By Michael-Leonard
I really came out of the closet as a total sports NON-fan when I posted this rant as a comment to a column on SDFP last year:
[A]s a non-sports person, Chargers — and every other sports team — CAN continue to “play” in whatever place they now have. Unless the owners build a new one. Simple. Just like any other actual business that doesn’t receive public subsidies. You, and everyone else on this forum, know that those terrible money numbers are direct result of the disastrous contracts the city has allowed with Chargers — AND Padres! — for their “playgrounds”. How much is the continuing debt service on PETCO Park?
Many other much more valuable businesses have departed our fair city. You think we are gonna shell out any more to keep this bunch of thugs (owners AND players) around? I certainly hope not.
Furthermore, any and all non-monetary incentives that sports teams get that businesses and companies in other industries do NOT get, should be eliminated. These, too, are drains on the general public. It’s even less fair to me than it is to Judi; she wants to go to the games if she could afford it. I could care less about any of the sports. But, as a city dweller, worker and home owner, I hafta pay for them. NO public subsidy for Chargers!
I don’t just mean ‘not a sports fan’ I mean a TOTAL opposite-of-what-a-fan is.
Most guys who aren’t particularly sports fans would just rather be doing something else than watching “the game.” I, however, think modern team sports is more than just a waste of time and energy. I think the culture of macho surrounding most sports teams adds greatly to crime. So, in light of Doug Porter’s 9/9 column, I’d like to explain briefly why I contend team sports are bad for us – people who participate in them and society as a whole.
Everywhere, from soccer hooligans in Ireland (and other places) to Penn State to the rapes in Marysville to the most recent example of Ray Rice, we see the culture of sports contributing to crime and lawlessness. Because sports is such a part of our culture in the US, this illegal, and often immoral, behavior is often covered-up or even officially sanctioned. Perusing the daily fishwrap for almost any town on almost any day gives enough evidence of both of these contentions.
There’s also the teach ‘em to follow orders without question aspect of team sports. This is really nothing more than devious and insidious preparation for military service. For where else but the military is the way of blind obedience valued as it is in team sports?
The team aspect also contributes to the well-documented “closing the ranks” behavior seen in law enforcement agencies. I’d bet that a survey would find almost 100% of police officers have a background in team sports. The cultural attitudes that fuel one also propel the other. Connected with this is the attitude of anonymity giving rise to reckless – and sometimes anti-social – behavior. This is demonstrated in many actions from idiotic painting the body in the team colors/logos to heckling players and officials to throwing things onto the playing field to, finally, violence by fans on other fans. Again, news articles have shown this many times.
Finally, there is the feeling I get every time I see vehicle going by festooned with team flags and pennants. I notice that these are usually big trucks and I shake my head and think, “There goes another gass guzzlin’ red-blooded ’Murrican sports fan.”
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This is probably one of the most absurd columns I’ve ever read. Full of hyperbole and over generalization. You’re basically implying that anyone that plays teams sports is a thug.
How about looking at all the people who, *because* of team sports, is not a thug, a gang banger, or otherwise a statistic in a police crime log.
Amen
I’m not a fan of this piece. Go after the owners. Go after politicians that give subsidies to billionaire owners. Go after individual players who’ve done illegal shit. But to attack the concept of team sports in such a general way is insulting to all those who have used sport for bettering themselves and their station in life.
Amen
I agree with the others and quite honestly I’m surprised to see this coming from you Mr. Leonard. Though I admit being a fair weather fan at best as far as team sports (I like rugby as I’ve pointed out in two other column) I’m a bit offended by this piece. All players do not participate in the bad behavior like Rice. In fact most do not. All fans are not low IQ douchebags. Also this bad behavior hasn’t always been common in American professional sports, even football. Additionally, the U.S. is hardly the only country that’s as sports obsessed as we are. I agree 100% with what Brent said here (and I don’t always agree with him). He put it best so I won’t repeat.
Confused:
Rather than overgeneralization, I have just cited the main points of the problem. There is no hyperbole here; everything is true with no overstatement.
This commentary is not advocating for gangs, just against organized team sports Those kids who are taken off the streets and away from gangs through sports, where do they go? Into the military? Law enforcement, perhaps? That just supports my contention.
Mr. Beltran:
A hammer can be used to build a house or bash a head. Even guns can have a positive aspect. Yes, sports can be used as a tool for promoting good but all too often we see these things I’ve cited here. My contention is that all things taken into consideration, organized team sports is more negative than positive. I do not intend any insult; any time I feel insulted I examine those feelings.
Mr. Skull:
I agree that much bad behavior is fairly recent and does reflect a general coarsening of societal attitudes. That has nothing to do with my main contention. And my indictment of team sports is general, not just US (see text).
Again, if you feel personally offended I suggest you examine your own investment in the issue. My intent is to stimulate awareness and discussion.
BTW, I didn’t even mention the loss of productivity due to things like fantasy football leagues and March Madness pools.
