Thoughts on Athletics & Men from a College Athletic Director...

-->Here are the words I shared as I spoke in chapel this week...

As the athletic director at CU and as a male leader on our campus I feel compelled to say something today as we engage our culture:

Athletics

We need different kinds of athletes and a different culture in our sports world.  Way too often athletics in our culture leads to a sense of entitlement and arrogance that produces behaviors resulting in intimidation, abuse, rape and sexual assault, and significant injustices toward others, often including women. Sports is a powerful cultural icon, and is a massive force for either good or evil based on how character is developed and how athletes are taught and led and held accountable. It can be used to provide tens of thousands of desperately needed life-saving bed nets while equipping its participants for a lifetime of others centered leadership and service. And it can create cultures where unspeakable acts of violence and personal life devastation can be acceptable and encouraged. Winning does not ever make all things acceptable and the Gospel calls us to play and compete and grow in ways that produce the fruit of true righteousness in those who watch, those who play, those who coach, those who administrate, and our very sports-crazed world...

Men

We need different and we need better men. We don’t need men who are just workout warriors in the weight room or geniuses beating the stock market or remarkable video game savants. We need men who view and treat women as our God who created them in His image sees them. Men who believe the women connected to them and who work alongside them have incredible gifts and tremendous leadership capacities that must be valued and leveraged and released and sought out. We need a generation of men who stand up and both grieve and support #metoo and gladly add their voice and behaviors in demonstrations against sexual harassment and assault while modeling lives of purity and authentic biblical love for and toward all women in our lives. It’s the right thing to do and we must do it with great humility and sorrow at the ways so many in both our culture and our churches have failed to do so. This is a moment for us to help create a different, a better future for women and girls in our lives and our world as men who know Jesus and seek justice and hope for all today...