Base Defense

One time my Uncle gave me a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition that contained all sorts of correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and the two explorers.  In that correspondence, I found something that puzzled me: they seemed extremely educated and eloquent, they spoke of the advancement of humanity and the causes of justice and democracy, and yet they also spoke of Native Americans and people of African descent with what I can best describe as glib superiority.  They seemed to think that higher level thinking and true scientific inquiry were the sole province of white males such as themselves.
I wondered, in discussing the book with my Uncle, how it was possible to be so enlightened in some regards and yet seem so benighted in others.  He said, "everyone starts from where they are."  In studying history it is important to remember that fact and allow it to shape how we judge certain characters.  I have heard many people opine about the sore lack of intervention in the atrocities of Nazi Germany, yet if you read the information available to people in the late 1930's and early 1940's you will quickly realize that there was very little clear consensus as to what was actually happening.  History is hard to see while it is happening.
Likewise, popular opinions of Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. were far from cognizant of the massive historical impact those two would have on race in this country.
In American Football the game plan is drawn up around two important schemes, sometimes called base offense and base defense.  A "base" is the personnel group and their alignment on the field that is the default.  Everything else: blitz packages, trick plays, alternate formations are variations on that base package.  Most of the plays in any game are run from the base, because it's simply to complicated to always be running a different scheme, especially if you want to move fast to keep the opponent off balance.  The Seahawks powerful defense was successful in large part to the fact that they were able to stay in their base defense most of the time.  They didn't have to rely on tricky schemes or complicated coverage patterns, they just trusted that their guys were bigger, faster and stronger than yours.  They played with swagger and confidence, because of that, and it won them a championship.
Base packages are great, when they work, but when someone finds the flaw, they start to break down.  A few years back the "Tampa Two" base package was popular because the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won a Superbowl and the defense had that same ball-hawking, flesh-eating character as Seattle.  "Tampa Two" is basically played with the two safeties deep, helping corners who play bump and run coverage on the wide receivers, which limits the long throws down the field and keeps the action in front of the defensive backfield.  It relies on good pass rush from the front seven and physical play and sure tackling from everyone, but if it's done well it only has a few weaknesses.  The weaknesses are short passes and plays up the middle of the field to tight ends or running backs, namely the things that the "West Coast offense" is based upon.
American football goes through these trends where things change and the competition adapts, which is largely the way our culture works as well.  Right now, some of our base assumptions are changing with regard to sexual orientation.
The reason why I have been going on about football is because of Michael Sam, a defensive lineman for Missouri, who is most likely going to be playing in the NFL come next fall.  Sam just came out.  If, or rather when, Sam is drafted, he will be the first openly gay NFL player in history (there have been others who came out after their playing careers).  The "base package" for professional football is super machismo.  The notion that a homosexual man could thrive in that culture has seemed almost absurd, yet here we are.
It turns out that Sam told his Missou teammates before the season started, and they accepted him, and they put it behind them and played football.  You hear interviews with them talking about how all they care about is what kind of football player he is, not who he loves.  Apparently Sam is the kind of football player most guys want on their team, which means whatever NFL team he ends up playing for is probably going to react pretty much like Missouri.
This is all over Sportscenter, which I watch in the morning while I'm having coffee and getting the kids ready for school.  Which means that my kids hear all this talk about Michael Sam being gay and what a big deal that is, which means that Caitlyn is going to have questions.  Michele groans when she hears stuff like this on the TV when the kids are around, and I admit, I have a momentary thought as well.  But on the other hand, this is a major issue being dealt with in our culture at the moment, and both our kids are going to be exposed to it sooner rather than later.  They have an older cousin who came out a couple of years ago, this is not something we can or should shelter them from.
So the question was: "What is being gay?"  That's pretty easy, without going into the gory details with an eight year old who thinks anybody kissing is pretty gross.  My answer was pretty straightforward: "it's when a man likes other men instead of women, or a woman likes other women instead of men."  Cate gave one of her patented looks, but I knew this wasn't the first she had ever heard of it.  Then she quickly adapted and said, "Okay, but why does it matter if a football player is gay?"
That's a harder question to answer.
But, I gave it a shot.  I explained that it matters because we shouldn't treat people who are gay any differently than people who are straight (yes I explained what straight was), and that they should be able to play football or do any job they're good at regardless of who they love.  In hindsight, it was a lot easier to explain than erectile dysfunction ads, and she quickly seemed to accept it and move on to whatever it was that caught her eight-year-old mind.
The base is changing rapidly.  It's no longer a question of right or wrong it's a question of why it even matters.  I think we are seeing an attitude in younger generations that is going to make homophobia as irrelevant as the wishbone formation.
At no point in the conversation did I feel like I needed to talk about the bible, all I needed to consider is what I want to teach my daughter.  Do I want to teach her to judge people who are different from her?  Or do I want to teach her to love others, no matter what?
Jesus said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  Scribes and pharisees were good at following the law down to the last letter, but they were pretty terrible at really creating a just society where people were free to live to the glory of God.  What I think "exceeding their righteousness" means for us is adapting well to the flaws that have been discovered in our base defense.  Legalism falls flat in the face of love, isn't that largely what Jesus showed us?  He said that what he taught and what he did, did not abolish the law but fulfilled it, which means he showed us what it was really good for.  What it was really for was to establish justice, and make it so that we sinful people could somehow live together in peace and mutual respect.  The fulfillment of the law is ethical injunction to love God and one another, so that stoning people is no longer a necessity, so that casting people out for whatever differences they might have is no longer a practice.
That's what I want to teach my kids.  I want to teach them that the reason why we treat everyone with respect and radical love is because Jesus tells us that's the way.  I don't want them to feel separated from the goodness of God's creation because of some human idea about abominations.
So thanks Sportscenter, for your obsessive overexposure of this whole thing, it has helped teach a lesson.
I think that might be grace at work.