Only One "Champion"

“Who do you want to win the Super Bowl?” You probably heard that last week at least as often as I did. I told people the truth: I didn’t care much who won. I suppose the inquirers inferred a) I was bummed because my team wasn’t in the bowl or b) I have some weird disinterest in professional football.

They got it right the second time. Two years as a sports editor during the early 1980s soured me on sports. I simply got sick of it. I allow credit where it’s due for teamwork, quality athletic performance and coaching, but I find home crowds invariably annoying and I have a chronic problem trying to reconcile sports with scripture. Team and personal pride -- evidenced with blatant, often vulgar arrogance, in the post-Christian era -- and the objective of being “number one” stand in stark contrast to Christ’s teachings. A Super Bowl winning player (even a Super Bowl losing player) gets to call himself “champion” and to stash millions of dollars in a bank account. So . . . what? He’s rich, he’s proud and he’s famous. Christ wasn’t rich or proud and He never gloated over the body of some opposing player He knocked down. He’s still famous after 2,000 years.