1st & Ten - The Importance of Sport

 

The Importance of Sport

I’ve often asked why I love sports so much. I’ve even wondered what its value is. Depending on which sport you’re interested in would determine how your year will be shaped. Whether it’s baseball, football (soccer), rugby, hockey, or NFL what brings us to be so interested in a few dozen young athletes, and some wealthy, showing their capabilities?

What is it that makes a big game so compelling? What does it do for our emotions? Is it a good thing or do some think it’s a bad thing? Which camp are you in?

Many reasons draw us to Sports. Maybe it’s the competition, the history of the game or the sport itself, watching an athlete do something amazing, that we may not be able to do, but they sure can! It could even be the elegance of the game, or the coming together as a community in a shared story, such as the Olympics, or the Super Bowl. A focal point of coming together and being part of the moment.

Even at the game itself, in that moment professional sport is fair, sane and a great form of bonding.

As humans we are unique. It’s not because we think or have language. Johan Huizinga tells us it’s because we can play.  While Hunziger tells us that play is everywhere.  And he doesn’t see play simply as little kids putting some blocks together and knocking them down. Or, for that matter, hitting a grand slam in the last inning. He interprets play as something truly important in the grand scheme of things. 

When there are rules that inviolate and people accept and operate within those rules, magic can emerge.  It’s among the sweetest things that human beings can do. It plays on your emotions. Give you those highs of the game or even the lows.

Within the game and we look closely, who’s the most powerful person on the field?

It’s the umpire or referee in some sports.

It’s the ref’s role to run back and forth in the background, deciding what’s fair and what’s not fair. They’re the enforcers of the rule and provide a sense of fairness.

If the referee stops functioning, and the rules no longer count – everything falls apart. Without the rules, there’s no meaningful game.  That is why all sports are filled with procedures which can lead to interpretation or challenges. But once a decision is made there’s no more appeal. The referees did the best that they could - the call stands, and the game carries on.

A coach or manager can argue but no one can eject the umpire even if a bad call is made. And as we know most calls are subjective.

Most sports are defined by rules upon rules, such as baseball. The athletes and coaches are people, but the games can’t be fixed. Then who would care? And yet within these rules, there’s magic.

Magic in the sense of men/women competing at the highest level, the game can be suspenseful. Think about it, heroic comeback within the limitation of time that it exists and adhered to. And there lies the drama.

Sport in itself is a form of magic.

Hunziger brilliantly understood that there’s a microcosm and macrocosm to everything; that these games' drama mirrors our lives. Unsure if there’re serving platitudes, but almost all athletes would agree to that.

So, when professional athletes cheat, they ruin the magic and the game loses meaning.  I’m sure you can name a few. Is this why Barry Bonds is not respected in the game of baseball (we pray that the steroid scandals of the past are over - they hurt the game). Is gambling why Pete Rose is having trouble getting into the Hall of Fame? How about the systematic form of cheating? This is when an organisation or a sporting country cheats for the name of being a winner, such as the Chinese team's systematic doping during the 1980s and 1990s doping scandals, or even the Huston Astros sign stealing seasons. And, in National Football League, is that why Bill Belichick, despite being a truly great coach, is tarnished by a non-Patriot in a cheating scandal? This one I feel is very debatable, but I only have one thing to say about it, if everyone is cheating why everyone is crying wolf? The NFL likes to have its dramas of villains and heroes. Isn’t that what sports writers love to do - TV reality drama at its best?

I agree with Huizinga, that sports mimic life. Because in a society that works, nobody is truly above the rules. It doesn’t mean that people don’t make mistakes, that people don’t live secret lives, that there aren’t all kinds of ways to break rules but, overall, the rules create a meaning, a sense of fairness and even, magic in our lives.

Rules do matter and when they are cruelly broken, we stop believing. And that’s just awful.  But more importantly, the game stops working for us.  In the USA, Major League Baseball and NFL Football work because, more or less, we believe that they are fair. The refs (or umpires) are in control. Until the referees make a mistake by not making an obvious call that they have done all season long, the losing team feel the frustration of the unfairness of the game.

But isn’t that the drama of the game? Unfortunately, we cannot take out emotions.

These warriors are us in some way. We all go to work and raise kids or deal with life. And it doesn’t always go easily. We have often wounded warriors and the game touches us – because we can identify. We unconsciously see the best of ourselves in this simple game that has grown so big.

As a society, let’s remember that we want the magic back in our normal lives as well, even flawed magic.  When we break our “sacred” rules of fair and not fair, whether the culprits are politicians, baseball players, businessmen or an outraged dad on the little league ball field, we all lose.

When we break the rules too often, we break the magic of our great society.

In the day and age of fake news, those that do wrong blatantly flaunt their misdemeanours in our faces, and then it's celebrated as if the rules don’t apply to them. Let’s hope the politicians are listening as they too should follow the rules of being a great citizen.

I recently read the article by Mr Mark Banschick and was greatly inspired by his thoughts, along with Michael Lewis's podcast Against the Rules - https://atrpodcast.com/.

I've always had a love of sports; For me, it started at school but I didn't have the pure talent or dedication to excel at the highest level. Like most of us, I wanted to spend my time doing other things instead.

It's funny life pulls you towards your passions. I've worked at sporting events, and I've lived and breathed sports. Want to be part of national triumphs or disappointments? It's those "where were you when..." kind of questions. The enjoyment of the collective. And this led to my main passion - writing. The love of words and stories and how they impact us. Love stories about family.

As the NFL says, Family is sports...

With that backdrop of thoughts - coming soon, a series of romance stories around a fictional football team in Los Angeles. The LA Story series of a team called the Los Angeles Trojan. It’s tales of their triumphs, tribulations love found and love lost, their city, and above all family.

The first in the series is The Quarterback. The story of Melanie and Luke

Available to pre-order now at all good book retailers! 

 In the meantime...

 Check out!  

Mr Mark Banschick M.D., writer of The Intelligent Divorce, Psychology Today.

The Intelligent Divorce | Psychology Today

 

Against the Rules podcast with Michael Lewis – author of

§  Lair’s Poker,

§  Moneyball,

§  The Fifth Risk,

§  The Blindside, and

§  The Big Short.

§  Podcast on Ref you suck! -https://atrpodcast.com/

 

Michael Lewis | The Official Website (michaellewiswrites.com)