Anyway, I’ve written a few things for them and since I haven’t posted anything on The GBOAT this week, here are the posts I wrote for them.

• Brian Regan Ruined My Life
• I Don’t Want This Stupid Vacuum

Amanda also writes for the site, and she’s put up some gold and then something really really scary that I don’t ever want to talk about ever.

So check it out or whatever.

Before I start this article on superstition, you need to know a little about me. I have a degree in Historical Studies, which means I learned how to fact check old documents and make sure they’re legitimate. I am also currently pursuing a degree in Environmental Science, so you can probably guess that I don’t like approximations and guesses. I’m also a Christian, so I don’t believe in magic and voodoo and curses. I openly mock those who think magnets can heal you, and I dismiss most natural remedies.

That being said, how to be superstitious is one of the most important things a sports fan can learn.

There are many different ways to be superstitious about sports. You can have a lucky spot on the couch while you cheer your favorite team to victory. You can prepare the same meal before every game, knowing that your “Victory Nachos” were what helped the basketball roll into the basket instead of out of it. There’s the classic “never mention a no-hitter” while watching a pitcher blank batter after batter. Maybe you and a friend have a secret handshake which must be performed before every quarter. My personal favorite, however, is the lucky article of clothing.

In 2005, the University of Texas Longhorns football team was ranked second in the nation and heading into a matchup with the Ohio State Buckeyes. The game was to be played in Ohio Stadium, one of toughest places to play in all of college football. Being a proud student of the UT system, I went out and bought myself a brand new t-shirt for the occasion. It was gray, and simply said “Texas” on the front in burnt orange.

The Longhorns went on to win a thriller of a game, and from that day forward I wore that t-shirt on every game day. UT had a tremendous season, going undefeated and beating the vaunted USC Trojans in the National Championship Game. That shirt unleashed a torrent of success for the Longhorns, helping them compile a 57-8 record over five years. My t-shirt (and the Longhorns) seemed poised to build a dynasty.

But, alas, fate and marriage intervened. I came home from work one day to find my wife wearing my lucky t-shirt one day in late December. I don’t blame her, really. She couldn’t have known. I try not to disclose my quirks and compulsive disorders unless absolutely necessary. Quickly, and probably kind of rudely, I asked her to change shirts and hoped that the damage was minimal. Those hopes were soon dashed against the rocks of college sports.

Colt McCoy, the Longhorns quarterback in the 2009 National Championship Game, suffered an injury on the first series of that game, and Texas lost to the NFL’s 33^rd franchise, the Alabama Crimson Tide. Since then, the Longhorns have gone 22-16. My lucky t-shirt’s magic is all gone, sucked dry by my wife’s common sense and disbelief that a simple piece of cloth can affect the outcome of a football game.

I don’t know why I am superstitious when it comes to sports. I know that what I wear, or where I sit, or what food I eat has no effect on what happens in stadiums miles from my home. At least that’s what my brain tells me. Something inside me, however, tells me I’ve got to contribute. I’ve got to do something to lend my team a hand. And that might be the biggest reason I’m superstitious when it comes to sports. It’s a way for me to be involved. It’s a way to feel like I was part of the victory (or the defeat).

In the end, that’s the magic of sports. You’re not passively watching a drama play out before your eyes. You’re cheering, clapping, and stomping in the stands. You are involved. So it shouldn’t be surprising that we try to find more and more ways to throw ourselves into the action. Superstitions are one way to do that, even when we know that they really don’t matter at all.

The lesson: go out and create some crazy superstitions of your own. Just remember to be slightly rational about it and not take it too seriously.

Again, check Ben out at his website, and also on Twitter @BenZajdel. What are YOUR favorite sports superstitions?

One matchup that would be particularly intriguing if this was 1997 is the current series between the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks. Alas, this is not 1997, and the rivalry isn’t the same as when Reggie Miller was shaking his Cheryls at Spike Lee. However, there between Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler and the reanimated corpses of Jason Kidd/Marcus Camby versus Paul George, Roy Hibbert and a cyborg named Tyler Hansborough who just wants to learn what love is, it’s still a fascinating series.

And then we have wildcards, such as the mysterious Iman Shumpert

Blending the arrogance of Reggie Miller with the hair of Patrick Ewing

Shumpert is a second year player for New York who has steadily improved his offensive game since being drafted. Originally considered just a great athlete, he has become more of an all around, respectable scorer. But he’s still quite an athlete, being known to put together many high-flying YouTube videos per game.

But one dunk stands out as special for me, and I would love to break it down just a bit for you:

First of all, the buildup to the dunk: Baron Davis, an elderly man who was playing for the New York Retirement Community Recreational Knicks at the time drives to the lane, only to discover Kevin Garnett (wait, is EVERYBODY involved in this clip in the AARP?) waiting for him. A younger version of Baron wouldn’t have hesitated to fly into KG and attempt to score, but this is Old Baron, and he was getting over a herniated disk and male pattern baldness, so he reconsidered. Of course, part of Old Baron wasn’t paying attention, and still left his feet, leaving him almost stranded.

