Winning & Losing

Hope springs eternal for sports bettors, as they typically expect to break even on future wagers even when they have consistently lost money in the past.

Now we know roughly how overconfident many gamblers are. A study by Stanford University researchers finds that the average online sportsbook customer expects a gain of 0.3 cent for every dollar wagered. In reality, sports bettors lose an average of 7.5 cents per dollar wagered, reflecting “widespread overoptimism about financial returns,” according to Matthew Brown lead author of the study.

The study also found that 20% of participants reported betting too much. To promote responsible gambling, online sportsbooks have rolled out features making it easy for users to track their results over time. But since most sports bettors are overly optimistic about their future betting, those measures likely won’t do much to curb problematic gambling,

Brown says. “Even when bettors know their past losses, they remained optimistic about the future, so that particular approach to consumer protection might not be enough,” he says.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As online gambling infiltrates society (and the church), there are more opportunities for temptation, people can hide their gambling addiction by not leaving their home. How many secret addicted gamblers are there in our churches?

The cacophony of slot machines, dice rolls, and card shuffles is what usually comes to mind when people think of gambling. The more pervasive way to gamble that has become more popular over the years is with your cellphone.

The computers in our pockets provide us with 24/7 access to sites and apps that facilitate our bets for us. People can’t even watch a sports game on their phone without being inundated with ads for fantasy sports platforms. Why not combine phone addiction with gambling? What’s the worst that could happen?

Writing in The Atlantic, Christine Emba anticipates the dreadful impact:

In a sense, Americans have been training themselves for years to become eager users of gambling tech. Smartphone-app design relies on the “variable reward” method of habit formation to get people hooked—the same mechanism that casinos use to keep people playing games and pulling levers. When Instagram sends notifications about likes or worthwhile posts, people are impelled to open the app and start scrolling; when sports-betting apps send push alerts about fantastic parlays, people are coaxed into placing one more bet.

Smartphones have thus habituated people to an expectation of stimulation—and potential reward—at every moment. Timothy Fong, a UCLA psychiatry professor and a co-director of the university’s gambling-studies program, said, “You’re constantly surrounded by the ability to change your neurochemistry by a simple click. There’s this idea that we have to have excessive dopamine with every experience in our life.”

The frictionless ease of mobile sports betting takes advantage of this. It has become easy, even ordinary, to experience the excitement of gambling everywhere. It isn’t enough anymore to be anxious about the final score of the Saturday night football game—let’s up the ante and bet on the winning team!

But at what cost? Indeed, what happens when we begin to think of every scenario in our lives in terms of risk/reward and the dispassionate calculations of probability? This can turn life itself into some cosmic game, twisting relationships into scenarios we scheme and manipulate as we chase the dopamine rush of a winning bet. The easy accessibility to gambling won’t just affect us personally, for it can also change the culture around us.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As online gambling infiltrates society (and the church), there are more opportunities for temptation, people can hide their gambling addiction by not leaving their home. How many secret addicted gamblers are there in our churches?

Alexander George writes in Popular Mechanics:

Ready for the one genius tip that will make you a better winter driver? Here it is: Look where you want to go. Yep—that’s it. It’s so simple, and so effective, that every pro driver does it. But it’s so unintuitive that you have to practice to get it right.

That’s because our very reasonable instinct is to instead focus on where we don’t want to go. When the most urgent threat to your bodily safety and insurance premium is the car ahead of you or a guardrail, you watch that thing. But when you’re at speed, you involuntarily direct yourself towards wherever you’re focused. It’s formally known as target fixation, a term you’ll see in literature for fighter pilots and motorcycle racers.

Rather than watch the bumper of the car you’re following on the highway, or a guardrail between you and steep cliff, look further in time. Fix your eyes on the middle of your lane, at the spot you want to be several seconds later, even if that means ignoring the car in front of you. Your peripheral vision will still catch any unexpected braking or road debris.

It took me a full day at a winter driving school to believe. On a track made of snow and ice, I drove a Lexus LX into a turn with too much speed and deliberately lost traction. Most runs, the rear end would fishtail, sometimes turning me completely around. A few times, usually after the instructor disabled the stability control and ABS, I’d end up sliding almost perpendicular to the direction I was pointing. Even in a controlled environment, it’s terrifying.

