Love of the Game

I love to play football.  From the very first time I played on the school playground I was hooked.  I had thrown the football in the yard with dad, but never really played the game until physical education at Jemison elementary.

It was fourth grade recess, and two teams were playing.  I didn’t know anything about the game and had never watched one on television of been to one at school.  On one particular play a new kid had transferred from Calera Elementary and seemed to know about the game.  His name was Tony and he was quarterback.  I didn’t really know what a quarterback did, but he was the one throwing the ball.

As he dropped back to pass it, I realized he was throwing it toward me.  In yard football we played more running than throwing.  I was more Rugby than football.  I reached up and caught the ball.  The guys around me hollered “interception” and the new kid that threw the ball asked, “Whose side you on?” Not really knowing, I yelled, “Yours.”  He yelled, “Touchdown!”   That was the beginning of many passes that my future brother-in-law would toss me.  I would play many PE games before I actually witnessed a real game. 

 My best friend during my school years was Ricky.  He was a small boy and an avid University of Alabama football fan.  Tony my other new friend was an Auburn University football fan.  Being an ignorant poor boy from across the tracks, I was clueless about college football.  I had no idea about national championships.  As I said, never watched one and had no idea that a Bear was coach at Alabama or that a guy named Shug was coach at Auburn.

 One day in the lunchroom Tony and Ricky were arguing, as most Alabama and Auburn fans do, about who was better.  They would almost fight over it.  Finally, they asked me who I was for, Alabama or Auburn.  Now I was clueless about who or what an Auburn fan was, but I knew I lived in Alabama and said, “Alabama of course.”  Ricky and Tony would be bitter rivals until the die-hard Alabama fan went the Auburn University for an engineering degree. 

In the spring of the seventh grade, Ricky talked me into going out for football.  Spring training was much harder than PE football.  On the first scrimmage coaches lined up across from a junior named Tracy.  He was a monster.  I found out that he was a very good tackle.  He made All Conference the previous season.

I had never played organized football, so I asked the coach what I was supposed to do.  It sounded simple.  He said, “Tackle the man with the football.”  I had done a little of that at PE with my peers from fourth through seventh grade.  They were nowhere near the size of Tracy. 

Suddenly the center snapped the ball, and I disappeared in a cloud of dust and under a mass of humanity.  It hurt really badly, but I was determined.  Same thing happened over and over.  The best thing about the spring practice was I got to watch my first real live football game from the sidelines.

In the ninth grade I had the privilege and honor to be one of the practice dummies for the first every state championship playoff in Alabama and for Jemison.  We ended second in the State of Alabama Two A playoff.  In the off I have the privilege of seeing my first T-bone steak.   I couldn’t eat so I gave it to one of our running backs.   I got to go to a football banquet and received my first football letter.  They gave away trophies and I determined to win one the next year.

God blessed my football training by chasing hogs and I found that catching football players were much easier.  I played defensive end and offensive tackle/end.  I remembered what they told me at my first ever practice, “tackle the man with the ball.”  So, I did.  They added a bonus.  They said hit the quarterback every play.  So, I did when there was no one else to tackle. 

I earned two trophies for best defensive player for my junior and senior years.  Made all conference and had scholarships offers.  I received one from Dartmouth College and another from a junior college.  Alabama and Auburn said I was too small.

 I loved to hit quarterbacks.  I love the game.  I loved it enough that I received a cussing every day when I got home from walking six miles to house and feeding hogs and getting in firewood.  I loved it enough that we played most every Saturday and Sundays between morning and night services.

My dad worked evening shift.  One night my sophomore year, I went to the sideline for a breather.  Someone said your dad is here.  I looked and there stood dad in the tunnel leading to the field.  He was in his work clothes, covered in grease, and wearing a hardhat.  I was proud and happy.

My junior year he sacrificed and took off work to travel to Selma, Alabama to watch me.  That night I had hit the quarter back most of the night forcing him to pitch the football.  The coach changed the scheme and had me take the running back.  When the Selma quarterback ran the option, he looked to see where I was.  When he saw me, he pitched to the running back whom I hit immediately forcing a fumble.  The football shot high in the air and hit in the end zone spinning like a top.  I jumped on it scoring a touchdown.  Dad was there.

The new Name Image Likeness (NIL) rule breaks my heart.  Going to the highest bidder replaces team loyalty.  Love of money has replaced love for the game.

 

 For the love of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10)

This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17)

Whose Trophy You Got

As I parked my old, ragged GMC pickup at the Big Mo Country Club, I seemed out of place.  It was plum funny.  An old pick parked alongside of a Mercedes Benz, an Audi, and other fancy sports cars.  I felt as comfortable as a sore tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  My fellow golfers had new clubs, expensive bags, cute buggies, and nice carts.  They wore fancy hats, nice shoes, and leather gloves.  For me, I had some used clubs and bag donated by a former church member and some out-of-date golf shoes I bought on sale.

