Kairos & Ambiguities

An Unexpected Battle: Kentucky vs VMI

Just happened to be catching up on my old school when I ran into some unexpected news.  I must admit that I expected, as the sports writers did, for the battle to end quickly too.  But as the old VMI fight song says, "Never say die."  What a great birthday present.

The final report was historic (since at the time I was at VMI they didn't win a game my sophomore and junior year), with the final score VMI 111 Kentucky 103.  Just some notes from the game.

• Most points given up by Kentucky since the 121-110 loss to North Carolina on Dec. 27, 1989, Rick Pitino’s first season.

• The 111 points given up at Rupp Arena was the most since Louisiana-Lafayette beat UK 116-113 in overtime on Dec. 23, 1989.

• The last time UK allowed 100 points was Feb. 10, 1993 when Arkansas scored 101 on the Cats in Fayetteville.

• The last time UK scored 100 points and lost was 104-103 overtime loss to Duke on March 28, 1992. That was sort of a famous game.

• Jodie Meeks’ 39 points was a career high. His previous career high was 21.

• It was UK’s first season-opening loss since a 64-52 loss to Western Kentucky on Nov. 15, 2001.

• VMI coach Duggar Baucom: “Right before we came out, we wrote on the board, ‘Do What We Do,’ and ‘Play Our Game.’ We had to do that regardless, and we wanted to go down fighting. All of the kids did that and we were very composed throughout the game. We aren’t the best defensive team in the country, but we can score. I’m very proud of the team and we played the way we wanted.”

• VMI’s points per possession averaged out to 1.211

That is actually good advise for the church....Do What We Do....Play Our Game....Miracles will happen.

Until next time...Grace & Peace

Chapters and Football

Saturday we put a lot of miles on the van, but it was a great day!  We first took off for Bellefonte for Robert's last midget football game.  Robert again had a great game and got 8 tackles in the first half (which is great for the defensive line).  The game had to be called early in the second half due to two bad injuries.  One player broke their femur (from Bellefonte) and it took about 45 minutes to get an ambulance to him and the second player broke his arm (from Oklahoma).  We are keeping them in prayer.  It was kind of a sad note to end the season.

We then drove back to DuBois to drop off some of the football players from Robert's team and then headed south to Indiana.  Polly and the DuBois High School Band were taking the field for the Chapter Band Competition.  The came in 1st place and will be heading to the ACC Championships for the first time in many years on November 15-16.  The band has worked really hard this year and I think that they have achieved the highest score in school history for the competition this year.  I like to kid Laura and Sara and tell them all it took was to get Polly in the Band for them to finially make it to ACCs.

Hope your weekend was as eventful as well.

Until next time...Grace & Peace.

Zilhammer

Robert had his first midget football game on Sunday.  They played State College Green.  It was an excellent game that was close, although State College won 7-0.  There were several factors that played into the loss, but all in all I was really happy with how the team played.

Robert had one of the best games ever.  He had multiple sacks and many tackles for loss and they did not run play to his side of the ball for a full quarter. 

After the game I found out that the coaches had given Robert a new nick name.  They had called him "Zil" in the past, but know they are calling him Zilhammer. 

Next week he is excited about traveling to Bellefonte.

Until next time...Grace & Peace

Summer Journey: Interlude

I wanted to take and break and share maybe some more interesting news of the summer.  My 25th reunion is coming up from Virginia Military Institute so we have been catching up over the summer on each other's lives.  One of my brother rat's (class mate) son, David Neville got a bronze at the Olympic Games it was great to cheer him on.

David dove across the finish line and put it all out on the track.  I was very happy for his family and the country.  What I enjoyed most is that he gave glory to God for strength in victory and as he serves in youth ministry will have many stories to tell to attract young people to the light of the gospel.  This has certainly been one of the highlights of the Olympic experience for me this time around.

Here is a link to the race and interviews:  click here for race.

I hope that your Olympic experience has been enjoyable as well.

Until next time...Grace & Peace