Book review about sport journalism

EAC 955 NBA NBB Week 1:

Course Overview. What Is Sport? Why Are We So Passionate About It?

Yo! Don’t Be Cheap!

Print This Document Out. It’s Both Easier and Faster To Read.

Go Spend Money On Ink And Five Bucks On 3 Hole Punch Paper. That’s A Whole Lot Less Than What You Would Pay For A Textbook.

Reminder: The Due Dates For ALL Of Your Assignments Are Found In The “Addendum” (Weekly Outline) Document. These Are The Ones That You Must Follow. Ignore Any Document That Says Anything Else. (Each semester, my schedule changes and I have to move dates around accordingly. Given the many documents in this course, I`m bound to make a mistake here and there. Sorry if this happens).

For this semester, every assignment and discussion forum is due on a specific Friday by no later than 6:00 pm (Not Every Friday as some of you have asked). Again, the exact due dates are found in the “Addendum/Weekly Outline” document.

Course Overview. What Is Sport? Why Are We So Passionate About It?

This is just a reminder that whenever you see words that are capitalized, in big letters, have been bolded, coloured, underlined, or highlighted, I am simply trying to emphasize something. I’m not being angry or shouting at you. Remember, I don’t have the luxury of teaching before you in a traditional classroom. So I have to work with what I have and really, it’s just accented words, emojis, videos and website links. Fight your natural instincts here when it comes to what you are used to with texting. SAYING THIS does not mean SAYING THIS!!!! Get it? (

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

· Define “what is sport?”

· Gain a greater understanding and appreciation for the sociology of sport.

· Understand and appreciate the positive and negative role sports plays in society. And,

· Understand and appreciate what makes people so passionate about sports?

Glossary

· Pandora’s Box

· Athleticism

· Tribalism

· Identification

· Intermittent Reinforcement

· Media Saturation

· Quasi-Sports

· Pseudo Sports

· The Sociology Of Sport

· Meritocracy

· Sports Idioms

· Leonard Koppet

· Symbolic Interactionists

· Sports Think

· Alienation

· Post Modernism

· Noam Chomsky

· Intermittent Reinforcement

· Media Saturation

· Identification

Introduction

In this unit, we will begin with a course overview and then have our first critical thinking exercises (that is, where you make reasoned/rational judgments that are logical and well-thought out). The first exercise will try to define what sport is. It’s way more complicated than you think.

Higher education is not just about the memorization and recall of information and facts. It’s about training your minds to see things more complexly so that you will succeed as managers, entrepreneurs and citizens in general.

This course is about using sports as a way to help you get to the next level of thinking. We want you to not just be fans who face paint themselves, do the wave and cheer for a specific team or player. Instead we want you to be someone who can speculate and really understand the sophistication involved by your favouite team’s owner, general manager or coach (while face painted reading these lectures;-) )

We’ll also apply critical thinking when we look at the role that sport plays in society and then ask what makes us so passionate about it.

I know you want to just jump into violence in sports, debate whether or not athletes should use performance enhancing drugs, sports psychology and great general managers, coaches and the like. It’s coming. Hang in there. We first have to learn how to walk before we run.

Course Overview: EAC 955 Is…

As I mentioned in the introduction, EAC 955 is not a course that focuses on cheering for the Leafs and Raptors and being in awe of superstar athletes like Lebron James or Messi. EAC 955 is a look at sports from a thinking person’s perspective. Yes, we’ll cover some of the some of the great players of the games we love to watch but this course is so much more.

We will be examining virtually every aspect of sport from:

· appreciating the talent and skill involved at the highest levels to

· the scientific, psychological and managerial principals that create greatness to

· darker issues such as racism, exploitation, the corporatization, and corruption of these contests.

We’ll look at what role sport plays in society. It’s quite profound. It shapes so much of who we are- including our language and that way we see or think about things. For example, sports has made our culture hyper competitive. If you can believe this, there actually was a time when elections were not thought of as “races” or “contests.”

I’ll be asking you a seemingly simple questions such as “what is sport?” and show you how complex the answer really is.

Likewise, you’ll get asked “emotional” questions such as “what should we do about violence and sports?” Should fighting be banned in hockey? We will go beyond the simple “it’s a part of the game” argument and see how one can logically argue either for or against the use of fisticuffs.

