The PFB Sports Survey: Jason Boyett
February 26, 2008 – 9:30 am | by bryanIf you're new here, and you're into sports and/or the Christian faith, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
The PFB Sports Survey is a new feature here at Prayers For Blowouts where we throw 12 sports related questions at some of the most notable voices among Christian authors, pastors, musicians, and glassblowers to see if they like sports as much as we do.
Today’s spotlight is on Jason Boyett, who couldn’t care less that Sammy Sosa hit home run #600 just for him.
Jason is the author of many books, including the Pocket Guides to the Bible, the Apocalypse, and Adulthood (among others). When he’s not guest posting here at PFB or on his personal blog, you might find Jason flyfishing, playing volleyball, or playing soccer.
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1. What number best describes the role sports play in your life on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “i have absolutely no interest at all” and 10 is “My friends refer to sports as ‘Baal’ because I have an unhealthy obsession bordering on idolatry”.
JB: 5. I am passionate about the Chicago Cubs and have been since I was a kid. I grew up during the Cubs dynasties of 1984 and 1989 — and by “dynasties” I mean “winning seasons that fell painfully short of anything resembling the World Series.” But outside of the Cubs and major league baseball, I’m not too interested in much else. I’ll watch the Super Bowl most years, but professional football doesn’t matter too much to me. Every once in awhile I’ll catch an NCAA football game. I like March Madness and World Cup soccer. But professional basketball? Meh. NASCAR? Nope. Tennis? Golf? Nah. I’m pretty much just a baseball guy.
I also am a pretty good city-league volleyball player. Well now…that was about the uncoolest sentence I’ve ever written.
2. Rank your 3 overall favorite sports.
JB: 1. Major League Baseball
2. NCAA basketball
3. International soccer
3. What is the one team that you root for more passionately than any other, and is there a team that you hate, maybe a little too much?
JB: Did you not read my answer to #1? As a corollary to that answer, I hate the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox. I also hate the Yankees, based on principle.
4. Do you play fantasy sports?
JB: Yes. Baseball only. One season I was in three leagues at once: a public Yahoo! roto league, a private Yahoo! head-to-head league, and a private 5×5 auction keeper league at CBS Sportsline. I’m competitive in the private leagues, and I’ve won the championship in every public Yahoo league I’ve been in. But that’s usually because all the other owners get bored with it and stop doing anything around the first of June. Suckers.
5. What is the most memorable sporting event you have ever attended in person?
JB: I saw Sammy Sosa’s 600th home run at the Ballpark at Arlington in the summer of 2007. Most people would probably identify that was the most memorable event. But the most memorable game for me was my first game at Wrigley Field. It was a day game — Cubs vs. the Braves — in 2002. Carlos Zambrano pitched. The Cubs lost. Of course.
6. What is the best highlight and/or worst lowlight of your sports playing career as a child or as an adult?
JB: I was the point guard for my 8th-grade basketball B-Team, but on one game day I was thrilled to discover that the A-Team point guard was sick. So I got the start against our archrivals, the Crockett Junior High Pioneers. By some bizarre alignment of celestial bodies, I ended up scoring the first 6 points of the game — one of them on no less than a steal followed by a breakaway layup — and I just knew I’d be promoted to a full-time position in the big leagues. But nope. That was my first and only starting game on the A-Team.
The lowlight of my sports career was in 7th grade. I ran the 110-meter hurdles, although it may be argued that what I was actually doing couldn’t technically be defined as “running.” I always finished last. Except in the last meet of the season, the guy in the lane next to me — his name was Chad — fell on the second hurdle out of the gate. I left that kid in my dust, knowing that this time I would finish in 5th place and HE would be the last-place loser. But that stupid Chad got up…and caught me at the last hurdle. He passed me and finished 5th. I finished last. To a guy who fell down.
7. If you could change one thing about sports, what would it be?
JB: I think the NCAA system and all the potential infractions related to it — money and favors and student-athlete scandals — is fundamentally flawed. For all the attention and goodwill and cash they bring in, the athletes ought to be somehow compensated (in addition to their scholarships) as employees of the university. How you do it is for much smarter people than me to figure out, but something needs to change. The potential payday of a lucrative professional contract is only available to a small percentage of NCAA athletes. For all the hard work they put in, the vast majority of athletes don’t get much else out of it, other than some good stories to tell when they’re recovering from their third knee replacement before they hit 40.
8. Do you have an opinion on Christian athletes who, without being prompted, talk about their faith in post-game interviews?
JB: Before I answer this question I want to give credit to my personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who gives me the strength to press a keyboard with my fingertips and the skill to arrange letters into meaningful words, phrases and sentences. Any interesting turns of phrase and/or meaningful insights that follow do not come from me, but from Him. It’s all God, man. It ain’t me.
(Unless I make a typo or something. That’s probably me.)
See? It’s just weird.
9. High school gym class…your favorite 45 minutes of the day or the source of countless nightmares and embarrassments?
JB: I played high school basketball — or more accurately, I sat on the bench for the high school basketball teams in 9th and 10th grades — which meant I didn’t have to go to gym class. Eventually, my high school coaches started suggesting that I’d make a really good equipment manager. Or scoreboard operator. Or stats keeper. So the countless nightmares and embarrassments? They stem from that, not from gym class.
10. Sports are often the whipping boy of pastors and clergy because so much passion, money, time, and energy is poured into them. Do you think this criticism is valid, or are sports okay as a diversion from the stresses of life.
JB: Yes, it is a valid criticism. Sports can be a good diversion, I think, whether you’re watching them on TV or playing them. (I’ve found fantasy baseball to be an ideal community- and relationship-building pursuit among guys.) BUT…I think it’s important to maintain balance, especially for sports enthusiasts with families. I know a lot of football widows whose husbands are absolutely unavailable for half the weekend every fall. I know kids who have been driven to tears because Dad yelled at them for interrupting the game, or because his team was losing, or because the kids were playing too loudly and he couldn’t hear the announcer. I know kids who have never spent a Saturday morning at home with Dad because he’s always out on the golf course. Those things make me sad, and if my love for Chicago baseball ever takes me to those places, I’ll drop it in a second.
Fortunately, I’m blessed with a wife who loves the Cubs as much as I do and who loves to go to Cubs games, so it works out pretty well for us both.
11. If you had to compete against other writers, in which of these 5 competitions would you have the best chance of winning? 5-mile run, 18 holes of golf, free throw shooting contest, arm wrestling match, or a game of bowling.
JB: A free-throw shooting contest. No doubt. I can’t dunk, run fast, jump high, box out, drain three-pointers or do much of anything else on the hardwood, but I’m a dead aim when it comes to free throws.
12. What is your favorite sports movie of all time?
JB: When it comes to revealing my favorite sports movie, I’m always tempted to say the volleyball scene in Top Gun, just to get rumors started. And you’d think, as a baseball guy, I’d say Field of Dreams or The Natural. But no. It’s Hoosiers. Always has been. Those pasty corn-fed boys in the huge intimidating coliseum? Gets me every time.
Unless you consider breakdancing a sport. If that qualifies — and it should — then it’s Breakin’ at the top of the list, followed (obviously) by Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Turbo. Ozone. Special K. Good times.
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You can click here for an exhaustive (but not exhausting) list of everyone who’s been featured as a PFB Sports Survey participant.
If you’d like to be considered for the PFB Sports Survey, or know someone who should be, send along a name and email address to prayersforblowouts(at)gmail(dot)com.
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