But in comes Shumpert. And oh, did he help Baron out.

Iman is streaking in JUST when he needs to and receives the Baron pass. He rises, KG wisely moves to avoid fouling the tattoos off of Shumpert, and Iman celebrates. End of story.

Or is it?

You probably missed the best part. It’s okay, I did too until my friend Brett said, “Wait, did you hear that?” and rewound the broadcast. Sure enough, right as Iman leaves his feet (around the 3 second mark in the video), you can clearly hear the floor mics pick up a beautifully understated phrase:

“IT’S SHUMPEEEEERT!”

Not like Iman is hard to miss, of course

Now, the beauty of this is that there are two wonderful options as to who yelled this:

1. Another player lost his mind and yelled in the middle of a game.

In all of the action, somebody on the court lost track of Iman Shumpert. It likely happened as soon as Baron Davis left his feet and all hope was lost for the Knicks on this possession. Clearly, nobody was paying attention to Iman as he made his cut, otherwise he wouldn’t have such a clear path.

Naturally, as soon as he leaves his feet, in an either surprisingly joyful or surprisingly disgusting situation (depending on which team), some player on the court needed to announce what was happening, as if Iman was a hand grenade thrown onto the court (which totally happened once).

OR….

2. Iman himself coined the greatest slam dunk catchphrase in all of history.

He could have trash talked. He could have been completely silent. Heck, he could have given a soliloquy from Hamlet for all I care. None of that compares at all to the idea of somebody about to gather for a massive slam in a defenders face and having the wherewithall to scream out his own name. It’s the Leroy Jenkins of basketball moves, and I hope SO BADLY that this is what actually happened.

Regardless of all of this, though, it’s pretty clear that while we won’t see Charles Oakley and the Knicks throwing Reggie Miller to the ground anytime soon (can anybody name a mid-90′s Pacer other than Reggie?), the Knicks/Pacers matchup is still as entertaining as pro ball can get.

And Iman Shumpert sure is doing his part to make it fun to watch.

Iman Shumpert: A true American hero

In rap music, however, the spectrum is much, much wider. For every Chiddy Bang (on the good side of the spectrum), there exist at least 10 Soulja Boys (the WORST).

Never trust a man with a leopard print hat

If none of those names mean anything to you, that’s fine. None of that is terribly important. Rap music does have its fair share of great songwriters, its versions of Bob Dylan, if you will. And just like Bob Dylan, sometimes they don’t make any sense whatsoever.

Never trust a man with that kind of hat, either

Thus, let’s take a step back to 2003, a full decade ago, to celebrate the existence of Speakerboxx/The Love Below and in particular Flip Flop Rock, the most confusing rap song ever written.

Before we dive deeply into the song itself, let’s take a look at the full album. At this point in their career, genre-defining southern rap duo Outkast had reached a peak. In the late 90′s, they had introduced a much more soulful, blues-inspired tone to rap music, along with much more musical experimentation. This set them apart and led to huge amounts of commercial success with such hits as “Ms. Jackson,” “Aquimeni,” “Bombs Over Baghdad”, and of course bestselling albums “Stankonia” and “Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik.” None of the above song titles were jokes.

As their musical career approached the ten year mark, Outkast decided to take their experimental style to the next level, which led to creating two separate individual projects and packaging them together. Thus, Andre “3000″ Benjamin and Antoine “Big Boi” Patton created Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. One critic said it was the equivalent of the Beatles releasing The White Album with the Lennon songs on one album and the McCartney songs on the other. This comparison only make sense, of course, if Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Boi despised each other and were from another country.

Depending on who you ask, Atlanta might be a foreign country

In the midst of Mr. Boi’s album Speakerboxxx exists the tune Flip Flop Rock, which you can find below:

(NOTE: if you’re unfamiliar with hip-hop music, please know that there is frequent and flippant use of profanity in the song. Be advised.)

First things first: the song is billed on the album as featuring Killer Mike. However, it’s quite noticeable to rap fans there are three voices here, one of them belonging to none other than Jay-Z. You might have heard of him.

He’s married to whats-her-face

While later releases of the album have Mr. Z listed as a contributor to the track, he is still given third billing, behind Killer Mike. This is the start of the confusion, as a casual music listener (anyone with ears and owns a radio) could tell you who Jay-Z is, but not as many know Killer Mike. In fact, a quick glace at Mr. Mike’s Wikipedia page points out that his greatest accomplishments have all been appearances on Outkast songs.

This realization caused him to briefly change his name to Pensive Mike

So why did Jay-Z not get mentioned? And when he was, why did he get mentioned last? Well, it could be because his verse was the final verse on the song. However, he performed the chorus (hook, in rap lingo) of the song as well. So ultimately? There’s no reason.

