Scots Sports
2 February 2007
Volume 119, Issue 11
Faceoff: Professors debate importance and merit of sports
[Editor’s note: This series of
debates between Professors Vivian and Gibson is meant to spur
dialogue and discussion about sports on this campus, and in society
in general. Please remember that this is intended to serve as a
venue which will increase and improve CIVIL discourse on this campus
about a subject on which there is a spectrum of opinions. Of
course, any supporting or dissenting views about the columns are
welcome. Rather than address the professors individually, letters
to the editor are welcome.]
Thank you,
The Editors
By: Tobias Gibson
Contributing Writer
My esteemed colleague makes the claim that sports have a major defect. Sports fail to speak to the larger, and more important, political, economic and societal issues of the day. Unsurprisingly to those who know me, I beg to differ. Sports are interminably tied to larger and greater arenas. As I said last week, “sports are an illustration of the society that plays and watches them.” To that end, there are too many examples to fit in this small space of the intertwining of sports and politics.
There are several politicians coming from the rank of sports. Just to use examples from football: current or former members of the House of Representatives include former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne; Heath Shuler, former Washington Redskins quarterback; former Oklahoma QB J.C. Watts; and Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent. HOF wide receiver Lynn Swann just lost the race for the Pennsylvania governorship. Former Buffalo Bills QB Jack Kemp was a Representative, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Vice Presidential candidate. Kemp was also instrumental in the formation of Ronald Reagan’s economic plan. And it was sports that first made the legends, and the legend led to politics.
To ignore the politics and sports connection is to miss a great deal of societal impact. Even the “non-political” Olympics have had, and likely will have, political impact. The U.S. boycotted the Moscow Summer Olympics in 1980, and the U.S.S.R. returned the favor for the L.A. Olympics in 1984. Was the 1980 U.S. hockey victory over the mighty Russians apolitical?
Sports and racial politics are bound at the waist. Jesse Owens showing the upstart Hitler that blacks can perform better than any Aryan is political. Jackie Robinson breaking into the Bigs in 1947… seven years before “Brown v. Board of Education”; eight years before Rosa Parks, the Birmingham bus boycott and the introduction of MLK to the world… that’s political. Mexico, 1968, when sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos take the stand, black gloved fists in the air; Black Power hit the world in the mouth, and once again the environment of sports was political. The Super Bowl, the greatest gift to a sports fan of all time, will feature for the first time an African-American coach. And both Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy, by their presence, make it political.
The Greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali, made it political. In the Civil Rights Era, he adhered himself to the Nation of Islam and changed his name. In 1966, at risk to his career, Ali refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam. By saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong,” he set the world on its ear, and was stripped of his title. As peace activist Daniel Berrigan said, “It was a major boost to an antiwar movement that was very white. He was not an academic or a bohemian or a clergyman. He couldn’t be dismissed as cowardly.” At the time, the anti-war movement was embryonic, but The Greatest moved the politics of the war to the forefront.
To close one’s eyes to the political nature of sport is to miss an important part of the passion and relevance of the game. If one is truly passionate about sports, the political, economic and social impact cannot be ignored. Even popular vernacular is inundated by sports. “Three strikes and you’re out” is a bad thing in both baseball and the legal system.
By: Craig Vivian
Contributing Writer
Last week in this column I suggested a rather radical idea—that members of sports teams should take a leadership role on campus and model moderation in drinking. Today I will argue that sports suffer from an inherent flaw that prevents their being relevant to any but the most trivial issues facing us.
The problem is that sports have nothing to say, or rather, nothing to contribute to the important cultural, social, political and economic debates and problems we encounter everyday. Sports cannot aid us in our attempts to understand complex issues that demand our reflection and action. In fact, sports distract us from these issues while offering us purely superficial entertainment, which is self-contained and disconnected from the real concerns facing society. In this way the overgrowth of sports both distracts us from pertinent issues and lulls us into false beliefs, which I discuss below. I also want to mention that I enjoy Dr. Gibson’s response this week very much, although I think he has focused on people in sports who have political or social agendas instead of the ability of sports to say something meaningful.
In order to understand my claim, let me present several other activities, beyond sports, that students, or other members of society can pursue in order to be entertained or just to have fun. I will only discuss issues of spectatorship or passive entertainment today, and save active participation for another article. I will focus on several common activities that present themselves to the general population and our students.
On this campus, one can read, watch a movie or a play, visit an art exhibit or listen to music if one wants to be entertained. Each of these diversions offers uses that do not exist for any sport—they assist us in interpreting the world, they can analyze the human condition, they can criticize or praise different aspects of society. The power of art, literature, music and theatre rests in their ability to entertain and to “speak” to us about issues outside themselves. Granted, there are movies, books, art and music that “waste” our time because they only entertain, and there is nothing wrong with wasting a few hours in front of a TV or spending time with a trashy novel. But serious art, serious music, serious film and serious literature are important because they divert us, yet cause us to think about and respond to serious issues. There are books, plays, movies and art which have influenced people or changed societies. Examples include movies about racism (“Crash”), books about political tyranny (“1984”) or art that condemns war (Goya’s series).
These books, films and works of art affect us on multiple levels. They are both entertaining and serious. They are powerful because they help us give meaning to diverse experiences and ideas.
Sports are self-absorbed games disconnected from real issues. Baseball is a game that has nothing to add to the discussions or debates on homelessness; it is only concerned with homeruns.
The problem is that even though no serious cultural, social or political application exists in sports, we take sports seriously. And when we take something seriously, we demand that it give us something in return— something that we can understand. Unfortunately, sports have only one thing readily available to share— instances of power.
Sports have become primarily concerned with power in the form of winning. If we demand from a serious book that it make us think, then we demand from a sport that it give us a winner. Sports “speak” emphatically about winning or losing because they have nothing to say about other matters. Ultimately, fans, players and others are left believing that winning or losing are serious issues—just as important as other real world concerns. This is a false belief that has several negative consequences, including an increasing amount of violence in sports and tribalism. So, please watch sports now and then – and have fun doing so, but don’t take them seriously, because you can’t..
