Church Brawl

Last night a few extra lights shone during the Stake Center Basketball court championship game. David saw stars...





The undefeated ward team showed up in force as 13 of the 14 players made it, but David does not remember the game.

Apparently, in the final minutes of the first half, David’s face collided with the shoulder of another player. Witnesses told me afterward that they were surprised he was still on the court after the collision. He continued to play for about 45 seconds, and then subbed himself out.

I showed up a little later after a meeting. David sat on the bench staring blankly forward, not looking at anything. I did not know anything happened. After about 15 minutes, he got up and walked over to a friend of ours who is a nurse. He doesn’t remember what he said or why he went over there, but shortly afterward, she came and told me that there might be something wrong and I should take him to the Insta-care. After discussing the possible need to go to a doctor, the following conversation occurred:

“Would you like a priesthood blessing?”
“I do not want to go to the doctor.”
“That’s not what I asked, I just wanted to know if you want a Priesthood blessing.”
“I hate [going to] the doctor.”

Our friend, the nurse, and another friend who saw it happen also suggested the Priesthood blessing with the same response. I finally changed it from a question to a statement, "We'll get someone to give you a blessing."

He started to recover following such and we left. David suffered a Grade I concussion. That puts him out for the remainder of the season (region tournament). Over the length of the evening he seemed somewhat lucid, but when he got up this morning, he did not remember nearly anything from last night. You can tell he’s really not too pleased about that, because he’s wondering if he’s getting too out-of-shape to keep up with the high intensity of Utah church-brawl next year. Which is funny, because biking 100 miles? No problem. Playing basketball with 25-55 year olds? Hazardous!

David’s probably doing just fine, since he posted our 200th blog entry this morning, and he seems to be his usual self, albeit, perhaps a little more grumpy due to a significant headache.