The Man That Saved The Streak

Some records might never be broken.

One of those records, the consecutive win streak in college football, is held by the University of Oklahoma. From 1953 to 1957 the Sooners won an amazing 47 games in a row. That streak, however, might have died in its infancy it not for a player named Johnny Crouch.

It was in the TCU/Oklahoma game of 1954. As the game wound down, Johnny Crouch, a tight end, burst open in the end zone making a sliding catch of an underthrown ball. The officials raised up their arms in the signal for a touchdown.

But moments later the men in stripes were huddled up discussing the play. Fifty thousand Oklahoma fans waited in hushed agony. The call would decide if they won or lost. Don’t think there wasn’t a worry. One of the officials making the call was a TCU alum. Then the call… the touchdown was nullified and the crowd went crazy. OU had just won the game 21-16!

That’s right, won the game. Johnny Crouch played for TCU. The ball had been trapped on the surface by Crouch. The ruling kept the win streak alive but it wasn’t Crouch’s error that gave the Sooners the victory that day however, it was his honesty.

You see the only reason the officials overturned the call was that Crouch went up to them after the play and said, “Ref, I didn’t catch it”. The TCU coach thought that the former TCU alum turned official had succumbed to the pressure. He replied ‘No Sir, I succumbed to your own boy. He’s the most honest lad I have ever seen’. [1]

We might think virtues like honesty always benefit us. However, sometimes doing the right thing may cause us misery.

How painful are honest words!

Job 6:25

That doesn’t mean we should have them. Right and wrong is bigger than any single moment. Integrity isn’t made from what is good for me but what is right. Truth does not cease to be the truth because we would like it not to be or it would make things much easier for us. A momentary lie might bring us quick ease but can reap eternal destruction.

Truthful lips will be established forever, But a lying tongue is only for a moment.

Proverbs 12:19

A lot of great Oklahoma players helped put the Sooner into the record book, but I believe that it should never be forgotten that an opponent did something great as well to make it happen.

Johnny Crouch might not be remembered for his hands, but he should never be forgotten with what he did with his lips!

[1] Source: The Undefeated: The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football By Jim Dent

Comments

I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so. Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English. Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome. Wouldn’t you feel good? You shouldn’t. As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590. You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with. Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...

Master Your Self

In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt. He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!) Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest. Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt! Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way. He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal. As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself. He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors. But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog