this saturday, i attended my first Timoteo flag football game as a spectator…
just a little prelude to this rather exciting story is that a month or so ago i hung out with a new friend of mine, Buddy, who is one of the organisers of Timoteo and we went to go have coffee so we could get to know each other a little better. it just happened that he brought one of his players along, a young guy called Bam [i kid you not! what a cool name!] and i got to hear a little bit of his story and how he has been in the league for about four years now i think and some of the story of his transformation as a person from how he used to be until now. amazing story. altho i had never really met Bam before, so until Saturday it was just pretty much a cool story linked to a guy who seemed like a really cool dude.
then Saturday, tbV and myself and a new friend of ours, Jason, arrived a little bit early to watch the 5pm game that Buddy’s team was going to be playing [which they completely dominated!] and caught the last few moments of Bam’s game…
basically as i started watching the game there was this huge pass made and Bam had positioned himself well to jump and make the catch and then he got TAKEN OUT midair in a way which made his name seem prophetic – THE BAM HEARD AROUND THE WORLD… big moment, lots of action, but then i suddenly noticed that he hadn’t gotten up yet and quickly a crowd gathered around him – completely out. It really had sounded like a bad hit.
and it was. he was concussed and even now, a few days later is still feeling the effects of it, but i have no doubt he will be back on the field on Saturday if at all possible [cos he told me just that!]
but what was exciting for me was watching him on Saturday. firstly, they didn’t get given the goal [and i don’t know the rules enough to know if it was the right call or not cos have heard a bunch of different opinions from different people] but then his team scored a few moments later and got the lead and with seconds left on the clock, had an opportunity to score one extra point. long story short, his team messed it up completely and the opposition got an intercept and ran the length of the field and scored, winning the game by one solitary point [apparently all Bam’s team needed to do was kick it out or hold on to it and play down the clock].
took a big hit, wasn’t awarded the goal, watched his team lose a game they should have won… and then the two teams huddle in the middle [the other team had understandably been overly amped with their celebrations, going off] for post team talk and prayer, and one of the first guys i see in the huddle is Bam, calling the players together, in such good spirits, displaying incredible sportsmanship. it was unreal, especially because at least one if not more of his teammates refused to become part of the huddle because they were so annoyed with the way it had ended and were disputing ref calls and so on.
i took Bam aside and congratulated him personally on his attitude and he said something to me about the change that had happened in him and now that he was one of the older guys he needed to display that for the younger guys. i was just so incredibly impressed. and figured a little blog post is the least i can do to honour a young man who showed heart, character and integrity in a situation where many others would have given in to emotion and lost their cool.
he definitely kept his cool. a true sportsman is one who performs well on and off the field. i will make a time to catch a full game and see Bam do his thing on the field, but i have already witnessed a true sportsman off it.
the simple weigh 