Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Professional Sports

This will hopefully be a quick post. I'll return to the idea of ministry to the poor either later tonight or tomorrow. Continue the comments and conversation!

I do NOT like professional sports. Athletes are WAY overpaid, ticket and food prices make it very difficult for families to go to games and the athletes that are supposedly role models (except Charles Barkley) are NOT very good role models.

Pro sports, especially after the advent of Fantasy Sports, take over people's lives in a way that is incredibly unhealthy. This is true of college sports too. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where everything in the fall, including church, has to be scheduled around OSU football. March Madness truly turns people mad. Men in particular lose the ability to interact in a normal and meaningful way beyond sports during the high times of sport seasons. It's ridiculous.

I just watched Jon Stewart's interview with LeBron James. WoW. I still have the above opinions, but boy was it great to hear from such an amazingly well-spoken and thoughtful person. For real. He mentioned the 'big man upstairs' and had some good things to say. Thank you, LeBron, for being a real human. I would let my kids look up to you. (Yeah, he plays for Cleveland!)

peace,

1 comment:

Joel said...

Whereas from what I've heard about it, Michael Jordan spent a large portion of his Hall of Fame acceptance speech talking about how good he was in spite of disagreements with such-and-such coach, Xyz player, etc. He even told his kids that he wouldn't want to be them because they have a lot to live up to. I think it's funny that we consistently forget that these athletes are entering their career at the tender age of 19 or 20. Why do we look up to them as role models?