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A Disney Moment in Grand Rapids

I think I’ve always believed that sports have an inherently “magical” quality to them. Just like experiences kids and adults find inside the Magic Kingdom, there are “magic” moments in sports that truly bring joy and beauty and emotion like few other things in our world.

It can seem in the current sports landscape that these amazing events in athletic competitions are being replaced by greed, uncertainty, anger, and rampant individualism. I read this past week about a faith-based high school who shut down their boys basketball season a week before the beginning of the annual state post-season tournament. A head coach who had been in his role for twenty years at the school resigned despite the full support of his administration because of conflict between himself and his players and their parents over his coaching methods and style. This type of story seems more prevalent than ever and there is more question than ever about the impact sports is having on athletes and our culture.

And then you experience what happened this past Friday night before hundreds of spectators, family members, athletes, coaches and even school administrators in the NorthPointe Christian High School gym.

It was a festive Friday night, where the school celebrated a recent girls golf state championship and honored senior athletes on the girls and guys basketball teams. Both squads were significantly better than their opponents, allowing their coaches to give lots of playing time to all the senior athletes in easy victories.

About halfway through the fourth quarter as the night was winding down, the student section began to chant, “We want Nathan!” It was the name of our basketball team manager who was dressed in our team’s uniform for the first time as a senior in our last home game of his high school career. 

Nathan is also part of our unified basketball team that is made up of students with and without disabilities. We had just hosted a unified game where Nathan had led his team to another victory. It is another beautiful picture of our school’s deep commitment to inclusion and creating a place where learners with all kinds of gifts can form a truly inviting and biblical school community.

Many of the students also knew as they chanted his name that Nathan, now #34, was also a really talented shooter of a basketball. He’s developed a clinical jump shot with range extending out to where the current team’s best shooters attempt their shots. As Coach Yoder motioned to Nathan and put his arm around him for a last minute word of instruction, the whole crowd in the gymnasium rose to its feet and cheered at a level not seen in the arena this season.

It was obvious that everyone was now waiting to see what would happen with Nathan now entering his first moments of varsity competition. NorthPointe grabbed the rebound on a Comstock Park missed shot and quickly distributed the ball to Nathan, who was set at his favorite spot on the floor ready to let go of that first varsity shot. Without hesitation he fired up a 21 foot jumper perfected by thousands of shots on the driveway and in the gymnasium. The ball dropped cleanly through the net as the referee signaled a 3-point basket and the whole gym exploded in pure joy.

Shortly after that first basket, Nathan himself dribbled up to the top of the key and buried another 3-pointer, setting off even more hysteria in the student section. Our athletic director was doing his best Tiger Woods fist pump and our assistant athletic director ran out jumping on to the floor where he had told students to stay off moments before. And I just stood against the wall clapping while trying to wipe tears that had suddenly filled my aging eyes.

Through my tears I looked over and saw in amazement that the opponents’ bench was celebrating Nathan’s accomplishment almost as much as his teammates were on his own bench. They had forgotten that they were 40 points behind and displayed some of the most incredible support and true sportsmanship I have ever seen in watching 50 plus years of athletic competitions.

Nathan made one more 3-pointer before the final whistle and was carried off by his teammates through the student crowd that had stormed the court. Holding the game ball, he took pictures with just about everyone in the large crowd, including the whole team from Comstock Park on their way back to their bus in the parking lot. This particular Friday night fell during the Winter Olympics where moments have been so good and spectacular over the years that Disney decided they were worthy of being made into one of their movies.

But on Friday, February 20 I saw along with hundreds of others something so special and so magical that it couldn’t be topped by what Walt’s company could produce. Sports was at its pinnacle on this night in a high school gym in Grand Rapids, Michigan. No one walked out knowing the final score and I’m pretty sure no one paid attention to who was the leading scorer on this Friday night. But everyone who was present experienced a truly magical night, one filled with incredible blessings from a God who loves to give His people good gifts, and a gift they’ll always cherish from a soon-to-be graduated young man named Nathan who lived out his dream and restored our belief in our own dreams on a basketball court that truly became holy ground…