January 16, 2003
Sports Idol
The ESPN advertisement on the wall inside the Metro car reads as follows:
Without sports, who would we follow?
There is much to take note of here, but most only in passing. There is the poor grammar -- but it is unfair to hold modern advertisers to a standard that their government-school audiences can't meet. There is too the irony of an advertisement extolling sports in order to convince people to sit in front of their televisions. This is not uncommon; John Miller noted some months ago in National Review, for example, that a popular children's magazine was chock full of inducements to watch the company's television channel, i.e., to convince the children not to read.
There is also the picture featured in the advertisement: two female professional basketball players, both resembling moderately attractive men, in poses suggesting that they can hold their own in the professional sports world -- presumably so long as they are provided a large subsidy from lawsuit-conscious corporations and protected from competing with players of the opposite sex. There is the spectacle of the WNBA itself, and the ridiculous gender-equity notions that spawned it, and the massive campaign embarked upon by public and private entities designed to induce the public to share those notions, or at least to stop snickering at them.
The most interesting element to me, however, is the astounding honesty in the advertisement's question. Without sports, whom would we follow?
I had the profound pleasure of hearing Dr. Benjamin Carson, product of mean streets, pediatric neurosurgeon, miracle worker, devout Christian, speak last year. He has a foundation that provides scholarships to needy children. He also does a number of charity events for poor children each year, and speaks to schools across the country. In his spare time he performs life-saving surgeries that other surgeons won't do. He has little time for sports. When he announced to the audience that he does not encourage student athletes, the silence as his words faded stood in stark contrast to the applause that nearly all of his other words had garnered.
We have been taught that sports are an important part of the formative experience, that they build physical health and moral character. Both of these claims are false. There is no question that exercise and many kinds of physical exertion build better physical health. But these should be distinguished from sports, and held up to counter the belief that participation in sports is the only way to increase physical health, or the best way, or even a good way.
Almost none of the sports that attract a following produce all-around good physical health. Football, for example, involves a great deal of running into other people at great speed. Those who want to excel at it must add much more body mass than the human frame was designed to hold. America is littered with men who have sustained permanent damage or who are overweight as a consequence of football. Indeed, an economist specializing in costs and benefits might well ask: which is more threatening to the health of children -- football, or smoking?
Basketball is a bit better, but the investment of time necessary to be competitive even at the high school level is well beyond any physical benefit it might produce. A student would be better off dancing, or working chores on a farm, or any other number of activities that are both physically challenging and which produce a more beautiful and meangingful outcome than proving that one can get a ball through a net more times than another team. The same critique could be applied in one way or another to many other sports -- soccer, baseball, volleyball, field hockey, etc. They either are drastically sub-optimal (in terms of time investment and overall contribution to health), or absolutely harmful to those who want to excel in them.
Then there is the claim that sports build moral character, which I have heard from people who I know to be moral, and who earnestly seek to raise their children properly, and some of whom do a very good job at it. They have made the fundamental mistake of assuming that because they effectively build character in the context of their children's sports, that sports therefore have inherent character-building qualities. A survey of the behaviors of professional -- or even high school -- athletes belies this claim. On some major college campuses, the athletes are responsible for a quarter or more of the crimes committed, if a criminological study I read years ago is to be believed. (Getting colleges to accurately report crimes committed within their borders, by the way, has been difficult for years, and has only been done in recent years by dint of legal force.)
To believe that any aspect of character can be more effectively built through the sports experience than through any of a vast array of childhood activities is to be intentionally blind. Character is built through example, through successes and failures and setbacks and a myriad of life's lessons, and through exposure to a moral framework. In no way does the modern sports experience provide these to great degree -- in most cases it inhibits them.
There are precious few sports players, coaches, or even fans who behave in ways that clearly provide positive moral example to children (and this extends all the way from the professional to the high school to the grade school level). Success becomes exaltation, defeat a cause for shame and bitterness. The moral framework, meanwhile, is simply the scoreboard -- you are good if your number is higher, a loser if your number is lower. Fans love you if you win, they hate you if you lose. This is not an arena in which character is built, it is an arena in which narcissism takes root.
So, without sports, whom would we follow? It is a difficult question, which I think was ESPN's point. Contrary to their advertisers' intention, however, I think we should try to find out.
Posted by Woodlief on January 16, 2003 at 08:52 AM
My son asked me last night why I was unhappy with the SuperBowl Party planned for the youth group (The youth pastor even asked Sunday if someone with a big screen TV could volunteer to host it). I barely kept a lid on it when I asked him when the All Saints, Lent, Passover, Good Friday, Martyrs, Evangelists, Missionaries, Soup Kitchen, Prison or Orphanage Ministry parties were being held. It took a second for it to sink in.
I still haven't figured out what my public response to the party should be.
Posted by: Steve at January 16, 2003 10:16 AM
I agree that professional sprots is a complete pile of poo in terms of ethics, and that is definitely leaching it's way (mostly already has now, I guess) into lower level sports. This is sad. Also, sports that are destructive (football being a prime example) strike me as particularly stupid (though I admit I enjoy watching the stupidity - I don't care about teams, but watching them squish each other is fun).
There is one thing you left out about sports, though - the entertainment factor, both for participants and fans. Many other forms of excercise lack this factor.
Basketball is fun (at least to many people). The competition gives reason to the exertion. Certainly this is often taken too far in "organized" sports, but nothing gets me moving like a pick-up game of a sport I enjoy.
No one really cares very much who wins, and no one plays when they're hurt. No one tries to hurt anybody else. It's a good time AND good exercise.
Perhaps you meant for what you said to apply only to "organized" sports (where winning is everything) - it seems taht way from the initial question that provoked the response - but I think that few things have done as much to keep people in shape in this country, simply because other forms of exercise are boring.
