A friend recently lost his job. Terminated without any warning, he expressed shock and dismay when the company that he had worked for over 8 years told him, "We're going in a different direction." Box in hand, he cleared out his desk and made his way home - bewildered and confused while coworkers looked on. Whilst we don't often consider it in this way - a death had occurred. Relationships, pay, significance, identity, and much more all were "killed" in that particular moment for my friend and he had to cope with a great sense of loss that was compounded by the whole thing being confusing and unforeseen. Losses like this are commonplace in life and also in professional sport

The other day at the stadium, one of the Colorado Rapids staff members said, "Thanks for the luck!" The team had just scored a couple of goals against an important rival and looked to win it's first game of the season. The comment reminded me of the superstition that surrounds much of professional sport - from the player wearing the same socks game after game or makes the sign of the cross before entering the field of play to the coach or executive that hires certain staff or makes certain business decisions in order to keep "luck" on their side. A few years ago, after the Colorado Rapids had won the Major League Soccer Cup (2010) a member of the

This past week, a story broke about an incident a few years ago at the University of North Carolina where a student-athlete was awarded an A- grade for a ten-sentence paper. The story went viral as did the criticism surrounding the "paper classes" that seemed to be part of the college landscape to prop up collegiate athletes and keep them on the field in spite of poor academics. In recent days, further details have come to light on the story. The stories themselves beg a couple of questions, firstly we might ask, "What is truth?" in the same vein that Pilate once asked that famous philosophical question. I have come to learn in my time in the world that the truth (as

Whilst scanning the Twitterverse a few weeks ago, former Colorado Rapids Forward Andre Aukpan (@auakpan), now with New York Red Bulls, highlighted a story on the National Football League's Rashard Mendenhall retiring at the age of 26. The story (written by Mendenhall) presents a odd perspective that rarely exists in professional sport these days. To understand that the world sees him more as an entertainer, and to make a decision not to continue to punish his body for the sake of entertainment shows a depth of wisdom and insight for someone as young as Mendenhall. While perhaps not a player with the same professional athletic achievements as Mendenhall, Rapids defender Kory Kindle's retirement earlier this year was along the same

Three years, nearly to the day, CrossTraining held its annual retreat just before the Colorado Rapids home opening match against the Portland Timbers. CrossTraining team members and board advisors gathered in the mountains to pray and discuss the future of the ministry as the 2011 Major League Soccer season was about to get underway. The time together wrapped up with the game in which the Rapids beat the Timbers 3-1. Last night, driving home after the Rapids won 2-0 against the same Timbers, I reflected on the game, the 2014 retreat that had just wrapped up and the ministry of CrossTraining, with an overwhelming sense of deja vu. In some ways, I wondered just how far CrossTraining had come