Another major point of confusion comes within a verse delivered by Mr. Boi, wherein he asks questions about the importance of ethnicity and color of ones skin. The exact line (found at the 0:37 mark) goes as such:

“.. are you black, white, asian?
Indonesian, or Borean – that’s black and Korean”

Pause for a moment. First, Mr. Boi hits on three of the major ethnic groups in the United States: black, white, and asian. However, instead of perhaps mentioning another major ethnicity, say, that of the Latin variety, he jumps into very odd specifics: Indonesian and a term that he undoubtably made up known as Borean.

This is what an image search for “Borean” gave me, so I assume that Boreans don’t happen often

Maybe there is a reason behind this. Perhaps in his hometown of Atlanta, there is a large Indonesian population that would be offended if they didn’t get a shout-out (a rap term for being mentioned in public). Perhaps he just needed to find an ethnicity that fit the syllables in his rhyme scheme. There could be plenty of reasons behind his choice.

However, there is no way to justify “Borean.” First of all, it involves making a new term for a combination of two ethnicities. Unless this is an actual accepted term, but since the only evidence of it on the internet comes from Urban Dictionary, it’s pretty safe to say it isn’t. Also, it means that Mr. Boi decided he needed to rhyme a word with “Korean” so he came up with a slight variation on that actual word. Not the most creative move ever, that’s for sure.

He suggested they name the CD “Brap Balbum”

There are many other aspects of Mr. Boi’s verse that could be addressed, such as his need to teach basic subtraction with negative numbers, how he references Eyes Wide Shut and Legally Blone, or the fact that for no reason he proudly yells “Rap song! Rap song!”. However, at this point, attention must be drawn back briefly to the one and only Killer Mike. He starts his verse off strong, with the following line (starting at 2:08):

“watch ‘em as they gawk and they gander
You can follow, or lead like Commander
Picard.”

Gangsta

Mr. Mike approaches this new opportunity to expand his “Appearing On Outkast Songs” Resume with all of the energy and wit of….a Star Trek fan? That doesn’t seem like the type of line that would fit a man whose name labels him as a killer. After all, most of the time, phasers were set to “stun”. And while he does later mutilate the word “boulevard” so that it rhymes with Picard, it still doesn’t explain why he chose this particular rhyme pattern.

Throughout all this confusion this is the particular song that has been laid out for the listener. It is just one of many on the Speakerboxxx album, and one of even more on the entire collection of Speakerboxxx and The Love Below. The album gave us “Roses”, “The Way You Move”, and of course the iconic “Hey Ya!”, all of which were well respected.

In the midst of those many gems, though, as it often is with artistic and musical endeavors, lies something like Flip Flop Rock. Something that isn’t necessarily bad….just something that doesn’t necessarily make any sense. At all.

But hey, what do you expect from somebody who calls him Sir Lucious Left Foot?

No, seriously. He does

Happy 10th birthday, Speakerboxx/The Love Below!

It’s a bit of a strange concept to think about. After all, we’re talking about documents that were passed down for many generations before ever being written down, and even after that, they had to be translated into language that we understand. So there’s all kinds of crazy stuff that doesn’t necessarily make sense to us in the age we live in. There are a lot of cultural differences that make things really, really difficult for us to understand.

But that’s where our viewpoint of the Bible itself comes into play. Because if we just think of it as some other book, we can disregard all the things that don’t interest us. However, if we view it as being infallible and being inspired, than we have no choice but to look at the content as being something entirely different.

We have to acknowledge that the content is in there for a reason.

That’s just the nature of the beast. The Bible isn’t just the story of the Crucifixion and an order to love everybody with a whole bunch of filler material on either side. Sure, salvation is the focal point, but there must be much, much more to take away from what is written. We’re not saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, but we must remember them to know how we should live and how we should deserve punishment because we can’t do what we’re told.

We should always find it interesting when the Bible talks about Jesus being friends with women. This is one of those areas where you have to understand the cultural importance, because today, we don’t find anything weird about cross-gender interaction. Back then, though, it’s a completely different story. Women weren’t considered to be anything. In fact, they weren’t even allowed to be witnesses in a court case, because their testimony had no weight. Women and children were so unimportant, they weren’t even counted when numbers were reported. Jesus feeding 5,000 with a few loaves and fish? Yeah, those were only 5,000 men. They didn’t think it was important to note how many women and children were there.

That’s why the Resurrection being revealed to women FIRST is huge. That is why Jesus telling his disciples they must become like children to get into heaven is massive (along with being offensive to the disciples). These little facts are huge and important to note, because they are supposed to redefine the way we look at each other.

If we believe the Bible to be inspired, we have to believe that what is in there is in there for a reason. If you don’t believe the Bible to be inspired….well, you’ve got a lot more stuff going on that I can’t cover in a blog post.

