In Memoriam: W. Paul Wheeler 1942-2001

Dad and I sporting our new matching Huskies shirts!

Tonight would have been my dad's 70th birthday party.  This whole month I couldn't help wondering how my life would be different if he were still here for tonight's party.  Where I'd live, what I'd be doing, who I would or would not be married to.  How much would be different in the relationships just within our family?  Heck, even my theological and philosophical beliefs today may be different than they would be had he stayed around.  Dad's death almost certainly changed pretty much every aspect of my life in one way or another.  There are just a lot of things we can't know when we say we wish certain things in the past had turned out differently.  One thing I am absolutely certain would be the same in my life now as it would have been had dad stayed around?  I'd give anything to be attending that party tonight.

The strange thing about losing someone you love is that, contrary to popular belief, time heals very few wounds.  Today I don't miss him any less than I did this day in 2001.  The regrets I had about my time with him then are the same as they are now.  If anything I miss him worse and have more regrets today than I did 11 years ago.  Over time memories fade.  When memories fade we remember less of the good times.  When we remember less of the good times we fall under the impression that there were, in fact, less good times.  This engenders regret over not having created more good times.

But while there are plenty of regrets, there were undeniably plenty of good times.  This month I've really been trying my best to concentrate on those good times.  Well, actually more than "concentrate" on them, I've just been trying to remember them.  No one has ever accused me of having a good memory, so this has been a fairly difficult task.  I'm going to let you, my friends (and probably some family), in on some of my favorite memories of my dad 11 years, 7 months, and 1 day since his death.

To my knowledge, this is the last picture dad and I were in together

- Boxing.  One night at my house in Libby, some friends and I had gotten our hands on some boxing gloves.  I think we were probably 16 or 17 at this point.  Dad would have been 55 or 56.  Naturally, like any young, energetic, athletic whippersnapper, I figured there weren't many guys in their mid-late 50s on the planet that I couldn't handle.  So the inevitable challenge was made.  I think when we started, he didn't realize that I was serious, so he was pretty lackluster with his punches.  Then I popped him pretty good in the chops and his demeanor quickly changed.  All of a sudden I felt like Michael Spinks.  He, of course, was Mike Tyson.  The fight had started well, my confidence was up, and then came the flurry.  Nathan Wirt, who was in the kitchen...doing something, described the sounds he heard as "pop...pop, pop, pop...crash."  The "pops" were dad's gloves hitting my face.  The "crash" was me getting knocked backwards, out the door to my room, and knocking some stuff off the wall as I fell to the wall, then the floor, of our hallway.  Dad will forever be remembered by my brothers and me as a herculean super-human who was rarely beaten at anything ever by anyone...especially us.

- Gopher hunting.  Perhaps our favorite pastime in the hot Libby summer was using high powered rifles to blow up various small, nuisance creatures (in most cases, Colombian Ground Squirrels).  One night, dad told Nathan and I that he was going to take us gopher hunting in the morning.  Sounds great, right?  Yes.  But...we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, so when dad came in to wake us up at 10:00 to go, we said thanks but no thanks.  We'd rather sleep.  This was unacceptable to dad, since he had specifically set aside this Saturday to spend time with me.  The crazy old man was so stubborn he actually made us get up at 10:00 in the morning!  The nerve!  Anyway, mom had packed us a lunch and we took off.  We had two .22-250s and a .243 and a lot...a whole lot...of ammo.  I don't really know what it was about this day, but I've never seen and/or killed as many gophers in one day as that day.  Those little suckers were everywhere.  We started shooting about mid-way between Libby and Kalispell and didn't stop until we made a complete loop and came back out on the north side of Libby.  Probably about 6 or 7 hours of shooting and at the very least 100 dead gophers.  That was probably the most fun I've ever had with dad in one day and I will forever be grateful to him for costing me my precious beauty sleep.

- The Screwball.  When I was probably 11 or 12 and we were living in Baker, I was always begging dad to play catch.  When dad was in high school, he was one of the best pitchers (if not the best pitcher) in the state of Washington.  His slider was dominant and he was offered an opportunity to play professionally for some minor league club when he was done with high school.  He turned the opportunity down because he felt called to the ministry.  So he went to a small Bible school without a baseball program instead.  Anyway, I knew dad was a high level pitcher thirty-some years ago and wanted to know what he still had in the tank.  I'd never seen a breaking ball in real life prior to this event.  I got him out in the church parking lot and told him to throw me some breaking ball.  I think he thought he was taking it easy on me by throwing a screwball, a pitch he didn't even use in-game back in the day, rather than one of his go-to pitches - a slider or a curve.  So I crouched down like a good little catcher and dad threw.  From the instant the ball left his hand it was making a sound I didn't know a baseball could make and have not heard since from any pitcher I've ever caught.  It was literally fizzing from the silly RPMs he was able to put on it.  Now that I know more about baseball I'd kill to see him pitch more.  It was a thing of beauty.  It had high velocity and very late, very hard, diving break.  I got so scared I jumped up and dove out of the way.  I shutter to think what his money pitches were like in his prime.  He had a game in high school where his starting catcher got injured and the backup had to catch him.  He had 20 strikeouts and over half of them reached base because his catcher was unable to catch the breakers.  This is the only experience I've ever had that makes me feel like I can gauge a little bit just how much greater professional baseball players are than anything I've ever been a part of.  If you gave me a bat and told me to try to hit that, I'd probably still be swinging.  And he was 30 years past his prime.

Look at that sexy beast

- Hunting.  Dad loved to hunt.  He instilled in me a love of hunting that I'll never lose even though I'm not able to hunt as often as I would like.  When I was a kid there were times he would be so kind as to keep me out of school for a day so we could go hunting together, even long before I was old enough to hunt myself.  When I had the chance to kill my first deer I was 10 (yes, two years before I was legal).  Dad let me use his tag and shoot the deer because he trusted me and knew I could do it.  Two years later, when I killed my first buck, dad surprised me by getting the rack mounted and engraved.  Every fall since his death, crisp fall air and colorful, falling leaves remind me of the hundreds of hours spent with dad every fall in the woods.  When he died I got the guns with which I shared the most memories of him.  Even long after those guns cease firing I will always keep them because they are the only mementos I have left from our days hunting together.

