Petersen 911: Church Ball

Church ball is legendary! We've all witnessed or at least heard the tales about how it is the only place where a fight begins and ends with a prayer. We've heard how grown men go absolutely NUTS and turn into completely different people when they step onto that court. For some reason, all of a sudden they think they've been drafted to the pros or something. They think that if they don't win, their million dollar contract with be null and void. Really? It's church ball (or rec. center ball) guys!

This is the very reason that Dave doesn't play and hasn't for years. He is just not that competitive when it comes to games. He always says, "It's a just stupid game for crying out loud!" He doesn't like the way grown men think that it's okay to act like idiots for that sake of a game. This is one of the things I love about him. He is quite big enough to be able to throw his weight around and do some damage, but he just doesn't have it in him to do it. To him, character matters, on or off the court.

So when Jeffrey decided to play church ball with the YM in our stake, I had reservations about it but thought I'd let it play out. Now, our ward has some great YM and they are pretty cool but athletically speaking, they are not what you'd consider "stand outs". But what is great, is that they more than make up for it in character and humor. And our "cheering section" can't be beat!

So they won their first two games with not much trouble and with humility (it's easy to be cool about it when you win I guess). Then came the dreaded 3rd game. This other ward was stacked with priests who towered over our boys, not to mention, they could out hustle, maneuver and jump them. Our poor guys couldn't catch a break. They tried everything, for the first 1/4 and then they realized that they just needed to have fun. With the help of our fan club (parents & siblings...no cute girls in sight, only their sisters) they started to poke fun at their circumstance.    By the time 1/2 time rolled around, the score was 5 - 41! See photo below.

After that, it just got ridiculous! Our fans where yelling things like, "just do a Jimmer"! They were referring to Jimmer Fredette, the star BYU player that will probably end up going pro after graduation. Then the best line ever came from our Bishops son who said, "pull his shorts down!" Sadly, I think that would have been the only way to stop this team. They should have gone "Harlem Globetrotter" on them! The end score was something like 7 -65.
It was ugly. But they sure tried hard. And the biggest bonus of all...not one of them acted like grown babies who are sore losers! It makes me proud.