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Proverbs 15:33 The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and honour is humility.

One word that athletes tend to focus on is r-e-s-p-e-c-t, "find out what it means to me........."( sorry, I had an Aretha Franklin flashback. I'm cool now.) The fear of the Lord is called reverence. Reverence is the ultimate form of respect and is misunderstood by many. The person who coined the phrase "Respect all but fear no one" had his /her heart in the right place but didn't quite understand the concept of healthy fear or reverence. I believe that reverence in general teaches wisdom. It is not just the fear of the Lord that instructs but a reverence to parents, teachers, coaches and most authority figures. Some athletes have a problem revering any or all of the before mentioned figures because they confuse the person with the position. They are not one in the same. I repeat, they are not one in the same.

Here 's my point: Coach McNasty is the meanest, most ornery man you have ever had to deal with. He is sometimes downright disrespectful to his players. Our athletes will take this as a cue to disrespect the Coach. Sometimes with the encouragement and blessings of the players' family. We would all agree that the person McNasty might not deserve any respect, but I'm here to emphasize that the position of Coach will always warrant respect. No team will ever be successful when disrespect of the leader is allowed or encouraged. McNasty must at some point answer for his behavior, and you also will be held accountable for your lack of respect to authority. Wisdom must be sought irregardless of the mean "son - of- a- biscuit" who is thrown in your path to impart wisdom to you. Grab the wisdom, pray for and then forgive the SOB and move on. You can replace the Coach with Parent, Teacher, or Policeperson and the point is the same. Grab the wisdom, pray for them, forgive them and move on.

Another misunderstood term is being humble and /or meek. For some reason our society has perpetuated the fallacy that these words tend to mean negative characteristics. This has always been an issue with males but is beginning to be looked at as not so admirable to young ladies as well. One of my favorite lines from a song comes from Lauren Hill. She self-proclaims her music as "where hip-hop meets scripture". She makes several biblical references in her music but this line is right from the observations of current adolescents females. Lauren Hill pleads " Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem. Baby Girl, respect is just the minimum, please stop defending him.....". Our scripture says that if you want honor/respect you better find a way to be humble/meek. Humble is defined as "not thinking too highly of yourself". Meekness or gentleness is a character trait that is highly admirable to God. His Word says that the meek shall inherit the earth. Imagine that, humility will get you honor and respect, and meekness will get you an inheritance or reward from God. Don't be misled by the people in our society who would lead you to believe that playing hard and being competitive cannot be accomplished with a humble and meek spirit. You should humbly give others credit when you accomplish great things. Also, you can gently congratulate your opponent after playing hard and spanking that butt. Ignore the hype that portrays the best athletes as mean and border-line dirty players. Your ultimate goals should include obtaining honor and respect through your humility and God's promise of rewards and inheritance because of meekness and kindness. Psalms 37: 11

                                                                                                                Fred Tudor

Fred Tudor is a eighteen year employee of the Cincinnati Public Schools as a Health and Physical Education teacher. He has been coaching at the high school level in Greater Cincinnati since graduating from Wittenberg University in 1979. His coaching stints includes stops at his alma mater Walnut Hills High School, Hughes Center High School, and from 1990 until present coaches at Wyoming High School. His church home is Cincinnati Bibleway Church in Madisonville, Apostles James and Grace Blue Pastors.

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