Article December 27, 2010 Issue

Spotting the year's real winners

BY KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

A LOOK BACK over the headlines of the past 12 months suggests there was almost as much disappointment as joy for those who love sports. It was hard to escape continuing reports about drugs, concussions on the football field, manipulation of the rules governing college sports, and so on.

Yet good stories outweighed the bad ones, and many of the real winners were not the first to cross the finishing line—like, for example, a former New York Marathon champion, Meb Keflezighi, who ran fifth in Boston but didn't hesitate to confide modestly to me, "While I run, I just pray to God for the strength to do well."

A similar spirit was evident this year in the athletic department of Wheaton College, Illinois, where Coach Hudson Armeding (a double-Olympian) called on the students to seek perfection, and settle for excellence. Armeding is less concerned about training them to be champions than knowing that when they come through his program, they will be "spiritually and emotionally ready to serve God wherever He will have them" (Wheaton, Fall 2010).

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