Their stunning win brought national attention to the fact that the Buckeyes’ coach, Jim Tressel, and several of his players are professing Christians. For anyone who has ever surveyed the competitive landscape, wondered if faith makes you “soft” and asked, “Can Christians really be winners?” the Buckeyes’ success answers a resounding “yes.” It seems to imply that living by Christian principles isn’t a handicap and may even give the winning edge.

But it’s also a reminder of how different winning looks to a follower of Christ. In the presence of all the education we pick up from shoe commercials, headlines about the lifestyles of high-paid athletes or personal experiences with coaches and players, we often have to work hard to find a redemptive Christian worldview of competition. In that process, I believe there are at least three aspects of competition in which Christians are challenged to view things differently: (1) their concept of the scoreboard, (2) their attitude toward opponents and (3) their perception of the prize.

The Scoreboard

Many of the clichés in the English language grew out of competitive sports. The mother of them all is the one that goes, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Because we hear so few winners repeat this line, it’s easy to think of it as a loser’s consolation. But it all comes down to how we look at the scoreboard.

When you think about it, a game is a microcosm of life. In fact, it’s the clarity of a game’s objectives, rules and scoreboard that often makes formal competition attractive to players. But while the scoreboard in a game can provide an important measurement of the competitors, it can’t directly measure other significant traits that are tested in competition, such as teamwork, discipline and composure.

In competition, it can be tempting to overlook these unmeasured factors and to strive to get the higher number on the scoreboard by any means necessary. By focusing on the outcome alone, players can be tempted to push the limits of the rules, bully those around them or use questionable performance enhancements.

Coach Tressel challenged his players to bring character to their game. “The way you live reflects how you play,” he told his Buckeyes. “I’ll never forget the first team meeting,” says Buckeyes lineman Kenny Peterson. “Coach came in and didn’t say one word about football. He talked about life. He talked about our spiritual lives, our academics. He stressed the most important thing is how you live.”

As big as the scoreboards are in college and professional stadiums, none are bigger than the scoreboard God keeps, where he surveys all our words and actions in each setting of life to see how we conform to His higher law and to see if our ultimate objective is to bring glory to Him.

Attitude towards Opponent

“You want some of me?” “Get that trash out of here.” “You’re going down.” These are the kinds of taunts we’ve come to expect in athletic competition.

Looking at the head games and the smash-mouth attitude that seem to be so typical (especially in contact sports), it’s easy to wonder how you’re supposed to compete effectively and still follow all those Scriptures about loving your enemy, the meek inheriting the earth and turning the other cheek.

The Buckeyes demonstrated there are other ways to win. Tressel discouraged taunting among his players and set the tone with a calm sideline demeanor in which he quietly motivated his team to do their best. By getting the Buckeyes to concentrate on performing at their highest level and not on sizing up their opposition, he kept them from being intimidated when the other team was favored, making the resulting upsets possible.

The bottom line for the Christian is that your opponent is not your enemy. They are not even your competition in one sense. If your challenge in life is to do everything as unto the Lord, then you are not being measured in terms of how you stack up to your opponent. Your value does not come from whom you outperform. Your goal is less to excel your competition than to practice the highest stewardship of the talents and capabilities God gave you.

Christian athletes who grasp this can compete aggressively in a head-to-head battle royal, but still end the game holding hands in prayer with players from the opposing team thanking God for the opportunity to reflect Him in their play.

Perception of the Prize

The victory parade, the championship ring, the bragging rights and all the other rewards of winning can be a tempting prize. In the same way that American sports tend to exaggerate the scope of our games by using names like Super Bowl and World Series, we also tend to exaggerate the worth of being number one. We often make superheroes out of people who have done little more than demonstrate the ability to handle a ball well.

Worse than that, we often assume that the end justifies the means and forgive the costly sacrifices some players make in the pursuit of victory: their families, their health or their reputation.

Tressel delivered a much deeper win to his players by not letting the magic glow of victories on the field obscure the other important wins in life. When he first started coaching at Ohio State, he made it clear that he wanted his players to be winners in football, but also in the classroom and in the community. Early on he emphasized that getting a diploma was just as special as winning a championship. Most importantly, he gave his players a vision for being better men by giving them opportunities to serve with local charities and inviting them to prayer services before each game.

An isolated win in one venue of life isn’t the ultimate prize for a follower of Christ. God created us to be much more than good runners, shooters, salesmen, or any other forms of competitors. Although he made Eric Liddel (whose story became well known in the movie Chariots of Fire) a fast runner, He also made him a missionary. “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training,” Paul tells the Corinthians, “They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” No competitive arena should ever displace the ultimate prize set before us.

Jim Tressel and the Buckeyes aren’t without their faults, but their successful season is a refreshing example of how Christians can bring a redemptive approach to competition and achieve the biggest kind of win.