Priest on Sports: Three Ways Texas’ Moving to the SEC Violate Jesus’ Teaching
I graduated from the University of Texas in 1990. Texas athletics was a huge part of my time there — I met my wife in the Longhorn Band and asked her to marry me after a Longhorn Baseball regional tournament win our senior year. As many of my Longhorn sisters and brothers were high fiving after the announcement that Texas was moving from the Big XII to the SEC, my heart sank. I think the whole thing stinks.
It’s caused me to reflect on Jesus’ teaching on friendship, money and life. Texas’ move violates these teachings and demonstates a way of going about in the world that is wrong. Here are three lessons we can take from this:
First, friends are more important than money. I was at UT back in the days of the Southwest Conference. There were eight teams in the SWC — seven from Texas and Arkansas. Looking back, the SWC was one of the ways Texas held together and maintained an identity as a state. It was a major way Houston, DFW, Central Texas, East Texas and West Texas connected. Since it’s been gone, we’ve lost some of that connection.
Jesus taught us to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Texas’ move, motivated by television money and protecting the brand, tells our neighbors in Lubbock, Ft. Worth and Waco that our relationship is just not worth what ESPN has to offer. Texas is nothing but consistent in this: choosing Longhorn Network money over stabilizing their relationship to Texas A&M. The braggart on Twitter might insist that A&M and the remaining Big XII schools have no right to be angry. Of course they should be angry!
President Hartzell and AD Del Conte could plate DKR Memorial Stadium in Austin with gold and it still wouldn’t be worth it. Before, it was the loss of the A&M game. Now, we lose all the others. I don’t want to talk to my friends about the Texas/Mississippi State game: I want to talk with my friends who are Bears, Red Raiders and Horned Frogs about Texas’ games with them. UT would have us believe that the SEC and TV money are more important than this, and they would be wrong. Money is not now, nor will it ever be, more important than friends.
Second, don’t be afraid. Fear is at the heart of Texas’ decision. Fear that the college football landscape might change without them, fear that another university might be making $25 more, and fear that Texas might not look as good to recruits, alumni, and themselves. Not all fear is bad, of course. If you see a bear (s/o Baylor) and are afraid, that’s called survival!
Behind the fear motivating Texas’ leadership and trustees is a lack of trust. Nothing about the college athletic landscape deserves trust, and no university in America has contributed to that more than Texas. Still, it is a good thing for us to reflect upon and then reject. Jesus said, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Texas’ answer, clearly, is no. Life is not about more than food and the body is not worth more than clothing. I have to get mine before you get yours! Jesus goes on to say that when we seek the kingdom and his righteousness, we’ll be more than taken care of. (See Matthew 6:25–34)
This is crazy talk, I know. But imagine college athletics reset back to 1990 and the old SWC. There would be less money, but it sure would be more fun. Longhorn Band could take the bus to away games. Student atheletes could travel less and study more. Texas would play Rice. Houston would play A&M. Baylor would play SMU. Making decisions in life based on fear may indeed help you end up with more, but, as Jesus suggests, more just might end up being less. Jesus put it this way, “what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” (See Mark 8:35–37)
Finally, sometimes you have to lose to win. I’ve been bored to tears by the bickering between fans over this. “Texas can’t win the conference they are in! Why do they want to join the SEC?!” I suppose UT’s president and athletic director mean it when they say they are committed to having winning athletic programs — they won the Learfield Director’s cup for the best all around program in the nation for 2021 after all.
However, moving to the SEC has nothing at all to do with wins and losses in athletics. It’s about money, prestige, and staying at the head of the line. Texas will steam ahead, leaving behind TCU, Baylor and Texas Tech, just as we did SMU, Rice and Houston, and just as we did, it could be argued, Texas A&M. It’s the idea that I need to stay ahead of you that so violates the teachings of Jesus. It is no way to live and it is a wretched thing to teach our next generation of leaders.
Jesus’ disciples must have sounded like college football fans when they argued among themselves about who was the greatest. Jesus looked at them like he looks at us and says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (See Mark 9:33–37) Could a statement be more antithetical to sports? First means first, not last! But that is volleyball, not life.
Spending your life trying to “win” makes everyone around you lose. Enough will never be enough and contentment becomes an impossibility. The abundant life Jesus wants for us (see John 10:9–11) doesn’t come from TV money, it comes from a life well-lived, in service one to another.
After another stadium piano bar is installed and another locker room makeover is done, we will be the losers. It will still take a $2000 donation to the Longhorn Foundation to get good season tickets. Soon enough, my Texas Tech alumni buddies and I will debrief Tech’s game against West Virginia and Texas’ epic battle with Vanderbilt. Again, I think the whole thing stinks.
I’m sure the decision makers will defend this decision and object to the idea that they are teaching us that money is more important than friends, that if it means stepping on a few necks to secure your place in the future, do it, and that life is just about winning. But if that isn’t what you are teaching, what are you teaching? When do we teach the other stuff? Like service, sacrifice, loyalty, and, by gosh by golly, love of the great state of Texas? When and how does that get taught? On the plane to Gainesville, Florida?
Unstoppable, I pray that Texas’ going to the SEC will give us a moment to reflect on our lives. I hope it will inspire us to invest in our relationships with our friends and family. I hope it will open our eyes to see those around us with less, so that we can help them and then have the humility to let them help us. I hope it will put into focus another kingdom, not of this world, where the first will be last and the last will be first.
