Monday Afternoon Football

Soccer, that is. At least in America. I am delighted, by the way, with the turn of events that has seen soccer being shown more and more on ESPN. I agree with the recent advertisements that claim the English Premier League to be the best soccer league in the world. We're in for another great season I'm sure. It will be hard to live up to the standard set by the crazy drama at the end of last season. Here's a clip to help you relive it and get pumped for the new campaign.

Awesome. And here's a link to a longer one if you want more.

I'm at home in Cedar City on this beautiful Monday afternoon. The sun is shining and I've got nothing to do (yet) except flip on the tube and watch some EPL soccer in fabulous HD. We're in the 50th minute right now of a match between last year's runner-up Manchester United and an always tough Everton side. It's been a great game so far, even though it is still scoreless. There have been some great chances. Everton looks pretty impressive against perennial powerhouse Man-U, and a few players have impressed me more than the rest. My two favorite players in this match so far have been Marouane Fellaini of Everton and Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United. They both look very composed and have been, in my opinion, the best players on the field for their respective teams.

And there you have it. Everton just scored, and it was none other than Fellaini with a beautiful header off a corner kick! I told you he looked good. There have been multiple times in this match when he simply overpowered Man-U defenders, and this was yet another example of that. Fellaini is tall and he has fantastic hair. How can you stop that one-two punch?

I wanna talk a little bit more, however, about Kagawa. Manchester United just barely picked him up in the recent transfer window before the season started. He was playing for German side Borussia Dortmund before making the switch, leading them to the Bundesliga title last season. Kagawa is a facilitator. He is soccer's version of a Steve Nash sort of player. He's a pass first kind of guy. He's created some great chances in this game against Everton, including a magnificent pass to Danny Welbeck that so nearly resulted in a 1-0 lead for Man-U. He's the kind of player that everyone wants to play with, and that is a very valuable thing to have. I want to talk about the importance of a facilitator.

I guess I had to talk about it eventually. I'm sure by now you've all heard about the recent trade that sent Dwight Howard, the best young center of his generation, to the Los Angeles Lakers. Their starting line-up now includes four superstars and a bruiser (I like to think of Metta World Peace as the kind of guy that hockey teams send out to protect superstars like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin). Kobe Bryant is Kobe Bryant. We all know his credentials, but the most important player to that team's success will be Steve Nash (he also happens to have the most MVP awards than anyone else on that team). If they play it right, it won't be superstars taking turns, it will be the best pure point guard since John Stockton controlling the game and making sure everyone is involved. Steve Nash needs to have the ball in his hands more than anyone else (including Kobe) if they want to beat OKC and Miami this coming season.

A facilitator is someone who is unselfish, who seeks others' happiness before his own. He understands that his own happiness will come from helping others. That is the kind of person that we all want to be around, and it's the kind of person that we should all strive to be. It's the kind of person that Jesus Christ was when he was on the earth. The scriptures say that he "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38). The prophet Moroni in the Book of Mormon teaches that men should "lay hold upon every good thing," and any man who does so "certainly will be a child of Christ" (Moroni 7:19). Happiness comes from doing good.

Sports are amazing in their power to teach. There is so much more to them than meets the eye, so many lessons to be learned. This is why I love them so much and want to share what I learn from them with whoever wants to listen. Thanks for reading.

All In

It had to be something good to get me writing again. I've been in a slump. Ever since the NBA season ended there hasn't really been anything that I've cared enough to write about.

I've decided to change things up a bit. So far my blog has just been my reactions to what happens in the world of sports. I stretched it to where I was writing about things just to write about them, not really putting a lot of feeling in it. My best post came when something happened which really affected me (see "Rose's Thorn"). So I'm only going to write when I really care about something (go figure, right?), and I'm going to tie in some life lessons as well. I think it will be a lot better.

I'm back in Cedar City tonight. I drove down from Provo this evening. I was again reminded of how beautiful Utah is. I remember really appreciating it for the first time when I got home from my mission in Romania. I guess I had learned to better appreciate beauty while I was away serving in Romania. I saw some beautiful things there, but nothing compared to what I saw when I got home. All that time is was right in front of me, but I had to go halfway around the world to figure out how lucky I was to live in such an amazing place. The scenery was magnificent as I drove. Purple rain was a curtain veiling the red, sunset-lit horizon. Colorless silhouettes of cloud were lined with orange and yellow. I've tried before to take pictures of such scenes with my phone, but it never does it justice, so I've given up on that. Instead I tried to paint a picture with words. It seemed to work better.

The panorama eventually turned black. The dark sky was illuminated from time to time with brilliant flashes of lightning in the distance. As I got further south, closer to Cedar, the lightning got closer and brighter. Rain pelted the windshield. Coldplay provided a perfect soundtrack to the drive, and I kept myself awake by singing along (as is my custom). Life is good.

The real reason I was inspired to start blogging again after about a month off was a one minute video I saw the other day. Here it is.

I'm blown away by D-Rose. Everything he does seems to make me a bigger and bigger fan. The part of the video that hit me the most is the end when he says, "I'm all in." That's significant. To be great requires complete devotion to a goal. Derrick Rose hit a bump in the road - a big bump. If you think that deterred him from his desire to be the best basketball player he can possibly be, think again. He'll come back, and I fully believe that he will eventually be better than he ever has been up to this point. That will happen because he is completely focused and determined to make it happen. He's "all in," holding nothing back. So we should be "all in" with everything that we do. To only give half effort is to meander in the mass of mediocrity. Anything short of everything just isn't enough if we want to reach our potential.

I had a conversation with my roommate (one of my best friends) about this a while back. A lot of times we are scared to give 100%. Doing so leaves no excuses for the results. Giving less than our all, we can always say, "Oh, if I had tried harder I could've done it," or, "I could've won that game if such-and-such wouldn't have happened." We cripple ourselves. True satisfaction comes from giving our all, knowing we gave our all, and accepting the results as a just reward for the effort we put in. If the results aren't quite what we wanted, then we go to work and improve on the areas where we need a boost. Continual progress is the goal. Patience is required.

Patience will dispel fear, calm nerves, and soften the blow of disappointment. Patience will sustain the fire within. Derrick Rose is displaying amazing patience and humility as he works back in what has been diagnosed as an 8-12 month recovery process. I can't wait for him to get back. The Bulls need him. The NBA needs him. He is a great example of hard work and excellence that we can all learn from.