Lindsay - Christian Science Sentinel, May 19, 2008
For Lindsay, one of three senior captains of a basketball team that recently won the Massachusetts Division Two state championship, victory represents far more than scores and statistics. The state title was the culmination of her five-year journey to overcome confining limitations about herself and about women’s sports in general.
Lindsay is one of my Sunday School students. Our class often concludes by sharing our challenges, including how we can offer each other mutual spiritual support. Then, we move on to discuss victories. The following conversation offers a window on Lindsay’s challenges and victories over the past few years.
Lindsay, I remember that as a middle-school student, you were terrified to try out for the seventh-grade basketball team. But you went ahead and did it anyway. Tell us a little about that.
I never really considered myself an athlete. Actually, I thought of myself as too much of a “girly girl” to enjoy sports. So I had to realize that strong feminine qualities can be expressed through sports. And that I had the capability to express qualities I’d considered to be more masculine, too. That first basketball season, I really had to pray about my fear. I had no idea what I was doing. My mom would share ideas from Science and Health and the Bible with me before every game. I remember my first game. During warm-ups, my best friend got hit in the face with a ball and got a bloody nose. That really scared me. So when I was on the court, I couldn’t wait to get rid of the ball!
What were the victories that first season?
It was all about learning to overcome nerves and fear through prayer. I was gaining strength and courage. My coach also complimented me on my “soft touch” when I shot baskets, which was a confirmation to me that I didn’t have to give up feminine qualities to be an athlete.
How about the challenges during high school?
My freshman year, I was playing on the Junior Varsity team. The day before our last game with our biggest (undefeated) rival, I pivoted awkwardly during practice and heard a pop in my hip. It became tight and painful. The trainer told me it was a problem with my hip flexor.
Right after that, the coach came over and told me our center wouldn’t be able to play the next day, and they needed me to start. I was really nervous, so I contacted a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. We talked about how in the Bible and Science and Health, the word temple is another word for body. The practitioner mentioned this Bible quote: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” (I Cor. 3:16). To me, this meant that my body represented a holy idea, not made up of bones and muscles. The next day, I started, and played the entire game. We won by one point, and I felt completely fine the whole time. The problem with my hip never returned.
What are the deeper qualities of womanhood you tried to bring to the court?
Grace . . . grace, I feel, is the strongest feminine quality. I learned that you get the most out of a game by implementing grace in your thoughts. Grace is expressed not just by shooting with a nice follow-through, but by not being angry or behaving like a brute on the court.
After the game, it’s important to be a graceful winner or loser. You never want to be an obnoxious winner or a sore loser. I also learned a lot about expressing typically masculine qualities such as strength, endurance, and courage. Even though they seemed to come less naturally to me, I worked to include them each time I played.
Calm, composed, and poised were words continually used in local newspaper articles to describe your team. But were those qualities ever challenged during your high-school career?
One of my closest friends sometimes liked feeling kind of jittery and fired up before a game, but I found that I didn’t play as well if I psyched myself up that way. So I prepared by being quiet. Then I was surprised to see this friend before one of the state tournament games, in the locker room with her eyes closed. I wanted to be sure she was OK, so I gave her a pat on the back and said there was no need to be nervous. She said she was fine—just preparing for the game.
There was also a time a couple of years ago when the coaches kept saying that we had to “get angry.” I tried it for one game, and I played the worst that I’d ever played. It hit me that day as I was sitting on the bench that being angry wasn’t “me,” meaning anger wasn’t part of my spiritual identity. It was so clear to me that I had to play in a composed and upbeat way, glorifying God, the way I’d learned to live my whole life. This lesson of not being all revved up and angry extended outside of basketball. I now know that having an angry thought doesn’t work for me, and I have to stick with that.
Over this five-year journey playing basketball, what was your biggest victory?
It all culminated in this year. I hadn’t had a good first half of the season. I wasn’t playing well, and I was extremely frustrated. I contacted a Christian Science practitioner again, and we prayed. That was the turning point. The very next game, I had my best game of the season. More focus on Christian Science made everything better.
What exactly did you and the practitioner talk about?
First, she shared a story with me from an article in The Christian Science Journal, about a professor who asked three students to solve a problem at the blackboard. The first two sat down when told by the professor they weren’t solving the problem right, but the third student wasn’t intimidated and stood his ground when challenged. He was right and was commended for his conviction. The point of the story was, “Know what you know” spiritually about who you are, and that’s an idea I prayed with (“No Why to a Lie,” February 2008).
And again, grace was something I thought about all the time—expressing calmness and composure. During the state championship game, I kept thinking about Mary Baker Eddy’s statement in Science and Health, “Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods” (p. 67).
How did you actually communicate with the Christian Science practitioner?
I would e-mail her after practices to tell her what I was thinking about. She would e-mail me ideas, and pray for me during the week. I contacted her after each game, telling her what spiritual ideas had been helpful. Communicating by e-mail really worked for me because I could always print quotes she sent me to look at from Science and Health and the Bible. On bus rides with the team, I would often whip out the quotes and gather my thoughts. Then, after warm-ups, during the national anthem, the ideas we’d prayed about would always come to me.
What’s the biggest lesson basketball has taught you?
You have to play your own game. Through basketball I’ve had to prove that, as the practitioner said, “I know what I know.” I can’t play someone else’s style of game, because my expression of spiritual qualities is always going to be unique. This helped me keep my joy and composure when members of other teams would play very physically against me. This taught me that I have to let my light shine, as Jesus said, and never let anyone else’s reactions or behavior toward me affect that.
So was the final victory at the state championship worth all the challenges?
I couldn’t have predicted in a million years that I’d play in a state championship, or even on a high-school team. But I’m so glad I stuck with it. Through basketball, I’ve learned how I can more fully express God’s qualities of strength, endurance, courage, and poise. And of course my favorite one—grace.