Super Bowl XLIII: destiny, chance or skill?

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday, arguably one of the most important holidays in America. This was the 43^rd and with the passing of every one I feel older because I’ve seen them all—and more than that! At age five I watched on our new black and white “television” the 1958 Baltimore Colts, led by Johnny Unitis and the prototype of the modern wide receiver, Raymond Berry, defeat the New York Giants in the NFL’s first overtime game. This is often called the “greatest game ever played” because it was this game that brought football into the national spotlight due to the ability and availability of television to bring the game into the homes of middle class America.

Just two years later, the upstart league named the AFL got its start and it quickly called for equal bragging rights with the NFL demanding a playoff between the two leagues. The NFL always felt it was superior for it had history on its side for having started in 1920. The Super Bowl, was conceived as a playoff between the two leagues in 1967. The name itself was coined by Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, who saw his kids playing with a new toy called a “super ball” (I had one of those).

The NFL’s Green Bay Packers confirmed its bragging rights by beating the AFL in’67 and ’68, but it was not domination by any means, which meant that the game was on. I watched the infamous “Ice Bowl,” in 67 that kicked off Super Bowl Sunday. Played on Lambeau Field’s frozen tundra in Green Bay, the home team beat the AFL Dallas Cowboys in what is still the coldest game ever played. The temperature at game time was -13° with the wind chill at -47°. Green Bay quarterback Bart Star won the game with a quarterback sneak behind the block of guard Jerry Kramer. Kramer would go on to memorialize that season in his book Instant Replay.The name Super Bowl did not catch on, however, until the famous “guarantee” by Joe Namath that his AFL New York Jets would beat the NFL’s Baltimore Colts in 1969. “Broadway Joe,” as he came to be called, backed it up with a 16-7 victory and from that point on Super Bowl Sunday was launched as an American holiday.

Despite my deep devotion to football, a game that I have watched every year since I was five and a game that I started playing in sixth grade and didn’t stop until I was in college, to this day I think the greatest comment I have ever heard about the Super Bowl (and sports in general) was something said by the elder statesman of news commentators, Walter Cronkite, on the pregame show in a Super Bowl in the 1970s. When asked what he thought of the Super Bowl, Cronkite didn’t hesitate and said that it was really fun to see America get so excited about “something that means absolutely nothing.” Those of us that were listening suddenly had to put down our bag of chips to dial in the back story to Cronkite’s comment. It was Cronkite’s voice that had interrupted the televison soap opera As the World Turns in 1963 to announce that John F. Kennedy had been shot. I remember watching his CBS reporting that day on the television that had been wheeled into our elementary school classroom. It had been Cronkite’s emotional reaction to the words “the Eagle has landed” when man first landed on the moon in 1969 that had endeared him to our hearts. It had been Cronkite who had flown all over the world and brought the reality of war during the Viet Nam era right into our living rooms. We quickly caught our breath because in the larger scope of things he was right. What team won the Super Bowl didn’t really matter. It is this reality that we are supposed to remember before every sporting event when we sing the Star Spangled Banner, which brings back to our minds that it is the sacrifice of the true heroes that give us the opportunity to enjoy the opulence of Super Bowl Sunday. We quickly returned to our bag of chips, but with much more sobriety.  

It was against this background that I was fascinated by the language used by the television commentators about yesterday’s game. It started with the interview with David Tyree, who made what is now being called simply “the catch” for the upstart New York Giants in last year’s Super Bowl. With time running out the Giant’s Eli Manning somehow broke out of what seemed like a sure sack by the New England Patriots and went up-field to Tyree. If the Patriots had made that sack they would have cemented their perfect season making them the first 19-0 team in NFL history (the 17-0 ‘72 Miami Dolphins were sweating that game out). But Manning’s breaking out of the grasp of the Patriot’s pass rush and throwing the ball deep to Tyree with time running out and Tyree’s miracle catch made by holding the ball against his helmet, despite smothering coverage by the Patriot’s Rodney Harrison, won them the game. In yesterday’s pre-game interview with Tyree the commentator asked him about the catch and Tyree said that it wasn’t luck, it was destiny.

All throughout yesterday’s game the language of destiny (the gods or a God is in charge), chance and luck (impersonal fate is in charge), and skill (humans are in charge) was bantered around. Many followers of Jesus thought the Cardinals were “supposed” to win because Kurt Warner is a committed Christian and winner of this year’s Muhammad Ali Sports Leadership Award as well as the Walter Payton Man of the Year award. Others thought the Cardinals were “lucky” to be in the game. Nobody would have picked them to be in the Super Bowl at the beginning of the year making it the perfect underdog storyline. When James Harrison, the NFL’s defensive player of the year intercepted Kurt Warner’s pass on the goal line and ran 100 yards for a touchdown, setting the Super Bowl record for the longest touchdown, commentator and legendary coach Mike Holmgren said that the interception was a “roll of the dice.” It was dumb luck that Harrison’s coach had called a play that called for Harrison to fake a blitz and then fall back into shallow pass coverage that put him in the right place and the right time to make the interception. And then again it was Big Ben's “ability” to come back in the fourth quarter that won the day.