- Ping Pong.  Our family used to go to family camp in Hungry Horse, MT almost every year.  One year, when I was probably 10 or 11, I was introduced to ping pong.  I'd probably played a time or two before that, but that was the first time I played at any length and actually tried to get better.  Dad was very good.  He beat me over and over and over and over....and over again.  One thing I really appreciated about him was that he never let me win anything - I had to earn it, which made the (admittedly few) victories so much sweeter.  Anyway, when we got back to Baker, dad was just as excited to start playing more ping pong as I was, so he bought a table from a guy in the church and we started playing a lot.  For my part, I practiced hard.  Forrest Gump had recently come out, so I saw how he practiced against the table in the movie and emulated that trying to get better.  I went for...well...a very, very long time without beating dad.  Not even once.  I was getting better and better, closing the gap, coming closer, until one day I finally clawed my way to a victory.  Immediately upon finally ascending to the mountaintop, I got shot right back down to the valley below looking up.  Literally the first words dad said when the game was over and I was celebrating: "Boy, you're sure getting a lot better.  Pretty soon I'm going to have to start playing you right-handed."  It was then, in utter dejection, that I realized dad had never played me with his right hand.  Ever.  Over hundreds of games.   Hundreds of beat-downs.  He was taking it easy on me.  It took me another two years or so to finally beat him right-handed.  By the time all was said and done I was very good at ping pong.  Through high school only one of my friends ever beat me, and him only twice out of hundreds.  At my best, dad and I still shared about a 50/50 split.

Dad and Gary Halvorson: very bald men in very classy wigs

- Rook.  Dad took his Rook seriously.  Very seriously.  When he was in college teaching my mom to play, his persistent constructive criticism brought her to tears.  While I was never taken to the point of tears, I, too, endured my share of constructive criticism.  But it made me quite good at the game.  Through high school, I'd say my friends and I played an average of 5-10 games of Rook each week.  Dad was often playing with us.  Mom would get mad at him for staying up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning playing Rook on a Saturday night when he had to preach in the morning.  The Libby Rook crowd was truly amazing.  Ardell Filler, Gary Halvorson and dad - people we considered "old people" - would play Rook until the wee hours of the morning, especially when Roy Brewer was also in town.  One night over the holidays we had (if I remember correctly) 10 people pull a Rook all-nighter at the Filler residence.  Dad, of course, was there for the duration.  The weird thing about playing with the veterans was that for some reason the game became different with them.  Bids went for 15-20 points less consistently, yet people would still go set.  Two of my favorite Rook memories with dad happened the same night and, I think, in the same game.  It was a game at the Halvorson house between dad, Candace, Gary, Eddie Pohlreich, and one other that I can't remember, and me.  Dad and Eddie were bidding.  Eddie really wanted to keep going, but instead he passed and let dad have it.  He then laid hands on the kitty before dad picked it up and prayed, "God, please put three 10s in this kitty."  Dad picked the kitty up, looked at it, and then performed what is still remembered as his signature move - he slammed his hand to the table in disgust.  He then showed us the kitty...which contained three 10s.  Later that night, dad had taken the bid again.  Eddie was sitting immediately to his right, so he played just before dad.  Dad had a bare 10 of some color that had not yet been played in is hand and Eddie didn't know what to lead.  Somehow dad accidentally dropped the 10 out of his hand.  Eddie then led the 14 of whatever color that was.  Dad, of course knowing that Eddie would never had played that card had he not seen the card he dropped, looked at Eddie with flames coming from his eyes and screamed, "YOU RAT!!!" while knocking Eddie's hat off his head.  He then went on a mini-tirade about cheating when he knew darned well that he (and any other Rook player) would have done the same exact thing in that situation.  Because dad taught me to love Rook and most any other card or board game, I taught many of my friends who almost all play the game (and some at a very high level) still today.  He really can be credited with hundreds of hours of entertainment for us all.

Dad sitting in his office surrounded by a couple thousand books

- Theology.  Dad first introduced me to what theology should look like.  When my friends and I were having an intense debate over the merits (or lack thereof) of the TULIP, dad pointed us to classic sources and had us read them ourselves.  He first opened my mind to the idea that Christians didn't have to be fiat creationists when he read and passed on a book by Hugh Ross.  He never told me what to believe.  He told me what he believed when I asked, but he wasn't afraid to mix it up a bit theologically as well.  Probably the best example of him mixing it up with me was when I was about a senior in high school.  At the time I was trying to be Torah observant and was into Messianic Judaism pretty heavily.  Dad supported me in it while disagreeing with me on it.  In those days I was throwing out some pretty questionable interpretations of Paul.  Interpretations that even if I were to still be Torah observant (which I'm not), I wouldn't use.  Well, dad scheduled a time to sit down and hash through things with Jon Alexander and I.  Rather than just sitting there and throwing out proof texts like 98% of humanity would have done, dad had prepared a semi-scholarly presentation complete with references ranging from the ante-nicene fathers to modern commentators.  That was the first time anyone had properly taken it to me for my loose interpretations of scripture.  At the time I hated it.  But looking back, it showed me to how proper theology is done and definitely showed me that I wasn't doing it right.  I owe my approaches to both learning and discussing theology and philosophy to my dad's approach when discussing my beliefs with me.

I suppose this has been enough story telling.  I could go on, but I won't.  Suffice it to say that I miss my dad greatly and every year it seems I miss him more.  He was such a huge part of my life. He taught me to hunt, fish, shoot, and love the outdoors.  He taught me to love any type of competition whether any sport from pickleball to football or any game, Rook to Balderdash (his favorite board game).  But most importantly, he taught me what a proper marriage should look like and what a man of faith should be.  He still makes frequent appearances in my dreams, which seems odd given how long my mind has had to adjust to him being gone.  I think to some degree this is due to the fact that there are so many conversations and experiences I wish I could have had with him that I know I never can.  When you're in high school you don't think or get the opportunity to have most of the great conversations you want to have later down the road.  I wish I could have talked to him about my career path, my relationships (in failure and success), and life's frustrations.  I wish we could discuss the various theological and philosophical ideas that have come into my life since he passed.  I wish I could ask him how he thinks Justin Verlander would stack up against his favorite pitcher, Sandy Koufax.  I wish we could take that hunting trip to Alaska on which he always wanted to take me.  I wish we could team up just one more time for a game of Rook.  To be honest, there have been times when my faith has waned, shaken by this argument or that event in my life.  Sometimes, in the lowest of those low times, it has felt like the biggest part of what has kept my faith going has been the hope that one day I'll again get to see my dad.  I miss you pops.

In honor of dad's birthday, I'd really love it if some of you who happen to read this who knew him would respond with one (or more) of your favorite memories of him.  Thanks all.

Favorite Athletes of All Time

If one can't meet Michelle, he should at least meet her mayo.

The other day I came across this fantastic picture (left) that my debate buddies (David Maus and David Dickmeyer) from Bethel and I took with a jar of mayo once owned by none other than the great figure skater, Michelle Kwan.  While meeting the jar of mayo was an exhilarating experience, I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed about not having met Michelle, herself.  That's a little odd, right?  That a female athlete would be on my list of athletes I'd like to meet?

