I have been a wrestler since I was a freshman in high school; I had to miss my senior year because of an injury, but still wrestled at a small college in Ohio. I competed until I was 39 and have volunteered as a coach in local high schools for 36 years. I also coached at the college level for four years. From a theological point of view, wrestling is the only sport that God does in the Bible (the angel also cheated, by the way), but that is not what this thought is about. I remember the rare opportunities to watch wrestlers in the Olympics; it wasn’t the most popular sport, so it got relegated to less popular times of day. Still, watching Gable, Schultz, the Banach brothers, and so many others was, for me, pure joy. I wanted to be them.
For the longest time, our athletes were all amateurs. This is probably why their victories over countries like Russia and China were so sweet; their athletes were – and still are – bred to be athletes, and they were paid to play. I will never forget the Miracle on Ice of 1980 when our men’s ice hockey team beat the big, bad Russians. Or when Rulon Gardner beat the man who was considered one of the best wrestlers of all time, Alexander Karelin, who hadn’t lost a match in 12 years. Being in the Olympics is, for many professional athletes, something they consider to be their greatest accomplishment. A big reason, many say, is that they are doing this for their country, and that brings them great joy and pride.
I watched the men’s team gymnastics competition the other day, and I was reminded of this sense of joy. The competition was fierce, and some victories were expected while others were surprises. In the end, the Japanese team took the gold, China got silver, and the USA got bronze, breaking a 16-year team medal drought. And now we are at the point of today’s thought: of course, the Japanese team was filled with pride; everyone wants to come in first. The difference between the Chinese and American teams was significant; the Americans were filled with pure joy, ecstatic about reaching the podium, but the Chinese gymnasts seemed angry for coming in second. Watching their reactions reminded me that when you do something out of love, nothing beats that feeling. And who knows what awaited the Chinese athletes when they returned home. Tyrants are bitter when they lose.
Doing what you love makes life beautiful. This doesn’t mean it is always joyful; there have been many times over the year when I have had to slog through aspects of what I do just to get them done. But I get to spend my life with something I love, and when I watch the Olympics, I can tell which athletes get to experience joy and which don’t. Whether they are millionaire professionals or small-town amateurs who are just scraping by, the joy they feel representing their countries is contagious. I am proud to be an American, and even more so when I watch the Olympics. I can see that same pride in people from other countries as well. Win or lose, love of country is a beautiful thing. Because joy isn’t just about winning – it’s about serving a greater cause. God bless all of them.
Prayer – God, we come from all over the world but are made of the same stuff. And we thank You for our lives. Amen.
Today’s art is from Athens, Greece, circa 500 BCE and is in the Ashmolean Museum is the University of Oxford’s Museum of Art and Archaeology.