I knew golf protocol and the proper attire.  I did own a decent golf shirt and pair of docker slacks.  With each new arrival, the more insignificant I felt.

The only reason for my attendance at the two-man scramble at the country club was to help my brother’s church raise money for a mission project.  I am not a golfer, but I did take golf as an elective at the University of Montevallo.

I was good enough that Dr. Collins, the golf teacher, asked me to join her college team.  I was pastoring a church, working at the University carpenter shop, and taking a full set of classes.  I spent my spare time being a husband and dad.  I told Dr. Collins that I did not have time to play golf.

Dr. Collins said that I had a gift for putting and loved the way I could hit the long ball.  One day in class, she observed me as I practiced pitching the ball using the pitching wedge.  She asked, “Can you make that shot with the whole class watching?”   I told her that I thought I could.  She had the class stop for a moment and informed them that Mr. Hopper was going to demonstrate how to pitch the ball to the hole.

I took dozen balls and pitched them to the hole from a distance of about fifteen to twenty feet.  Each ball hit the flagstick and fell into the cup.  As I made each shot, Dr. Collins discussed my form and rhythm. 

In putting class, Dr. Collins asked how learned to putt.  I told her that she would not believe me. You should have seen her expression when I told her I learned at putt-putt golf.

Before the two-man scramble, I had played very little golf.  I did not have the time or the money.  Playing golf is an expensive hobby.  In reality, I had rather throw a football or shoot a basketball than chase a little white ball all over creation.

Well, that morning at Big Mo Country Club I did not know what to expect being my first Tournament.  There were dozens of men going through rituals and preliminaries of the game.

Among the players was a former co-worker from the cement plant.  Butch had to retire from the electrician crew due to a crippling injury to his wrist.  Butch was a member of my brother’s church.  He loved and played golf as often as any retiree could. 

He and I became partners in the two-man scramble, and we were paired with a couple of guys to make our team.  Butch and I kept their scores and they kept ours.

Butch and I made a good team.  He could knock the cover off that little white ball, but he struggled putting.  My strong suit was putting.  On each hole, Butch insisted that I tee-off first.  He wanted to see how good my drive was.  By rule, two-man teams could choose the best ball on each play/stroke.  If I made a good shot, Butch would take a chance; he knew if he blew the shot, we could play my ball.

In the beginning, our two teammates were winning.  Butch and I were not bad, they were better.  We had fun.  On one hole, I sliced the ball so bad that it hit a tree and bounced in behind us.  That put pressure on Butch to make a good drive.  Butch stuttered if you looked him in the eye.  On my bounce behind drive, Butch stuttered, “Give me that club before you kill somebody.”

The fifteenth hole was “dog leg” 550-yard, par five.  I had my best drive of the day.  I hit a perfect drive straight to fairway directly below the hole.  Butch stuttered, “I’m gonna hit the ball over the pine trees toward the hole.  As he hit the ball, it went high above the pines toward the hole.  It was a beauty.  It wasn’t too pretty for the other two guys.  Our two incredible shots must have frustrated them.  On this hole, one wrapped his club around a huge pine and the other threw his club in the swamp, I think to be with the ball he hit there.  I still don’t know what the pine tree did to the other player.

Our partners wasted several strokes trying to get close to my ball.  Several minutes and strokes later, we drove our carts down the trail adjacent to the fairway to locate our golf balls.  Mine was easy.  It was about 150 yards from the hole.  Our teammate’s balls were harder to find, but Butch’s was the hardest.  We thought Butch’s ball might be lost. We started looking in the rough, and finding a couple I wanted to make sure it was Butch’s ball, so I asked what the name of the ball he used was.  I found several, but none was his.  When we finally found Butch’s ball it was not in the fairway, nor the rough, but fifteen feet from the hole, just a foot off the putting green.  I putted it in.  That means that it was three strokes under par, what I think is called a “double birdie.”

When I got home, I was carrying a large trophy, which is now in my home office.  The wife and kids wanted to know whose trophy I had.  I told them that I won it.  They said, “Sure you did.  You don’t even play golf.”  I said I don’t, but I know how and that Butch and I won the tournament and a score of 72.

I did think it was ironic that we won, but we made a great pair.  Our combined skills and gifts complemented each other.

In the devotional Playing the Game in the section “Character: The Infallible Test,” the late Dr. Stephen Olford writes, “No other sport requires the level of integrity expected in the golf game.”

 

. . . if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules (2 Timothy 2:5 NIV).