Posted on 01/30/2009 4:38:41 AM PST by Caleb1411
They played the oddest game in high school football history last month down in Grapevine, Texas.
It was Grapevine Faith vs. Gainesville State School and everything about it was upside down. For instance, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through.
Did you hear that? The other team's fans?
They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.
It was rivers running uphill and cats petting dogs. More than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.
"I never in my life thought I'd hear people cheering for us to hit their kids," recalls Gainesville's QB and middle linebacker, Isaiah. "I wouldn't expect another parent to tell somebody to hit their kids. But they wanted us to!"
And even though Faith walloped them 33-14, the Gainesville kids were so happy that after the game they gave head coach Mark Williams a sideline squirt-bottle shower like he'd just won state. Gotta be the first Gatorade bath in history for an 0-9 coach.
But then you saw the 12 uniformed officers escorting the 14 Gainesville players off the field and two and two started to make four. They lined the players up in groups of five—handcuffs ready in their back pockets—and marched them to the team bus. That's because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility 75 miles north of Dallas. Every game it plays is on the road.
This all started when Faith's head coach, Kris Hogan, wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team. Faith had never played Gainesville, but he already knew the score.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
Tell Anne Frank that.
I guess you could say that in today’s world of self-esteem, the losing team can’t play ball but they feel real good about it. Should make the feel good crowd happy.
Sure am glad that doesn’t apply to our troops fighting the enemy. The idea of these contests, whether on a playing field or the field of battle is to WIN decisively.
I would never cheer for the opposing team to defeat my kid, I would teach him/her true sportsmanship but not defeatism and aren’t we seeing this idea surface in dealing with our enemy in the WOT?
The kids on the opposing team were already life’s losers.
For whatever reason they had chosen the wrong path in life.
Perhaps this game gave them a reason to believe that there are some good people out there and living an honorable life is worth living.
Go right ahead and attack away.
World-class non sequitur, that: high school football vs. Nazi tyranny.
I believe the headline read "There are some games . . ."
The truth needs no attack.You speak with compassion.
Unbelievable. This sort of silly, inane, feel goodism is why the western world will wither and die.
I’m with you on this. God Bless the ‘losers’ for giving the other team the opportunity to feel like they ‘mattered’. If it changes the life of just one soul...it was a worthy gift.
I see this as a school team, including the parents and fans, that stood up for sportsmanship. The opposing team has no "fans", and no "community support", so the host team decided to lend out some of theirs.
Supporting incarcerated teens in their attempt to play a game within the rules of that game is classy, and a good life lesson for the kids.
“Unbelievable. This sort of silly, inane, feel goodism is why the western world will wither and die.”
Spoken like a true Nihilist!
Some people would respond, "Unbelievable. This sort of objection to befriending a high school football team of incarcerated teens bespeaks a small-souled pettiness that's one reason the western world is declining, not with a bang but a self-absorbed whimper."
A very kind thing for the Faith families to do. I notice that the coach, although he asked fans to cheer for the prison kids (and SOMEBODY had to organize those gift bags), did NOT throw the game to them.
In my opinion, the world would be a better place with more people like the parents in this article and fewer people like you.
What do you consider so bad about some adults trying to give a little encouragement to some teenage kids?
Are you disappointed that it worked and that one night changed the attitude of some of those kids?
You're pathetic! Do you kick orphans?
Parenthetically, "self-esteem" IMHO is a perfectly valid and important psychological concept which has been ruined by shallow and vapid idiots who generally ruin most important psychological ideas whenever they get a chance. It is healthy self-esteem which enables one to face one's failures squarely and to resolve to do better. LOW self-esteem generally leads to denial, prevarication, blaming others, and giving up.
But
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.First we are beloved, then we are lovers.I John 4:10
I think the coach and the school decided to do some evangelism. Maybe no lives will be changed (they call it "fishing" not "catching"), but it sounds like they touched the heart of Isaiah. Sometimes (most of the time) you have to take the long view. In another forum I am arguing about FOCA. I don't expect to change any minds today or this week or even this year. I am hoping that a decade and two abortions from now one of the young ladies I am arguing with will look at the ashes of her life and then, just maybe, entertain a view in which killing babies and degrading the sex act is not what "love" or "freedom" mean.
This team, to change metaphors, did some sowing. It is not in their hands whether there is ever a crop to be harvested.
Pass on to him our prayers and good wishes please.
In Texas, high school football is serious business. I get the impression that these state school kids didn’t have a lot of parents show up for their games. It is hard to play with a crowd against you. I think what FAITH school did was a Christian thing, maybe you wouldn’t understand.
Your cousin, the players on the team and the fans in the stands had the right attitude. Please pass along my best wishes and my admiration of his idea and the entire team that helped turn his idea into reality.
Who knows, but IMHO he may have changed one teenager’s way of looking at the world. If even one teen that attended that event begins to look at the choices he’s made in life and sees there could possibly be a better way, the coach will have helped to improve a life quite possibly lost to crime. Good for him!
Ignore those that cannot see any good in this and want to criticize. Maybe some compassion is what some of these kids need. I’m not one that believes in babying criminals at all and feel they have a much softer life than do some struggling to stay on the straight and narrow, but we’re talking teens here - teens that might yet be saved from their mistakes.
Good for your cousin.
The Christian school coach is a guest of the NFL at the Super Bowl this weekend. ESPN will have a segment on him.
Troy Aikman heard about it and got involved... passed it on to the NFL Commissioner.
“I WAS IN PRISON AND YOU VISITED ME”
“Lord, I don’t know how this happened, so I don’t know how to say thank You, but I never would’ve known there was so many people in the world that cared about us.”
Your heartfelt compassion for your fellow man is well noted..
This selfless act will stay with those boys for the rest of their lives.. That one act of kindness may mean the difference in one of them capping your a$s or telling someone to leave you alone. I pray that if you are ever in a lifethreatening situation, that someone at sometime showed your antagonist some compassion.
God Bless and Keep You
Over here for the artical about my cousin’s state school football team.
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