Well, Michelle is not alone.  I've decided to compile my list of my top 30 favorite athletes of all time.  This goes for any sport, any era, any point in their career, and any gender.  Keep in mind that this isn't a list of who I think were the greatest athletes in their sport or even the greatest at the time they were playing.  It's only a list of who was my favorite.  The ones I cheered for and the ones who shaped me as a fan; the ones who had a significant impact on my life.  I'd like to hear some who you'd all put on your lists.

30. Nomar Garciaparra.  I was a Nomar fan before the term "Red Sox Nation" was coined and the BoSox became my 2nd most hated team.  Also, he married Mia Hamm.  Pretty solid.

29. Vitor Belfort.  This is the young, pre-Zuffa-UFC Belfort.  He was unbelievable and incredibly entertaining to watch.

28. Reggie White.  He'd probably be slightly higher on this list if he hadn't played for the Packers.

27. Michelle Kwan. America's sweetheart.  I could never understand (and never will) why Jon Alexander insisted on rooting for Tara Lipinski (right/down) over her (left).  Come on, Jon.  Hasn't the time come for you to admit you were wrong?

26. Lloy Ball.  Long-time setter for the US national team.  Was the best in the world for a while and led the US men to a gold in '08.  I got to meet him once!

25. Art Monk.  I had a brief stint as a kid when I was a Redskins fan, and Monk was easily my favorite.  My love for him was very much confirmed during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech.  Amazing!

24. Napoleon Kaufman.  I loved watching him at UW and in the NFL, even though he got a raw deal in Oakland.  Never got the carries he deserved.

23. John Stockton.  Shortish, averageish white dude.  Dominates the record books?  How can I not love him?

22. Calvin Johnson.  Absolute stud, but humble.  The vast majority of people on this list are known for being great people, and not just great athletes (with some notable exceptions).

21. Jason Hanson. He's been a great Lion for so long that I can barely remember a time in my life when I wasn't a Jason Hanson fan.  So yes...a kicker really did make my list.

20. Misty May-Treanor.  I followed her collegiate career, where it was pretty obvious that she was going to be great.  I was a little disappointed when she moved to the beach, but then she became the greatest woman ever there, so my disappointment left.

19. Ichiro Suzuki.  I've been a Mariners fan since the late 80s.  Ichiro is the 2nd greatest Mariner of all time and their comeback into relevance in the early 2000s was due to his arrival.  Shame he's a Yankee now.

18. Roy Jones, Jr.  I got to watch a lot of his fights live, which was great.  For a long time he was in the same position Jon Jones is in now - unbeatable and with the only blemish on his record coming from the fact that he was slightly TOO dominant in a fight.  He was the greatest fighter I've ever watched.  Any weight class, boxing or MMA.

17. Randall Cunningham.  Until he became a Viking.  But man, was he fun to watch.  Great guy, too.

 16. Shawn Kemp.  Other than Vince Carter, probably the best in-game dunker I've ever watched.  Blake Griffin's working on claiming that title as well.  But I grew up a Sonics fan, so the combination of his explosiveness with his Sonicness gives him a high place in my book.  Then he got fat and fathered 74 children.

15. Matthew Stafford.  The long-awaited messiah of the Detroit Lions.  I'm sure by the time his career is over, both he and Calvin will be much, much higher on this list.
14. Eric Bienemy.  The first true favorite college football player I ever had.  I was in love with the Buffs in the late 80s/early 90s and I still remember watching them beat Notre Dame in the national championship when Rocket Ismael's kick return for a TD to win got called back for clipping.  Wow.

13. Darrell Green.  Other than Deion, the best DB I've ever watched.  Great person through his entire career.  Though a Redskin, he was my favorite defensive player in the league.

12. Kurt Warner.  True underdog, undrafted free agent becomes the savior of 2 teams!  He's a great man on top of it all.  Noticing a theme for my favorites?  Character counts.

11. Andre Agassi.  And just as soon as I say "character counts" I go straight to the guy who admitted to doing meth to keep his career afloat.  It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

10. Chris Spielman.  My favorite Lions defensive player ever.  So consistent.  Old school LB.  He also set a lot of sack records for me on Tecmo Super Bowl.

9. Steve Atwater.  I was raised as a Broncos fan (for my AFC team), and Atwater was the most entertaining safety (maybe ever) to watch.  You need - NEED - to watch this video!  He was the greatest pure hitter I've ever seen.  Easily. 

8. Peyton Manning.  Such a classy guy.  Smartest player I've ever watched.  I love seeing him back this year.

7. Marcus Camby.  He is my favorite college basketball player of all time.  I loved him at UMass.

6. John Elway.  Like I said - I was a big Broncos fan (2nd only to my Lions) and Elway was what made them tick.  In my opinion, he's the 2nd greatest QB of all time, right behind Peyton Manning.

5. Corey Schlessinger.  Yes, a fullback is my 5th favorite athlete of all time.  You have to understand, though, that I was a bit of a Nebraska Cornhuskers fan in the early-mid 90s.  Corey Schlessinger almost single-handedly won the Huskers the national title against Miami in '95.  Then he was drafted by the Lions and was Barry's lead blocker for the start of his career.  The perfect storm of fan-dom.  College favorite to pro favorite.

4. Karch Kiraly.  Greatest volleyball player of all time, maybe both indoors and beach.  But definitely beach.  I used to love watching the classic matchups on NBC on Sundays in the summer between he and his partner Kent Steffes against Mike Dodd and Mike Whitmarsh.

3. David Robinson.  The Admiral.  I had the great fortune of growing up when the greatest NBA players of all time were almost all playing simultaneously.  That's an exaggeration, but a whole bunch of them were.  Robinson was my favorite.  Fantastic guy.  Dominant.  I used to wear around a t-shirt with him on the front that said, "David Robinson: the Quickest Big Man to Ever Play the Game."  Might just be true.  Either him or Hakeem.

2. Ken Griffey, Jr.  It was nearly impossible to make him 2 rather than 1b.  But that's just cheating.  I like football more, so Griffey gets the #2 spot.  If he hadn't gotten injured so much he'd have the HR record and would have been clean getting it.  He is responsible for making me a Mariners fan.  I used to have about 150 of his cards.

1. Barry Sanders.  Greatest RB of all time.  Hands down.  Sterling Sharp once said that if Barry Sanders had Emmitt Smith's offensive line he would rush for 3000 yards per season.  He was that great.  And once again - a great man who has done a lot in the city of Detroit both during his playing days and after.  There will never be another like him.

