Compromise

We have all done it…and likely for the same reasons.  Consider this example:

James Harris, the 1975 African-American quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams football team, had been winning football games with his skill and precision.  But according to head coach Chuck Knox, the fans blamed Harris for an unusual snap cadence that resulted in an L.A. penalty in the critical 1974 playoff game against Minnesota.

Coach Knox said it all began innocently enough. After USC Rhodes Scholar Pat Haden was acquired in the winter of 1975, every Thursday was “heads up day.”  Flamboyant Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom would land his helicopter on the practice field and sit in a director’s chair with his name on it.  He wanted a winning team to match the image of Tinseltown.

Chuck and Shirley Knox were invited to one of C. R.’s dinner parties in Bel Air.  The host suggested they pass around slips of paper and vote who they wanted for president…and then, just for additional fun, who they wanted for quarterback.  Later, Mr. and Mrs. Knox determined that theirs were the only two votes for James Harris.

Mr. Rosenbloom would come by the practice field and say, “Hey, Haden looked good today, didn’t he?” And, “You know, maybe we’ll need to make a change here one of these days, huh?”

Harris started the 1976 season.  In the first eight weeks, he led the team to six wins, one loss and one tie.  The ninth week was a bad loss to Cincinnati. In Hard Knox, the coach’s biography, Knox is quoted as telling Harris, “I am going to have to play Haden.  It is out of my hands.”

Harris was benched for the last six games of the season.  Of that he said, “Mentally, it ruined me.  I couldn’t handle it.” Of the whole situation, Knox says, “I was being torn smack down the middle.  I wasn’t SECURE ENOUGH [emphasis K.G.K.] to fight my owner.” And so he compromised, like most of us have done. 

Isn’t that why we also compromise?  We are insecure, having failed to grasp how secure we are because of God’s grace to His own through the redemption found in Jesus Christ.

    Source:  Hard Knox by Chuck Knox; page 158.5