Sports Taught me How to Sew

Sometimes Kathy asks me how I can fit so much sports knowledge into my mind.  The thing that she doesn't understand is that, for me, it takes no effort at all.  Statistics, team names, jersey numbers, past champions, batting orders of Double A baseball teams, are flies and my mind is fly paper.  I, like many Americans, watch soccer for a month once every four years.  This, however, does not keep me from being fairly conversant when it comes to the World Cup.  I have a decent knowledge of the rules, who's good, who's bad, how the game should be played etc.  This quality (if you can call it that) is mostly innate.

Part of what is implied in Kathy's question, is what I would be capable of if 80% of my brain was not devoted to sports.  Could I be be a more well-rounded person?  I think the answer is yes and no.  Yes, because this innate skill probably leads me to watch, read about, and ponder sports even more when I could be studying more useful, meaningful things.  But the answer is also no because this knowledge exists in the same part of my brain as phone numbers, song lyrics, and old locker combinations.  Let's just say that the world is probably not missing any cures to rare diseases because I can name the jersey number of most NBA basketball players from 1990-2010.  In fact, I might even argue that there are things about following sports so closely that make me a more well-rounded person.  (I may make this into a list at some point, but the following is just one example.)

For the past week, or so,  I have been enjoying the World Cup.  I love watching the World Cup: the cultures, the colors, the games, the passion.  This one is of particular importance to me as it is being held South Africa.  In 2003, I traveled to South Africa as a college student.  I fell in love with the country: its diversity of people and geography.  It was an experience that has had a profound influence on my life and faith.  I was exposed to despair and hope, injustice and reconciliation.  I became aware of similar injustices in my own country.  I became aware of a world that was not shaped only by my worldview and what was best for me.  I became aware of God in new and more significant ways.

This World Cup has made me reflect on some of those experiences.  It has also made extremely excited to root for South Africa, as a soccer team, but perhaps more importantly as a host nation.  As the build up to the Cup began, I grew tired of hearing about the crime and poor infrastructure.  Yes, South Africa has its struggles, but these do not define the nation, and what nation does not have its struggles?  The suggestion was that this was not a suitable nation to host such a monumental event.  It was as though South Africa (and possibly Africa as a whole) was not ready to be taken seriously on an international level.  For this reason, I have rooted hard for South Africa as host.  And this led me to my dresser drawer.

When I was in South Africa, I bought a patch of their flag.  For seven years, that patch sat in a drawer, partly because I didn't know what to put it on, but primarily because I don't know how to sew, and I haven't been ambitious enough to learn.  Kathy is an accomplished sewer (having spent years in 4-H, she epitomizes the well-rounded human being, who cannot only sew her own clothes, but also show pigs), but Kathy was not home.  So I went to the drawer, pulled out the patch and a seed corn hat and taught myself how to sew.  And that is (among other things) how sports has made me a more well-rounded person.  The World Cup taught me how to sew.

Here is the finished product: