By now every pop culture columnist in America has chimed in on the Tim Tebow “controversy,” of which my favorites have been Daniel Foster’s take in National Review and Kevin Craft’s in The Atlantic. Both of these articles point out, rightly, that Tebow’s critics are largely unnerved by his sincerity and unflappably earnest devotion to his beliefs. It’s not his constant talk of God that’s the problem; it’s that he so clearly believes what he’s saying and lives his life accordingly. It’s unironic. It’s no mere lip service. He takes things seriously. As Chuck Klosterman notes in his meandering Tebow treatise, he has a faith that “defies modernity” and “makes people wonder if they should try to believe things they don’t actually believe.”

I still read the sports page first.

A few days ago I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper about an issue of local importance, so I knew it was likely to be published any day now. But this morning, I still read the sports page first. Then I checked the editorial page, and there was my letter. Ho hum.

So I’m asking myself a teenager’s question: Is there something wrong with me?

When dozens die in a suicide bombing at a Moscow Airport, I am scanning the high school soccer results.

When a Yemeni protest leader is seized because she dared to speak up about civil rights violations, I am amazed to see the Packers declared the early betting favorite for the Super Bowl.

When people in the East must dig their way out of yet another snowstorm, I am wondering why the rest of the Pacific Division (besides the Lakers) is so rotten.

This is the funniest video I have seen in a long time! I used it in my class this week to open up discussions about existentialism and nihilism. Even if you're not formally teaching, this video is well worth the chat. Check it out!

In the week before Armando Galarraga’s stolen glory early last month, I was finishing my spring reading of one the most important books a Christ-following athlete and sports fan can read, Shirl James Hoffman’s Good Game.

Hoffman asks all kinds of excellent questions and challenges the way the church in America has increasingly put its stamp of approval on every venture of sports without thinking critically about how, say, ultimate fighting carves into a spectator’s soul, not to mention what it does to the God-designed brain of the participants.

One of those key questions is this: Do sports really provide opportunities for learning that other endeavors do not?

For instance, we often say that the practice of sports trains an athlete in dedication and perseverance. Such a statement is intended to “automatically” condone the purpose of sports over and above other ventures. But what is a pianist learning through hours of committed practice? Might it be dedication and perseverance? And might it come without the risk of injuries that can alter a person’s quality of life for years to come?

The Land Cruiser lurched uncomfortably from side to side as we lumbered down the badly rutted dirt road. It was an ordinary June night in Arusha, Tanzania, except for one thing--the World Cup.  The biggest sporting event in the world was going on and people all over our city were gathered in pubs and restaurants, clubs and living rooms to watch the games, hosted for the first time on this very continent.  

What caught my eye as we bounced along was the tiny roadside snack shop with the plastic chairs set out on the dirt in front, semi-circled around a small television that flickered the event into the dark, cold (it's winter here) night.  Eager faces, lit by the screen, followed every move with passionate attention to detail.

The World Cup is a big deal.  And it means a lot to Africa.  Everyone from Desmond Tutu to Nelson Mandela and Emmanuel Adebayor has commented on how much football, and this tournament in particular, inspires young Africans.  It's huge.  

Let’s begin with the lingering question: do sports form character or reveal it?

When my wife, who is a sometimes sports fan, asked what I would first write about in Competitive Juices, I posed that question to her. Her answer was perfect. She said, “Yes.”  

For those who play sports, even at a “recreational” level (where, of course, a score is still kept), sports may form one’s character as he or she learns discipline and perseverance and camaraderie and even, we hope, humility not only from failure but in success. But the most daunting moments in sports also reveal one’s character, particularly as it relates to the words of one’s mouth spewing forth the abundance of one’s heart.

Some writers coined “the Tiger Slam” to describe the golf star’s four consecutive major championship victories (though not in the requisite calendar year for a “true” slam). But the Tiger Slam could just as easily refer to what Woods frequently does with his club after he has hit a bad shot. Is this the heat of competition or a revelation of his character? I might say “You decide,” but it is really for Tiger himself to wrestle with and perhaps to confess to.  

A few months after Hurricane Katrina, I was walking the streets of New Orleans with friends who were committed to helping in the rebuilding effort. We drove past the Superdome, walked in empty neighborhoods racked with garbage, debris, and broken down homes, previously flooded by activity and people. Hundreds of thousands of people left the city in search of something new.

The prophet Jeremiah, instructs us in both his self-titled book as well as his book of Lamentations that we should care for the city. He puts it clearly in two distinctly related phrases: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare,” (Jeremiah 29:7). Later in Lamentations 1, we read these words:  “How lonely sits the city that was full of people.”  And so images of New Orleans come to mind, both in its beauty and potential as well as in its dealing with its own current loneliness that was once ‘full of people.”