I'm sure I'm missing a couple that I'll kick myself later for not adding.  I think just as much fun as, if not more fun than, making this list would be making a list of players I most disliked.  That list could get far too long, though, so I'll refrain.

Defending Matthew Stafford

Here in Missoula, I have the good fortune of being able to choose between listening to ESPN Radio and listening to FOX Sports Radio.  For the most part, I choose Fox Sports Radio for every show except Collin Cowherd and sometimes Scott van Pelt.  There are a number of Fox guys who refer to ESPN as "the evil four letters."  What an apt name.

ESPN is jam-packed with so many hacks it is often quite unbelievable that it can really be the undisputed king of sports programming.  There is a long list of offenses ESPN is guilty of - being unable to talk about baseball for 3 minutes without changing the subject to the Yankees and Red Sox, pretending the west coast doesn't exist for entire seasons of college football, figuring out a way to pretend that only the most PC view on a topic even exists amongst reasonable people in all areas where sports meets politics, etc.  Today I want to talk about ESPN football analysts and their unmitigated foolishness when ranking NFL quarterbacks.

This will come as no shock to anyone who knows me, but I have to defend Matthew Stafford.  Both Matt Williamson and Ron Jaworski (whom I ordinarily enjoy) have made lists of top NFL players this summer that have drastically under-ranked Stafford in favor of guys who can only be reasonably ranked above Stafford in a popularity contest, which is really what ESPN coverage is all about (see: Tim Tebow).

Here are each of their lists up to Stafford:

Jaworski
1. Aaron Rodgers
2. Drew Brees
3. Tom Brady
4. Peyton Manning
5. Eli Manning
6. Ben Roethlisberger
7. Philip Rivers
8. Jay Cutler
9. Joe Flacco
10. Tony Romo
11. Matt Ryan
12. Michael Vick
13. Matt Schaub
14. Matthew Stafford

Williamson
1. Aaron Rodgers
2. Tom Brady
3. Drew Brees
4. Ben Roethlisberger
5. Eli Manning
6. Peyton Manning
7. Philip Rivers
8. Jay Cutler
9. Tony Romo
10. Matthew Stafford

Before I get too carried away, let me just recap what Matthew Stafford did last season, and also some career numbers.  In 2011, Stafford threw for 5038 yds, 41 TD, 16 INT, CMP% 63.5.  Put in historical context, in terms of yards this is the 5th greatest season any QB has had...ever.  Going into 2011, this would have been the 3rd greatest season ever.  In fact, this is only 46 yards shy of Dan Marino's record that stood for 27 years prior to last season.  A lesser-known, but equally impressive ranking of Stafford's season last year is that his 41 TDs are tied with Kurt Warner for 7th all time.  Again, prior to last year this would have been tied for the 5th greatest season all-time.

We all know of Stafford's first two injury-ridden seasons.  What a lot of people forget is that until he got hurt in 2010, Stafford was off to a brilliant 6 TD: 1 INT start.  Last year, he had a TD:INT ratio of 2.56:1.  Including 2010 and throwing out the stats from his rookie year (where he inherited literally the undisputed worst team in the history of the NFL), he has a career ratio of 2.76:1.  Put in perspective, Tom Brady's is 2.6:1.  Drew Brees - 1.92:1.  Aaron Rodgers - 3.47 (!!).  Dan Marino - 1.66.  Kurt Warner - 1.625.  Half decent, comparatively, yes?

Obviously this will come down a bit in the future, but you get the point - right now, Stafford is playing at an extraordinarily high level.

Why is he ranked so low?  Three reasons, from what I can tell.  First, he throws to a guy named Megatron.  Second, he's only put in one full season in his (still brief) three year career.  Third, no one wants to infer too much from one season.  Let me address each of these.

Objection 1: Calvin Johnson inflates Stafford's stats.  He demands double and sometimes triple coverage, so ends up getting everyone else open as well as dominating by himself against whatever coverage is thrown his way.

Reply 1:  Shaun Hill had Calvin Johnson, too.  A former starter in San Fransisco and considered to be one of the best 2nd QBs in the league, in 13 games with Calvin Johnson he threw for 16 TD and 12 INT for a 1.33 ratio. 

Reply 2: Matthew Stafford should get more credit for making Calvin Johnson what he has become.  Prior to 2011 (Megatron's first year with Stafford throwing to him for more than a couple games), in 4 seasons, Calvin's best was 78 catches, 1331 yds, 12 TD.  With Stafford at the helm, he immediately improved to 96 catches, 1681 yds, and 16 TD.

Reply 3: Calvin Johnson is not the only #1 wide receiver in the league.  Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson, until last season, were widely considered to be better than Calvin.  Still, at their best they couldn't turn their QBs into historically great QBs.  The Cardinals' rise and fall was with the QB, not Larry.

Reply 4: The rest of the supporting cast in Detroit is actually considerably weaker than some of the other top QBs on the list.  Aaron Rodgers has Greg Jennings (#40), Jermichael Finley (#66), Jordy Nelson (#148).  Tom Brady has Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez (rankings unknown, but all definitely on the list) and the ability to run the ball.  Brees has Jimmy Graham, Marquez Colston, Robert Meachem, Darren Sproles, Mark Ingram (again...can't find their rankings).  MATT STAFFORD HAS NOT ONE OTHER OFFENSIVE PLAYER ON THE LIST OTHER THAN CALVIN JOHNSON!  Not.  One.

Reply 4 is even stronger when we compare Stafford's supporting cast against other QBs above him - Eli, Romo, Cutler, Rivers, Roethlisberger, Schaub - every single one has multiple other offensive pieces (both skill and line) around him that would make every top 200 list.  Again - only Calvin and Stafford are on there for the Lions' offense.

***UPDATE***
 Reply 5: I forgot to include this one when I was writing this last night.  Let's suppose that Calvin was a mere mortal (silly, I know, but just play along).  If we take away a full 50% of Calvin's production, his numbers would look pretty pedestrian.  He would be 39th in the league in yardage and tied for 11th in TDs.  Stafford would still have thrown for 4198 yds (7th) and 33 TD (5th).  If Calvin were even just a good #1, while not being the best he would have put up his 2008 stats listed above.  These would have made Calvin 6th in yardage and 4th in TD.  Stafford would have been 5th in yardage and 5th in TD.  I know that Calvin also inflates the numbers of other guys on the team by drawing coverage off of them, but for the most part this point is a valid one.  When you consider that the Lions' passing attack receives extra coverage already because everyone knows they can't run the ball, I think that effect probably nullifies that extra bit of coverage that Calvin pulls off.

Objection 2: Injuries.  In three seasons, he's played in a total of 29 games.

Reply 1:  Dr. James Andrews, who did Stafford's shoulder surgery, says his shoulder is as strong as or stronger than any shoulder that has never been dislocated.  The odds of him re-injuring it are no higher than for Tom Brady injuring his.

