Basketball referees and God
By Dr. Andy and Renie Bowman
Coffeetimecolumn.com
andybowman839@gmail.com
While watching our teen-aged son play four years of high school basketball games years ago, we both noticed an absolute truth: Our son could not seem to grasp that he wasn’t able to block every shot that was put up by the opposing team. He obviously believed that it was his God-given job to stop any player headed to the goal.
Of course, you know what happened. He got his five allowable fouls in about, um, the first 15 minutes of play. Then according to basketball rules, the referees would be obliged to ask him to leave the floor and spend the remainder of the game as the coach’s favorite "rider of the pine." Over and over again.
No matter what he was told by his coach, his brother or his parents, he simply believed that following his instinct, to "stop that ball, regardless of the consequences," was the only way to play ball. Never occurred to him to realize that there is a section in the rule book that referees have to follow as guardians of the game. Namely, “Players are not allowed under any circumstances to use their body as a wrecking ball to prevent the opposing team from scoring.”
It never seemed to register on his immature teenage brain that he would get a lot more playing time if he would learn to respect the referees’ job, and play the game by the rules.
The truth of that old saying, “The referee has the power, so play by his rules” totally eluded him. Instead, an automatic reaction would just seem to kick in as he faced an approaching ball handler, “I’ve got this. I know I can stop him, this time.” Every time. And way too often he was called for a foul. Go figure.
Reminds me of those adults, supposedly grownup people, who insist on playing the game called Life on their own terms. Belligerent, rebellious, rule-benders. Not bothering to pay attention to the ground rules laid out by the one and only Creator and Rule Maker of the game. And of course, very often they get called for a foul. Then they have to ‘ride the pine’ for a while, as The Rule Maker attempts to teach them to play nice. Go figure.
Folks, just write it on the wall: The sooner that players, either on the basketball floor or in Life, learn that it’s a lot more fun to play within the rules, the better their experience. But try teaching that truth to an energetic teen moron.
Fortunately, most young male basketball players do eventually mature and become rational adults. They learn to play Life within set rules and boundaries, but still bring that ‘committed to a cause approach’ with them to their career. But unfortunately, others tend to grow up continuing to be rebellious, rule-bending players of Life – adult morons. And the consequences are so much more disastrous than when they were just playing basketball.