A Helping Hand

I attended my first Billings Senior High school football game on Friday night and I was struck by several things while watching.  Surprisingly, some were football related and some were life related and at the end I realized, maybe football is a metaphor for life itself.

Coach Chris Murdock and his staff are doing a great job with the team so far this year.  It's a whole new situation for both he and the players and they all seem to be handling it very well.  The team is now 2-1 on the year and in both wins they have been convincingly strong. The game was exciting with the score being close at times and with some really big plays from both the offense and defense.  I can't wait for the next home game!

While watching the game I noticed that many of the players play both sides of the ball, offense and defense.  They are used in a multitude of ways and on a wide variety of plays.  There's a lot being thrown at them in those short minutes of the game and they have to be able to multi-task without error if they want to win the game.  Such is life as well.  So much is going on every minute of the day.  People are asked to do many things at one time and they are expected to do so without error with more and more being added to the plate at any given moment.  Football teaches both the players and the watchers that multi-tasking is just an expected part of life.

As I watched more of the game, I also noticed that sometimes a great play or player can go virtually unnoticed but it makes a big difference in the outcome.  As in life, sometimes in the background someone can do something or create something that makes a huge difference in how things work but it can go unnoticed by those it affects.  Does it make it any less worthy?  Of course not.  This teaches both the watchers and the players that sometimes you may not get credit for doing something good or right but it doesn't mean you shouldn't keep on doing it.  Doing what's right or good is never wrong even if no one sees or you never get that pat on the back.

The last thing and possibly the most important was a helping hand.  Football is a rough game.  You are going to take a lot of hard knocks.  More than once, however, I saw the player who did the tackling extend a hand to help up the one he had knocked down.  More than once, I saw the player who did the knocking pat the knocked down on the back as if to say, good job.  So it is in life.  It is a rough go every day, for some much more than others.  Constantly getting knocked down.  How wonderful is it when someone extends a helping hand? Just that little bit of helping you back up as if to say okay so you got knocked down, here I will help you get back up and this time I know you will not get knocked down again by the same thing.  What if everyone had a helping hand every day?  How much more successful would we all be as a result?

Football is like life in so many ways.  It teaches both the watchers and the players that things get difficult sometimes, that you get knocked down, that you may have to fight harder to win and that sometimes you lose, but in the end there's a helping hand to pick you up and help you start again.  I can't wait for the next game!