Sticking to the violence theme, what causes fan hooliganism? Why do regular everyday Joes turn into vicious animals during non-violent sporting contests such as soccer? Why don’t they while those watching aggressive North American football or hockey? What measures can be undertaken to control fan hooliganism? And don’t just assume this social issue is merely driven by booze. Soccer rioting takes place in alcohol-free Muslim countries.

What about demographics? Demowhats? Demographics, the science of populations. It is used to predict and explain many things including future housing prices, stocks to when to get the number one over all draft pick. Demographics predicted that a Lebron James and Sydney Crosby would arrive into the sporting scene when they did. Here’s a few other interesting facts from this science.

Did you know most great athletes are born usually after December. Is there something magical about their birth dates? Nope. Rather than tell you why, you’ll have to wait for an online lecture that’s a few weeks from now.

How about this interesting factoid. Did you know that there are 500,000 registered hockey players in Canada? 450,000 in the U.S. and only 90,000 in Russia. So why are there so many Russian stars? Again, I’ll also answer this in a future class.

Did you know that if an extra 0.5% of the United States took up hockey, they would likely become the uncontested #1 hockey nation? It happened this way to us with lacrosse. A tiny number of Americans took interest in this sport- a tiny, yet in total, big number out of a population of 330 million compared to Canada’s 33 million.

For those of you interested in leadership and how to create a winning organization then studying sports management is a good idea. We will be looking at the make-up of a champion franchises. There are some fundamental do’s and don’ts that definitely apply to the “real world.”

Then there are the issues of science and sports. Are sophisticated coaching and training techniques stopping the stars of the games we watch from being stars?

What role does sports psychology play in making a great athlete? What techniques can we apply in our day-to-day lives? What physical training techniques employed by the big leagues can we use for ourselves?

We’ll also examine some important ethical issues. Are athletes treated like commodities or “pieces of fruit” at a grocery stand- useful one day and discarded the next? Are those playing in the NCAA modern day “slaves?” What about racism and sexism in sports? Has there been major progression in these areas or do we still have a long way to go?

Should athletes be allowed to use performance enhancing drugs (PEDS)? Why not? It’s their bodies right? What about the affects on the hundreds of thousands of athletes that will never make it to the big leagues? Did you know that it costs about $200,000 of tax payer money to treat someone with cancer? $50,000 for a heart attack? Should we foot the bill for all of those who chased the illusive dream of superstardom the injectable way?

What about the affect of turning a blind eye to this issue has on children? Does this matter?

Did you know that parents are now paying for genetic tests to see what sport their children should be taking to maximize their potential to become professional athletes?

Should athletes be considered role models? Should they be called “heroes?” (BTW: Doesn’t this mug shot of Tiger Woods look like a really messed-up version of the Canadian flag?)

We’ll also examine the way sports is depicted on film and novels. We’ll examine the writing craft of sports journalism and the genre of sports literature. Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest writers in Western civilization, was once a sports writer. Just like an artist needs a canvas to paint his or her image on, story telling needs a backdrop. Why can’t sport be used as the backdrop to convey some profound insights?

Then there’s the business of sports. We’ll explore how corporations are taking away the “soul” of sport. That is, at one time, the games we watched were like food from “ma and pa” independent dinners. Freshly made- not this microwaved “industrialized” pulp that we’re now routinely served.

For instance, when players or media personalities discuss cities in which teams play, they refer to them as “markets.” Players now have now become a “brand” that they sell concerning themselves. Bell and Rogers which own the Toronto Maple Leafs offer their “product” via the media “platforms” that they own. Every conceivable revenue stream gets “monetized.” And I mean EVERY conceivable revenue stream. Take for example the following story when the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan own this “franchise. ” According to the book, Leafs Abomination, by Dave Feschuk and Michael Grange, when former Leaf great Mats Sundin scored his 500th goal, ACC staff went to the net; replaced it with another; carefully removed all of the meshing; shipped it off to China where 2,000 individual plaques containing a piece of this meshing would be sold. This generated $40,000 in additional revenues.

