Here's an interesting story from the sports pages; Sean Sutton was an up-and-coming college basketball coach until a bust for illegally getting pain medicine derailed his career. His dad Eddie Sutton had coached at Kentucky and Oklahoma State and Sean followed in his father's footsteps.
He's begining the road back by being a behind-the-scenes adviser to his younger brother Scott at Oral Roberts U. Given the OSU connection, it's not too surprising to see ORU (who's in Tulsa) grab a Sutton.
ORU has some questionable theology and had some unflatering internal problems recently, but they are spot on here.
"He is a gifted and very experienced coach and he'll be a great help to us," school president Mark Rutland said Thursday during a news conference at the private Tulsa school. "At this university, we believe in the stewardship of gifts and we believe in the process of redemptive grace."
People are often unwilling to give people a second chance. Michael Vick still has a lot of detractors after serving prison time for his dog fighting career who can't come around to wishing him well as he is making an inspiring comeback with the Eagles this year.
Almost as much bile is showing up in Detroit sports pages over Matt Millen landing on his feet as a college football color man; he was an up-and-coming NFL announcer and former star linebacker for the Raiders before getting a gig as the Lion's GM. Millen had a string of bad luck in draft picks and had fans asking for his head on a platter years before William Clay Ford finally pulled the plug on the Millen era two years ago.
Millen didn't kill any dogs, he just inadvertently killed the Lions. Now, he's getting back to something he does rather well, but Lions fans who remain Millen-haters can't stand the idea of his being in the press box at the Big House tomorrow calling the Michigan-MSU game.
I haven't seen any Sean Sutton-haters out their as of yet, but his dad's penchent of playing free and loose with recruiting rules might have some Eddie haters turning into Sean haters.
There is always a fight in our minds between grace and grudges. Ex-cons need to be able to get on with their lives; if they aren't a threat to society, they need to be using their skills to the betterment of society. While sports are a bit trite in the bigger picture, Vick's ability to play QB and Sutton's coaching ability need to be utilized; their example will let people accept other ex-cons (Sutton can get his bust wiped off the record if he stays out of trouble) doing the things they are good at rather than be relegated to some menial job that underutilized their skills but looks more like what a vengeful society wants a ex-con to do.
In Millen's case, he was a walking example of the Peter Principle. He got promoted a notch about what he was good at and wound up sticking there too long. Now, he's back at what he was good at at the turn of the millennium, but the frustrated Lions fans can't let it go. I spent most of the Millen era out of state in Florida and Kentucky, so I didn't get the brunt of the frustration, so I might be both over gracious and under-spiteful.
As Christians, we're supposed to be people of forgiveness. We can forgive drug busts and animal cruelty and bad GMing, not to mention any number of lesser sins.
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