Posted by: Deoxy at January 16, 2003 11:24 AM
Why all this trashing a) of "organized" sports and b) of competition?
I can only give an anecdotal example, but:
My high school swim team was run basically on two principles: you're here to work, and you're here to win. We worked harder than other team on campus, and we won. A lot. But we never got hurt. We were never run into the ground without regard for health or forced to do ridiculous crap in the name of greater speed or power. When we lost meets, we knew when we'd screwed up, and we fixed it through effort. Our coach, Major Duckett, never cut swimmers because of talent; he did, however, kick them off for missing practices and bad sportsmanship.
My point is, competition can be done right, and morally. If the sole purpose is winning regardless of cost, then yes, there are problems. But sports are fun and should be played to win, and no one, coach or player, should be ashamed to say that they play to beat the other team. If we didn't have scoreboards, the world would be a lot fatter and not necessarily any better off from a moral standpoint. The issue isn't with the sports, it's with finding that balance.
Posted by: Max at January 16, 2003 1:00 PM
You're a BRAVE,BRAVE man. What's next-a rant about mom and apple pie?
Posted by: jim at January 16, 2003 1:20 PM
Max, while I do not necessarily disagree with your point, I think you may have missed a large portion of Tony's. Yes, it is possible to play sports without compromising one's morals and to bring the concepts of fair play and value of hard work vs. "star" talent to competition. However, this is not the typical standard adhered to in today's "organized" sports.
The comments in Tony's post that you have taken exception to are facts that support his overall point that we have, in this country at least, idolized sports figures and the concept of win-at-all-costs in almost every level of sports when "organized" sports are not the only, or even the best, source of physical fitness, character development, etc. In many cases these concepts are even antithetical to the goals of the sports world. That you are participating in an exception to this general rule is great. That other exceptions exist is not surprising. Yet, we need go only to the high school in the next town or our newspaper's sports page to see that they are exceptions.
Despite this fact, the majority of Americans (and many citizens of other nations, I'm sure) have showered sports figures with adoration and hero-worship and justified their actions by claiming an inherent virtue that does not exist in sports. As Tony pointed out, there are often better ways to accomplish physical fitness and character building than playing sports, ways that can also be useful and productive beyond providing what is probably an unhealthy fixation for entertainment hungry fans. So, given that, why do we treat an NBA star as a hero and sneer at a ditch digger?
Posted by: Gary at January 16, 2003 1:55 PM
I'm glad you didn't cast golf into your net of "bad" sports, although some people might disagree with the Augusta exclusivity.
I see sports, particularly the professional ones, as an outlet for our warrior heritage: cheer for your home team, destroy the opponent, gather the prizes when victorious. Look at how the planet stops for World Cup Soccer!
One other point to note is the reduced life expectancies of pro football players, as they subject their bodies to extreme stress. That could be one reason why Barry Sanders retired early, rather than continue to make millions and break records.
Posted by: MarcV at January 16, 2003 3:15 PM
Quick aside about Augusta - last I checked, "freedom of association" meant that a private club that gets no government funding can admit whoever they want, right? I mean, if they thought black people should still be slaves, they could admit only whites, or if they thought straight people were psychotic, they could admit only gays, right?
Just checking - otherwise, "freedom of association" is subject to political correctness, which makes it essentially useless.
Posted by: Deoxy at January 16, 2003 5:17 PM
I will admit that sports is one of those aspects of modern life that I do not get. I don't watch sports, have never wanted to participate in sports (the only athletic thing I was ever good at was archery, and it never occurred to me to compete), and so on. I've heard that that is because I'm a "girl," though I know plenty of girls -- including my own sister -- who are sports nuts. In any case, I think some of you here are misunderstanding what Tony said. He didn't say that one could not participate in sports or enjoy sports and still be a moral person; he said that sports itself is not inherently able to foster morality. At best a sports team and coach may become a substitute family with father figure for a youth from a dysfunctional background, and the discipline of athletic pursuit may help the youth control his or her own behavior, but actually expecting sports to be a main purveyor of morals to the young is to put on that institution a heavier burden than it is able to bear. Then again, there isn't anything in human society that can't be turned to ill purposes as well as to good: sports, family, law enforcement, the church. If you are immoral so will your pursuits be.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 16, 2003 7:07 PM
Here is a column in the S.F. paper that has relevance with the problems in state and local funding that seem to be nationwide at this time.
Posted by: The Dark Avenger at January 17, 2003 12:41 AM
Bravo, Tony. I have been driven mad by sports for nearly my whole life. When I was in high school, I was on a team that competed in "College Bowl" style programs on local TV. We were always nothing short of shocked when we even got a ten-second mention the day before a show in which we competed was to be aired. On the other hand, the football team, which I don't think won an single game my senior year, was boosted every single day.
And let's not forget the under-cult of cheerleading that sports seems to require. It was bad enough 30 years ago when girls would just yell stupid things and strike poses but now, if the contests broadcast on TV are any indication, it borders on the obscene.
Only a few days after 9-11, a plane loaded with "Husky boosters" crashed in Mexico. This was presumably a group of University of Washington grads who never got over college life. They got page after page after page in the newspaper when the country was reeling from a terrorist attack. It still astonishes me that people who had resisted growing up got that kind of news coverage outside of the obituary page.
I do not understand personal loyalty to teams when the players know no such loyalty. I do not understand caring so deeply about what happens to a group of people who do not care if you live or die. I simply do not understand.
Posted by: Carol at January 21, 2003 9:49 AM
Good post and a question we should ask...
Posted by: Sarge at January 21, 2003 3:52 PM
Go Steve!
I think you are off to a good start on your public response.
Posted by: wife of Tony Woodlief at January 21, 2003 11:56 PM
