Soccer and life!

The FIFA World Soccer games are going strong and I’ve enjoyed watching a couple of the games. While it is not my favorite sport to watch – a good word to describe my feelings about this physically demanding sport is … boring … give me American football or tennis or anything at the college level … but here I sit. Plus, one needs to be careful because the couple of times that I have gotten up to go to the kitchen only to return to find that one of the teams has scored. Things can happen quickly … when you are not looking. I’ve even tried reading a book while “watching,” but that really is dangerous because all sorts of things can happen when you look away just to read one paragraph.

A thought began to emerge yesterday paralleling the game of soccer and life in general. I’ve been struck by the sportsmanship of most of the players … the ball goes out and there isn’t any debate as to who touched it last. The players accept the ref’s decision and the ball is put back into play immediately. Or, one player accidentally trips an opponent, the whistle blows and the ball is put back into play. An opponent falls and a player from the other team will lend a hand in lifting him up. After a particularly well-played game some of the players, showing their respect for the opposing player, will exchange their jerseys. Sportsmanship … witnessed at its best.

I do laugh at the lengths that a player will act out his “injury” in hopes of getting a whistle blown in his favor … the acting is superb … some of it better than you could find on a Broadway stage. And, then there have been a few horrible missed calls by the referees … goals that should have been granted, etc. … but by-in-large it has been a very entertaining couple of weeks.

Then it dawned on me that wouldn’t it be great if, for some reason, we had a referee running around in life with those yellow and red cards and when he or she saw something that wasn’t right he or she would blow their whistle pointing out the offending person, lift the yellow card stating that you couldn’t play the game of life tomorrow or a red card indicating that your offense is so bad that you have to sit out the rest of today. Yes, you could lift up your arms in protest, but the ref’s decision is final! I wonder how many of us just might change our behavior in order to stay in the game of life?

Then we also remember that only the times keeper knows how much time we have on the clock to play the game of life. Oh, the scripture tells us that we are given “seven score and ten” (70 years), but as testified in the daily reading of the obituary page that is not a given. But, as we have witnessed recently in the FIFA World Soccer games a lot of minutes can be added onto the games 90 minutes, but nobody really knows exactly how much. The game isn’t over until the final whistle is blown and so you play on until it sounds. You never know when there just might be an opportunity to score as the American team discovered when they scored at the 91plus minute mark in one of their games. As a player you cannot say that you are tired, retired, worn out, played out, injured, exhausted … you play your heart out until that final whistle is blown. Only God knows when the whistle will be blown for you to indicate that your game is over, but until then … play on!

Quote for today: If sports were supposed to be good for you, how come athletes are over the hill at 31? Bill Vaughan