The instructor correctly pointed out that I was looking right at the wall of snow I wanted to not hit. “Look where you want to go,” he said, and fixed almost everything I was doing wrong.

I haven’t found any activity where this doesn’t help — surfing, cycling, skiing. Try it the next time you’re out on the road.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, when faced with a temptation, instead of always looking at the temptation, bad habit, or trouble that you want to avoid, “look at Jesus” (Heb. 12:2). Fixing your eyes on our Savior and focusing on your relationship with him will get you safely through whatever trouble, temptation, or worry is troubling you.

When the No. 1 seed Alabama men’s basketball team suffered an upset loss in the Sweet 16 in 2023, coach Nate Oats sought out advice from one of the greatest coaches of all time—Alabama’s football coach, Nick Saban.

It will come as no surprise to learn that Nick Saban, the seven-time title-winning football coach, had some wisdom to offer his colleague. Saban emphasized the importance of not dwelling on the opportunity the team had just lost, but focusing on the next opportunity to come.

Saban’s approach paid off. Despite losing more games and earning a lower March Madness seed than it did the year before, the 2024 Alabama basketball team reached the first Final Four in the program’s 111-year history.

“It’s a great philosophy in life,” Oats said this week. “There’s a lot of adversity you hit … You live in the past; you’re not going to be very good in the present.”

That’s where Saban came in. One of the greatest winners in the history of college sports, Saban also happens to know plenty about losing. As Oats pointed out, most of Saban’s championships came during seasons marred by at least one crushing regular-season defeat.

It may be surprising that Saban was so willing to let Oats pick his brain. But as it turns out, it’s something the pair have been doing for years. After he was hired from Buffalo, Oats asked Saban if he could embed himself into Bama’s practice facilities to see how the best college football coach of all-time ran his program.

Oats said, “I went and watched practices. I sat in on staff meetings. I shadowed him for a day. I went on road trips with him to see how they operated. I tried to learn as much as I could.”

In CT magazine, Brad East reflects on Olympic athletes sharing their Christian testimony:

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics are extravagant celebrations of national glories and global unity. But if you watch past the opener to the 2024 Games themselves, you’ll notice an unusual pattern: Athletes are always talking about God. Athletes of every kind continuously gave God the credit, often in explicitly Christian terms.

For my money, US track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won. After breaking the world record (again) for women’s 400-meter hurdles, she answered a reporter’s question this way: “Honestly—praise God. I was not expecting that, but he can do anything. Anything is possible in Christ. I’m just amazed, baffled, and in shock.” The reporter laughed nervously and moved on to the next qualifier.

It’s not news that athletes thank the Lord for their success. But watching these public displays of piety made me wonder: Why is this still normal? Unlike other events, like the Oscars, sporting events appear to be the last refuge of “acceptable” public faith in our secular culture. In a time when belief is belittled, ignored, or relegated to one’s private life, athletes are unapologetically faithful in public. But why?

The place to start, I think, is the nature of sports itself. Athletic discipline is rigorously controlled because, when the whistle blows, nothing is under control. It’s chaos, contingency, and chance all the way down. The skies fill with rain clouds; the court is slick with sweat; the track is spongy; your opponents are strategically unpredictable.

With good reason, therefore, athletes turn to God. None but God is sovereign. I can’t control the weather, but he can. I can’t stop my body from failing, but he can. Even the wind and the waves obey him (Matt. 8:27). Shouldn’t footballs and softballs obey him too?

For athletes, God isn’t just in charge of the moment. He’s the governor of history. This is true for all of us, at all times, but elite athletes are viscerally reminded of it with a frequency few of us experience.

It should come as no surprise, then, that a victorious athlete will speak of more than God answering a prayer. Sure, they may be caught up in the moment. Deep down, though, they’re expressing faith in divine providence. It’s one more way to be clear about control. None of us has it, because only God does, and the sooner one recognizes that, the sooner peace is possible when losing and real joy available when winning.

In the 2023 South East Asia 500-meter race, one runner showed what it really means to run the race well. Despite the pounding rain and her last place finish, Bou Samnang refused to give up. Cheering fans encouraged the native Cambodian as she finished the race on behalf of her country, six minutes after the race was decided.

