I'm not much of a sports person. When I was in fifth grade, the only game my junior league soccer team won all year was the one that I missed due to illness (a coincidence, I'm sure). But nevertheless, I found this New Republic essay about the moral crisis facing professional sports in America interesting. It looks at our nostalgia for bygone days of good sportsmanship and honor, and at the reasons that sports fans find steroids and other drugs so morally upsetting. Over at First Things, Peter Leithart summarizes the essay's argument quite well:
The heart of the corruption... is a failure to grasp the proper ends of sport. It’s not all about winning and losing, “the separable, the measurable, and comparative results.” Sport is about the “humanity of the human performer.” At the heart of human play is “the lived experience, for doer and spectator alike, of a humanly cultivated gift, excellently at work, striving for superiority and with the outcome in doubt.” In professional sport, Kass and Cohen lament that these ends and goods of sport have been almost buried beneath mountains of hype, cheating, betting, drug abuse, scandals, and greed.
The essay suggests that the activity of sports is a sort of microcosm of human existence in general, and that when it's subverted through cheating and dishonorable behavior, it loses its dramatic (and moral) appeal. I don't know if they did so deliberately or not, but in their closing paragraphs on page 10, the authors use imagery which closely parallels that of 1 Corinthians 9 and Romans 12.
Sports fans—any thoughts? Are there games, teams, or specific athletes that you could still hold up to your children as role models? Was there a particular event in sports history that disillusioned you? Do scandals like the recent baseball/steroids kerfluffle dampen your enthusiasm for professional sports in general, or are you able to still enjoy the game?
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Comments (8)
When Ernie Banks ("Mr. Baseball") from the Chicago Cubs talked to the camera about baseball, he riveted every child young and old about the magic of baseball and the appreciation of playing sports and NOT the evils of the love of money associated with sports stars today.
Greed, corruption, and sin has always existed in sports–just like its always existed in every aspect of society. It simply takes different forms in different eras.
I enjoy sports–especially baseball. The steroid scandal is a shame, but not necessarily surprising. I think most non-believers (and some believers) would do the same if (a) the money was so great and (b) the chance of being caught or punished was so low. The risk-reward proposition is just too tempting for most. It happens in sports just like it happens in business.
As for role models, sure there are some. I think there are solid christians in the ranks of professional athletes. I don't think they need to turn down lucrative contracts (like John suggested) just to prove their worth. They just need to walk the walk and be a light.
Commenter "Ebispo" has it right: sports are always broken, because they are human, and we are sinful. Kass and Cohen fail to realize that part of the "hype" comes from a genuine excitement and appreciation for tthe display of gifts by certain players. Ken Griffey, Jr. has over 600 home runs, is arguably the greatest outfielder to ever play the game and was the name in baseball during the mid-90's. As his career has moved on, he fell to injuries and hasn't once come under the suspicion of drug abuse. But when he returned to the Seattle with the Reds during interleague play, my home was on the edge of their seats--everyone, at the game, at home, listening in the car was excited, HYPED, to have such a favorite player back, if only for just a few days.
Betting, likewise, comes from this hype: a belief that one team is superior, even a faith, if you will, that the underdog, whom you love, is going to pull through. I'd say the "drug abuse" and "cheating" are strongly linked, but despite how widespread it is, it serves to remember that it isn't everybody. I mentioned Griffey; Alex Rodriguez, likewise, prior to Jose Canseco's new book, has never been accused of drug abuse, even though he's on pace to shatter every record this game has ever seen. (I'll give Kass and Cohen a point on the greed, though; A-Rod does not deserve $27 million/year. No one does.) I could spend pages listing the hallowed names of modern baseball who aren't even cast in the shadows of the steroid scandal.
And for that matter, I'm not convinced the "steroids kerfluffle" is as black-and-white as the media makes it sound. Yes, using steroids to enhance personal performance is wrong. Yes, some players knowingly and willfully used steroids to better their performance. But steroids are principally recovery tools that enhance regrowth of muscles, tendons, etc. I think it is easy for someone like a pitcher to go in at the end of a quality start and ask the trainer for something to get them back on top in the short recovery period, so they are at their best 4 days later, not with any interest in steroids, but an interest in being the best they can be. And it goes downhill from there.
One rotten apple only spoils the bushel when we let it do so. I still love the games, and I know there are great players that I would like kids to aspire to emulate. There are also great players that I don't want having any part in kids' upbringing. But sports as competition, as going for the goal, commanding the body, remembering that it is fun, that you play with honor: they are a great outward working of theology.
If man were to suddenly go out of existence so would sports. It is finite and not infinite. What you saw when you observed the baseball players praying after the game was moral Relativism and not moral Absolutism. God is no were on the planet found in any sports stadium. Why would he be there? What would be the reason? He's not human. Ask yourself, if I were God, an infinte Being free of sin, not of flesh or bone why would something of insignificantly finite and transient mean anything to me?"
To praise sports is to be in a true sense devoid of vision and knowledge. More along the lines of Humanism or Naturalism or Existentialism. A Hedonist or Epicureanist. In effect, a creature missing the whole point to life and death.