This same ownership group made a small fortune on selling melted ice from the old Maple Gardens. According to the Toronto Star,

“During the Leafs' final game at Maple Leaf Gardens on Feb. 13, 1999, team staff collected ice shavings the Zamboni had scooped off the ice between periods. The melted ice was cleaned and purified, and poured into about 2,500 acrylic pucks. Within days, the entire lot had been sold for $50 apiece for a net profit of roughly $125,000.” (“Confidential Files Reveal,” Westhead) Welcome to sport in the new millennium.

MLSE noticed that Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Socks generated additional revenues by coming-up with the term “Red Socks Nation.” Immediately, the copycats from the ACC dubbed the term “Leafs Nation.” These same people hired marketers to come up with the catchphrase “We The North” for the Toronto Raptors. This was not some spontaneous creation by fans. It was something created by marketers and it sold a heck of a lot of merchandize.

We will also examine the whole concept of player salaries. Should anyone receive hundreds of millions of dollars and salary plus about a billion in endorsement deals for playing a game? Even if he or she is a jerk? Why not? Can you fill a stadium with 50,000 people? Can you attract millions of television viewers? Would someone pay $5,000 for your once worn sweaty jersey or hundreds of bucks for a piece of net meshing from your 500th goal? Heck, Taylor Swift made a cool $170M in 2016. So why can’t some athlete who also fills stadiums make over $30M?

BTW, if you’re curious to know who are the highest paid athletes in 2016, visit Forbes Magazine at:

https://www.forbes.com/athletes/#1a24039155ae

What about player unions? Are they good or bad for sports? Should college athletes be allowed to create a union?

Should we care about small market franchises?

When are the law suits going kick-in from the widows of dead, former steroid users, whom management and league officials turned a blind eye to?

Should leagues use the NFL revenue sharing model to create parity? Or should it promote dynasties like MLB?

What role do governments play in sports? How do sports franchises tax dodge? Should governments finance the building of stadiums? Where’s the media in exploring these types of issues? What major stories involving government backroom deals with sports franchises deliberately get ignored? Why?

And will finish by examining how sport has become increasingly corrupt- especially FIFA and the Olympic movement- and offer some solutions.

So yes, get ready to see the good, bad and ugly of sport and prepare yourselves for some “meaty” analysis. One thing is for sure, this course ain’t for “jocks.” It’s for people who like to think and want to go beyond just cheering for their favourite teams.

O.K. enough of this intro stuff, let’s get this course started.

Watch The Following Videos:

I have attached a few links containing videos related to this unit. While watching these videos, ask yourself the following:

In what ways does sport draw our emotions?

In what ways are we attracted to its artistry?

Give It Up For Gudmundur Benediktsson Time

One of the greatest aspects of sports has to be the joy of victory. It feels soooooo good when your favourite team wins. This is why we love sports so much. What ecstatic joy will Leaf fans feel when their team finally wins a Stanley Cup. Nowhere was this level of joy better displayed than in the 2016 Euro Cup when Iceland, with a population about the size of Markham (around 330,000) pulled off one of the biggest upsets in European Championship history by beating England 2-1 in the round of 16. Here was play-by-play soccer announcer Gudmundur Benediktsson’s insane celebratory call: https://m.youtube.com/results?q=iceland%20soccer%20announcer&sm=3

You have to love the passion in Benediktsson’s call. Someone should make a ring tone of it. ;-) The joy of victory: It’s totally awesome!

The following is a 2 minute video clip showing an absolutely amazing goal by Ronaldinho. Watch the goal and then fast forward to the video replays. What an awesome play!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX7cBxPLOo0&feature=PlayList&p=79D894956F439ABB&index=27

This clip that shows Paul Henderson’s series winning goal in the 1972 Summit Series with the former USSR is considered by any Canadian hockey fan in his 40’s and up to be the goal of the century. For my generation, this goal defined us as a nation. Canadians are a people known for their “grit” and “heart” who just never give up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWwN9kHnsKI

This eight minute video shows the tension that most hockey fans here in Canada were experiencing during this nail biter of a game: http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-41-294-1544-10/on_this_day/sports/henderson_scores

Do you remember how great most of us felt after Team Canada’s 2010 Olympic Gold medal victory over the US? Sorry for the video quality. (Stink`n copyright. ;-) ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSYzTHMwLIc

There have been some amazing goals scored in soccer. This one though by Argentinean superstar Diego Maradona has to rate among the best: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-879979253762658152&q=best+goal

The following video contains 10 of Michael Jordan’s best dunks. There is a reason that he is considered the very best basketball player of all time. Enjoy. http://youtube.com/watch?v=EQVOxHI8Q_g

It’s moments like these that draw me to sports. I love the absolute beauty of genius like Jordan, Maradona, Lemieux and Ronaldinho. I love seeing teams and players overcome adversity. These types of artists glue my eyeballs to the TV set regardless of all the controversies that surround their games- and in some cases- their personal lives.