Reply 2: Piggybacking reply 1, Stafford's really never had any other significant injury in his entire career at any level.  If the shoulder's not an injury concern, there shouldn't be one.

Reply 3: Wait...you're knocking him down the list for injury concerns while leaving Peyton Manning at #16 overall?!?  Didn't he just come off a neck surgery that kept him out all last season?  So...if a neck injury doesn't knock Peyton down the list, why does Stafford's injury knock him down?  And what about other guys higher on the list who are coming off seasons in which they, unlike Stafford, actually missed time due to injury?  Andre Johnson, Hakeem Nicks, Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles, Jay Cutler, Matt Forte, Arian Foster, Antonio Gates, Darren McFadden, and more...but I don't have insider, so I can't see them all.

Objection 3: He's only had one great season.  I can't justify moving him so far up the list for one year.

Reply 1: He's played 29 games now, which is almost two full seasons.  Typically people aren't afraid to rank players highly when they're going into their third season, so what's the problem?  He's actually going into his fourth year, and is going into a third year in terms of games played.

Reply 2: His one great season is so...much...better than the best season any that at least 5 (9 on Jaworski's list) of the guys above him have ever even sniffed that it has to be considered.  Eli's best year? 4933 yds, 29 TD, 16 INT (2011).  Rivers? 4710, 30, 13 (2010).  Romo? 4211, 36, 19 (2007).  Roethlisberger? 3154, 32, 11 (2007).  Jay Cutler? 4526, 25, 18 (2008).  None of those seasons should ever even be in the same paragraph as the numbers from Stafford's.

Reply 3: Aaron Rodgers was immediately crowned as the next great thing in the NFL after his first brilliant season.  In 2008 he took over the helm.  In both fantasy and reality (can't find a link, so you'll have to trust me) he was rated a top 4 or 5 quarterback heading into 2009 after one big season.

Reply 4: Other guys who are higher on this list have only had one good year.  A.J. Green, Jimmy Graham, Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Victor Cruz, Von Miller, etc...the list could go on and on both sides of the ball.  Why is Stafford the only one who gets knocked for having only one great year?

And there you have it.  There is absolutely no good argument for rating Matthew Stafford outside the top 5 or 6 QBs in the league.  I would rate him at #5, behind Rodgers, Brady, Brees, and P. Manning.

If any of you want to throw out an argument against me, feel free.  But beware - if you're going to use it to argue against Stafford being above Roethlisberger, Schaub, Romo, Cutler, Matt Ryan (Ha!), Joe Flacco (Haha, good one...wait?  That wasn't a joke...), Vick, Rivers, and Eli Manning, it's probably going to really suck.  If I didn't like Jaworski so much, I'd say he should be fired for his list.  Complete poppycock.

Bucket List

In recent years it has become increasingly clear to me that I need to make an official bucket list.  I find that I'm terrible at achieving goals - especially goals I never set.  Therefore I feel it is time to make these goals official.  There are a few qualities I want for my bucket list.  First, nothing too generic.  I don't want a bunch of stuff that generally everyone would put on their list if there is enough room.  It needs to be something specific to me.  Second, many items need to be fairly difficult to achieve.  There obviously will be a few simpler ones, since there are some relatively simple things that I really, really want to do.  But on the whole, I'd like to make a list of non-easy things that I really want to do.  Third, it all has to be at least possible.   Difficult, but possible.  Would I love to climb Everest?  Sure - but I can't.  I'm out of shape and sweat too much to be able to survive in that kind of cold.  Won't make the list.  With those general rules in mind, here are the first 15 things I can think of for my bucket list.  Notice these are not numbered.  No one thing will be given priority over another on the list, thus no numbering.

• Play a round of golf with a current or former U.S. President (I don't care about his or her political affiliation - it's about the office, not the occupant)
• Meet, get a picture taken with Alvin Plantinga
• Eat Oaxacan Black Mole cooked by Rick Bayless
• Go skydiving solo
• Go to a Lions game at Ford Field
• Go to a Super Bowl the Lions are playing in (obviously this is contingent on them making a Super Bowl during my lifetime at a time in which I can afford it)
• Have something I wrote published in a widely read publication
• Attend an annual meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers
• Get a hole in one in both regular golf and disc golf
• Visit 6 of the 7 continents (I hate cold too much to care about visiting Antarctica)
• Eat a Kobe steak in Kobe, Japan
• Play a round of golf on the Old Course at St. Andrews
• Compete against a professional athlete in the sport at which he or she is a professional
• Shoot a bull elk large enough that it makes sense to mount, and have it mounted
• Go on one legitimate, well-studied, well-planned, well-funded, extended treasure hunt

I'm sure there are a ton of things I've forgotten or just never thought of, but I think this is a good start.  Ideally I'd like my bucket list to get up to 25 items, so if any of you have any good ideas to add, please share!

On Conversions and Arguments for God's Existence

This is interesting.  I think I'll add her new blog to my very small and random blogroll.  Leah Libresco (right), a fairly popular atheist blogger, recently announced that she has decided to convert to Roman Catholicism.  From what I gather, a big factor in her conversion was the difficulty of believing in a real moral law without believing in a personal moral law giver.  She was influenced by the writings of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton...no surprise there.  Who isn't? 

Anyway, I found it interesting that it was the Moral Argument that was most persuasive to her.  My friend Luke Conway over at The Apologetic Professor started a series of posts rating the arguments for God's existence, but inexplicably left this one out (unless I'm missing one somewhere...if so, then sorry, Luke).  Our philosophy study group discussed the arguments for God's existence once upon a time and it seemed that most everyone considered this one good.  It gets me to thinking, though: what makes an argument for God's existence good, or even great?  Graham Oppy, an atheist philosopher of religion, recently said that a "successful" argument for God's existence is one that will persuade all reasonable theists, atheists, and agnostics who are willing to be objective and aren't prejudiced to their point of view.  To me this sounds ridiculous.  There's probably never been an argument for anything ever that would be "successful" by that definition.  As a Christian who believes humans operate with injured cognitive faculties due to the fall, I doubt it's even possible for such an argument to exist.  Generally speaking, I think that what makes an argument "successful" has to be consideration of the arguments persuasive success relative to other arguments for the same thing, or to arguments in the same field but for other things (so it would be possible to compare the success of the Kalam Cosmological Argument to that of the Evidential Argument from Evil, even though they argue for opposite things).  I'm open to suggestions for changing this notion, though.