So it’s pretty interesting to see other passages in Scripture that also deal with these issues. In the past week, it’s interesting hearing Mark Driscoll talk about the “wives, submit to your husbands” verse, and even more interesting to read peoples’ disgust with him. Maybe you don’t agree with his assessment that a nagging wife is like torture. Or maybe you’ve just made it through your life without every interacting with an annoying person. I’m quite jealous of you in that regard.

I mean, surely there must be a reason (if we hold to the inspiration behind Scripture) that this phrase is used. And surely it can’t be sexist, because Jesus himself praised women more than any other influential figure at that time. So one can only assume that there MUST be a way of submission that also praises the woman. Or you could just claim that Solomon wrote Proverbs 31 and he had all kinds of wives and concubines, so surely he can’t be trusted. In which case you might not actually believe that all of Scripture is there for a reason.

There must be a reason behind that phrase, just as there must be a reason the phrase before it is, “Husbands, love your wives.” And there might even be a reason that the instruction to the husbands comes first, so that we can better understand the instruction given to the wives. And whether or not you agree with Mark’s assessment of the meaning, you still have to consider the passage.

It has to have been there for a reason. What do you think the reason is? Like, seriously. If you read this blog post, I want you to leave a comment so we can discuss it. I’m genuinely curious, and I want to hear what you have to say.

All I know FOR SURE about the passage is that the Bible is trying to include instruction for me for some day when I am a husband. My wife needs to feel my love, and I must strive to give her what she needs. I will need to know that my wife respects and trusts me, and I pray that she understands that.

And I also know that if the Apostle Paul was here today, there would be a lot of bloggers who would hate him.

I have been around sports for years.  I’m 28 now, and I remember waaaaaaay back when as a little kid playing T-Ball.  I don’t know when that was, but it was a long time ago.  I was never good at sports, but I have played, and probably more importantly, watched them for years.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all of these years, it’s this:

In order to be a sports fan, you must overreact to everything.

This manifests itself in many different ways.  Fans do it, announcers do it, and talking heads do it.  And then after you overreact to everything, you have to get mad at ESPN for creating a culture in which we overreact to everything, essentially absolving yourself of any and all blame.

Make sense?  No?  Good.  Let’s look at it more specifically.

Fans Do It

This may be the easiest one to grasp.  Lose a game?  Fire the coach.  Win a game?  Sign him to a lifetime extension.  It’s really easy to do, and it honestly is a lot of fun.  It’s especially magnified in rivalry games.  A few years ago, my alma mater beat its in-state rival 45-0.  After the game, tons of fans (and I may or may not have been one of them) declared our rival program dead and poised to move up a tier in our conference and begin competing for conference championships.  Know what happened the next year?  We lost to our in-state rival, and the year after that (and the year following that) we lost to them again (making it 3 in a row) and went 3-9 and 2-10.  But you know what happened during that time period?  Our in-state rival won 3 rivalry games in a row and took over almost the exact same position we were in.  After a 31-3 beatdown last season, they had left us in the dust and weren’t ever looking back.  They were poised to compete for a conference championship.  Then…we beat them.

Another great example is recruiting.  I am admitting this as a full-blown recruiting addict.*  At times, recruiting overreaction borders on the creepy.  I read a message board post from a guy who had hired a sitter and was taking his wife out on a date to the bar that the recruits were visiting.  Maybe overreaction isn’t the right word for that, but it does deserve to be mentioned here.  On the flip side, when your rival school recruits well, overreaction gives you a great coping mechanism – they recruited well?  Well, they obviously bought the recruits cars or prostitutes or gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars.**

A third, and final, example, is Twitter.  Twitter is both the best thing in the world and the worst thing in the world.   There are many different ways you can go with this.  A recent example would be the Miami Heat’s win streak.  Miami won 27 games in a row, falling just short of the NBA’s all time record of 33 games in a row.  When the Chicago Bulls beat them, Twitter exploded.  The reality of the situation was that the Miami Heat, the best team in the NBA, won 27 games in a row and then lost to a really scrappy Bulls team who, despite some injuries, is a pretty good team.  If you read Twitter that night, though, Lebron James is the worst player in the world, the Heat suck, and the Bulls are great.  It’s really easy.

Announcers Do It

This one is more awesome.  All you have to do is watch any game Gus Johnson has ever called and you know this to be true.  And we LOVE Gus for it.

Craven and I spend a lot of time playing the NBA 2K series.  We’ll be playing, going back and forth, and one of us (usually Craven) will get a fast break and throw an alley-oop.  The announcers, though, will have a series something like this:

Announcer 1:  You know, last season, this team 16-10 at home.  They really need to…

*alley-oop thrown*

All the announces:  SOIEHGOWIEHFPIUWHEIUNWEOIWEOHEOIUFHWEOFHPWJEBV JDOIWEHFUIWBE IJBWDIUNWIUEB WUIEBF UWEBIUFBWE IUHG WOEIFOIWENCIUWEN CUIBWE UGWE IVE NEVER SEEN AN ALLEY OOP BEFORE

One of my favorite real-life examples of an announcer overreacting (an an example of clueless announcers) is in this video:

Now, overreacting is not always a bad thing.  Take this example, from this NBA season as well, of the Houston Rockets announcer:

This is a regular season NBA game in December, so it’s essentially meaningless.  BUT this announcer’s overreaction gave me one of my favorite sports phrases of all time.

