Change is inevitable, conflict doesn't have to be

(My column from the April 24, 2013 Anderson News)

When you’ve been writing sports 28 years, the names and the games often run together and the details blur or fade away.

But you distinctly remember the big game-winners.

You don’t forget Miranda Drury's line drive between shortstop and third base to end a 14-inning regional tournament thriller, Seth Carmichael connecting with Matt Sprague to beat Conner or C.J. Penny's 3-pointer to beat Shelby County.

And I remember the night Tracy Wells showed up late for a girls' basketball game.

“I can't believe you remember that,” Wells, now Tracy Price, said in an e-mail from her home in Morehead City, N.C., this week.

How could I forget? I don't remember all the details but was working a game at Boyle County High School, wondering where one of the starters for a very good Anderson County team was. About halftime, Wells walked in with her parents, went directly to the locker room, changed clothes and played the second half.

It was a Wednesday night and Tracy had been to church first. This Bible college graduate sat in a simultaneous awe and shame that a teenage girl was living a life lesson.

Playing on a church night “didn’t happen as commonly as it does now,” wrote Price, who is married to a Church of Christ minister. “It was just an assumed fact in our family that we would go to church but my parents were always willing to try to accommodate both if possible. So we went to church in Danville that night and as soon as it was over went on to the game.”

Twenty-five years later, I still say, “Wow!”

It's pertinent today with the decision by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association last week to move the state championship basketball games to Sunday beginning with the 2014 season. As nearly anyone who follows sports in Kentucky knows, the boys' championship game was played in Rupp Arena on Sunday afternoon, March 10, this year after the Kentucky Wildcats' game with Florida was scheduled for noon on March 9.

With UK getting priority, the traditional format of Saturday morning semi-finals followed by the championship game on Saturday night was impossible.

UK beat Florida at noon, the high school semis were played that night and on Sunday afternoon, over 17,000 saw Madison Central's dramatic win over Ballard.

The girls' tournament, held at Western Kentucky University, kept the old format but will be changing to the new setup next year as well.

For years, I have felt the semi-finals and finals should be played on different days. That will now happen with the new format and that’s good.

But is it really good to tread where this will inevitably lead?

There are some religious concerns, but to its credit, the KHSAA apparently took those in consideration, scheduling the boys' final late enough (2 p.m.) that anyone wanting to attend Sunday church services could do so before the game.

However, you have to wonder if that will be changed in the future.

The change is not setting a precedent. Over the last 10 or 15 years, Sunday games have been creeping onto high school schedules, like it or not. Three years ago, the Anderson girls played in a showcase at Rupp Arena on a Sunday afternoon. While I attended church that morning, it just felt strange to be covering a high school game later that day.

Some might say it is hypocritical to watch games or attend college or pro sports events on Sunday, which I have done. However, that is a different animal. It is about a choice made, not something scheduled and forced upon the one participating.

Bill Pickett was Tracy Price's high school coach at Anderson County. After 15 years on the sidelines, he left to become principal of East Jessamine Middle School, from which he retired. He still lives in Lawrenceburg and remembers that night one of his starters was not there. Some of the details are fuzzy but the fact that he respected his player's decision is vivid.

“It was a decision between the parents and the kid,” Pickett said. “I would think that their spiritual well-being would take precedence.”

Price says Pickett even joked about it the situation. “It seems like he made some comment about being afraid God would make him run if he made me run,” she wrote.

Today, though, things are different. Athletic events have long been a fixture on Wednesday. Youth sports have long used Sundays as game day with “traveling teams” often playing all day long. Sunday is just another day to many.

At the same time, the Wednesday night “prayer meeting” is becoming a relic of the past and church attendance is declining.

“When I was principal (at Shelby County High School), it was on the books there would be no Wednesday night or Sunday activities without the board approval,” Sam Chandler remembered last week.

Mr. Chandler served at Shelby from 1975-1988 and was a member of the KHSAA Board of Control four years. He's now retired and enjoying his family, which I married into. He's my wife's uncle.

Chandler was in Rupp last month when Madison Central beat Ballard for the title. “It felt strange going to the Sweet 16 on Sunday afternoon,” he said. “I went to church that morning and drove over to the game.”

A huge basketball fan, Chandler does not have a problem with the game itself being played on Sunday. “We have a lot of activities on Sunday and it can be a family activity,” he says.

However, like Pickett, Chandler sees what is happening as a reflection of society today. “There are so many things people accept today they did not 20-25 years ago,” Chandler said.

Are sports aiding a secularization of society?

“Whether it is intentional or not, I don't know,” Pickett said. “It is an outgrowth of today's lifestyle and we are not taking a conscious consideration of a person's spiritual needs.”

The 1981 movie “Chariots of Fire” told the story of British runner Eric Liddell, a devout Christian, who refused to run the Olympic 100-meter dash on Sunday despite intense pressure to do so.

Few today would hold such an absolute stance against simply competing but the potential for conflict is real.

“What it boils down to,” Pickett says, “is that a child will do what adults encourage.”

As for Tracy Wells Price, she's now encouraging her own son to do as she did. “I’ve got a 15-year-old playing Babe Ruth baseball and occasionally he has games on Sunday afternoon or evenings,” she wrote. “We do the same thing – go to church and fit the game around that. I think it’s unfortunate that they put families in the position of having to make that choice when it can be avoided.

“It puts additional pressure on kids who are trying to do right – as if they need any more pressure.”