How Moody Basketball Reshaped My Game


   I've been in sports my whole life. This means that I have seen lots of courts, fields, ups/downs, opponents, and emotions. I'm a fairly emotive person so when sports are thrown into the mix, I celebrate big and I stew big. I remember basketball games in high school where I would beat myself up for not playing well, punch the seat of a chair after coach pulled me out of a game, or go home and talk about all the things I could have done better, even after games where we won. In my mind, opponents were opponents, rivals were rivals, and I am going to play as hard as I can. 
    I got the incredible opportunity to play basketball at Moody (for most of my years there) and I had no idea what I was about to learn. The ball started rolling when I started my Sports Ministry classes. I began to learn that the person was way more important than the sport itself and that competition within itself was completely neutral; it's what you do with it that changes the view/definition. The wheels began turning in my mind. 
    I got injured halfway through my freshman season, rehabbed, started out my sophomore season playing (got 6 weeks in and had to take the rest of the season off for my knee still bothering me), and I came back in full health for my Jr. Season. But things had changed since freshman year and at first it was hard to get behind. I was about to be taught how to put uncomfortable humility into action in a sport for the first time ever.
    I went from this emotional (hot head at points) to realizing that it was way more than a game in a matter of a few games. The team had started doing something called "God bags" while I was gone my sophomore year. These were little bags that We would make for our opponents that contained things like granola bars, mini gatorades, notes, and hair bands. So, no matter how the game ended, we would have to find one girl on the other team, give them the bag, and ask if there was anything we could pray for them about.This rocked my world. 
    There is nothing more humbling than when you just had a terrible game or you just lost an intensely fought one (and we lost a lot that season), and you have to go and give someone a gift and ask how you can pray for them. But that is what we did and it became the quickest way I could get out of my own head, humble myself, and see that it was more than a game. 
   So thank you Moody, even though the WBB program is no longer, for the lessons you taught a few groups of women in the last years. I don't think you realize that the men's team and us were doing ministry through our sports, but we were and that's an irreplaceable time of life.
 

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