Trinity Lutheran Seminary wins the Luther Bowl!

I have posted below an excerpt from an email that went out to the seminary community:

For more than four decades, come rain or shine in mid-November, the annual Luther Bowl has been held on the great Gettysburg gridiron. Until a few years ago this was a Pennsylvania rivalry limited to teams fielded by LTSG and LTSP. Of late, it has evolved into a contest involving half the ELCA seminaries and a growing number of ecumenical partners as well. This year, for the first time in recollection, two games were held simultaneously on adjoining fields in order to accommodate the seven (you read right, that’s 7) teams from LTSG, LTSP, LTSS, TLS, Virginia, Wesley, and Union-PSCE. Princeton was also on the invitation list but became a no-show shortly prior to game day, perhaps after its scouts returned reporting that while its endowment could be tapped to offer full football scholarships for the entire student body, the big P would be no match for the other contestants in these grueling gridiron games of 2005.

For five years running, the Book of Concord Luther Bowl trophy has gone home with our Episcopal full communion colleagues from VTS. Today, this sports reporter is happy to report, the L.B. prize rests again firmly in Lutheran hands on Lutheran soil. Our “middle” seminary—neither east or west but just right in between—fielded a truly impressive force of chaps and sisters who walked away with a rout in the final contest against VTS. Nobody in this reporter’s environs remembered the exact final score, but it was somewhere between the high 20’s and 40 or so to zip. One of Trinity’s player coaches also went home with the “best sportsperson” award and the entire TLS team (not to be confused with TEEM though there may have some of them in uniform as well) received humbly the accolades of their peer theologs. The consolation game between Philadelphia and Union was similarly one-sided and here those out of the Reformed tradition outplayed a respectable LTSP team quarterbacked by its director of admissions (nobody seems to worry much about eligibility rules over there in the big city). The Philadelphia school is commended also for its early cultivation of prospective students, to the point of including in its lineup a certain president’s son who appears a decade or more away from matriculation.

While all hands on the field seemed to agree that a good time was had by all, the fatigue factor after some teams played four in a row gave rise to suggestions that next year’s contest be a two-day affair. Some of the players on all the teams seemed a bit too enthusiastic about the prospect of an excused absence from their teaching parishes or other Sunday obligations. Don’t these people like to go to church? We shall see what the planning powers that be determine.

Not surprising in a tournament of this scope, one ambulance call proved necessary early in the day when Heather from Southern sprained her ankle and the wise trainers made a 911 call in their belief it may have been broken. By mid-afternoon Heather returned singing the praises of the Gettysburg Hospital emergency room staff, and smilingly reassuring all from her crutched position on the sidelines that she’d run for a touchdown another day.

Now amidst the days-end glow from the Gettysburg gridiron, this reporter’s chronicle would be incomplete without registering one concern of reports confirmed by several truthful players from the winning Trinity team. The president of Trinity apparently actually told his players, “If you don’t win, don’t bother to come home.” As the day’s outcome demonstrates, it was surely an effective presidential posture. But as the week ends in which our dear reformer Martin’s birthday was celebrated, one has to ask, “Is this really modeling theology of the cross?” Ramseth will have to answer for himself and his modeling of servant leadership. For my part, as always after witnessing the spirit both on and off the field, I’m more than content in the recognition that the church of the future will be in very good hands.

The Anonymous Ecclesiastical Sports Reporter