Church Basketball

What is it about basketball at church that brings out the worst in some people? Is it the fact that we’re men and bred to be competitive and always win?

I had a basketball game tonight and for the most part it was good except for the fact that we had 15 guys show up. We’ve never had that many show up, ever. I guess it helps that it was at our building and not somewhere else. During the game things got somewhat heated between a member of the other team and one of ours. We have referees but they’re volunteers and quite frankly they only call something if its totally blatant and even then they get about 1 out of 8 calls. There was some talking back and forth and some physical play out on the court but it never escalated above just words. To me, it just seems silly to get all bent out of shape over a game that doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like we’re in the NBA finals or something.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that the other team only had 6 guys and they’re undefeated. I don’t know. We had a couple of guys on our team get upset with each other and I never understand that. It’s a team game. We win as a team and we lose as a team. It takes me back to the time I was playing baseball when I was 14. I managed to get on a really good team that year and we ended up going undefeated and winning the city championship. During a game, when we were out on the field,  a couple of the guys on the bench had a fist fight in the dugout. I couldn’t believe it.

It didn’t quite come to blows tonight like it did when I was playing baseball, but there were definitely some unhappy campers. Yes, if you’re wondering we lost the game 58-53. I guess what I’m getting at is that if 15 people are going to show up to play then all 15 of us need to show up at practice so we can learn how each other plays. Otherwise, we’ll just kind of have to guess and we’ll never win that way.