 Layered underneath the language of destiny and luck are very different, and often inconsistently intermingled stories of the world. These different stories are critical for understanding what this website is about and why NothinsGonnaStopIt!, and other programs like it, are critically important at this juncture in the history of the world. Without interviewing these news reporters and NFL players we don’t know how much they were aware of the competing worldviews represented in their comments. Whether consciously or unconsciously these men represent the age-old debate over whether events are guided by personal entities such as “gods” or otherworld entities, by the amorphous concept of fate that exists as a non-material judge that ultimately controls the events of men or human skills and choices. One could divide this between otherworldly controls (gods or fate) and this worldly controls (human skills and choices). It is very interesting that those who would attribute wins or loses to the human element as in whether one team is better than the other can in the same sentence attribute luck or destiny to the same events. This dichotomy and unconscious inconsistency of worldview is evident every time they wish another “good luck” or say that something was “destined” to happen while in the same breath saying, “that guy has mad skills.” 

There are some that posit that the improbable rise of Kurt Warner has been the result of external forces. Warner was an undrafted free agent out of little known Northern Iowa and was cut from the Green Bay Packers. He worked as a stock boy before going into the Arena League and then to NFL Europe before finally making it in the NFL as the quarterback for the St. Louis Rams, that he led to two Super Bowls and was both the league MVP and Super Bowl MVP. Warner consistently says in interviews that it is Jesus Christ who has guided his journey, yet even Warner acknowledged the reality of natural law in conceding that the Steelers were the better team yesterday. In the interview with Tyree he said he was supposed to make that catch last year. On the other hand, others would say that it was skill that enabled the Steeler’s Ben Rothlesberger to connect with Santonio Holms who caught Rothlesberger’s fad route in the corner of the end zone to beat the Cardinals with time running out. And yet, the proverbial coin toss at the beginning of each game reminds us that the debate about external control and the concept of chance go head-to-head at every sporting event. Who, or what controls who kicks off?

Warner’s concept of a personal God who guides events in conjunction with human responsibility aligns with the view taken by this website and by NothinsGonnaStopIt! that believes in one God, one plan and one story that affirms that God ultimately controls the affairs of men yet calls humans to make “godly” choices lest God attempt to discipline them to call them back to alignment with his plan. Is it possible that the Patriots lost their opportunity to achieve NFL immortality because their leaders cheated by the opposing team’s practices video taped? Could it be that God brought down the proud for lack of real humility and repentance? In the biblical worldview it's a valid question.

Mike Holmgren’s roll of the dice language points to a world run by fate, an impersonal force that breaks into the affairs of men and causes things to happen randomly with no rhyme or reason. A derivative of this is what I call the Star Wars worldview that sees the world caught between the Force and the evil empire. The Force, while representing the good, is dependent on the choices of its young Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker. The evil empire, likewise, goes the way of its champion, Darth Vadar, who is really Luke’s father who has chosen to go over to the dark side. In this view it’s still a roll of the dice as to which of these co-equal powers will have the day. Would Luke submit to the guidance of the Force, as mediated through the telepathy of his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or would he trust in his own abilities? It's a roll of the dice. The powers are coequal.

For the modernists, who reject the influence of outside forces, the Steelers won because of work and talent, all human elements. They reject chance, luck and destiny. It is because of Ben Rothlesberger and Santonio Holm’s natural talent and work ethic that they connected in the corner of the end zone and nothing more. The Cardinals lost because of Darwin’s law of the survival of the fittest.

Everyone has a worldview and each worldview is based on stories about how the universe works. Holmgren, Bob Costas, and Matt Millen, the commenatators of this year's Super Bowl, are all modernists by default due to their age and seem to posit (inconsistenly against their modernism) external forces influencing the Super Bowl. Warner’s view of the world, on the other hand, represents the biblical view of the world that sees God guiding and superintending over events while at the same time allowing for human choices like work ethic and talent to also affect the outcome. Many of the young men who comprise the NFL come from the Postmodern worldview that would allow for the realm of the supernatural to affect things from the outside. They attempt to tip whatever forces are out there by a serious commitment to various kinds of superstitions such as wearing the same t-shirt, not cutting their beards or wearing the same hat. If one were to research the amount of superstition practiced in professional sports I think we would be shocked to see how dependant athletes are on seeking to appease the forces out there by the use of ritual designed to please the gods.

This website is dedicated to the sovereign oversight of the one God and his Son, Jesus Christ who mediates the affairs of men at his discretion through mediating forces such as the power of the Holy Spirit and angels. It also posits that human beings have abilities and can make choices that affect the outcome as well. Against the postmodern thesis that all worldviews are equal we here present the storyline of the Bible that underlies Warner’s thesis that God has guided him in tension with the choices he has made.

In light of all this, what stories control your worldview, destiny, chance or skill?