My favorite one is the Ontological Argument.  I'm not sure it's the best, but it's my favorite.  Especially Plantinga's version.  It's just so simple it's downright elegant.  But I'm really starting to think that what makes an argument great is its persuasiveness to those not already prone to believing the conclusion.  I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone coming to a belief in God based on the Ontological Argument or the Argument from Aesthetics, but the late Antony Flew went from atheist to deist based on the Teleological Argument, Ms. Libresco went to Catholicism based on the Moral Argument (as did C.S. Lewis in part, if I remember correctly...though not specifically Catholicism).  A guy I once knew was persuaded to become a Christian based on the Argument from Miracles (specifically the resurrection of Christ). 

The problem is that it could just be that the reason some arguments aren't successful isn't because they aren't good, but because most of those who hear the argument don't understand the argument.  This is almost certainly the case with the Ontological Argument - probably 99% of people who've only heard the argument once or twice have no idea the force of the argument or how it comes to the conclusion to which it aims.  This is definitely not the case with any of the design arguments or cosmological arguments or the Argument from Miracles.  I have a hard time thinking that complexity can be considered a flaw in an otherwise valid (and hopefully sound) argument.

Maybe there is a difference between a good argument and a successful argument.  There's no doubt that the Ontological Argument is a good argument - it's been the source of great discussion for just shy of a millennium.  But it's probably not very successful in that I doubt anyone has ever come to believe in God based on the argument.  I just doubt that success is the higher virtue between the two.  The famous math argument to prove that 1=2 comes to mind.  It's tricky, but anyone who knows math knows why it's wrong.  Nevertheless, it may prove to be successful in occasionally tricking those with little math skill (like myself) into thinking that math must be bunkum.  Is it a better type of argument purely because it enjoys occasional success?  I would say no.  It's better for an argument to be good (i.e. correct, valid, sound, etc.) than successful, even if the success of the argument must be sacrificed in order to make it good.

Anyway, now that that's been dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner, I'm just going to rank what I consider to be the top 5 arguments for God's existence...just the ones I like the most, not saying anything about their persuasiveness or success:

5. Anselm's Ontological Argument
4. Teleological Argument (design of the universe/anthropic principle)
3. Kalam Cosmological Argument
2. Moral Argument (sorry this is an outline, but Mavrodes' paper isn't available online)
1. Plantinga's Ontological Argument

Alvin Plantinga is my hero.

I'm pretty sure someone illegally transplanted text from Plantinga's "God, Freedom, and Evil" to get all that on the great interweb.  So Alvin, if you read this (yeah right), I'm sorry - it wasn't me, but I did have to link to it.  To close, I'll just explain my love for Plantinga's argument.  In short, if it's successful, then it proves God exists.  But the key is that even if it doesn't prove God's existence, it still puts the burden of proof squarely on the atheist.  According to the argument, if it is even logically possible for God to exist (if He exists in even one logically possible, but non-actual world), then it is logically necessary that He exists (in every logically possible world, thus necessarily including the actual world).  If sound, this would render probabilistic atheistic arguments like the Evidential Argument from Evil or the Argument from Divine Hiddenness moot, since they don't make claims about logical possibility.

Christian Ethics and Athletic Violence

It's a dreary, rainy, cold-ish Saturday here in Montana. While this is a disappointing state of affairs, it does offer me a chance to blog a little (assuming I'm able to keep myself away from a little addiction we like to call “Minecraft”).  This is longer than a typical blog post, but in order to do the subject justice that's a necessary evil.

Today we explore a particular aspect of Christian ethics that is very dear to my heart – the ethics of sport. Not exactly the most common ethical issue discussed these days, but I think it's important and it's apparently important enough that Philosophia Christi did a symposium on it a while back. I've been meaning to address it for a while now and today just seems like a good time to do so.

Prior to reading this blog, I highly recommend reading the symposium, which can be found here.

The question is this: are any sports morally superior to others? Or perhaps more to the point: should Christians avoid any sports due to conflicts with Christian ethics created by that sport. In the symposium one author (Matthew Roberts) takes a soft view against violent sports like football or rugby, saying that due to potential vices created in both their competitors and fans the virtues of the sports are probably outweighed. Another author (Doug Groothuis) is more explicit in his rejection of violent sports, saying, “Given the formal deficiencies and defects of football, one ought not play it or coach it or watch it or own it or support it (through stadium taxes, etc.). Football reinforces and perpetuates the culture of violence, which must be resisted in every form if we are to regain a measure of sanity and civility in our increasingly violent world.” Michael Austin addresses some of the concerns raised by Roberts and Groothuis, but I think I'd like to address them a bit further.

I want to first take issue with some smaller points made mostly by Groothuis before moving on to the larger point that I think both Groothuis and Roberts err on.  

Groothuis' paper was not worthy of publication in any philosophy journal anywhere.  Throughout the paper he demonstrated quite effectively his lack of knowledge of the subject matter.  Groothuis chose to write his paper before performing a simple Google search to see if there may have been an entire field of philosophy that he was unaware of.  Seriously - go to Google, then search for "philosophy" and "sports" and see what comes up.  Academic journals, books, academic societies, even (as Austin points out in response) a journal specifically for the ethical aspects - all dealing in the philosophy of sport.  How this paper got published I'll never know.  

Beyond that, Groothuis just doesn't know anything about the game of football.  He says:

"Historically, intellectuals have been drawn to write and reflect on baseball. A recent example is columnist and author, George Will. I doubt there is anything of this nature to be said of football. (This, of course, does not imply that no intellectuals like football or than only unintelligent people do.)"

First, given the parenthetical, then what's his point?  Second, this is just stupid.  How does one define an "intellectual"?   Does he not consider the fellow philosophers who wrote "Football and Philosophy: Going Deep" intellectuals?  I've seen Groothuis cite Alvin Plantinga in his own work - Plantinga, of course, has made it known that he is a Notre Dame football fan.  President Obama has been ripped by certain detractors for being too much of an intellectual and not enough of a realist, and he's a big Chicago Bears fan.  The fact that George Will and John Roberts prefer baseball to football is in no way a knock on football's intellectual virtues.  

When's the last time a baseball player was seen doing this?

But further on the intellectual aspects of football, in no other sport are schemes and plays more complex than in football.  11 men working in unison to achieve a common goal, often with the intent of first convincing 11 other men that they are trying to achieve a different goal (in the case of counters or screens or play-action).  Before every play (particularly at the professional level) players are required to assess the other team in order to figure out what they plan to do prior to them even doing it.  Mike Leach, head coach for Texas Tech, claims to watch 30 hours of game film each week in preparation for a game just to compete in the intellectual aspects of the game.  NFL players are required to know their playbooks inside and out - some of these playbooks are 800 pages - all have their own unique vocabulary ("flip right, double-X, Jet, 36 counter, naked waggle, X-7, X-quarter" represents one offensive play-call in the NFL according to Jon Gruden).

