One time, when my wife was six months pregnant, a Boston cab driver hit her Camry. They both got out of their cars and started to look at the damage. Suddenly the cab driver sprinted back to his car, pulled a tire squealing u-turn and sped away. My very pregnant wife jumped into her car and chased after him. (In my head, I like to pretend that she slid across the hood like the Dukes of Hazzard.)
When she told me that story, my first thought was, “Wow, my wife is awesome. What a mortal struggle between good and evil.” That’s a bit of a stretch perhaps, but it’s a stretch that I have had lots of practice with as a Christian sports fan.
One of our favorite things to do is to find an athlete that is a Christian and then root for them as hard as we can. To see their touchdowns and home runs not as feats of athletic achievement but as indicators of a good and holy God. One of the people we did this with was boxer Evander Holyfield.
This was incredibly evident when he fought Mike Tyson. At the time, Tyson was kind of like the stereotypical bad guy from movies. He wore all black, said insane things like “I want to eat his children” and had spent some time in jail for rape. And when he fought against Evander, it was so easy to view the fight as good vs. evil. Here was Evander, boxing’s version of Kurt Warner, standing up for all that was Christian and Godly. Here he was like David, swinging fists instead of stones, fighting Tyson instead of Goliath. That Tyson ultimately bit his ear only increased our belief that this was not a boxing match, it was a pugilistic pursuit of purity. (Got a little “pastor” on you right there with that last sentence, didn’t I?)
But then it came out that Evander had 5 kids out of wedlock with 4 different women.
And that he had been healed by a televangelist that received an alleged $265,000 “donation” for the healing.
And that he has been linked to alleged usage of performance enhancing drugs. (By the way, it’s a good rule in life to not have the word “alleged” used to describe things you do.)
And that his house is 54,000 square feet with 104 rooms and a bowling alley. (God wants our houses under 52,000 feet. Look it up, I think that’s in the Old Testament.)
And that he has failed to pay child support for one of his 9 kids.
And that this week, that massive house is under foreclosure.
Evander, what happened to you? Or maybe the question is what happened to me? Why did I ever think you were anything other than human? Anything other than fallible? Why did I think God cared about boxing matches and football games? I blew it too, Evander, I blew it too.
My general policy is that I don’t make fun of boxers and mixed martial arts fighters. But when I read that you had made upwards of $100 million in your career and had failed to pay $6,000 in child support, I had to say that’s bogus. And although you can liquefy most of my internal organs with your punches, I ask that you remember what a famous poet once said, “please hammer, don’t hurt em’.”
