When Thanking God Goes Wrong

A quarterback in the Massachusetts high school state championship game gets a touchdown taken away, which in essence costs his team the game, because he raised his hand to the sky as he was approaching the end zone untouched. The kid's dad said he was just acknowledging God:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Touchdown-celebration-penalty-costs-Mass-team-a?urn=highschool-wp9491

Rules are rules!

 

I will quote John 12:3...

And Jesus said to him, bullshit.

 

I'm pretty sure there was something similar in a high school game last year. I want to say it was in Washington state.

EDIT: Yep, at my wife's alma mater.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/01/high-school-player-flagged-touchdown-nod-god/

 

But I am not buying for one second this kid was praising God. Praise God by being humble. I'm sure that is somewhere in the Book.

 

Yep, a friend of mine with deep religious convictions posted the same link murphyc did about a year ago and was going on and on about how Christians were being barred from expressing their faith, then his like-mined friends started chiming in. I usually ignore such threads, but on that one I had to declare BS about it being a religion thing.

 

I predict an ESPN Outside the Lines piece on how Tebow met the kid at the local mall and bought him a jersey and signed it.

 

My Facebook page is an unfortunate blend of my personal friends and my media persona/identity. (Bad planning by me).

I am "friends" with tons of athletes I once covered. I'm noticing a growing trend of folks (usually males) posting prayers on facebook, often in a thinly-veiled attempt to impress like-minded women (who pepper said status updates with "likes").

It strikes me as banal, corny and gauche at best, and hypocritical and sacrilegious at worst.

You don't have to make a peep out loud (or online) to communicate with God.

But you DO if you are actually talking about yourself.

Preening is the diametrical opposite of prostrating.

 

If they are getting tail out of it, I see no problem.

 

Whether he was thanking God or simply celebrating, who gives a shit what he was actually doing? Why the fuck would anyone ever want to play sports if you can't celebrate a play, especially a damned scoring play?

To hell with these pinheaded administrators and anybody else who supports these horseshit zero-tolerance "rules." And I'll raise my fist in celebration and thanks to God as I watch them slide into the motherfucking abyss.

 

As long as the celebration rule remains as vague as it is, you're going to get stupid calls like this. Remember Washington-BYU a few years back? The UW qb scored a late touchdown and flipped the ball into the air. He was flagged for it and Washington ended up losing the game. (I don't recall exactly, but the PAT might have been moved back as a result and then missed or blocked).
It's not just the religion thing. If a player picks his nose after scoring a touchdown and a ref feels that it's excessive celebration or "drawing attention to himself" a flag will be thrown.

 

Read a few things on this today, and in nowhere but the comments section is it pointed out that the player in question received a taunting penalty in the previous game and one in the first quarter of the Super Bowl. Pretty significant details, if you ask me.

And this quote from the coach makes me laugh:

"In the game being played, we won the game. Give Blue Hills a lot of credit. They are a great football team, but we deserve better. The game got taken away from us," Cathedral coach Duane Sigsbury told the Globe. "If you're going to take a game away from a kid being excited because he just made the play of his life, shame on you."

Um, no, you didn't win the game being played.

 

It was Jake Locker, and I think the missed PAT was from 35 yards.