Category: Sports

How (Not) to Watch the Beautiful Game

Growing up Monday mornings were either a delight or a dread depending on which football — what a minority of the world calls soccer — team you supported. If your team had lost over the weekend, you were in for...

/ November 23, 2022

Saturday Night Lights

This piece was originally published in 2015 with Fare Forward. I’m republishing it here ahead of Saturday’s kick off and because it is no longer online elsewhere. Any Nebraskan can describe the scene to you: It’s a fall Saturday in Lincoln,...

/ August 23, 2022

On Loving Newcastle

Michael Chaplin. Newcastle United Stole My Heart: Sixty Years in Black and White. London: Hurst and Co, 2021. 280pp, $25.00. The first thing to say is that Michael Chaplin’s Newcastle United Stole My Heart is one of the most delightfully...

/ May 18, 2022

The Unexpected Virtue of Arbitrary Sports Allegiances

I live in a baseball town. I know this because in the fall of 2011, I found myself in a divey pizza joint with a bunch of other transplants from other parts of the country watching one of the most...

/ December 3, 2019

Effectively Work for Justice Without Leaving Your Couch on a Sunday Afternoon in Six Steps

I’m pleased and amused to publish this brief guest post from Colin Redemer. Don’t watch the racist, patriarchal, and evil NFL. Browse Twitter to pass the time. Oh, @realDonaldTrump said what?! Turn on the NFL and watch to show support...

/ September 30, 2017

On Blood Sport and the Image of God

I’m pleased to publish this guest essay from Brad Williams.

/ September 25, 2017

The Liturgies of Soccer

In the summer of 2013 a Bosnian man named Vahid Cehaja went on a long walk—a 600 mile walk, to be exact. He walked from his home in the town of Bugojno to the Allianz Arena, home to German soccer...

/ January 12, 2017
zlatan-ibrahimovic-enchantment

What Zlatan Ibrahimovic Taught Me About Enchantment

It’s a commonplace amongst a certain type of trad conservative to talk about the need to “re-enchant” our understanding of the world. What they usually mean by this is some version of an argument, influenced deeply by Charles Taylor, that...

/ April 28, 2015

The Bobby Petrino Dilemma and our Idolatry of College Football

The demise of Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino that began in the beginning of April has unfortunately become emblematic of BCS college football in the 21st century.  For those who don’t click through, Petrino lied to police and university officials...

/ April 25, 2012

World Series Champs: Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox have won the World Series. That’s not the real story, though.  The real story is that I was 4-7 in my playoff predictions this year (I actually got caught up in politics and missed making a prediction...

/ October 28, 2007