CHURCH "BALL" AT IT'S BEST!

Church "Ball" at it's best!

Back in the 70’s I was asked to coach our ward’s Varsity basketball team.
Not being much of a basketball player I felt a little inadequate at the challenge.

I called a practice and 5 guys showed up…one of them was about 5’ 5” and weighed
Somewhere over 200 lbs. but he was even much slower than you’d think he could be.
I asked if anyone had a friend of the appropriate age that was not playing high school basketball but could be helpful. A young man showed up the next week that was deadly shooting from the corners. The starting five were pretty good.

Our first game was a blowout...I pulled guys out one at a time and left the chubby guy in for the whole second half trying to slow the game down but we won 65 to 4. I was getting pretty impressed with this tiny squad…we finished the season with one loss..by one point.

We qualified for a spot in the area championships. Our first game was to be played at 1pm on a Saturday so I told the guys to show up at noon…they did…our little band of players looked kinda silly with the other teams all being 12 man units. Sadly, I was given the wrong time…we were to start at noon…so we lost by a forfeit.

I called the guys around me and was hoping that they would understand…they said that they wouldn’t kill me…and that it was “No big deal” (Right!!) The opposing team’s coach and their captain came over to us and asked if we could play them a scrimmage… they had talked the refs into working the scrimmage.

When they walked away I asked the guys if they were up to it and they said sure lets just have some fun….when the scrimmage was over the other team had only scored 10 points… we hit a little over 50. Both teams were high fiving each other…it was kinda fun to see the sportsmanship. While we were packing up to leave the other team came over to us…. their Captain said that they had just had a meeting and that we showed that they didn’t belong there and they were pulling out of the tournament… the directors said that if they did… we could continue on….what a thrill to watch this kinda sportsmanship from these young men showing true “Christian” love for their brothers.

We took second place losing to the same team that had earlier beaten us…by one point again….made more painful by the other team’s coach being a young man that I had known when I first joined the church. Both of our teams went to the “Regional Championships”. They lost early in the tournament…we were in the Championship game… playing a very good team and were down by 20 points…close to the end of the game our team Captain called time out and the guys said that I needed to stop trying to slow the game down, I was trying to help them not die of exhaustion....they said that they were alright and to please let them RUN.

I told them to go for it…they did. We tied the game with a second to spare…went into overtime and won it by about 10 points. What a fun time I had with those 6 guys that would never give up.