Despite knowing that she would not finish first place, Bou Samnang was determined to finish well. According to one news source she said, "I tried to reach the finish line because I wanted to show people that in life, even though we go a bit slow or fast, we will reach our destination all the same."

It would have been easy for her to stop running, especially as she was dealing with anemia which prevented her from running as fast as she would have liked. But her determination and endurance has led to her inspiring fans around the world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Paul wrote that our faith journey resembles a race. Running the race well doesn’t always mean finishing first. It does mean, working hard for something outside of yourself, persisting with a goal, and enduring hard times for Christ. We are encouraged to be like Bou Samnang, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, endure to the end.

Two researchers have found that success comes with a trap: It can cause teams to rely more on their “stars.” This makes the team less adaptable and more likely to get stuck in old ways of doing things. And, ultimately, it increases the chances of failure the next time around.

They started their research by looking at pro basketball teams. They examined teams in the NBA across more than 60,000 games, spanning 34 years. Leveraging motion-tracking-camera data, they looked at how teams’ passing patterns and shot distributions changed after wins and losses. Here’s their conclusion:

We found that after winning, teams became more reliant on their star players. Teams passed the ball about 6% more to the stars, and their shot distribution skewed 15% more toward the big performers. Although doubling down is intuitive (“We want to exploit what worked before”), it ended up decreasing teams’ chances of winning the next game. The increased reliance on the star players made teams more predictable to the next opponent and easier to defend—and therefore less likely to win the game … Our studies suggest that success threatens teams.

Their recommendation? Focus on the whole team, not just the stars. The researchers concluded, “When teams succeed, the credit is less likely to focus on specific performers, but rather on the team. Likewise, blame is less likely to be attributed solely to the stars, so the team can get a clearer picture of what went wrong.”

Sounds like the body of Christ!

The unheralded Florida Atlantic University men’s basketball team made it all the way to the 2023 NCAA Final Four. How did they make it that far, especially considering they had no superstars? They relied on teamwork. Nine players on this Owls team averaged 15-plus minutes during the season, and the starting rotation has changed several times.

"We really don't care who starts as long as you just impact the game," said sophomore guard Alijah Martin, who started 20 games that season. Another starter said, "It's probably the first team I've been on where really nobody cares about their stats. I feel like across the board, any game it's just a whole bunch of selfless guys just trying to get a win."

"If you feel like it could do better for the team, why not serve and make that happen?" another player said. "There's been many opportunities and many times when guys offered up their spot for somebody else. I feel like that just reflects on the type of people we are as humans, and it shows on the court."

This selfless team spirit was exemplified early in the season between a fifth-year senior named Boyd and Michael Forrest, who lost his starting job to Boyd because of an injury. When Forrest returned, Boyd offered to give up his starting role. May declined to make the change. Where that might have affected the dynamics of some teams, FAU continued to win. Forrest said, "It doesn't really matter who starts, who finishes, it just matters about what you do on the court. Everyone's just playing to win. Everyone's playing for each other. So that's really what the difference is."

Training for a marathon is one of the most physically demanding activities you can willingly put yourself through. And when race day finally comes—after months of training and hours spent pounding the pavement—you want to finish the race strong. But sometimes, that just doesn’t happen.

A runner at the 2023 London Marathon experienced this as he worked his way towards the end of the race. In a short video shared on Reddit, a man in a black cap begins to double over and is on the verge of collapsing as other participants whizz by. But before he falls to the ground, another runner comes from behind him and grabs his arm. He’s able to hold the runner steady enough to keep going. Shortly after, another person appears on the man’s other side. Together, the three runners make their way to the finish line.

It’s unclear if the men knew each prior to the race. But when it comes to marathons, finishing with a fast time is only one component. The camaraderie—knowing thousands of other people are doing the same thing as you—is part of what makes the experience so special. And helping someone in need? Even better. Though the three guys didn’t finish first, they won that day.

You can watch the 16-second video here.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Community, Encouragement, Body of Christ—With our weaknesses and frailties, we all need the support of an encouraging community that will run beside us during the long journey of life. (2) Holy Spirit—This story also beautifully illustrates the presence of the Holy Spirit, the One called to be beside us, our Paraclete.