Talking Heads Do It

So fans and announcers get a pass.  Fans often*** have invested much into their teams.  They attended school there, grew up going to games, whatever.  It runs deep.  Announcers are selling an experience, and they typically have the best seat in the house for the greatest moments.

But the talking heads (I’m looking at you, ESPN) are the worst, and they get no pass.  Every little thing is picked apart and analyzed and rash statements are made all the time.  I really don’t have to go back that far to find proof.  A couple of weeks ago, something bad happened to both Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant.  ESPN exploded.  And all of that happened before we got to the First Take cycle.****

Another example is how the analysts have talked about college basketball (and I’m guilty of this one too).  College basketball is being ruined, it’s losing viewership, and everything bad is happening.  Wait…what’s that?  This year’s NCAA tournament was the highest rated in years, and the national championship game was the most attended of all time, and it was a phenomenal game to boot?  You mean that maybe the sport isn’t ruined but these things just have a natural ebb and flow to them?

NO THE GAME SUCKS NOW COLLEGE BASKETBALL IS RUINED NO WAIT NOW IT’S SAVED FOREVER!!!!!!!!!

The problem is, and I’m cutting it short because it’s getting wordy at this point, ESPN does these things because we, the fans, watch it.  We vote in all the stupid polls they run, we contribute to the madness.  So, in theory, if we want it to stop, we should just stop.

But we don’t, because we love sports too much.

Which isn’t a bad thing.  But I have to end this – today’s round of NBA games just ended and I have to go Tweet about how this is the [insert best/worst here] playoffs in history and how the game is being destroyed.

*My recruiting addiction goes like this – I start to get the urge to read everything written about it around August.  I largely ignore it, just taking a look here or there once or twice a week.  By October, I am all in.  Come February, I am eating, drinking, and breathing recruiting (and college basketball), and the day after signing day, I collapse into a post-recruiting haze, swearing it off forever until August rolls back around, then the cycle repeats.  It’s vicious.  

**These are ridiculous assumptions unless you’re talking about Miami or Cam Newton.

***I say often because Alabama fans exist.  If you know any Alabama fans, they probably aren’t from Alabama, didn’t go to school there, and can’t name you a single Alabama football coach besides Bear Bryant and Nick Saban.  And if you told them “hey, Alabama has a pretty good softball team, too!” (which they do) they would look at you and say “ROLL TIDE what’s softball again? ROLL TIDE”

****First Take is the worst thing to ever happen to television.

I often find myself longing for this two-week period of my life from back in 2009. It was right after graduating from college, and I spent my time driving around throughout the Southeast listening to a lot of CDs cause I didn’t own an iPod.

It was exactly what I needed just out of school: time away from everything. I was coming off a particularly rough 2008 and figured that since my problems at this point in time were dealing with a couple of girls I found attractive and finding a part time job to pay my cheap rent, life was going alright. The future was wide open for me, which was exhilarating but also terrifying.

It is that free feeling that I keep coming back to as the years go by. Not the fear or the wandering or the confusion about cute girls. It is the feeling of freedom.

Yet I can’t help but think that the more I long for that period of time, I do it for the wrong reasons.

During my drives, there was one particular CD I listened to more than others. I had just picked up a copy of the Jars Of Clay album “The Long Fall Back To Earth” and was giving it a few listens to see whether or not I enjoyed it.  I not only enjoyed it musically, I think the overall message of the album resonated with what I was going through at the time. And after this past week, it resonates with me again, bringing back that longing for 2009.

“Is it safe….is it safe to land?”

Safety. Is it safe to land, in this world that is often so dangerous and uncertain? Is it safe to land, with an easily broken heart serving as my only source of fuel? Or should I respond like the song “Headphones”, which talks about blocking out the hurting world around because it is just too much? These were the things I wondered as I freely floated throughout these southern states, enjoying the company of friends and the time before life would come flying at me again.

Looking back on this past week, I can’t help but wonder the same things all over again. Is it safe? When we live in a world alongside people who want to bomb innocents and mail poison to our leaders? Because I find myself wanting more and more to be in 2009 because it allows me to hide from all of this. To put those headphones on and block out what is around. Hide from the hurt. My problems are no longer just cute girls and cheap rent. They are the growing number of expenses that come from adult life and the caring for hurting friends and family when they need somebody there. The work that goes into keeping a long-distance relationship healthy. The attention that needs to be shown to my community, giving back to those who have cared for me. It seems constant. And I want to hide.

