Wednesday Word: Sinking Boats

“You can't sink one end of a boat.” – Officiating Wisdom

Unbeknownst to most people, a football game is played with three teams: the dark jerseys, the light jerseys, and the striped jerseys. This is actually true of most sports where two teams vie against each other, but since I'm a football guy . . .

During a game the lights and darks strive to defeat the other team by scoring more points. The stripes are there to ensure that the two teams play by the rules and don't gain an unfair advantage by using, shall we say, creative interpretations of the rules.

During that same game you may very well see one member of the lights yelling at teammate. Or you may see a coach of the darks yelling at a particular group of his team. This is understandable, as football is a very emotional game. As the game goes on and the clock ticks down, the pressure to win goes up. We may have seen clips of Tom Brady yelling at his receivers for running wrong pass routes. Or maybe you watched Matthew Stafford screaming at his teammates to hustle downfield as time was winding down. I saw a clip just recently of normally calm Peyton Manning screaming at his center, Jeff Saturday, about the offensive line's inability to block the defense.

But you know what you will never see during a football game? You will never see one member of the stripes yelling at another member of the stripes. You will never see one member of the stripes trying to show-up another member of the stripes. If the back judge makes a questionable call, the side judge may ask him if he's sure of what he saw. If so, then the crew lives with that decision. If not, then the crew supports the one who made a mistake to keep him from dwelling on past errors so that he can focus on getting other calls right.

This is because, in a football game, the only people who care about the striped team are its members. We do not have the luxury of yelling at or berating our teammates for mistakes made. I, as a back judge, cannot – MUST NOT – throw a flag in the referee's area the prove a point. I cannot – MUST NOT – tell a coach, “Well, you know, that referee really doesn't know the rules and I'm pretty sure you're getting screwed.”

The officials are all in the same boat. If I don't like what the referee is doing, I cannot go to his end of the boat and put a hole in it to teach him a lesson, because you can't sink one end of a boat.

Jesus spent a fair amount of time with his disciples in boats; and for as often as they “didn't get it,” he never once got frustrated enough to sink Peter's end of the boat.

In this thing known as Christianity, may we remember that, ultimately, we are all in the same boat.

Blessings,

Todd+