Australian Erchana Murray-Bartlett completed 150 marathons in 150 days, running 6,300 kilometers (3,900 miles) from the country’s northern tip to the southern city of Melbourne in what could be a new world record. The 32-year-old runner crossed the finish line on Monday after a feat that, if confirmed, will beat the previous world record of 106 consecutive marathons set by British national Kate Jayden last year.

While Jayden sought to raise money for refugees, Murray-Bartlett completed her run to raise awareness of the threats to Australia’s biodiversity. She said, “Australia is fantastic, it’s so beautiful, and that was one of the key things I wanted to get out of this run, it was to showcase Australia’s beauty to the world.”

Murray-Bartlett raised more than 118,000 Australian dollars ($82,130) for the Wilderness Society, with all profits going towards conserving Australia’s native animals.

Australia, which has one of the world’s worst records on extinctions, last year announced a 10-year plan to try to prevent any more species from dying out in the country. The country’s wildlife has suffered the effects of natural disasters and the climate crisis, including catastrophic bushfires in 2019-20 that killed or displaced nearly three billion animals.

After setting off from Cape York in Queensland in August, Murray-Bartlett ran 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles) each day, enduring scorching heat and storms as she crossed dirt roads, rivers, and beaches. She said, “It’s very exhausting, I’ll give you that but I feel very blessed have been out to get to the finish line.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians have our own marathon to run with perseverance. Our race begins anew every day, and also has purpose - to please the One who calls us and to share our testimony with the world.

Most people have never heard of Coach Miller Bugliari, but the legendary American boys’ high school soccer coach is still at it—coaching his 63rd consecutive season, at age 87. The accumulated numbers are absurd. Bugliari possesses a lifetime coaching record that looks like an international telephone number: 916 wins, 130 losses, 82 ties. The list of titles includes 21 state championships. There is so much hardware and memorabilia piled into Bugliari’s office it can be difficult to locate the Hall of Fame coach behind his desk.

People around him note that humility is one of the keys to his success. In a recent interview he quietly told a reporter, “I take a little pride [in all those victories], but I try to ignore it.” Later in the same interview he said, “I think everyone is blessed with something they like to do. I just enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed working—and the kids keep you young.” One of this year’s (2022) team captains described Coach Bugliari this way: “I think people would be surprised at how humble he is.”

For Bugliari it isn’t about the championships. Talk to a Pingry graduate about Bugliari, and you’ll get an earful about their former coach’s intellectual curiosity, his patience, the way he shaped young men into parents, leaders, and coaches themselves.

William McRavenwas, commander of US Special Force Command, gave an oft-quoted speech at a university graduation in Texas in 2014. He spoke of his experiences in becoming a US Navy SEAL. SEAL training is regarded as being the toughest in the world. McRaven spoke about his Hell Week at Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL (BUD/S) training:

The ninth week of SEAL training is referred to as Hell Week. It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and one special day at the Mud Flats. The Mud Flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana sloughs—a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you. You paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing-cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure from the instructors to quit.

As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up—eight more hours of bone-chilling cold. The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song.

The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing.

We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

In February of 2022, Scottie Scheffler was a 25-year-old beginning his third full season on the PGA Tour, ranked 15th in the world. He was still seeking his first victory on the game’s top circuit. And on Sunday April 10, Scheffler became a Masters champion as well.

In a press conference after his victor, sporting his new green jacket, Scheffler was asked how he balances his desire to compete—which is fierce—without letting it define who he is as a person. Scheffler then opened up about his faith:

The reason why I play golf is I’m trying to glorify God and all that He’s done in my life. So, for me, my identity isn’t a golf score. Like my wife, Meredith, told me this morning, “If you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by 10 shots, if you never win another golf tournament again. I’m still going to love you, you’re still going to be the same person. Jesus loves you and nothing changes.” All I’m trying to do is glorify God and that’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m in [this] position.

Possible Preaching Angle:

No matter how successful we become, our identity is not tangled in our wins and losses. Our identity comes through Christ and bringing him glory.

