We've started a series this Fall at Urban Grace in Tacoma called Inside and Out: The Sacredness of this Place. In this series we've been looking at the activities taking place in our space and how those things are sacred. We have also talked about how we are too live our lives outside of this place and create space for those same sacred activities in the "spaces" and "places" of our lives.
Some of the sacred activity we are and we will talk about include the sacredness of play and rest, of listening and learning, of eating, of creating, of healing, of worship and prayer, of taking rest, and much more.
This series has got me thinking about the spaces and in particular the concrete landscapes of my life this fall. Over the next several weeks as we do this series I am going to write about the sacred places of my life, the landscapes that my story plays out in.
The Football Field and Locker Room
Every fall you can find me spending hours at the Stadium Bowl where I coach football for Stadium High School. Perhaps I get a bit of a leg up on the sacredness of that particular place because "the bowl" itself is such a picturesque and beautiful setting; framed by the castle of the school itself, the quaint North End neighborhood, the Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier. There is no more unique or visually appealing setting for high school football in the country. In that bowl however, is a small dank locker room. It smells, I mean it smells really bad. It is a block house that cooks like an old stone stove, full of sweaty gear, bathroom smells, and 50 or so young men of various shapes and sizes, skin colors, backgrounds, and talent levels that are a part of what we call "a team".
Of course the irony of the place we play is that it is so grand and yet the the history of Stadium Football is less grand. There are a few glory years a long time ago but mostly Stadium Football has been mediocre at best and down right atrocious at it's worst, over the last 40 years or so. I am a part of a staff that is in our fifth year of trying to change the trajectory of that program at all levels but we are committed to doing so in a particular way.
Yes, we want to win and part of our work is creating a team that can compete consistently. We've taken a win-less program to much more consistently competitive over the last 5 years. During that time we've ended losing streaks of 20 some years to Wilson High School and 14 years to Lincoln High School. We've seen a steady growth in numbers and the kind of off season commitments that it takes to have a successful program. We've come a long way but we've also got a long way to go as it relates to success on the field that is measured by competitiveness and wins and loses. But, this is only a part of the work and a party of the story. Because winning and losing isn't the primary way we've chosen to define the impact of our work. It is really all about the boys.
At Stadium we are committed to doing things in a certain way. Our focus isn't just on winning football games. We believe that if you focus on the things you can control: preparation, effort, and attitude that generally the score board takes care of itself. Many things happen in a football game or in life that are out of our control. Our focus is on teaching kids the right way to prepare, the right way to compete, and to use football as a tool to teach them about how to respond to the adversity and successes of life. Life is full of wins and loses. Our life is affected by the things we do to sustain ourselves, the things we do to prepare, the ways we respond, and so forth. We live in a culture of fear and so many of the young men we coach wilt under that fear daily. They live with fears about their futures, they live under the low ceilings that others have put on them, they live in fear because of unstable and violent home lives, and the list can go on and on. We want to teach them to live and play without fear. We work to build a culture of love and trust that allows them to take risks, to challenge the status-quo, to expect and ask more from themselves then maybe they've been taught to do. We want them to risk big, sometimes fail big, but experience love and acceptance and the ability to persevere amidst the disappointment and failures.
As much as I love being outside in that bowl and on that field with my players on weekday afternoons or Friday nights, I think the most sacred place I gather with those young men is our locker room. As I mentioned earlier, our locker room is not a pretty or pleasant place, but it is a place that speaks of the hard realities of what we do together. That locker room reeks of the sweat and heat that represents the hard work. It smells of medicinal agents helping to nurse back the pain and injuries that come with our sport. In that locker room earnest and passionate prayers are prayed; silently and out loud. There are impassioned speeches and pleas. There are young mean looking each other in the eyes and in the eyes of their coaches. Their are hugs and tears at tough loses or season ending injuries for players who are seniors and will never get to play again. There is laughter and loud music, their is silence and intense focus. Their are more hugs, laughter, and tears of exuberance when we succeed in ways that surprise even ourselves.
That locker room is an ugly, smelly, hot, uncomfortable, and beautiful place. I miss it when the season is over. It is sacred because of the important work done with those young men, sacred because of the love we have for one another and the larger purposes that we as a coaching staff are committed too. It is sacred because I know very few places where young men look at each other in the eyes, with vulnerability, and sometimes tears - places where they dream big and risk and suffer huge disappointment. It is sacred because it is a safe place where they learn about life, on a small scale now, but later the stakes will be much higher. If they can learn to face fear with love, to overcome adversity, to fight with courage, kindness, class, and integrity now - well then we hope they will take those things with them into a life of faith filled adventure.
We aren't perfect teachers. We are still learning as we try to teach. So the players are also our teachers and the game is still shaping us and how we live. For that reason as well, it is all the more a sacred place to me.
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