Rock Chalk J-Hawk!

This was published on September 11, 2006

This last weekend I went to Lawrence, KS. Home of the J-Hawks. My house hold brother John-Mark lives there and teaches at the St. Lawerence Center (Catholic Campus Center). It was a good trip. I didn't have the chance to go to his wedding this summer so I wanted to make a trip to see him and his wife Jess. It was a nice realxing time, exactly what I needed after a long week of teaching.
I also got to see several old students who attend KU now. I had the pleasure of taking Nathan Jones and John Ellison to lunch. It was good to see them. Their dorm room is huge and nicer than my apartment, got to say I'm a little jealous. But as John Mark put it, "Welcome to a State School, you get everything but an education." HAHAHA.
This past week-end I got to see quite an interesting phenomenon, college sports mania! I went to a tailgate before the KU game. It was really amazing to see the atmosphere on campus on Saturday. It was pretty invigorating but at the same time disturbing. I think myself and John Mark where the only two in a 10 mile radius that were not wearing blue KU shirts. Peoples lives literally seemed to stop and revolve around this football game.
Thinking about it this is really no different than Friday nights in Wichita, KS during Carroll Football. Or Sunday afternoons everywhere in the country when your favorite NFL team plays. It's like all of a sudden a nation of people that during the rest of the year fails to find their purpose all of a sudden has a reason to live during Football season. It's quite sad actually.
Don't get me wrong I myself LOVE football season. I'm in a fantasy league, I participate in a football picks competition with the teachers at school and I religiously attend Bishop Carroll Football games. However, this is not what I live for. Can you imagine what our world would be like if our country got as excited about Mass and the Eucharist as they did about football? If football was actually placed in the category of leisure and not in the category of religion for some people, this world might actually be much better place to live. I find it absurd that attendance at mass and other church activities actually goes down during football season. Come on folks lets get our priorities straight.
Let's remember what we live for. Our Creator and Our Faith, not football. Enjoy sports, use them to add to your life and make it more entertaining, but don't make them your life.
On a side note, today let us not forget to remember in our prayers the victims of 9/11, their families, and all our troops who are fighiting to protect our freedom and stop terrorism.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, And may perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in Peace. Amen