The issue of verbal and physical abuse is a problem in high school sports around the country. As an example, a 22 old-year-old man from Polk County, FL, disagreed with the umpire and beat him up. More and more referees are leaving. A study conducted by the National Association of Sports of Officials discovered that adult misbehavior contributed to 75% of high school referees quitting their jobs.

How did we get here?

Psychologist Richard Weissbourd says, “I think it’s because sometimes parents are wanting to compensate for their shortcomings or live out their own fantasies about sports. I think it’s the degree to which we are becoming less communal and more tribal and more individual.”

He goes on to offer us a solution to this prevailing problem. It starts with promoting the value of being part of a community and the importance of both winning and losing. Weissbourd, a secular psychologist, recognizes the benefits of religious practices, instilling values like sacrifice, gratitude, morality, empathy, and the obligation to care for each other. The competitiveness of sport ought to be a catalyst for both personal growth and building community.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture teaches us to use discernment when making judgment calls and to deal with our faults first before judging others (Matt. 7:1-6).

Success is the unrelenting prize of our culture. We will sacrifice whatever we must to avoid feeling the pain of failure. And when we do fail, our society tells us to move on as quickly as possible. But what if there's something to be gleaned from times when we do not succeed.

In the film Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal, and Greed, Joshua Rofé describes the unseen parts of Ross' fame. The painter and television personality mesmerized audiences in half hour blocks. Mountains, bushes, and rivers emerge seamlessly before our very eyes. His ideas passed effortlessly from pallet, to brush, to canvas.

But, of course, this fluidity did not imply flawlessness. Often, Ross would extend a stroke too far or lay down a color that did not match with what he had imagined. When this happened, Ross simply labeled the mistake a "happy accident" and adjusted his plan to incorporate the mistake into a masterpiece.

Near the end of the film, Steve Ross gave some insight on this topic:

It's hard to tell people their faults. It’s even harder to admit that you have made a “happy accident.” A lot of times, I've wondered if it's not your mistakes that teach you a lot more than your successes. After success, you just move on to the next thing. But when you make a mistake, or have a “happy accident,” as Bob called it, suddenly you learn all kinds of new ways to correct it. And through that learning process you really start developing in new ways.

In an interview with Michael Jordan, Marvin R. Shanken asked him about his regrets and disappointments in life. This is how he responded:

I'm not the kind of person who has regrets. As soon as you look back … and you come up with something you feel like you want to change, something else [in your future] has to change. ... To win, you've got to lose. To be successful, you've got to have something that's not successful. To be happy, you've got to have disappointments. So, I think all those things have happened to make me who I am.

Note: You can watch the hour-long video here.

Only 44 people have reached the summit of all 14 of the world’s 26,000-foot peaks, according to the record books. Or, maybe no one has. The difference rides on a timeless question getting a fresh look--what is a summit?

Ed Viesturs believes he knows. He is one of the 44, the only American on the list. In 1993, climbing alone and without supplemental oxygen or ropes, he reached the “central summit” of Shishapangma, the world’s 14th-highest mountain. Most climbers turn around there, calling it good enough.

Before him was a narrow spine of about 300 feet, a knife-edge of snow with drops to oblivion on both sides. At its end was the mountain’s true summit, a few feet higher in elevation than where he stood. “Too dangerous,” Ed told himself. He retreated but then he said, “I was one of those guys where if the last nail in the deck hasn’t been hammered in, it’s not done.” Eight years later, Ed climbed within reach of Shishapangma’s summit again. With a leg on each side of the narrow mountain spine, he shimmied across it. He touched the highest point and scooted back to relative safety.

There is a summit, and then there is everything below it. Can close ever be good enough? By asking a simple-sounding question—What is the summit?—the researchers are raising doubts about past accomplishments and raising standards for future ones.

Eberhard Jurgalski has spent 40 years chronicling the ascents of the 26,000-foot peaks. And now he has some jarring news: It is possible that no one has ever been on the true summit of all 14 of those peaks. Some stopped on the central summit, not daring to straddle the ridge the way Viesturs did. Some turned around at a popular selfie-taking spot without scaling the precarious ridge hidden just beyond it.

Climber and author David Roberts says, “The summit does matter. Why does it matter? Because it’s the whole point of mountaineering. It’s the goal that defines an ascent.”

