Clinton, South Carolina, Sunday, November 17, 2019, 8:23 a.m.

I think so much better in the morning. I wish I had the time to write one of these every day.

This morning I awakened to thoughts about the limits of sportsmanship. A few days ago, I was talking to someone about that commercial that used to run about the kid in the high school basketball game who confessed that he had touched the ball before it bounced out of bounds and ’fessed up to the referee, thus, presumably, costing his team the game.

Oh, how sweet. How many people would actually do that? How many coaches would actually understand? How many teammates would forgive him?

Not many.

Doc Rivers’ son Austin lobbied for his father to be thrown out of an NBA game. His father was thrown out of an NBA game. Tee him up! Throw him out!

It was as complicated as most of life is. Austin Rivers plays for the other team. His father traded him.

It’s complicated.

It was a bad football day for the Baptists. It, too, is complicated. My alma mater, Furman University, is the oldest Baptist university in America if one still deems it Baptist. Furman ended its association with South Carolina Baptists in 1992. It isn’t formally affiliated anymore. Wikipedia says it became “a secular university,” so it must be right.

On the other hand, the motto is still “Christo et Doctrinae.”

In any event, Wofford beat the Paladins, 24-7, on Saturday. The game was not complicated.

Baylor University of Waco, Texas, is the country’s largest Baptist university. On Saturday night, the Bears were more like the stock market than the master of the forest. A bear market. Get it? Baylor led Oklahoma, 31-3. Oklahoma won, 34-31.

Wake Forest University is about as Baptist as Furman. The Demon Deacons split with the state convention before the Paladins did.

Hmm. Wonder how Wake did on Saturday?

It’s complicated. While I was in Spartanburg, cold and miserable, Charleston Southern defeated Presbyterian, 27-7, here in town. Once Baptist College of Charleston, CSU remains Baptist-affiliated.

And it was PC’s 10^th loss, undoubtedly predestined. Maybe that softens the sting.

We Baptists, whether lapsed, non-practicing, unaffiliated, or still washed in the blood of the lamb, are a hearty lot.

If I had to sit in the visiting stands of Gibbs Stadium and watch the lads be paddled and pummeled – and I did – I can’t think of better company in the desperate hours than Dave Lyle, Kevin Morgan, David Snipes, and Bill Lanford.

Next week the Paladins must make a Point.

Whatever that is.

 

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