Sports Ethics

Team sports: The American pastime.  Whether participating or attending as a supporting fan, America loves competitive sports.  It is nice to sit down after a long week and mindlessly tune in on the TV to watch dedicated individuals come together to achieve one common goal: be victorious over another team of individuals through brute adrenaline, strength, stamina, persistence, accuracy, pride, all the while showing good sportsmanship? Maybe.  It sometimes simply depends on the adversary.  This is the birth of a rivalry.  When asked why there is a rift in respect, we come up with some knee jerk response much like this: “We prefer not to like that group of athletes because this, that, and the other thing happened last season or over the decades while our ‘blameless and innocent’ team was playing against them.”

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I grew up training for and competing in individual and team sports.  My husband did too, but I couldn’t understand why he disliked watching athletic skirmishes from day one of dating (over a decade ago).  I eventually had to find out why while I thought to myself “WHO doesn’t?  This guy must be from MARS!”  But then he enlightened me to an angle from his perspective.  A long time ago he said something along the lines of “People get so wound up for what?  OOO I’m better than you because I beat you.  So what?  What does it prove?  I’m an adrenaline filled brainless berserker that likes to drag others through the dirt?  This is what I strive for making my living being an arrogant jerk.  What’s worse is that people waste so much time watching this happen.”  Clearly he hit sports ethics right square in the whistle.

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It took me back to when I was six years old reminding me of all the times after games that we would form a line and walk past the other team while giving them high fives while saying “good game” to each individual opponent.  Then we would run back to our sideline as a team, turn toward our opponents sideline, and chant unanimously “2…4…6…8… who do we appreciate (opponents team name)!” as we were required to do so before we celebrated our victory over that team together.  It was another step.  Something that adults thought was ethically sound: to give respect to the opposing team.  They never really explained why we do it; it’s just something that eventually we understood later on when we grew up that it was about respect.  A tarnished virtue, something that is rarely taught anymore so it seems a lot of the times everywhere, especially in prideful spirited support of the things we are most passionate about.

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If you were privileged to attend college, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  It doesn't matter where you go, or how big the college you attend is, you always have a sense of pride about the place where you were given the opportunity to enter the staircase to follow your dreams.  It’s hard not to have a sense of pride where you work hard at building a future, make lasting memories, lifelong friendships, and settle in to call that place home, your passion.

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Adrenaline and pride drives passion for your team.  You get so focused and pumped up about it that you forget your opponent feels exactly the same way.  So then enters arrogance:  “We will annihilate them.  We have the better team.”

When does this pride and passion go too far?  I can tell you from first-hand experience being a part of my college marching band.  We support our college and team with music and school spirit.  We are peaceful and professional, committed to performance, integrity, and representing our college in a honorable way.  We came along to a particularly heated rivalry game with our in-state rivals.  I had been here the year before, never really thinking that what was about to occur would ever happen.

We were marching in formation from our buses in the parking lot toward the stadium.  We had to go through some fans tailgating before the game.  The smell of beer and sweat was strong as we kept close in our ranks moving forward.  I saw a rival fan break into our ranks; he drunkenly pushed around my band mate in front of me.  My band mate shrugged the drunken man off his shoulders.  The drunk staggered backwards clutching his beer bottle and motioned to put his arm around my shoulder and waist.  I stiff armed him.  He fell back on his heels, teetered back, lost his balance, and flailed his arms.  Doing so, his free hand hit my section leader (who was positioned next to me) in her jugular vein.  She immediately passed out and nearly dropped to the pavement, but was rescued instantly by the strong baritone players behind us.  While we all avoided beer bottles being thrown into the air, the men carried my section leader into the stadium on their shoulders.  What a rude awakening.  To this day I don’t understand how rivalries can cross the line and defy common decency.  Here’s the actual article.

I’m not insinuating that my colleges’ fans are angels or anything.  People are damn rude everywhere you go, it makes no difference who you support or where you go.  Mix passion and pride into the mash-up and you've got a bunch of people who have no checks on their egos willing to do anything to prove themselves superior.

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OK, I get it.  They were just having a little fun, right?  I believe it’s okay to have fun just as long as no curse words or punches are thrown.  Over what?  Sports?  How many people die every year because of soccer rivalries in South America?  What a waste of life over aggression and idiot adrenaline.

I admit I am an adrenaline junkie, but I don’t go out picking fights with people because they go to an ‘inferior’ college.  Seriously, sports fans can be animals.  Get over yourself; give another human being some respect.  That’s all you expect too, right?  Maybe I need to chill out and enjoy the sport with a few close friends, I know there’s always enough respect present for everyone.  Maybe this will overturn my feelings about pro football...

~LMc