Australian explorer Damien Gildea said, “People are stopping short because it’s too hard. And I say, that’s not really a good excuse for a climber.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Let’s also beware the danger of giving up before reaching the finish line of the Christian life. Thinking that “close enough” is “good enough” leaves us short of the prize (Phil. 3:14).

Japanese Marathon Runner Shizo Kanakuri competed in the domestic qualifying trials for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Kanakuri set a marathon world record and was selected as one of the only two athletes that Japan could afford to send to the event that year.

However, Kanakuri shockingly disappeared during the 1912 Olympic marathon race. He had had a rough 18-day-long trip to Stockholm, first by ship and then by train all through the Trans-Siberian Railway, and needed five days to recover for the race. Kanakuri, weakened by the long journey from Japan, lost consciousness midway through the race, and was cared for by a local family. Being embarrassed from his "failure" he returned to Japan without notifying race officials.

Swedish authorities considered him missing for 50 years before discovering that he was living in Japan. In 1967, he was offered the opportunity to complete his run. He accepted and completed the marathon in 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds, remarking, "It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible is full of stories of people who quit, but later, with God’s help, finished the race. Moses spent forty years in the wilderness before God renewed his call. Peter denied Christ, went back to fishing, but Jesus restored him. The list continues with John Mark, Sampson, and many others who eventually finished the race.

In a recent issue of Runner's World, Jess Movold shared how she lost her passion to press on:

Tempo runs scare me. Those long, hard, sustained efforts always look impossible when I see them on paper. Doubt creeps in. I remember one run in particular—I saw it on my plan and immediately began creating a laundry list of excuses as to why this was simply just not going to work, why I wasn’t fit enough, why I wouldn’t finish, why I would fail. Before I even laced up my shoes, I’d already convinced myself I couldn’t do this. Instead of using the warmup to find my groove, prepare for success, and get excited to make the best of it, I adopted a loser’s mindset, revisited my list of excuses, and fell further into a bad attitude.

The problem, I realized, was that I treated my entire training plan like a tempo run—hard, fast, strict. In a tempo run, if you don’t hit your pace early, it’s nearly impossible to catch up. In my training plan, I felt like if I didn’t hit a workout early, I wouldn’t be able to catch up.

How did she fix this problem? She started treating her workout collectively like a long run:

I love long runs … settling into a relaxed pace, enjoying the route, and focusing on only one goal—finishing. I love that I can have a bad mile in the middle and still end strong.

Now, when I set a new goal, I have what I call “the long-run mindset.” I find success and value in my training because I’m not desperate for immediate results like I have been. I care more about the big picture and my long-term goals as a runner. I have shifted my attitude to think bigger than short-term outcomes and work toward lifelong success.

Later, Movold offers this advice:

In training as a whole, your “why” will likely be more meaningful but just as important. What are you running toward? Figure out the reason for the miles, and they become easier.

The marathon is one of the most strenuous athletic events in sport. The Boston Marathon attracts the best runners in the world. The winner is automatically placed among the great athletes of our time. A few years ago, Rosie Ruiz was the first woman to cross the finish line. She had the laurel wreath placed on her head in a blaze of lights and cheering.

She was completely unknown in the world of running. An incredible feat! Her first race a victory in the prestigious Boston Marathon! Then someone noticed her legs—loose flesh, cellulite. Questions were asked. No one had seen her along the 26.2-mile course. The truth came out: she had jumped into the race during the last mile.

There was immediate and widespread interest in Rosie. Why would she do that when it was certain that she would be found out? Athletic performance cannot be faked. But she never admitted her fraud. She repeatedly said that she would run another marathon to validate her ability. Somehow, she never did. People interviewed her, searching for a clue to her personality. She was analyzed as a sociopath. She lied convincingly and naturally with no sense of conscience, no sense of reality in terms of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

In reading about Rosie, we can think of all the people we know who want to get in on the finish but who cleverly arrange not to run the race. They appear in church on Sunday wreathed in smiles, entering into the celebration, but there is no personal life that leads up to it or out from it. They are plausible and convincing. But in the end, they do not run the race, believing through the tough times, praying the lonely, angry, hurt hours. The proper name for such a person is a religiopath.