Groothuis and Roberts both make the point that fans celebrate the violence of the sport, which promotes vice in the fans.  I would argue that this is not true in most cases.  Most football fans do not enjoy seeing grotesque injuries or concussions or the like.  Sure, we like good, solid, legal hits, but we don't want to see injuries and illegal hits.  I've despised the Vikings my whole life, but when Adrian Peterson injured his knee I neither enjoyed it nor was happy it happened.  When ESPN shows football highlights, 90% of them center around well-executed football, often involving no violence at all (in the case of touchdowns, where the defense failed to create violence).  Highlight videos like the one I link to below wouldn't exist if it were the violence the fans celebrated.

Last on the smaller points, Groothuis has the cajones to say that baseball is not only intellectually and morally superior to football, but that it is aesthetically superior as well.  He says:

"Baseball is intellectually superior to football, because of the degree of strategy, finesse, and intelligence required to play it well. Football knows of many plays and patterns, but most of them reduce to speed, strength, and coordination--as opposed to intelligence. In baseball, a pitcher with less than a cannon arm (such as Greg Maddox) can be one of the best pitchers in baseball in light of his intelligence in pitch selection, control, knowledge of batters, and fielding ability."

He later says:

"Both baseball and football require athletic skill for their performance, but I venture to say that an expertly turned double-play, a diving catch in the outfield, or a deftly stolen base (particularly of home) demonstrates more athletic and aesthetic excellence than anything in football. Moreover, nothing in any sport has the dramatic effect of a grand slam home run, especially in a close game."

Again, I have no idea how this paper got published.  Greg Maddox was able to pitch the way he did because he was smart, yes, but also because he had an INCREDIBLE amount of coordination and was able to do things physically with his wrists, fingers, and shoulders that most humans cannot.  There is a very good reason that Maddox is also a scratch golfer and it is not that he lacks pure, raw, physical ability.  What is the difference between good pitch selection and a proper play call or audible in football?  Is there any difference in terms of the mental demand?  What about "fielding ability" in baseball screams that it doesn't come down to "speed, strength, and coordination"?

I can appreciate that a double-play can be aesthetically pleasing.  But really?  A stolen base?  It's a dude running from one base to another.  I'm as big a baseball fan as most people, but let's be realistic - would anyone on this planet (other than Ricky Henderson's mom) rather watch a highlight reel of all of Ricky Henderson's stolen bases than this highlight reel of Barry Sanders' runs?

Ok - enough with the stupid stuff.  I actually lost a bit of respect for Groothuis as a philosopher after reading this paper.  Moving on.


Both Roberts and Groothuis agree on the main objection to football: its violent nature. Roberts lists collisions in football equaling 1600 lbs of force, concussions, ACL tears, etc.  These are seen as bads.  Not only are they bads, but they are the result of violence: a bad that is intrinsic to the game of football.  When violence and its resulting injuries happen in basketball or baseball, the bads are contingent bads, which is to say that the sports can be (and regularly are) played without the bads occurring.  The same cannot be said of football.  Furthermore, the sport promotes vice in its fans, who are taught to celebrate this violence, and thus to celebrate bads.

The thing I find odd is that Groothuis says, "[f]ootball reinforces and perpetuates the culture of violence, which must be resisted in every form if we are to regain a measure of sanity and civility in our increasingly violent world."  In every form?  What about, say, in the context of a Just War?  


"The killing of any creature in God's image, no matter how debased that creature may be, is a mournful thing. Osama deserved death, and received it in a just war; however, it is tragic that a man would dedicate his life to evil and receive the penalty of death for his earthly sin." - Douglas Groothuis

But wait...wasn't...wasn't that Groothuis supporting violence given that it was of a particular type in a particular situation?  So maybe the Christian doesn't have to oppose EVERY form of violence, as he says in the paper.   In their papers both Groothuis and Roberts seem to assume that all violence is bad in some moral sense.  They assume that all violence is created equal.

I would argue that this is mistaken, even (especially?) on the Christian worldview.  Biblically, Old Testament characters participated in many, many violent acts and were praised for them later in the New Testament.  Obviously there will be some who follow thinkers like Yoder, Hays, or Hauerwas out there who say the N.T. ethic changed and promotes peace exclusively.  To that I will respond by pointing out that the Hays/Hauerwas notion of N.T. ethics also would prohibit Christians from participating in the military or even the police - it is an ethic of radical non-violence (Hays goes as far as to compare military recruiters to prostitutes).  You really want to go that route?  

But the more pertinent point is from the N.T. itself.  In Acts 10, Peter is called by God via a vision to go meet with a Roman Centurion named Cornelius.  Throughout the course of the story, Peter comes to the understanding that gentiles should be accepted into the Christian community the same as Jews.  Luke takes care to praise Cornelius as being an upstanding man.  At no point in the narrative does either Luke or Peter (as recorded by Luke) criticize Cornelius for being a military man.  Keep in mind that he was a Roman soldier - this means that in all likelihood any war he would be called by his profession to fight would not have been a just one.  Peter didn't see this as even being important enough to mention - he was just happy to accept him into the Christian community.  Luke again in Luke 3:14 tells of a group of recently-baptized soldiers who were told by John the Baptist now that they are Christians they should "[not] extort money and don't accuse people falsely - be content with your pay."  No mention of anything being wrong with their profession or the violence it requires.

So it's fair to think the Christian is at least warranted in thinking that not all violence is a bad.  So there must be something about violence that makes it bad.  What is it?  Well, I would argue that it has something to do with causing needless harm to creatures created with the imago dei.  Certainly hunting (esp. for survival) isn't morally wrong.  But it is violent and it does cause them harm.  But they don't have the imago dei, so it's ok.  So the issue at hand has to come down to the question of whether or not football causes needless harm to its human participants (excluding Gus, Bonzo, and Air Bud).

No one knows if concussions contributed to Seau's suicide

Recently there has been a ton of concern over concussions in the NFL, especially in the wake of the suicides of three former NFL players (Junior Seau, Ray Easterling, and Dave Duerson).  While it is certainly true that the harm from concussions is considerably more than what we used to think, I think it's hard, based purely on that fact to think that the game causes more physical harm than good.  

Consider this study, commissioned by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, on the health of former NFL players.  In a survey of 3439 former NFL players, it was estimated (based on numbers from the general population) that 625 would be deceased.  Only 334 were in fact deceased.  That's about 53% of what would have been the case if the health of retired NFL players was even average, much less below average.  The conclusion has to be that all that time of eating right and working out an extraordinary amount in order to be able to handle the physical toll of the sport actually makes players healthier on the whole.  At the very, very least this should mitigate any perceived bad in the violence.  I would argue that since the result of the game makes players healthier it cannot be seen generally as causing needless harm to its participants and thus cannot be considered a bad at all.

