Mormons have a unique love affair with basketball, as Matt Bowman has deftly analyzed elsewhere. From the pickup games and (slightly) more organized local leagues sponsored by Mormon stakes and wards to 2011’s Jimmermania, and from LDS Prophet Thomas Monson’s casual backslap of former Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan in 2009 to the oddly inspiring story of deaf fundamentalist Mormon Lance Allred’s brief tenure in the NBA, Majerus’s comments seem on point.
Nevertheless, like so much commentary on Mormons and Mormonism, Rick Majerus’s quip rests on assumptions about Mormons that fail to look beyond the borders of the United States. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has, since the 1840s and 1850s, maintained an active (and in the last 50 years, increasingly large) international presence. More than half of all Mormons worldwide today live outside of the United States. But Mormonism is, of course, uniquely American in important ways, from its historical roots to its former and present leadership to the sometimes strange intermingling of official and popular Mormon thought with American culture. Among the aspects of American culture exported to other regions of the world are “cultural halls” complete with regulation basketball hoops, three point, and free throw lines (a staple of nearly all LDS church buildings in North America) to newly-constructed chapels all over the world, which has occasionally triggered a bemused and frustrated response from Latter-day Saints in regions where the sport isn’t particularly popular. I remember during a trip to El Salvador several years ago passing by a small LDS chapel with a full-size basketball court outside, the backboards and rims suffering under the blissful neglect of church members, who were busy playing fútbol with makeshift goals. A friend in South Africa similarly informed me recently that he and his friends opt for a friendly game of rugby on the church basketball courts accompanying their chapels.
Read Full Article »