Football, The Rivalry and the Three Last Things

The Rivalry is a college football game played by two institutions located seventeen miles apart in eastern  Pennsylvania: Lehigh University Mountain Hawks and the Lafayette College Leopards (my alma mater as well as my sister's, my brother's, my niece's, my husband's and father-in-law's). It is the most-played football rivalry in the nation and the longest uninterrupted annual rivalry series. As of 2014, "The Rivalry" has been played 150 times.

I mention this above in such detail because here in Mississippi, as in Texas or Alabama or Indiana, my neighbors would be incredulous that The Rivalry did not involve their local teams.

But it doesn't and  it is so old it predates football trophies; the winning team just gets to keep the game ball. These are painted with the score and displayed in winning institution's hall of fame or in the case of Lafayette, President's house. 

In 2012, prior to the 148th game, the presidents of Lafayette College and Lehigh University jointly announced that the 150th game would be played on November 2, 2014 in Yankee Stadium. Forty-eight thousand two-hundred fifty-six Pard and Hawk fans showed up.

Looking at the FB photos of my classmates and friends in that near-capacity crowd got me thinking of this 150 year-old tradition in the context of a larger one.  For those of us who profess to be Roman Catholics, Sunday November 3rd, the day after the big game, was the feast of Christ the King, and the end of what the Church calls Ordinary Time (The liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church begins with Advent).

For weeks now we’ve been listening to Scripture readings and homilies on the last things:  Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. And obtaining Heaven, as St. Paul might say, is akin to winning the big race, the prize.

Here in Northern Mississippi, the Priests of the Sacred Heart tend to focus on challenging their flocks to do something with our lives, something, as Mother Theresa would say, beautiful for Christ. Something that says “I am what I believe” and “I believe you (the stranger, the child, the outcast, the lonely, the sick) are worthy of my time, my talent, my treasure, my inconvenience. And you are worthy of such gifts without question, without cost, without return, without blame, without judgment, without exception."

It’s a hard teaching, and one that I'm not convinced is humanly possible.

Certainly there in the stands, enjoying The Rivalry, were business executives and leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, the rich and the wealthy, the privileged.  With its annual tuition and fees adding up to nearly $60,000, Lafayette has a healthy share of students and alumni from the top earners in the United States.  That in itself is of little importance.  What is important is to what end do we use this education? Is that end "love?"

The Rivalry has endured for one and a half centuries. It’s classic American fun and games.

Us against them. Pick  a side. A winner and a loser.

Pardee Hall

I hope we Pards have welcomed the stranger, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And that we did so, and continue to do so, without counting the cost.

That’s us with them.  No taking sides.  No losers.

Yesterday the Pards won, 27-7.  I hope you all enjoyed it. 

I hope you all win the big race too.

We’ll gather by the twilight’s glow,

In front of old Pardee,In all the world no other scene,

So fair so dear to me.