I didn’t read your article very carefully. Did you mention bullying? I think team sports encourages it, promotes it even. And sportsmanship? Winning teams will brag sportsmanship is for losers. The only team sports that are different are those like crew or the contests of strength and skill that fire fighters or life guards compete in. Big difference.
Regarding teams sports being preparation for the military: that’s been true since war was fought with stones, sharp points, spies and messengers. But back then it is was Olympic sports that prepared men for military service.
The only interests served by professional team sports are to the owners and their management “team”. The rest is for bread and circuses or military careers.
Thanks for your agreement.
I didn’t mention bullying, which certainly is another aspect of the negativity of team sports — especially in schools.
I also didn’t mention things like a poll that the U-T did in 2007 asking how fans would respond in their “favorite player … were linked with using performance-enhancing drugs.” 19% “wouldn’t care as long as he produces” and an additional 30% said “it would bother me at first but not for long.”
Yes, there are other anti-societal aspects of team sports.
Team sports encourage competition as a way of life. This competitive aspect does carry over to the military where the goal is not just to win out over your rival but to kill him. Team competitive sports encourage machoism. There are alternatives to team competitive sports such as athletic activities where you’re basically competing with yourself like running. Also there is exercise as a way to promote health and fitness without the need for the competitive aspect or winning. A society where winning wasn’t valued so much might be a more peaceful and cooperative society.
Wow, that was heavy. I’m kind of speechless, which isn’t typical of me. Man, I played just about every team sport one could name from childhood to my mid-40’s. I’ve known a few thugs in that time, but there were far more decent, hardworking, bright, fun to be around people, in the mix.
I don’t know if I could have made it out of my teens in a Jim Crow world without the refuge of a court or a field or a track, and the camaraderie of some guys who are working to get in synch with each other so they can win one for the Badgers and the Wildcats. It’s fun. You learn how to set goals with others and pursue those goals. Without it, and books and theater and music and my writing and the arts, in general, I might have spent a lot of my time pissed off at being a second-class citizen and going around town slapping rednecks upside the head. Now, that would be thuggish. But I made a name for myself in my hometown and I used the little stardom I gained through sports, to talk to kids about setting goals in life and getting an education and working hard to improve their games if they were young jocks. Now, whether or not we taxpayers should pay big time for the big leagues to play in our town – well, that’s one thing. We could keep the focus there and maybe get something taken care of. But to just put us athletes in a general bag of people who just follow orders and are taught to be bullies, that just doesn’t fit with my experiences. Teammates talk to each other and their coaches, plotting schemes and approaches, learning from each other. More than being insulted, I’m just disappointed that the writer didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to delve into the reality that there are, indeed, problems with team sports, especially in the big business of professional sports – but if every aspect of it is putdown how do we, as a society, even begin to deal with it. This isn’t the conversation we should be having.
I think we all should hope Michael-Leonard isn’t a cop. He’d take down a football player on suspicion, and call for backup even before he tried.
Mr. Lawrence:
Of course all sport involves competition, look at modern tennis. My sport activity as a kid was handball and I was plenty competitive. What I’m clearly referring to is the regimentation and blind obedience fostered by team sports in particular.
Mr. McCray:
Obviously NOT speechless, sir ;-) Thanks for your always-thoughtful comment.
As this discussion progresses I’m thinking that these anti-societal problems with team sports might be a more recent aberration that you might not have been exposed to. But as you write, you were also exposed to Arts, and there’s no way of knowing what combination of the arts and the sports made you who you are. And I’m sure that some o’ those rednecks coulda used bein’ slapped….
Talking about the big business aspect of pro sports is simply a different discussion which many others are addressing. The older rant I posted tells you where I stand on that issue.
The point I’m trying to make is that competition is an ingrained part of the American character whether it is team sports or Dancing with the Stars or Jeopardy or reality shows or whatever. Every single show that’s not based on violence or criminality involves competition – not just sports. And competition is not what we need at this point if we are going to save the planet from global warming and global poverty. What is needed is COOPERATION. Competition in all its forms just serves to keep the present day economic form of capitalism and egregious dumping of externalities by corporations into the environment alive.
The American mantra of overzealous individualism and competition needs to be supplanted by an ethic of cooperation if the planet, especially the human presence on it, is to survive. So team sports or handball for that matter is only the tip of the iceberg of the paradigm that needs to be shifted. The problem is that Americans in particular and probably to some extent the rest of the human race is addicted to competition and to war. They don’t know how to cooperate and they don’t know how to make peace.
And perhaps peace and cooperation are just too boring and not dramatic enough to satisfy human appetites for excitement. That’s why competition and criminality and violence draw so many viewers on TV while educational shows like those on public broadcasting draw so few. That’s why I’m pessimistic about the survivability of the human race.
