The Iron Bowl, Love of Sports, and Parenting
“Is this really worth it?”
That’s the question I asked myself as my son and I dejectedly walked out of the stadium in disbelief after Alabama had just completed the most improbable of plays to beat our beloved Auburn Tigers in the 2023 Iron Bowl. We walked into Jordan-Hare Stadium with low expectations. After all, Auburn had just lost there one week prior to New Mexico State in perhaps the most embarrassing home loss in Auburn football history. The mighty Crimson Tide was a two-touchdown favorite. Nevertheless, we were determined to enjoy the greatest atmosphere in college football for the sport’s greatest rivalry from our seats on the 50-yard-line.
But something happened as the game wore on, and Alabama failed to pull ahead. Our team’s success didn’t seem fluky. As Auburn so often does in their home stadium against the overwhelmingly more talented Tide, the players fed off the energy of the crowd and stood toe-to-toe. In fact, in certain aspects of the game, Auburn was dominating. As the third quarter ended, we both started to believe that our Tigers may pull this out. We might win this game.
And then it happened. One last play stood between us and gleefully rolling oak trees at Toomer’s Corner into the night. Fourth-and-thirty-one. Alabama needed a miracle. The defense that had fought so hard all night against a physically superior opponent just needed to defend one more statistically near-impossible play. And then, Alabama got their miracle on the same field where, ten years earlier, Auburn fans danced in celebration of the greatest play in college football history to take down the Tide. How poetic.
So, as we exited the stadium surrounded by eighty-something thousand similarly dejected Auburn fans, I conducted a mental experiment of counting the cost. Are the emotional highs of this investment worth the experiences of heartache, especially when the heartaches dominate lately? I looked at my son and remembered the glee of 2013, when he was just six years old. I thought back to 2017 and 2019 as my whole family ran crazily around our living room after taking down the Tide as underdogs at home. We toilet papered the tree in our yard one of those years.
I even have fond memories of the past heartaches shared with my children. Those opportunities have allowed me to teach perspective. Sports aren’t ultimate. We can feel bad for a few minutes (or occasionally a few hours), but eventually, we put it in perspective and move on with the truly important things in life. Christ still reigns. We’ve got higher priorities. As much as our love of sports gives us, sports always make a terrible god. I appreciate the opportunity sports has provided to begin teaching these lessons to my children because I know how important this habit of mind will be when life’s varied disappointments come.
I once heard Sinclair Ferguson give this wise advice to Christian parents: “One of the things I’ve observed, I think, in family life is that when well-meaning Christian parents tie themselves to their children only along the lines of what they regard as spiritual, when the child is in difficulties or the teenager is in difficulties, if you’ve bonded them to yourself only one piece of string and it’s under great pressure, you have no other avenue to them and they have no other avenue to you.”
As a pastor, I see so many dangers in sports. I see the exhausted moms driving their exhausted kids to practices every night of the week. I’ve seen the once-faithful family who used to worship every Sunday disappear as soon as the baseball season starts. With sports gambling becoming legal in Kentucky, I anticipate new problems ahead. We live in sports-crazed world, and the danger of replacing Jesus with sports is real.
However, I’m thankful for the bonds sports has given me with my kids. We have had days when I needed something else to share with them besides my faith. I’m a preacher, and sometimes my kids need a break from my sermons. For us, we’ve always had sports to fall back on, whether we’re cheering for our favorite team or I’m throwing batting practice after school. Even when the bad guys win, I must admit, it’s still worth it. War Eagle always.
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