Someone recently asked me if I had a chapter in my book about hipsters and sports. I don’t, but I think a chapter could definitely be written about it. And I think it would be interesting.

Hipsters like a lot of good things: good food, drink, clothes, music, movies, books, etc. By and large, they have fantastic taste.

But for some reason, hipsters aren’t that wild about sports.

It’s unclear exactly why sports (and I’m mainly talking about popular American sports) are so anathema to the average hipster. Perhaps they perceive sports as some sort of low-culture bourgeois pastime, or a malevolent technocratic tool of the WASP-filled hegemony. Or maybe it’s just that sports (with the exception of horse-racing and maybe golf) are so sporty and gauche. Perhaps it is the outmoded undercurrents of nationalism, traditional gender roles and barbaric competitiveness that turns off the hipster. Perhaps it is the cheerleaders.

I married a futbol fanatic.  I knew this was part of the deal 4 years ago when I took my vows.  My husband, a loyal Manchester United fan for over a decade, has another love and always will.  As long as I never root for Arsenal or Chelsea (other clubs in England) we will live a long happy life.  It is completely normal in our house for Nate to wake up at 5:00a.m. to watch a game live, so ordering our vacation in the Sierra Nevadas this week around the Confederations Cup in South Africa seemed perfectly logical.  We sat in our room watching the US shut out Egypt and then the miracle that my husband compared to the 1980 US hockey team win over the former Soviet Union (which I quickly shot down) – USA defeating Spain.  And it wasn’t just a win – it was a beautiful, masterful performance that left the #1 team in the world flustered and shocked, as it did most everyone else who knows anything about futbol. No one thought this was possible. Not even the announcers who days earlier after the Egypt game said it would be a good match but hinted that Spain’s reign of the game would continue.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t know who to root for. I’m conflicted when it comes to soccer; I mean futbol. The United States dominates in the world arena of athletics. Since WWII, the USA has been the overall medal winner at the summer Olympics except 7 times and only then communist countries placed ahead of us...that’s saying something.  We breed little people to become big stars.  We have big dreams for them even before they know what a Wheaties box is.  (I also have secret dream of NBA players trading salaries with inner city teachers for a week.) As every year goes by I find myself watching people turn into their version of Mr. Hyde as 35 year old men jump on top of each other and manhandle one another on their quest to be #1.  I grew up playing sports – I do love healthy competition, but in a week where a beloved high school coach was shot to death in the corn state, I have begun to wonder is being #1 worth it?

In the 2006 World Cup the US futbol team came out to play Ghana. Many people thought we would breeze through the game, but Ghana was playing for so much more. The entire country of Ghana shut down to watch the game. The people were asked to conserve electricity to have enough energy to watch on screens all over the sun drenched nation. People stayed home from work and the country rallied behind the 11 men on the field. With equal shock and awe Ghana beat the US and a country was given hope for another day.

The legacy and hope of futbol around the world is nothing like anything I have ever seen.  Yes I screamed when the US scored on Wednesday, but the win isn’t the same for our country – it’s expected. We’re the US, so we “should” be the best – that’s the attitude, but I disagree. If you’ve been to a European futbol match you understand this.  Every single person is Jack Nicholson at a Laker’s game. There is no fareweather fan. It might border on unhealthy, especially when rioting hooligans make a mess, but Ghana changed my whole perspective. It’s like those countries at the Olympics that show up with 3 people.  I love it; I start bawling because it means so much more that they are even there to compete.  They’re not there to bring home medals necessarily, they are there to bring pride to their nation.  Our athletes do this as well, but the pressure to perform and win is so much more immense.

This pressure to be #1 destroys people, as we watched Alicia Sacramone “lose it all” for the US gymnastics team last year against China. The weight of a country on her to bring home the gold instead of enjoying her even getting that far. People yell at TVs and parents run out on fields for the “love” of the sport. I get the passion, but really? Yes, our team can foul or get a penalty – they are not perfect. Neither are referees, but they don’t need to have their eyes checked. We expect perfection and this pressure made the US fire their soccer coach and redo the program after the last World Cup. We have to compete on the world’s stage, so let’s not embarrass ourselves. We defeat countries like Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Honduras, whose livelihoods revolve around this game, so when the US goes out on the field I get a weird feeling in my stomach.  Yes I hope they play well and yes they earned their victory on Wednesday, but what is the cost of being #1 to a country who historically, except for a small handful, has not rallied behind this sport?