Nate to State

Our son Nathan capped off his high school golf season with an impressive round yesterday that earned him the number two spot in the Intermountain Conference tournament and a trip next week to the Oregon state championships.

In the 36-hole tournament that began on Monday, Nathan spotted most of his competitors several strokes by shooting a 45 on the front nine. He rallied with a 2-under 34 on the back, and his 79 left him six strokes back of the leader but with several golfers ahead of him.

The weather was a big factor on Tuesday, with howling winds making the Meadow Lakes course much more difficult and causing scores to balloon. The eventual winner, Damien Telles of The Dalles, led all scorers with a 78. Nathan matched his first-day score, but this 79 was stellar given the conditions, and his 158 total left him 4 shots clear of the third-place finishers.

Nathan's qualifying was a popular outcome--he is well-liked within the area's high school golfing community--and he received a host of hive-fives, "atta-boy"s, and even hugs prior to and during the awards ceremony. Several of his fans were on hand, including his mom, sister Aurora, his brother (and constant golfing companion) Jasper, his youth pastor Kip Jones, and his current swing coach, Spud Miller. Said Nathan,

Golf's an individual sport, but you also hope for success for all those who have helped you along the way. I've been fortunate to have the support of alot of people--Dan Hiatt, Dean Ditmore, Mike Mitchell, and Spud Miller to name a few. My teammates, Nick and Kasey, have been fun to play with, and Jasper's been a brick.

The state tournament is next Monday and Tuesday at Emerald Valley in Creswell.

Comeback Victory

(The post below is best read with a British accent.)

Monday evening, the Antioch men's indoor soccer team evened their new season's record at one game apiece with a stunning come-from-behind victory over Fuerza Uno. Trailing 4-1, 5-2, and 7-5, the men in the white jerseys eventually combined commitment to defense, strong open-field passing, and relentless pressure on the opponents' goal to produce a sparkling 8-7 win.

Missing some of its top players, the Antioch side started off tentatively, especially on defense, and found themselves on the wrong side of the ledger throughout the first half. Indeed, the visitors only drew level in the fortieth minute of the (44-minute-long) game and never led until the forty-second minute. They enjoyed balanced scoring, however, with two goals apiece from Emi Popa (on loan from the Romanian league) and Kesh Phillips (seeing his first action of the year), and a hat trick from Nate Gerhardt. With the absence of midfield partner Tyler Fetters, Gerhardt was asked to control the center; he did himself credit, and Phillips, Popa, and steady defender Jason Wilkins helped him to keep the home team continually on their heels in the second half.

Landon Miller added a crucial goal late, and his presence in the opponents' box kept their defenders busy. Antioch also received valuable minutes from newcomer Chris Sterry. Jasper Gerhardt anchored the defense with a gutsy, hard-fought performance, and his telling runs forward repeatedly created scoring opportunities (and two assists) for his mates. Popa's two goals were the critical ones, with the first knotting the score and the second proving to be the game-winner.

Antioch will look to build upon this big win in their next game, Wednesday, January 28th. Some seats are still available for that game (with a 10:10 start time) at the Central Oregon Indoor Soccer Center.

A Golf Apologetic

Yesterday's post struck a chord (two comments!), so I think I'll write a bit more about morality. But tonight, I want to do one more short sports piece.

During last week's British Open, there was a stir caused by comments made by Gary Player (veteran South African golfer). Player apparently said something to the effect that he suspected steroids were probably already on the pro tour (presumably the PGA Tour and/or the European Tour).

Now, as a Christian, I believe that all men are fallen, and so I'm not going to suggest that Player was entirely wrong in his comments. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a one-post hiatus from being a Christian apologist in order to be a golf apologist. Specifically, I'm going to give you four reasons I think golf is perhaps the least likely sport to have to worry about illegal steroid use.

Reason #4. Male professional golfers come in a variety of body shapes. Most tour pros do not conjure up the buff-ness associated with steroid use. Tiger is a very fit exception, but you'd have to think awhile to come up with another. Meanwhile, you can think of many that you just know are not benefitting from steroid use (or even the weight room). Think John Daly, Fuzzy Zoeller, or (on the other end of the spectrum) Jesper Parnevik, Charles Howell the 3rd, or Aaron Baddely.

Reason #3. Whereas a primary reason athletes in other sports take steroids is to increase strength, golfers require a delicate balance between strength and flexibility. Indeed, making it to the PGA Tour is such a difficult task that no player--having accomplished that task--would risk throwing it away by upsetting the balance (of strength and flexibility) that helped get them there.

Reason #2. The other thing steroids do for athletes is to decrease the time required for injuries to heal. Evidence that pro golfers are not currently using steroids is the simple fact that every week they withdraw from tournaments (with million-dollar purses) because of seemingly minor injuries of the sort that we 18-handicappers (who have to hold down more conventional jobs) play and work through on a regular basis.

Reason #1. This is the main one. Personal integrity is still at the very heart of golf. Professional golfers invariably report their own infringement of some obscure rule even though no one else would ever have known and even though the resulting penalty can cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. I guess that's a part of why I'm a golf fan.

Sports Bloopers

I'm planning to do a series of posts about the philosophy of science. But first, the sports world seems to be demanding some attention. I'm a sports fan myself, so it is without pleasure that I turn the bloglight on some unseemly situations...

The Tour de France (which is, along with March Madness, my co-favorite 3-week-long sporting event) has been contested this year under a cloud of suspicion. Despite riders being tested every day of the race (including the overall reace leader and the stage winner without fail), only two (out of more than 180 racers) have been caught cheating. But then today, the rider otherwise destined to win this year's race was fired from his team for lying to them about his whereabouts the last two months.

The big three American sports are currently reeling from (shall we say?) 'issues.' A star NFL quarterback is in court charged with conducting dog fights at one of his homes, an NBA referee is alleged to have bet on games in which he had a say in the outcome, and a hallowed baseball record is about to be broken by a man whom almost everyone this side of Aunt Bea believes took illegal steroids throughout his prime.

But isn't sport--in this issue as in many others--just a reflection of culture at large? Why should we be surprised that high-paid athletes (and officials) cheat to make a buck or prolong a career, or when they think they can live above the law (in the case of the quarterback, Michael Vick)? The same thing is going on in corporations throughout our nation; remember Enron? (I have friends whose life savings went down the drain in that case.) When the best business schools in the land no longer teach that there is such a thing as truth, as right and wrong, why wouldn't some of the brightest students cheat others on their way to a fortune? Indeed, if what the schools are teaching is true, it's those of us who still believe in morality that need remedial instruction.

More than half of Americans think that when the President of these United States cheated on his wife (had an adulterous affair), it in no way diminished his qualifications for leading the world's most powerful nation. What we have here--not only in sports but in all of our culture--is a moral crisis, and that, quite simply, is what is to be expected in a post-Christian society. As Dostoevsky's character Dmitry Fyodorovich has it,

Without God... all things are lawful.

I think he was right. Having banished God from our nation's classrooms and public places, we should not be surprised when we see whole generations living without any moral compass. If naturalism is true (as is taught in virtually every subject area, not just biology), or if there's no such thing as truth, then the question becomes not "why do these athletes cheat?" but "why don't all athletes cheat?"