Sports and Sportsmanship

Have in the past played competitive amateur men's baseball for about seven years - this is genuine baseball folks not softball. Our team battled adversity, and got beat by our opponents quite bad at times, but we persevered, and won the championship one year in our very competitive league. We became (in my judgment) one of the best amateur men's baseball teams in the province - of course our competitors probably wouldn't agree, but we won the championship one year, so nobody can take that away from us. 

True sportsmanship is about participation, and doing your best. It is about learning skills. It is about learning to work with others on a team. It is about camaraderie, and team spirit. Winning is important, but participating is more important. It is about being a gracious loser, and a gracious winner. 

You know I like to win. It is more fun to win than lose. However, this needs to be done within the rules of the game, and with a good will towards ones opponents. 

But you know sports is a great leveler, and it gives a person from perhaps a lower economic class the chance to sock it to some parts of the community that are a bit high minded and snotty, and do it in a legitimate way.  I don't mean beating somebody up in a hockey game, or deliberately injuring your opponents in a game. What I mean is it gives someone from a less privileged sector of society a chance to compete legitimately against those who are more privileged, and beat those guys at sports. To show them that - you can compete and do just as well and maybe a whole lot better than them, when the playing field is level, when rules are the same for everyone, and when there are no politics involved, and when you can go against them head to head in good old honest competitive sports. 

You don't have to beat up your opponents in the community in a street fight, or try to take revenge by vandalizing things, or stealing - you can beat your opponents in a legitimate way, and you can win your fair share, and maybe a whole lot more through participating in competitive sports. Compete, learn the skills of the sport, and excel, and it will improve your self-esteem greatly, and you will gain respect in the community. There is no magic to it. A lot of guys and girls have excelled at sports, who don't have great natural athletic ability, but who make up for that in smarts, and perseverance. So why go around expressing  your frustrations  through destructive or illegal activities, when you have a legitimate avenue of participation right before you - by getting involved in competitive sports ? 

We always shook hands after the baseball games. Sure sometimes it really felt bad to get beat - but you take your lumps and try harder next time. Sure sometimes you might have some dark thoughts regarding your opponents. Sometimes you can't help but get upset with the officiating. It is really humiliating to make an error in front of a crowd of people. It can also be very rewarding to put forth a very good effort, and win your share. 

There are a lot of really important life lessons one can learn from playing amateur sports. It is important however, not to become obsessed with these games. This is just a part of life. It can be a very rewarding and thrilling part of ones life experience. 

It is a great arena for the development of character. Working to overcome defeat and obstacles. Working to develop the skills of the sport. And especially learning to be a gracious loser and winner. You can't win them all.

A Politically Incorrect Assessment of Professional Sports 

In my judgment the influence of professional sports has been almost totally negative:

2. Participation doesn't count for much, since winning is all that is important. 

3. There can only be one winner.  Those who don't win are labeled as losers.

4. Good sportsmanship takes second place to winning.

5. It doesn't really matter much how one wins - just whether you win. 

6. Millions of couch potatoes sit there watching a few muscle bound athletes play around. Obesity is a growing concern, and spectator sports just makes the matter worse.

7. A lot of pro sports promotes violence, like with fighting in hockey.

8. Youngsters tend to emulate the pros - thus pro sports is indoctrinating a lot of young hockey players into violence on the ice. 

9. Youngsters are being given unrealistic expectations of making the pros. Only a very, very, very small percentage of amateur athletes ever make it to the pros. 

10. Many children are fatherless, and neglected here in Canada, yet the majority who watch, and attend pro games are men - particularly younger men. 

11. Cheating through the use of performance enhancing drugs is fairly common in pro sports. 

12. These pro athletes are little better than pieces of meat that can be bought, sold, and traded. They will just sell themselves to the highest bidder in most cases. Most of them have agents, that negotiate their fat contracts. 

13. These pro athletes are being placed on a pedestal that so many of them do not deserve. There are other people in the community that contribute a lot more to society than pro athletes, yet they are ignored. 

14. A good number of these pro athletes have very low moral standards particularly in regards to sexual matters. The late pro basketball star Wilt Chamberlain boosted in his book about having sex with 20,000 women !! Was he condemned for this ? No way ! He was a cultural hero. It seems like pro athletes can do just about anything and get away with it. The media covers up these matters, as well as the leagues. And then many of these people are supposed to be regarded as role models for our kids - especially our young boys. Yes there are some who are worthy of this, but a lot are not fit as role models. And why should we even look to them as role models for our young boys anyways ? Why ?

A lot of pro athletes are raking in huge salaries. If you count actual game time as hours worked by these pro athletes - then quite a few are making more per game played than your average Joe makes in one year !!   This whole thing is gross and obscene.  Can't people see the gross inequalities here in this money worshipping society ? 

You know there are so many young kids in this country who are growing up without the influence or support of a father. It is a big problem wherever one goes. We have a lot of family breakdown and a lot of single mothers. If you happen to notice the crowds going to watch spectator sports as I have done (like professional hockey here in Calgary, Alberta)  you will notice there is a very large percentage of the spectators, who are males, and especially younger men. There are so many kids here in Calgary, who don't have fathers to care for them, and who don't have a good male role model in their lives. There are too many kids in group homes, and in foster care. There are too many youngsters, whom nobody seems to care much about at all. Yet here are these young men - so many of them spending big bucks to watch a bunch of muscle bound millionaire professional athletes " playing "  around and bashing each other at the games. 

So why don't these men get involved with needy youngsters in the community, especially with young boys ?  Why not get involved, and help these kids learn the skills of real sports, instead of just sitting there and watching it ?  Why don't the mothers of these youngsters encourage men in the community to get involved more - like with their kids for example. So why not help these kids get actively involved in sports, especially in some of our traditional sports ? 

In our community we have all kinds of sports facilities, like tennis courts, ball diamonds, big empty sports fields, etc. Yet I see these facilities very underutilized. I used to work at this apartment complex as a landscaper, and I had to put up with young kids especially boys doing so much damage. Yet right across the street there was a huge park, with very well cared for grass, and it was almost always empty. Why weren't these kids out there on that big field throwing a football, of out playing soccer, or doing something useful ?  Instead they are milling around in the apartment complex and vandalizing things. Is it because not enough men in the community care about these youngsters or what ? 

Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms and Fundamental Freedoms (from the Canadian Constitution) " The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association. "