A True Love Dare

A True Love Dare

The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.

1 Timothy 1:5

While coaching football at the University of Colorado, Bill McCartney dared his 1991 team to play beyond their normal abilities. He had heard that most people spend 86 percent of their time thinking about themselves and only 14 percent of their time thinking about others. The coach was convinced that if his team could stop thinking about themselves and begin to think of others, a whole new source of energy would be available to them.

McCartney challenged each player to call someone they loved and tell that person that they were dedicating the upcoming game to him or her. The team members were to encourage those persons to carefully watch every play they made, because the game was dedicated to them. McCartney arranged to distribute sixty footballs, one for each player to send to the person he had chosen, with the final score written on the football.

Colorado was playing its archrival, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, on Nebraska’s home turf. Colorado had not won a game there in twenty-three years, but Coach McCartney had challenged his players to go beyond themselves—to play for love. The Colorado Buffaloes won the game, and the score written on sixty footballs was “27 to 12.”

Could it be that thinking of others provides a new source of energy? Scripture sure seems to back up this theory. The theme of putting others first resonates throughout the Bible in verses such as Acts 20:35 (NIV): “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” You’ve likely heard that so often that it nearly bounces off your ears. But don’t overlook it today. Realize just how powerful it is to “play for love.”

He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.

—Oscar Wilde