“Of course, they’ve got an injury,” I complained to my son-in-law, John. “We’re driving the ball, and they need to slow us down.”
We were at a college football game, the University of Oklahoma vs. the University of Cincinnati, on their home field, Nipper Stadium. It was a beautiful day for college football. My sister-in-law, Lisa, and our friend Erica had flown from Oklahoma, and we were embracing Cincinnati’s football atmosphere. Our team, Oklahoma, was performing well. But I privately complained about the opponent’s “injuries.” I was referring to the opposing team’s pattern of having a player fake an apparent injury for the equivalent of a free time-out. Faking injuries to slow down a game has been a matter of contention in college football over the past few years. If a team on offense is fast-paced, the opposing defense sometimes has a player pretend to be hurt. That stops the game. The player only has to come out for one play while the defense regroups. Meanwhile, the other team’s offense often loses its momentum. The NCAA Rules Committee addressed the issue in 2022 but took no action.
Late in the fourth quarter of play, it looked like our team was faking an injury to slow them down.
“That stinks,” one of their fans bellowed several rows behind me. “Not fair!”
I checked our roster. It was #7, Jaren Kanak, one of our best defensive players. I had kept up with Jaren from the time he had chosen Oklahoma. Jaren seemed like a good kid, a Hayes, Kansas boy determined to play for OU’s coach, Brent Venables. I couldn’t imagine a wholesome young man from America’s heartland faking an injury.
I stewed in silence, wanting to shout back at the heckler but knowing better.
As it turned out, he was wrong about Jaren. Jaren had taken a hit to the chest and was eventually taken to the hospital by ambulance. But the fan didn’t see that. He had left the stadium when it was apparent his team couldn’t stage a comeback.
Later, I wished I had his email. I would send him an injury report, proving him wrong. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” I fantasized saying.
That’s when my conscience could take it no longer.
“And what about you, Mr. Biased Football Fan?” my annoying inner voice piped up. “Did you check out THEIR injury reports? Do you know those players like you do the ones on your team? If you did, you might feel differently about them.”
We tend to make judgments that render verdicts in our favor, don’t we?
We shake our heads when we smell corruption in the political party we oppose. But if one of “our politicians” bends the rules, well—at least they had the greater good in mind.
We also have ways of faking injuries in the religious field: “God couldn’t love them as much as me because they are “____.” (You fill in the blank.)
And our family? “My kids just wouldn’t do that. It must be the other child. Or the teacher.”
We tend to make rules for others and exceptions for ourselves. But in doing so, we limit God’s grace. As theologian and Holocaust victim Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
The truth is, we ALL need God’s grace. “
Seeing ourselves through the loving eyes of Jesus humbles us because in receiving that love, our eyes are open to who we truly are and, even more importantly, who we can become. Then, we can begin to see the love God has for all people, including those different from us, those not on “our team.” It may dawn on us that from God’s loving perspective, we are ALL different and All the same.
I whispered a prayer for God’s love to shine on everyone I encountered the rest of the day. Who am I to know every human heart?
The truth is every heart needs God’s grace.
So, I’ll leave the injuries—real and fake—to the NCAA Rules Committee.
And smile on all God’s children.