“I don’t want to have to hear it”

I’m sure runners in the Boston marathon wanted to hide when the blasts when off. But so many of them refused to hide. They ran into the smoke and helped out as many as they could possibly help out. I read a blog post saying that this showed the inherent goodness of human nature, but I have to disagree. Human nature set those bombs and human nature told those people to hide. It’s much more heroic to recognize that what they were doing was so far above and beyond what was simply human nature.

I can hide from all the mess. I can unfollow people on Twitter when I disagree with their theology or some other aspect of their worldview. I can avoid those who are around me who need my attention. But I shouldn’t. When tragedy hits, I should run into it to help, thereby fighting my human nature which tells me that I am always priority #1.

We find inspiration in dark times to continue fighting. For my mother and I, we found a little inspiration last Thursday when we met at a restaurant for dinner. The two of us were both feeling burned out and overwhelmed from everything going on, and we needed good food to cheer us up. When the check should have come, though, the waiter explained that he had never had this happen to him before, but another group had already paid for us. They asked him to pick a table for them to cover and he picked us. It was the lift that we needed on that day, and we couldn’t help but think that it was some sort of divine intervention.

That kindness reminded us to fight against our nature. To not give up when things were frustrating or the world looked dark and hopeless. To not put on our headphones, block out the world, and hide.

“Lesson one: do not hide”

I don’t know where my hard copy of that Jars Of Clay CD is anymore. It’s in digital format on an iPod in my back pocket these days, and it very often still hits close to my heart. I listen to it and think about those two weeks in 2009 and smile.

It’s funny, because those two weeks weren’t perfect by any means. In fact, the entire time, I knew that as soon as I got back home, things would be hard. And they were. The rest of the summer was actually fairly terrible. But I didn’t hide from them. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, and it must have been because of the two weeks I spent preparing.

I long for that period of time every now and then. But I have to remind myself of Lesson One when I do. I long for it not because I need to hide, but because I have to remind myself not to.

I won’t bore you with a post about nice things somebody said to me. You deserve better than that. But what you should know is that they basically said I was an okay person. This isn’t notable, I know this. It only stood out to me because I know this person’s history, and I know how often they have written off other people. I knew their history of being hurt by other people, and their response of hating other people.

It made me wonder if they realized that I was no different. No different than them. No different than the people they hated. No different than the people they had been hurt by.

This particular friend had a rough go of it. In recent years, they had turned from their Christian home and background due to being scorned by Christians far too many times. They had been treated badly and naturally retaliated by rejecting the faith and the people in it. Honestly, a pretty understandable reaction.

Maybe I should’ve been honored by the compliment. That they thought I was a decent person. Maybe it should’ve warmed my heart that in a world full of people they are bothered by, they happened to like me.

I couldn’t feel good, though. I couldn’t, because I knew I was no different than their family or the people who had scorned them. I know myself too well to be able to accept a compliment like that I could never deserve.

You probably know somebody like this: one who has rejected the church due to some idiots how have mistreated them. It’s sad, and it’s understandable for sure, and in recent years it is so much more publicized than it ever has been before. It’s almost become the largest problem within the church, even though it centers on people staying outside of the church.

There’s a great trend in Christianity these days in response to this that I feel really gained ground with Donald Miller and Blue Like Jazz. We apologize for the mistakes of Christianity. We admit that we suck and we are sorry for our shortcomings. But apologizing for our faith isn’t making up for the issue.

It’s good that we acknowledge the fact that the church is an institution of broken people, but let’s never forget that we are also individually broken people. Let’s not be quick to see fault in the actions of other Christians but forget our own sin. Let’s never think that we are somehow better people than any of the other people around us.

I will gladly apologize for my shortcomings. For the countless times that my pride or selfishness have kept me from doing what is decent. I will apologize for my mistakes and my greed. I have to take responsibility for them.

I’m not going to apologize for the actions of Rob Bell when he makes other Christians mad, though. I won’t apologize for Mark Driscoll when he says things about the President. It is not my place to assume that I would never say something that will hurt other people or simply piss them off. Trying to apologize for actions of all the other people who call themselves Christians is nothing more than a cop-out if I can’t admit to my own fallacy.

I can’t apologize for other people. I can only take responsibility for myself. And who knows. Maybe if my friend sees that I am just as broken as the people who have hurt them, they will understand the beauty of the Gospel a little bit more.

If you want to be a true sports fan, you have to understand that this is the first and only definition of the word. At no point does “confidence” apply to be certain of anything other than yourself.

In athletics, though, there is an entirely new form of confidence that somehow becomes even more self-centered than normal. It is what happens when confidence is blended with sheer arrogance. Truthfully, it’s located somewhere between confidence and arrogance, but as you’ll learn, nobody in the world really understands it at all.