This argument can (and should) be applied to any violent sport when discussed from an ethical standpoint.  MMA is probably the most controversial in this respect right now.  A new documentary (below) is in the process of being made about the convergence of faith and MMA.  Many MMA fighters at the highest level are professing Christians (Jon Jones and Benson Henderson are both outspoken Christians and the champions of their respective weight classes).  Given the extreme conditioning that goes in to this sport, in the long-run it participants are likely to be healthier for having competed than they would be had they not.  If my definition of "bad violence" is right, then MMA should be perfectly acceptable on the Christian ethical worldview as well as football, rugby, or virtually any other "violent" sport.

If Groothuis and Roberts want their points based on the violence of the game to hold up they must first provide a working definition of a "bad", then make one of "bad violence".  Until that happens, and they provide a good reason to prefer those definitions over mine, all arguments about anything inherent in the game promoting vice in either the players or the fans are moot.  Christians should feel comfortable coming home from church on Sunday and watching football...all day long.

The Benny Hinn Theological Drinking Game

Disclaimer: If you like Benny Hinn, I recommend not reading this post.  If you are offended by this post, whatevs.

Many, if not most, Christians drink.  These days even many Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians drink.  Heck...some have even (wrongly) accused me of being a Fundamentalist Christian, and I drink.  But what is the Christian drinker to do in a world full of strictly secular drinking games?  Aren't there any Christian drinking games out there?  Well, at least not that I'm aware of.  There are drinking games for those of virtually any political persuasion (Republican or Democrat).  There are TV show or celebrity themed drinking games.  There are sports themed drinking games.  There are really lame, non-themed drinking games.  There are even drinking games for State of the Union Addresses.

I have hardly participated in any of them, especially in relation to the total number that exist (and I suspect no one else, save Lindsay Lohan [left], has either).  I am neither troubled nor disappointed by this fact.  However, if you happen to be a Christian in the mood for a drink or two (or more), I may just have a solution for you.

I stumbled upon a pretty fascinating video a while back that got me thinking about a new drinking game that Christians could play based purely upon Benny Hinn's preaching.  First I'll show you the system by which the drinks should be administered, then I'll show you the inspirational video:

For any service performed by Benny Hinn:

1. If a scripture is cited out of context - 1 drink 
2. If a clear heresy is taught - 2 drinks 
3. If a whisper is inserted into preaching purely for dramatic effect - 1 drink per section (not per word)
4. If members of the audience are "slain in the spirit" - 1 drink per 5 slain (this number can be amended in the instance of mass slayings in order to prevent debauchery by participants in the drinking game)

See if you can keep a proper count:

Alright, so if you're scoring at home, that's:

• Modalism 
• Nonotheism (or tri-tritheism)
• An extreme version of Nestorianism
• For lack of a proper term: corporetarianism (the belief that God has a physical body - if anyone knows a proper term for this one, please let me know)

So that's like...8 drinks right there.  Add in the two unnecessary and irrelevant whispers, that's 10 drinks.  Thank heavens the clip doesn't contain his justification for it, or we'd undoubtedly have to drink more under rule #1.  If someone was to be a real stickler, she could argue that he committed "corporetarianism" 3 times, Nestorianism 3 times, and modalism at least twice (but probably 3 times).  That'd be 20 (or 21) drinks.  That's like....Andre the Giant material right there, and it's only a little over a minute-long clip!

What if someone decided to watch this one?!?  I don't recommend it.  If we're going by the number recommendation from #4 above, by my (very rough) count that would require at least 30 drinks.  Probably more.

Anyone else have a great idea for a Christian drinking game?

Ending Disclaimer: This is not my recommendation to Christians to play the above drinking game.  Rather it is an ironic commentary on the fact that the knowledge of Benny Hinn's continued existence drives me to want to drink....a lot.

Golf: The Most Dangerous Game

As it turns out, I've been under a horribly mistaken impression.  I was always taught that golf is a gentleman's sport.  It's a sport where one both learns and demonstrates self-control, perseverance, and perhaps most of all patience.  At least in Missoula it appears that these are merely romantic notions that no golfer actually adheres to.  How do I know this?  Well, I'll tell you.

This is decidedly not the University of Montana Golf Course

I've golfed a number of times this year at the University of Montana's Golf Course.  It's a crappy little course, to be sure, but enough that one would at least expect a traditional golf experience.  One would be expecting too much if he expected this.  Each of my last two trips there I've been hit by golf balls coming off the clubs of the group immediately behind me: once in the leg on the fly from a drive (leg still hurts), and once off a bounce where I was able to swat it away.  I wouldn't blame you if your first reaction is to think that perhaps I'm just such a slow golfer that no one can possibly blame them for their impatience.  But no, in fact everyone on the course had been waiting at pretty much every hole both times.  Both times, the only reason I was within range of their balls was that I had been waiting for the group ahead of me.  I, of course, cheerily pulled out my 3-hybrid and hit their balls right back at them.  I even yelled "fore" once.

If anyone else watched The Players Championship this last weekend, you may have been as stunned as I was at the incredible impatience of the fans while waiting for Kevin Na to get past his yips.  At times he was taking a full minute to take his swing due to the immense pressure of the moment.  Fans began taunting him, singing various songs with "na, na, na" in them.  One "fan" even ran up to him and told him he better not choke because he has $2000 bet on him.  This, of course, made everything better.  Na shot a 76 on Sunday and finished out of contention.

Obviously the Na situation was an extreme, but I think it illustrates a point.  Too many people just go to the course to hack around and get done as fast as possible.  They bring their 6-pack (or worse, their Evan Williams, which some idiots we got paired with earlier this year did) and wreck their golf carts.  Where's the respect for the game?

I'm reminded of this great video that Ben Crane, the world's 50th ranked golfer, once made about learning to play fast golf:

Golf looks pretty ridiculous when played fast.  It's really sad, because golf can and should be the most relaxing and laid back sport on earth.  If you've got somewhere to be, just don't golf.  It's really that simple.  If you can't wait an extra 60 seconds to let people get out of range you have no business stepping foot on a golf course.  If a guy is struggling mentally, as in the case of Na, no one feels worse about that than him.  There's absolutely no reason for anyone else to be impatient about it.

In lieu of a good concluding salvo, I simply ask (in case I run into the situation again): what should be the etiquette if the group behind you hits you because they were too impatient to wait?  I contend that the gentelmanliness of the game can be set aside in these situations in order to take (at least) one solid attempt at returning the favor.