A Jamaican bobsled team! Now there’s an oxymoron. Yet, not long ago audiences were thrilled with a movie on that subject.
I first saw Cool Runnings when I was in the middle of a sermon series titled “Character Counts.” An upcoming message focused on integrity. Since all communicators are elated when they find a masterful illustration, I was ecstatic.
In the movie, young Dareese is consumed with becoming an Olympic runner for Jamaica just as his father had been. But he gets tripped at the qualifying trials and there is no hope of making the team. Then Dareese spies a picture of his former-Olympian father and an unknown man. He learns that the man is Erwin Brister, an American medal winner in bobsledding. Brister was disqualified for adding weight to the nose of his bobsled and his two gold medals were revoked.
Dareese sets out to establish Jamaica’s first-ever bobsled team. He finds Brister, now an alcoholic, and challenges him to train the team. It’s a humorous trail of events, but they finally make it all the way to Calgary.
The night before their qualifying run, Brister (played by John Candy) enters Dareese’s room and asks if he wants to go out for dinner. Dareese, studying pictures of each turn in the bobsled run, declines. But as Brister turns to leave, Dareese says, “Hey, Coach, I have to ask you a question. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”
Brister responds, “You want to know why I cheated, right? I guess that’s a fair question. You see, Dareese, I had to win. I made winning my whole life, and when you’ve made winning your whole life, you have to win no matter what.”
“But Coach, you had two gold medals. You had it all!”
And then came the line that stopped me in my tracks. “Dareese, a gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you are not enough without it, you will never be enough with it.”
That’s what integrity is about.
Worth a thousand words
When Sunday came, I introduced integrity based on Psalm 51:6. There it tells us that, more than anything else, God desires integrity in the innermost part of our lives.
Then I introduced the movie and showed the clip. It was amazing to watch the response. Children stopped squirming. Teenagers stopped talking. Adults stopped doodling.
Attention was riveted not only by hearing a message, but by seeing a message in a medium common in their everyday lives.
—Bob Reccord, from On Mission (Jan./Feb. 1999)
Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
