Murdocks And Sons: General Conference: "You will often hear people talking about how they play for God or implying that God wanted their team to win or something along those lines and Elder Eyring played off of that in his talk. He said that in 20 years you won't remember the score of a Teacher's quorum game but if you include someone who wouldn't otherwise have been they will remember that and you will all remember whose team it was."
I wrote a comment but it didn't take so I will post it here.
And no one will care about this but me, but one of the reasons I took a vacation from church when I was a teenager was because of church basketball. Back in my day a good youth team could make it to all church playoffs. Basketball was taken very seriously, so me and my less athletic friends would spend the evening watching Star Trek.
I still think that Eyring missed the point. Not every kid aspires to play on the teacher's quorum basketball team, whether or not they play well. For a lot of men of my aquaintance, that was the first clue that they did not fit and there was no place in the church for them. Apparently to make it to the celestial kingdom one needs to have a love and talent for basketball. Otherwise, why would all of the chapels come equiped with basketball courts.
Feel free to delete this comment if you like James.
That's sad. I guess I'm lucky that the same pressure wasn't put on girls to play sports at church because I like you would not have enjoyed it. That said, I know that sports were huge in helping James feel friendship and belonging both in church and in school. It's hard, but I agree with you-- I think there needs to be a balance so that everyone can feel like what they have to offer is worthwhile.
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