The games we play . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

I slept late this morning, which is a bad thing because for the past few weeks the only tolerable part of the Alabama day has been early in the morning.  I missed the early part of the morning. Hold on, let me check the weather . . .

Oh, it is still nice out, a good sign that things are changing.  So I'll take the laptop and do a remote post from the yard this morning, unless the dust that is now my yard starts getting into my computer.  Autumn is my favorite time of year, but I am afraid that by the time the leaves are supposed to be changing color they will have already died and fallen.  Maybe a hurricane will sling us some rain in the next few days.  It is supposed to happen.  A rainy Labor Day would be the best holiday we could get. Okay, I'm awake now. The coffee is poured and maybe I can think more clearly.  Sorry about the delay.

The University of Alabama plays football today. I am a fan.  I won't be going to T-town for the big Kent State rivalry, but it doesn't matter.  Having an Alabama game to listen to or watch as the normal Saturday stuff is getting done is just fun. And we will begin to see how the quarterback situation is going to unfold.

I love my Alabama football, and my Alabama basketball even more.  So by no means  take what I am about to write on a metaphorical level as a criticism of the joy some of us get from athletic contests.

We could learn a lot from athletic competition. Many of us have.  I think I learned as much from practicing and playing basketball for endless hours as I did in any classroom, not about the substance of knowledge, but about life.  In fact, some of the ancient athletic games were designed to teach competitors about strategies for battle.  And many of our favorite games still do, we just don't think about it much.

Football is the best example.  One team is attempting to advance across the opponent's territory, to reach the ultimate goal.  The advancing team explores and exploits the weaknesses of the other's defense, attempting head on assaults, moves around the flank, aerial advancements, and occasionally deception.

The defensive team does the same.  Sometimes playing it safe, playing it straight up, every man defending his turf, but other times becoming as aggressive as the offense, making unexpected moves, gambling on which decisions the offense will make in order to get there first and disrupt the plan.

It is a battle.  Face to face.  A battle for turf.  Each team trying to protect their own and take as much of the other as possible.

It can be a thing of beauty for some of us.  Seriously.  We all have our favorites. I have many, but in the recent past I will just remember  seeing former Alabama receiver Julio Jones rise above defenders and make a catch look easy that, had it been a lesser athlete, would have resulted in an easy interception for the defender.  Or, dare I say it being an Alabama fan, watching Auburn quarterback Cam Newton last year frustrate teams. He was really beyond description. But I am glad I got to see him, except for one particular half.

And in America our favorite games are based on that same basic principle.  Defend your turf. Invade and conquer  the opponent's.

But there are other athletic contests with a different principle.  The purest is track.  The runners line up and race to the goal, unimpeded by anything except their own limitations of physical strength, endurance, skill and will.  The external obstacles are not provided by the other human opponents, but by the natural forces of the world, gravity, friction, sometimes wind and weather, and the limitations of the human body.

And there is another radical difference in these other contests.  The performance of the opponent does nothing but inspire and force the other competitor to run faster.  The end result is that the effort of all of the competitors to achieve their personal best, pushes the winner to the best performance of all.

I enjoy it all, football, track and tiddly-winks.

But sometimes I wonder if our culture, our politics, our religions, could learn from attending a few more track meets along with our football.

Sometimes we suffer because everything becomes a turf war.

Sometimes it might be better if so much of our energy was not put into being an obstacle to our opponent, but rather to push our opponent to do his best by pushing ourselves to do our best.

But that only works if we are running toward the same goal.

And by the way.  Roll Tide.

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