THE BASKETBALL PUSH

Marshall V. King

I pushed back. Peacemakers aren’t supposed to.

In a rush of anger, coupled with poor judgment, I shoved a guy on the basketball court recently. As soon as he reacted with anger of his own and dismay, I felt remorse. I was embarrassed—no, even stronger than that. I was ashamed.

Sports have a way of stripping away the rules with which we live out our emotions. In college, a Mennonite pastor, who was competitive as well as being a good preacher, stayed with me during a seminary Pastor’s Week. We watched an Indiana University basketball game together. In that basement apartment, he yelled and probably even cursed at the television as players and officials participated in this game.

I was marked by that. A man I respected felt free to carry on about this game. Somehow, that validated such carrying on for me.

I already had a long history of carrying on when it came to games, particularly basketball. When I wasn’t broadcasting games on the campus radio station, I enjoyed sitting near center court on the floor and filling the referee’s ears as he ran up and down the floor. One even growled that if I didn’t sit down, I’d be kicked out of the gym. I remembered that "cheering" recently as I heard Goshen College students hollering at Eastern Mennonite University soccer players during a game between the two. They weren’t shouting blessings. I’ve heard a number of adults at sporting events, from Little League to college games, follow similar patterns.

Surely we all protest too much at times. In one game, a teammate once tackled me because I reacted either to a referee’s call or lack of one, and my friend was sure I was headed for an untimely technical foul.

To be sure, we don’t always yell at someone. My senior year of high school, in the boys’ basketball sectional tournament, I led the wave and generally screamed—mostly in support of our team, some against the rival—until I was hoarse and we won in double overtime. There wasn’t much voice to cheer with the next night when the mighty Falcons almost came back from a 16-point deficit with 1:30 left to tie the game. The final shot fell short and we lost by 3.

In a baseball game growing up, playing with the same guys I cheered on the basketball court, I once waved a baseball in the runner’s face after I’d caught the throw that put him out at first base. Mr. McCumons, one of our coaches and my sixth-grade teacher, gave me a tongue-lashing I’ve never forgotten. You don’t show up another player. You play hard, with dignity and grace, and you never ever flaunt your own skills.

Sports in general, but particularly basketball, awaken passion in me. I love these games, either watching or playing. To me, basketball is a nearly perfect game involving finesse and some skills as you work toward fitness individually and toward scoring baskets and preventing them as a team.

I’ve become more aware of the passion sports invoke as I see it reflected through a spouse’s eyes. I’ve assured her I won’t throw the remote again when the Hoosiers lose. I’ve tried to mollify my expressions from the recliner as I watch sports on television.

For nearly 15 years, men from my church have played basketball. I joined in about 10 years ago. Someone invited me and I never stopped going. This group, this game, in a roundabout way marked my life.

It’s probably because of this group I continued attending the church that I’m a part of. After college, in that year of searching for a community in my hometown, I landed at a church which wasn’t an automatic fit for me. But the guys played basketball on Saturdays that winter and that was more important than what happened Sunday mornings.

I went to both. One was church for me. The other was a service where people sang and talked about what was happening in the world. The Sunday morning service became church too, but it took a while.

Without being sexual, there’s an intimacy among men as they play a game together. In these Saturday morning gatherings, I find easy laughter and grace as we foul each other and draw oxygen and water from the same sources. We experience community as we play together.

Players have come and gone. Some moved away. Some switched churches. Others returned back from service assignments or stints abroad. New players heard about it and joined in. The game has gone on at 7:00 A.M. Saturdays for years.

I think often of the Indonesian man in an exchange program who played with us one winter. He had little sense of the game—or of English. But he transferred what he knew about soccer to basketball, and we all enjoyed playing together. I remember the joy so evident on his face. We were all smiling on his last morning as we paused beneath a basket for a group picture.

As I remember that smile, I wonder how often joy is evident on my face, particularly as I’m playing. And I wonder about my passions. Does my passion for following Christ run as deep as the passion for following a fast break down a hardwood floor? I don’t always know. Running a floor is usually less complicated than the walk of a Christian, but they can’t be separated.

When I pushed the guy a couple weeks ago in a pick-up game, it was out of frustration at being run into repeatedly. A push-back was memorable, but a few words would have accomplished the same thing without creating a scene or diminishing the fun of the game as happened for all 10 guys on the floor that morning.

Better choices are usually most obvious on the other side of a poor one. So without beating myself up, I live with knowing I pushed this man as he ran into me. I live with his reaction that morning but also his forgiveness. His forgiveness came fairly quickly, and we’ve resolved the tension. But my questions about myself, my tendencies, even my possibilities, don’t end.

What does it mean that I am quick to anger? How do I respond gracefully when a flood of anger and emotion courses through the center of this big body? How do I use the passion in ways that bring joy rather than dismay and a few well-timed curses?

I try to live as a peacemaker. I try to bridge differences between people. I also have to own that on the basketball court, when passion pounds through the blood vessels along with the extra blood being pumped by this heart, there is a tendency to be something other than gracious and kind.

That’s when playing the game is more than just running up and down a hardwood floor and making cuts. That’s when it becomes part of living. To live so we are gracious even when passions run deep is the truest challenge of our self-control.

In the locker room, after a morning of basketball, one player noted that at our age playing isn’t about winning or losing, it’s just about the competition. That’s the lesson. This isn’t a serious game. It’s just a game to be played hard and enjoyed. I wish I had learned that lesson better years ago.

—Marshall V. King, a journalist and writer, lives and hoops it up in Goshen, Indiana. He pulls for the Hoosiers, who play basketball the way God intended, particularly with a coach less prone to outbursts than Bobby Knight.