if we made a few more layups and a few more free throws, and didn't give up quite so many cheap transition buckets, we could have and should have won. But try telling that to the guy who stood stalk still in front of the hoop and let a 200 pound man knock him to the floor and has only a welt on the leg to show for it.
4 comments:
The only thing I remember about Mormon ball is a guy getting a Tech for cussing. I'm glad it's not very popular here. I hate Church ball.
Yep, it was quite a game. Wasn't that the same team that last year our newly called Bishop "invited" a couple of them out to the parking lot to "resolve" things? I might be mistaken on that. I was a spectator at last nights game and my heart was pumping with all the feuding that was going on. Now...I understand that Basketball is not necessarily a "spiritual" experience. However, we are in the church, playing with other church members, we start the game with a word of prayer, and as pointed out in the previous post we have some strict rules/standards that we are expected to play by. That being said, I didn't feel the spirit there at all last night. I don't believe that there should be any type of church sponsored activity that should push the spirit away. I believe we we could be an example, Use proper bed side manors, stay competitive, and aggressive while not losing our cool, and even be humble, and Christlike about it. I don't have any question in my mind that our team displays some of the best manors out on the court. I wonder how the other teams would reciprocate if we did focus on being "Christlike" out there?
Hmm... did I read correctly? Did you write "team lawyer?" Are you serious? Why in the world would you need a lawyer for your team? Whoa, things are quite a bit different in Utah.
Our YM President happens to be a lawyer, and he was the guy who went to talk to the ref (in a controlled fashion) to let him know that we didn't need to make things personal.
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