FOOTBALL!!!!

Other than studying Spanish, football is the thing that occupies my mind everyday. Football is something that I have always loved. A sport that encompassed who I am, or wanted to be. Encouraged to be aggressive, to take control of situations and opponents, and even to be a bit violent. When I finally decided that my days of playing football were over in college I thought I was giving it up for good, never to return. But God has a way of bringing the things you love back around to you. Being involved in football again in Costa Rica is one of those incredible blessings!!

But it has been a long process to get to where the team is now. When I was here last year studying, I helped some other students at my language school coach a small group of about 25 players (Jaguars). The Jaguars ran into some issues with the ability to come up with the funds to play in the league that year and ended up just practicing and playing a few exhibition games. The following year (2011) the Jaguars joined forces with another team, and recruited some new players, and created the Scorpions. This team was put together by Johan (a Costa Rican that played with the Jaguars), Steve (american missionary to CR), and two owners of the team name and business end of the Scorpions. When I got here in January Johan and Steve had already greased the wheels to get me involved as an offensive coach and possibly a player. Soon after I arrived though the coaching staff and I started running into problems with the owners. It came to our attention that the owners where trying to black ball some specific players by signing them to 3 year contracts and then kicking them off of the team, effectively keeping them from playing with the Scorpions or any other team for 3 years. On top of that we found out that the owners where charging the players 15,000 colones (about $30) to play when the federation was only charging 12,500 colones (about $25) per player. When we questioned the owners about these issues they explained to us (in a not so polite manner) that they could do what they wanted, it was their team, they didn't need to explain anything to us. To make things easier the coaches and players got together and decided to try to create a new team without the owners just a few weeks before the season was about to start. Honestly, it was the only decision to make for the good of the players.

As a team we started rallying together to get everything put together in time to play our first game. We had to fill out all the paper work again under our new name, we had to get a new name and get this team name set up as a legitimate business, buy jerseys, and all of this in about 2 weeks. On Monday before our first game (Saturday) the owners went on the radio to air out their dirty laundry. They were on national radio telling everyone that would listen how they got "screwed over" by the league and how we (the coaches) had planned to steal all of their players. Basically slandering everyone that was involved with lies. It was an ugly situation that the league didn't know how to handle. The league took the easy way out and decided to reinstate the Scorpions and honor the player contracts that they held and disregard all the work that we had done to play without them. So now all the players had a choice, play for people that none of us trusted or liked, or stay with their coaches and not play for the entire season. The players held a meeting and voted unanimously to stand next to their coaches and therefore give up their right to play. Finally on Friday the day before our first game the league decided that they were wrong to reward bitter owners and allowed us to play as the Rhynos!! They even postponed the season 2 weeks so that we could get everything in order!!

God was so good during this situation. Our team has never been as close as we are now. The relationships between players and coaches are the best I've seen on any team I have ever been on. Our ability to share the gospel through how we handled this situation has started conversations with players. And God is allowing us to do something we all love! Play Football!!!