Ugh. I’m no sports fan, but the arguments here for why they “contribute to crime” are awful, and the same ones that are used by the anti-immigrant crowd: just look at these people and the crimes they commit. If one wants to make an argument that something is bad, then the pros and cons need to at least be weighed. Sports also have an upside: they foster civic pride, donate a lot of $ to charities, and are public works projects. I think there are better ways to achieve all of those benefits, but making unsupported allegations does nobody any good. This column is not worthy of the bits used to display it on my screen.
In a way this article is kind of akin to saying that surfing is bad for society. One could write an article and spin doctor how bad it is referencing all the localism, violence, fights and brawls, vandalism, car break ins, broken bones and hospital stays, deaths (there’s been a few), how the industry doesn’t do enough or even stays silent about the problem and cares more about profit, blah blah blah. Then we can go into skin cancer, shark attacks, injuries, etc. Ludacris? Yep. So is making a blanket statement that team sports are bad for society.
Well at the very least despite my complete disagreement with this article and the absurdity of it, here is something to give us all a laugh.
Mr. Mike:
I have no arguments here, only examples that team sports DO contribute to crime much more than they oughta. Of course, everything has pluses as well as minuses; as I wrote above, the negatives of team sports far outweigh the positives.
You think our teams foster civic pride, talk to a “fan” when the team is losing; and teams ARE NOT “public works projects”! Pro teams are private businesses. That’s one of the problems in our fair city.
Analogies for or against any other issue are always imperfect.
Mr. Skull:
Thanks for the vid. I love The Tubes and hadn’t seen their take on the matter – which, you’ll note, mirrors mine in that it ridicules sports fans.
As above, arguments for or against any other issue, or sport, aren’t applicable.
I don’t deny there are hard core fans who probably have nothing else going for them (or anything for that matter). Lots of them in fact, but I believe still not the majority. They are what this video is mocking.
Hell, I like making fun of those kinds of fans as much as anyone.
Again, I don’t deny that there are good (sane, rational, calm, non-violent, etc.) fans too. But look at where the bad fans are.
There are never tennis riots, for example, but there ARE soccer riots — and violence from football, hockey and basketball fans. The difference: those are team sports.
Volleyball is a team sport and I’ve never seen fan violence in that (though that would actually be pretty funny in a morbid sort of way if there ever is). I’ve never seen any fan violence at hockey games (the players do that for them). I still say the good fans in the sports you mentioned outnumber the bad (as least as far as fan violence). Even the soccer riots are mostly in South America and the UK. Other parts of Europe not so much.
On another note, if there ever ends up being a tennis fan riot that would make for interesting morning coffee conversation.
Good point about volleyball; perhaps the exception that shows the rule?
There’s been soccer violence in Spain and particularly in Africa, where folks have died due to it. But the point is that there is plenty of violence surrounding those team sports and my thesis that the sports cause/precipitate/encourage it still stands.
A tennis fan riot might make a good SNL skit.
I played college football at the University of Dayton and it was one of the best experiences of my life. That being said, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Michael-Leonard. I do agree that there are some pre-fascist tendencies in professional sports.
I’ve been engaged in full-time resistance for the last 5 years and many of the most dedicated activists I know played team sports. Come to think of it, many of the most dedicated activists I know are also veterans or indigenous warriors.
On the one hand, sports certainly can serve as a anesthesia: Can you imagine what we could get done if 80,000 Cincinnati Bengal fans were willing to give $100+ every Sunday for REAL Bengal tigers??
But, on the other hand, many truly sustainable cultures (ones that lived on their land bases for thousands of years without wrecking them) played team sports. Lacrosse is a great example.
In fact, traditional warfare amongst many indigenous groups actually more closely resembled highly-ritualized team sport than the total war tactics of the so-called civilized.
Another scene from history comes to mind…The truly wonderful film The Wind that Shakes the Barley depicting the Irish revolution in the 1920s opens with the main characters playing hurling. Hurling is a traditional Irish game (much like lacrosse curiously enough) encouraged by the Gaelic Revival movement as part of the same revival that saw WB Yeats preferring Irish mythology to Greek/Roman in his poetry, Synge’s production The Playboy of the Western World, and Lady Gregory’s playhouse. Anyway, later in the film, the hurling squads are organized and trained as what we know as the IRA’s Flying Columns that were so effective with guerilla tactics against British imperial forces.
I think the role of soccer in training/organizing the Spanish Anarchists is well documented, too.
The point is team sports CAN be useful for training and we need to take advantage of every tool we have. Team sports as useful training is true for both violent and non-violent resistance. In some ways, if you’re going to engage in non-violent resistance you might REALLY need the type of physical discipline that comes from team sports.
The Black Bloc tactics are a great example. If you’re going to form the avant-garde of a march that will face rubber bullets, batons, and tear gas, discipline akin to an offensive line in football is an absolute necessity. If the police break your line, you and all your friends will be going to jail – many of them with serious injuries.
Thanks Will for your cogent and thoughtful comment.
As far as activism and resistance goes, I’m more a follower of Alinsky than IRA ;-)
Best to you.