J.T. Barrett lay on the ground in obvious pain, suffering from a fractured ankle in the fourth 
quarter. As the Ohio State medical staff attended to him, Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner left his bench, came on to the field, and offered some encouragement to Barrett. “I didn’t like to see that at all, so I just let him know that I’m praying for him and told him to keep praying, and that everything will be alright.”
The gesture caught the attention of many people, including the Ohio State administration. Dave Claborn, Ohio State’s director of development and community relations, actually wrote a letter to Gardner. The letter — dated Nov. 29 (Saturday) — reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Gardner,
I write, simply, to thank you for the inspiration you are and the class you showed as you consoled J.T. Barrett when he was injured this afternoon in your game against the Buckeyes.
The Ohio State-Michigan game is important, but it pales in comparison to the humanity you displayed during that moment.
As I think you know, J.T. Barrett has been an inspiration to the Buckeye squad this season, coming in as he did when Braxton Miller was injured. He’s performed with maturity and poise well beyond his years. I suspect it’s been guys like you who have been his role models.
You are an extraordinary young man and your example of sportsmanship and true humanity to thousands of young (and older) people this afternoon was, in my opinion, worth far more than any football statistics.
Thank you again for showing all of us how it should be done.
When Claborn speaks about the importance of the game and the humanity Gardner displayed, I like the way he acknowledged the value of the competition but also recognized the limits of it. I appreciate as well his affirmation of the more important issues that sports can bring out – here the concern for the well-being of another human being – both positively and negatively.
We would do well to remember and spread this mindset. Athletic Competition is just a microcosm of life. It is not life. For the vast majority of us, this competition is just an add-on to our lives, not the central cog.
While this is true, we so often lose that perspective, as the sidelines and the fields of today so tragically illustrate. We need to cultivate the attitude Gardner lived out on the field that day. We need to keep the competition from becoming the end, the center, the most important thing. We need to keep it as the means to the end, the microcosm it was designed to be, and not the end in itself.
The only way I know of doing that is to find something more compelling than the competition to capture the core of our hearts. We need something that is more alluring, more captivating than the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
This is what I think of when I hear about a story like this. Something greater than the competition has captured Gardner’s heart. Something greater has moved deep into his soul so that it comes out like this – in the heat of the most important game of the year for either team.
The only thing I know that can do that as consistently and as deeply as is needed in the atmosphere of sports idolatry today is – THE GOSPEL. The Gospel only promises what our hearts really long for. The GOSPEL alone promises a greater reward, greater glory, than any athletic competition or prize can – the GLORY of GOD.
My gut feel is that, if this gesture by Gardner was really genuine, as it seems, and is as deeply felt as it seems, then what has taken root there is the GOSPEL.
Has it done the same in you?
