Let’s start here: I won’t be calling anybody out.

            Still, in my attention to professional golf events and interaction with Christian golf fans, I often hear expressions of excitement over tournament winners who “speak up for Jesus” by quoting verses they have used to push them to victory. And I’m afraid it is all I can do not to write back to these elated fans and ask, “You do realize that the passage they’re quoting is being entirely misconstrued?”

            To their credit, most Christian athletes will be the first to tell you that they are not theologians—and honestly, it shows in the Scripture passages they regularly choose. So as tempting as it is to capture your attention by giving some specific examples of athletes’ victory speeches and the Scripture they have commandeered as a catchphrase for their winning day, I’ll keep the names quiet for the sake of the humble and the innocent.

So Jim Tressel took himself out of hot water. Or his bosses did. Hard to tell with coaches’ “resignations.” But however it went down, Tressel is now separated from the decade past, those ten years when he led one of the country’s most dominant college football programs at The Ohio State University.

Or maybe not.

What makes an athlete?

It’s a common question, with bowlers normally excluded and football players (both kinds) always counted in.

It’s a question we can raise again today as Forbes has announced its top 10 most influential athletes for 2011.

At the top: Jimmie Johnson, a NASCAR driver.

I’ll give Johnson the sweat part that comes with most athletes. But that comes with most farm workers, factory laborers, and gardeners too.

I’ll give Johnson the concentration part that is required of humans driving vehicles at fatality-encouraging speeds for hours on end. But concentration comes with data entry operators and death defiance with airline pilots.

I know, I know, it was Sir Charles Barkley (not really a knight) who once famously said that he was not a role model, that he had no desire to be a role model, that no one should expect him to be a role model, that he had no intention of behaving like a role model. Actually, Barkley didn't stretch it out with so many words--but if you know Charles, you know that he could have. And you know that Barkley has lived up to his non-role model title more than a few times.

But listen to Barkley now.

As the Monday night halftime show between the Mavericks and Lakers neared its end, Barkley and his studio company took a look at the nasty turn of ankle suffered by Chicago's Derrick Rose (he of the almost MVP) in the closing seconds of the Bulls' loss to Atlanta. Host Matt Winer noted that the Bulls had declared Rose "day to day."

During Game 2 of their opening round NBA Playoffs series with the New Orleans Hornets, the Los Angeles Lakers debuted a public service announcement intended to discourage anti-gay slurs such as the one made recently by Lakers star guard Kobe Bryant in the direction of an NBA official.

For noticeably and loudly saying this slur so heinous that almost no news outlet dared hint what it actually was, Bryant was fined $100,000. Interestingly, the outcry and fine came only days after a UCLA study reported that just 3.5 percent of Americans are homosexual (a number far smaller than the usual 10-percent figure announced by LGBT groups).

Which leads me to ask: If a slur bothering 3.5 percent of the population earns you a $100,000 fine, and as many as 80 percent of Americans call themselves Christians, would NBA commissioner David Stern truly consider a--doing the math here--$2.3 million fine for the next player who clearly profanes the name of Jesus Christ? Or would such a huge number only apply to a star like Bryant?

“Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all!

   Let the whole earth know what he’s done!

Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion!

   The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.” (Isaiah 12:5-6, The Message)

They wore their emotions for all to see on Sunday. Anger. Frustration. Disappointment. Happiness. Satisfaction. Glee.

And I emoted right along with them, from Charl Schwartzel’s holeout at the second just after I turned on the TV, to Rory McIlroy’s crushing blow at the tenth, to Adam Scott’s dart at the sixteenth, to Luke Donald’s bizarre pin-slamming, chip-dunking birdie at the last.

I spend three or four afternoons a week this time of year coaching a local high school golf team. The following words emerge from a part of that work and the community of adults who explore Jesus together with me every other week at an area country club. At the core of this piece is the one thing God has been impressing on me most deeply since the day I officiated a funeral this winter for the father of one of my players: that we must keep wrestling with Him.

THE NAME OF GOD'S PEOPLE

The man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” (Genesis 32:28, NIV)

I’ve been working with a player whose short game has no variety.

It seemed like only hours since I had put down C.J. Mahaney’s mini-book, Don’t Waste Your Sports. In it, Mahaney outlines a number of representative traits that Christ-focused athletes playing should be displaying on and around the playing field. Among these is humility.

I have to tell you, I’m a sucker for humility. In fact, I have made a habit of teaching through the years that, contrary to popular opinion, God does play favorites. He favors the humble. This is true both for those who are made lowly by their circumstances and those who endeavor to humble themselves before the sovereign Lord. This latter group, James wrote, are those whom God lifts up.

But humility is hard to find in the many arenas of sports. Last night, L.A. Laker Ron Artest made a crucial 3-pointer in the team’s eventual triple-overtime win against the Phoenix Suns, then blew big kisses to the crowd when a timeout immediately followed. It got a big laugh out of me. But no, it was not humble. And in the NBA, particularly, where most games could contribute 30-40 such moments to a highlight reel, there are plenty of opportunities for athletes to point their fingers, thump their chests, and otherwise make sure their accomplishments are noticed and rewarded—at least with endearing applause.

The devotion I have written for Tuesday's Links Daily Devotional speaks to issues of grace and spiritual growth. It may be helpful here in light of recent discussion:

 We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience… (Colossians 1:9-11, NIV)

Johnny Miller couldn’t get over it. He kept returning to the statistic about Nick Watney’s short game.

Last year Watney, who won the WGC-Cadillac Championship on Sunday against the world’s best players, was 146^th on Tour in scrambling, the ability to get up and down from off the green to save par. After Sunday, Watney is—and this truly is amazing—second.

That’s right. Watney’s short game has improved so much that he has gone from one of the worst regulars on tour to nearly the best. I’m with Miller. This is both impressive by itself and indicative of why Watney walked away with the trophy on Sunday.

I’ll let you read for yourself all the Rob (Hell) Bell stuff. In this space, I’ll be sticking to Davies. And premarital sex. And LDS morality. And, hopefully, Scripture.

In the afterglow of BYU’s second win of the season over Mountain West basketball rival San Diego State, all should have been well in Cougarland. The blue-and-white appeared poised for a possible No. 1 seed come next Sunday’s NCAA tournament selection time. 

Then the fan started spinning and the result was not pretty.

Davies, you likely know by now, had violated the university’s honor code, having had sex with his girlfriend sometime last fall. The university didn’t actually come forth with this information. It leaked. So while some were quick to want to forgive Davies over a “common college activity,” for all we know this was no singular incident. University officials may have already “rendered grace.”