The PFB Sports Survey: Larry Shallenberger
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The PFB Sports Survey is a brand 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 bowling pin jugglers to see if they like sports as much as we do.
Today’s spotlight is on Larry Shallenberger, who as you’ll soon learn, is capable of kicking the living crap out of you if you don’t like how he answered these questions.
Larry is an author of multiple books and the pastor of children and student ministries at Grace Church in Erie, PA. You can learn more about his writing and ministry at www.larryshallenberger.com.
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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”.
LS: 8. I’m a die-hard Philadelphia Eagles’ fan. I used to just obsess about the Birds in the Fall. But the NFL has brilliantly extended the season to all year. The NFL Draft is an event. Free Agency. Mini-camps. Camps. There’s a reason to be checking on your team all year round.
2. Rank your 3 overall favorite sports.
LS: 1) The NFL: It’s the perfect made for TV, made for Internet event.
2) Martial Arts: I’ve got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. After a four year long break, I’m working out and throwing kicks again. This time with a guy who’s got a MMA background. He’s teaching me grappling and submissions. It’s a blast.
3) The NBA: But I don’t start paying attention until the finals. When I was in college my room mate was the school’s center. Jon had me watching the Bulls and this young upstart Michael Jordan. I still tune in, but not until the finals. The season is just too long.
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?
LS: That’s easy. I bleed midnight green. I’m a die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fan. The teams I hate a little too much? I think everyone outside of Boston hates the Patriots. They cheat, they have great players, a WR core normally only found in fantasy football, they’ve got “The Hoodie.” Their fans, until the Super Bowl, had a level of smugness that would make Rush Limbaugh blush. What’s there not to hate?
4. Do you play fantasy sports? If no, why not? If yes, what is the most # of teams you’ve ever had for one season and have you ever won a Championship?
LS: I play fantasy football. The most teams I’ve ever carried at once is two. I’ve been in a keeper league for about five years, and last year I played in the Burnside Writers Collective League. I’ve never won a championship, no. Last year I used Carson Palmer to anchor both my teams. And he was simply ordinary last year.
5. What is the most memorable sporting event you have ever attended in person?
LS: I was at Lincoln Financial Field two years ago for Monday Night Football and watched backup quarterback, Jeff Garcia, spark the Eagles past the Panthers. That was the beginning of the Eagles’ amazing run that lifted them above .500 and got them deep into the playoffs. It was so cold at that game. The beer guy couldn’t pay anyone to drink his brew.
6. What is the best highlight and/or worst lowlight of your sports playing career as a child or as an adult?
LS: I am giant slow-twitch muscle. I ran cross-country for a few years in high school in an attempt to fit in socially. I had one embarrassingly slow time that I turned in at every race. So there was no highlight or lowlight tapes for me. Well, other than getting away with playing tag with the school’s fire extinguishers.
7. If you could change one thing about sports, what would it be?
LS: I’m writing Senator Specter concerning the BWC fantasy football league in which I participated. I suspect that Commissioner Jordan Green abused his website privileges to spy on my team. It’s obvious to me that he cheated. How else could a peace-n-love, grape nuts, bohemian writer like Mr. Green outplay me? Fantasy Football has grown to such a multi-million dollar sport that the slighted whisper of corruption could take the whole industry down. So how couldn’t the good Senator from Pennsylvania not listen to my plea for justice?
8. Do you have an opinion on Christian athletes who, without being prompted, talk about their faith in post-game interviews?
LS: I’m okay with this, I think. If a conversation is to have any basis in reality then it must, with enough time given, turn to God, at least for a moment. So that doesn’t bug me. I get turned off when an athlete talks about God as if he were their team’s “twelfth-man.” I’m sure that sport and how people relate to sport matters to God on some level. But so often athletes refers to God as if he were just another competitive edge, like HGH or Belicheck’s cam-corder. That bothers me, but then I remember that that same attitude about God is not uncommon in our pulpits. We pastors like to offer God to parishioners like he’s a family and marriage enhancing steroid.
I was fascinated that Plaxico Burress thanked God in his post Super Bowl interview. He’s an athlete who had been cited for public drunkenness while in Pittsburgh and who had gotten on the wrong side of the IRS. Until this year, his commitment to team and hard-work was questioned. Like Charles Barkley, Plax is “not a role model and not paid to be a role model.”
But here he was, giving thanks to God, and most likely not out of an obligation to an endorsement contract. I was reminded that God’s path intersects with the lives of all sorts of people.
9. High school gym class…your favorite 45 minutes of the day or the source of countless nightmares and embarrassments?
LS: Somewhere in between. Although I did have a front tooth killed when I got hit by a hockey stick in mouth.
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.
LS: The difference between diversion and idolatry is a matter of degree, I think. Sport can be a healthy diversion that helps us get our mind off work. Or sport can emerge into a metaphor for the things that truly matter. I deepened my understanding of discipleship and mentoring when I trained at the tae kwon do school. On the flip side, I’ve been guilty of obsessing about the Eagles to an unhealthy level. Sport, like anything else is a gift. It’s a matter of how we use that gift.
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.
LS: It would have to be the foot race. Doesn’t John Maxwell have an Irrefutable Law about the inverse relationship between an individual’s bowling score and their success at life?
12. What is your favorite sports movie of all time?
LS: Although Brian’s Song made me shed a few large, very masculine tears, I need to go with “We Are Marshall” for the leadership lessons.
If you’ve got any follow-up questions for Larry, or you want to challenge him to a fight, use the comments below.
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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.