I of course am talking about Swagger, and if you want to be a sports fan, you have to understand exactly what Swagger is and what Swagger isn’t.

Today’s modern culture throws the word Swagger around to the point of being almost culturally meaningless, like “love” or “bipartisanship”. This is a shame, because a genuine Swagger is a fine thing to have and a wonderful term that could have had a very clear and fine definition but is clouded by….well, by these common misunderstandings of Swagger:

“Swag”

Seriously, a Google Image search for “Swag” gives you a LOT of white people

Swag is the most common term anyone uses at all these days. When somebody says they have “swag”, they are trying to say that they are awesome, but really what they’re saying is that their pants are stupid.

This term doesn’t actually have anything to do with sports, so we won’t really discuss it. Just know that if somebody says they have “Swag” and they are completely serious about it, then they are an idiot.

Also you can’t mention Swag and not include this Bieber outfit:

It’s just too good to ever forget

Sheer Arrogance

Here is the most common misunderstood form of Swagger when it comes to sports. Often, an athlete will claim to have Swagger when in reality, they simply love themselves. A lot. And they want more recognition.

9 times out of 10, the athlete who even openly claims to have Swagger is a mid-level athlete with delusions of grandeur. Take, for example, the man in the gif above: Shawn Kemp. At his peak, “The Reignman” was a dominant physical force, a high flying big man who routinely threw down nasty dunks like this one on poor Alton Lister.

The problem with Shawn Kemp, though, is that he wanted to celebrate every move with some sort of taunt and never wanted to do anything else. Kemp went on to have his NBA career cut short thanks to gaining ungodly amounts of weight when he should have been working out, and also his tendency to have a bunch of illegitimate children.

Other examples of this would be any athlete who has had a mild amount of success and wants to turn that into much more recognition than they deserve (i.e. Chris Johnson).

Tough Guy Arrogance

Dwyane Wade during the 5th round of a prize fight

Dwyane Wade is a fine basketball player. Best I can tell, he is a fine human being, doing a lot of work for his hometown and giving to charity a lot. There’s not many things to dislike about Dwyane Wade, except for maybe the fact that his name is spelled juuuuuuust slightly wrong.

However, you will never see Wade smile outside of a Dove soap commercial. His on the court demeanor never changes from the photo above. It doesn’t matter what happens or what he accomplishes, he will always act as though he is being asked for change outside a bus station. Never any excitement. Never any joy. It is this expression at all times, as though basketball doesn’t actually mean anything to him at all.

His impact has been felt in many areas, in particular that of teammate Lebron James, who before playing with Wade looked like this:

Happy BronBron

But then quickly turned into this:

ANGRY BRONBRON

Nobody is entirely sure what the purpose of the Tough Guy Arrogance actually is. The only thing is communicates is indifference, which I guess is maybe good for brushing off haters, since they are a growing problem in sports today. But indifference is hardly ever actually helpful….

Exhibit A

Comically Misplaced Arrogance

Please note that there is still very clearly a game happening

This is the best. THE BEST. Nothing in all of sports tops the arrogance of a kinda good but not really player who thinks he’s great and keeps running his mouth. You want a comedy gold mine? Look no further than this type of player. In particular, look no further than Antoine Walker.

Besides being the only player I can think of who refused to let a basketball game get in the way of a celebratory T-Rex Dance, Antoine goes down as being probably the only player who continually refused to do what he was best at doing. Most of the time, if a player isn’t a very good shooter but is good at other things, at some point in time and after years of coaches saying things like, “You aren’t a good shooter, please please do something else”, they will stop doing what they’re bad at and do more things they are good at. But not Antoine.

Antoine took great joy in not doing things he was actually good at, defying all logic. Despite his large size and his talent for scoring points really close to the basket, Antoine insisted on shooting long range shots. A lot of them. Constantly. And when asked about it, Antoine gave the greatest answer anyone could ever give:

“Antoine, why do you shoot so many 3 point shots?”
“Because they don’t have 4 point shots.”

Players like Antoine Walker come along once in a blue moon before they eventually make their way into bankruptcy. But when the Comically Arrogant Guy comes along, we just have to cherish them.

True Swagger

“Yeah, I don’t remember who this other guy is either”

As mentioned before, true Swagger is halfway between confidence and arrogance. It’s confident enough to know what it can accomplish and be comfortable with that, but not quite arrogant enough to warrant constantly drawing attention to itself. It isn’t going to draw attention to itself, because normally it is accompanied by an accomplishment that draws enough attention to itself. It’s a little hard to describe, so perhaps a story would suffice:

In 1992, the NBA was looking at a Finals matchup between the Chicago Bulls and the Portland Trailblazers. This would mean a matchup between Michael Jordan and Clyde Drexler, two premiere scorers at their position. This matchup was hyped up a tremendous amount, as people wanted to create a big rivalry between Jordan and Drexler.

