Athletes Lose Through Anger

Norm Evans, all-pro tackle for the Miami Dolphins for several years, once confided, “It’s really dangerous for a pro football player to get angry. In fact, that’s when linemen sustain their most serious injuries.”

He explained, “Anger is so harmful in football that if I can get an opposing lineman or end angry at me, he will concentrate on beating me and forget to attack the quarterback-and that’s my job, protecting the quarterback.”

Mike Fuller, fleet-footed safety and punt-return specialist for the San Diego Chargers in the late 1970s, agreed. “The wide receivers are continually trying to make us angry each time they come into our area, because they know if they can upset us emotionally, they can fool us on the next play.”

Bob Hutchins, former judo champion for Southern California and now a missionary in Mexico, stated, “I was just an above-average judo performer until I learned how to make my opponent angry. Then I won the championship.”

Like these athletes’ opponents, millions of men fall into the trap of thinking you’re not a man unless you get angry. However, an angry person makes poor decisions, wounds those he loves with his tongue, overreacts, disciplines too severely, and does things that calmness of thought would not otherwise permit.

Citation: Adapted from Tim LaHaye and Bob Phillips, Anger Is a Choice (Zondervan, 2002), pp. 19-20

* Keywords: Anger; Decisions; Emotions; Rage; Sports; Temper

* Filters: Sports, Christian Culture, Stories

* References: Leviticus 19:17-18; Psalm 37:8; Proverbs 14:17; Matthew 5:22; 18:15-20

* Tone: Negative