January 31, 2011 - Don't Flirt With The Enemy!

Have you ever been blamed for something you didn’t do? Have you ever had someone misinterpret what you said or what you did? Have you ever had someone take something you said or did out of context?

My son got a taste of that last Friday night. He was playing against a young man that he has known for a few years and they got going into a little bit of a battle – mano a mano.

The friend, (a 6’8” man-child that is heading to Clemson next year), had just put down a pretty nasty dunk on my son. It was one of those made for the movies dunks where the kid looked at my son as my son jumped aimlessly in the air.

As they went down the floor my son squared up well behind the 3-point line and the big guy jumped out on him to lock down on defense. As the other kid dropped his hand down my son drained a long 3 on him. It was truly fun to watch and the boys were having fun.

At that point my son went a bit stupid and blew a kiss at his friend, as if to say “got ya back.” They both thought it was funny; one of the refs didn’t as she whistled him for a technical foul for taunting. Then to top it off the ref overheard my son say, “this is bull” to one of his buddies and an assistant coach. The ref heard that one and t’d him up again, resulting in an ejection from the game (and a 1 game suspension.) (I have to admit it is the first ejection I have ever seen where the people in the crowd did not even know there was an issue and the player being ejected was not even agitated.)

So what was the problem? The ref thought there was taunting going on and that is against the rules. She was trying to make sure a problem did not arise.

As we discussed this afterwards with a former collegiate coach he explained to my son that even though they were having fun, scouts only know he was ejected and assume he has character issues. That one night could have “X-ed” his name off a recruiting list.

What an opportunity to teach my son the lessons of Colossians 1:22 where we are told that to be mature is to be “above reproach.” And in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 we are told to abstain from even the appearance of evil.

The moral of this story: don’t blow kisses to your opponents. Wait,that is not it. Maybe we could word it, “Don’t flirt with the enemy!”