Instead, Michael Jordan took all the rivalry talk and used it to simply become the greatest player ever. At the time, the biggest critique of his game is that he couldn’t hit outside shots, so in the first HALF of the first game of the Finals, he hit 6 three pointers and scored 35 points. After proving literally everyone wrong about everything and hitting his sixth long range shot, he turned to the broadcast table and shrugged, basically saying, “I don’t get it either. I guess I’m just the greatest of all time.”

He didn’t have to taunt his opponents, so he didn’t. He didn’t have to pound his chest  and scream at the top of his lungs. He didn’t have to act like a big tough man to prove his testosterone level. He just had to shrug at it all.

See, that’s what Swagger really is: knowing the awesome things you can accomplish but not being a jerk about it. It’s not a cry for attention, though everyone who uses the word today means it as such. It’s actually a good thing. It’s a self-aware confidence.

So if you can understand what a truly confident athlete looks like, and not one who is a pompous jerk or a talented slacker, you can understand what true Swagger is. And that will put you one step closer to being a true sports fan.

To close, enjoy this dunk and reaction from DeAndre Jordan (no relation) for further appreciation of how to react when you accomplish something amazing.

“Yikes”

I mean, I’m not going to make people cover their ears and run out of the room screaming or anything. But I’m also not going to warm up the pipes and make ladies swoon. I’m capable enough to do what I need to do and comfortable enough to know it’s not exactly my spiritual gift.

But don’t you dare tell me that I can’t sing, because I will get livid, and I will get indignant.

It doesn’t make any sense, does it? I mean, I will admit when I’m not good at certain things. I love playing basketball, but I know I wouldn’t make any college rosters. But if you treat me like I can’t make it up and down the court without tripping over myself, I will hate you.

It’s this weird paradox. I normally wouldn’t really care about not really being a great singer or basketball player. It doesn’t bother me that much to not be stellar at it. I don’t care enough. Yet as soon as somebody other than me makes a comment about it, I’m hurt.

You probably know what all of this ultimately relates to, but don’t worry. I’m avoiding the politics of anything that is going on. If you want my opinion you can ask for it, but I’m not going to bore you with wordy articles that do nothing but toot my own horn.

It’s impossible right now to avoid posts or Facebook statuses or profile pictures talking about equal rights and sexuality. That’s totally cool if you’re the type of person who feels convicted enough about these issues to speak out. Good for you.

It’s interesting, because at no other point in history would this have been an issue. In all of history, if people wanted to do something, they just did it. The ancient Romans didn’t ask for permission to bang anything that moved. They just went forth and banged like it was the reason they were put on this earth.

The irony of it all is that we are so fired up about the rights of an institution that we view as a joke these days. It is glorified and honored in our society to have sex. TV characters like Barney Stinson or Don Draper are popular because they have these crazy antics and frequent sexual exploits that we just can’t help but enjoy. We make jokes constantly about people sleeping with other people’s girlfriends or boyfriends or sisters or whatever family member would be most humorous without completely crossing the line.

We glorify polygamy. Going back to the Don Draper point: Mad Men is an entire TV show based around men cheating on their wives and never being satisfied. They move from thing to thing, woman to woman, never stopping the exploitation who they can for what they can and never once considering that things could ever be different. They are just like us: never being satisfied, yet always craving this thing called “happiness” that seems so out of reach. Life. Liberty. The Pursuit of Happiness. Being happy is placed above all other rights except the right to live and the right to be free. And we want our happiness to come in whatever selfish way we can get it.

I saw an annoyingly melodramatic political Facebook statuses this week that concluded with the line: “Equal rights for all, or equal rights for none.” At this point, I feel like the latter is more applicable. What gives anyone the right to marriage in a society where it is referred to as the “ball and chain” and seen as the end of freedom? Why should anyone of us care who gets married when we are told on a daily basis that the way to be happy is to be promiscuous? Should equal rights really be for all, without any question at all? Or should we be reminded of what it is like to appreciate the rights we don’t deserve?

My point isn’t to argue about what should be legal and who should have the right to be married. My point is that it’s pretty absurd that we’ve spent years cheating on our spouses and treating as many relationships as we can like marriage without actually being marriage, just to turn around and act upset about who has the right to be married. We don’t care about the issue for a long time, then somebody makes comments and we act like we always have.

That’s the irony of it all: fighting for the right to pretend about monogamy in a society that worships polygamy. We don’t have a crisis with redefining marriage. We have a crisis with our own identity. We don’t know what to care about or how to care about it. We only know how to be offended by every opinion that is thrown out.

That’s the only thing I really wanted to point out. I could have written a post that simply said, “It’s funny how upset we get about the legality of an institution we don’t respect anymore” but I figured I needed an outlet to talk about Don Draper too.

I don’t know how to “fix” our society. I don’t know how to try. I do know, however, that public opinion isn’t going to stop me from singing as loudly as I can in my car as I drive.