Goodness - More of the Same

The sport's world seems to be giving me more than I can handle in stupidity. The vast difference between rules and reality. In Tacoma, Washington (as seen on CNN) on a Friday night in a high school football game, a young man scored a touchdown. He knelt, lifted one finger to the sky, got up, gave the ball to the official and got a penalty for ...... I am not exactly sure what was the reason given. There is a rule which was, at the first of the program, given. Excessive celebration - which says that one must not do too much to call attention to one's self. This act is an act that one has seen hundreds of time on T.V. It is an act of devotion in "jock religion" To give God glory for the ability and the success. Never mind that God must have not given the other players who did not tackle him any success. But it is an act that has happened lots of times without a penalty being called.

Now the penalty has drawn much more attention to the event than it would have ever gotten without it. The young man did claim it was a Christian intention of his, but just seeing the event it certainly could have been Allah who was being honored or Yahweh, Buddha or one of the Hindu gods. There is nothing inherently Christian about pointing to the sky. The whole act took all of about two seconds of time.

The Washington State High School Athletic Association gave to CNN another interpretation that another rule says that the ball must be immediately surrendered to the official after the touchdown and the student did not comply with that rule and so was given a penalty. Whatever happened to Thumper's mother's advice, "If you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all?" The Association would have been wiser to say we are talking to the official about his call. And never respond again.

For me it is obvious that this official had an agenda of his own. If that same act has been done hundreds of times around the country in all kinds of sports without penalties being called, why would you call it this time on this Friday night in Washington? I would suspect that this official had decided that if he ever saw someone doing that, he would flag it. Okay, but he has given more attention to that young man than that young man ever expected to receive. CNN reported the 94% of people who responded to their question, said they thought the official had blown the call. Not only that official but the Association also blew the call when they tried to justify it with a second rule.