Let the Madness Begin
It’s March and time for college basketball’s biggest stage—the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Division I basketball championship. I’m a huge college basketball fan. I know a lot of women don’t care for sports, but I grew up in a family with three brothers who all played lots of different sports. It wasn’t unusual to find us kids playing some kind of ball in our yard. So I learned early to enjoy playing and watching sports.
This weekend is the beginning of the NCAA tournament. My older daughter and I share a love for college basketball and enjoy this time of year. She attended Wake Forest University that from time to time has had a very good basketball team, and we always cheered for them in the tournament. The photo below is Joel Lawrence Coliseum, where Wake Forest plays their home games.
This year Wake Forest isn’t in the tournament, so she will be cheering for Loyola University of Maryland, where she got one of her post graduate degrees. They are big underdogs and clearly not expected to win even their first round game. But we like cheering for underdogs.
I’ll be filling out my tournament bracket and hoping to come away with bragging rights in our family for the person who picked the most winners. Clearly picking winners using the mascot and team colors method is better than studying what the experts say. That’s what makes the tournament so exciting. You never know who is going to win.
Although it’s fun to cheer on your favorite team, as Christians we are engaged in a more important event. The apostle Paul compares our journey in the Christian life to that of an athletic endeavor. Read what he has to say about self-discipline in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
Is there a particular sport you enjoy watching?