Is This A Sport?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WRro1MAqU9Q

What about race walking or speed walking? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTfm03T3VAE

If your computer can’t process online video, simply read the text portion of this online lecture.

If you know of any other links that would be appropriate for this unit, please forward them to me by e-mail. I would be most appreciative.

What is Sport?

Few of us would argue that both hockey and football would be considered sports in the purest sense. What about hand gun competitions though? Or synchronized swimming? Video gaming? What about chess? Determining which one of these is a sport requires a variety of criteria.

So what then constitutes a sport? The answer is not clear-cut.

Webster’s Definition and Its Problems

According to Webster’s Dictionary, sport can be defined as follows:

1. “Any recreational activity; diversion.

2. Such an activity requiring bodily exertion and carried on according to a set of rules, whether outdoors, as golf, or

indoors as bowling.

3. Fun or play.

4. A) An object of ridicule; laughing stock. B) a thing or person buffeted about, as though a plaything.

5. A person judged according to his ability to take defeat, teasing, etc., i.e. a good or bad sport.

This definition is very broad, though, wouldn’t you say?

There are many recreational activities and diversions that can hardly be called sports. For example, going to a movie is not a sport- though drinking games where you have a shot every time some character says a certain thing might be ;-).

Does it involve breaking out into a sweat or significant physical exertion? Then billiards cannot be deemed a sport. What about chess or poker? Are they sports or competitions?

Webster’s third definition, fun or play is rather intriguing. Depending on your definition of what is “fun” and “play” there are some things (legal and illegal) that hardly constitute sport- maybe endurance. To keep things clean though, reading the sports section of a newspaper might be considered fun but could you call this activity a sport? Is moving your eyeballs back and forth physical exertion!

It’s a Competition with Physical Exertion?

Sport though, involves competition? Right? Yes- but Coke and Pepsi are involved in a competition and few would argue that this constitutes a sport. Most reality based TV shows involve competitions with physical exertion but once again, these types of programs can hardly be viewed as sports.

Well at the very least sport should be defined as an activity that measures athletic motion? Right?

Then you can hardly call squeezing your trigger finger to hit a target in firearm competition as constituting much motion.

But how much more physically demanding is it to pulling back a bow for archery?

An auto racer’s car is in full of motion darting around a track at several hundred kilometres per hour but he is sitting inside it while turning a steering wheel, shifting gears and pressing an accelerator peddle and brake physically demanding. Do you need to workout in the gym 3-5 hours a day to pull this off? Is this really a sport?

If so, why can’t an arcade video racing game be deemed a sport? What about golf, curling, bochi ball or billiards? All of the above can be played right up to your 80’s- so high levels of human energy are not required.

It is Team Oriented and Measured by Time and Goals?

Most of the time sport involves teams physically trying to accomplish a particular goal against another usually under measured time. In hockey, for example, a team’s objective is the shoot a puck in the net.

Soccer has a similar objective except it uses a ball. Basketball’s goal is to sink as many baskets into a net as possible within a specific time frame.

Football’s objective is to cross a particular line as many times as possible. All these sports operate under a time clock.

But then you have baseball which has no clock. It is measured by innings. Time is not involved here- but surely you think that this game is a sport.

Singles tennis has neither a team competition component to it nor a clock.

Then there are individual sports that do not directly pit one opponent with another. Skiers for instance go down hills solo. Bowlers bowl individually. Golfers shoot individually. These are sports. Right?

It Needs Judges and Referees?

If a sport is to played with the utmost fairness in terms of adhering to rules, referees or judges are needed. Some sports cannot be measure by goals or baskets but by technical movements and artistic merit. These sports, such as gymnastics and figure skating, require judges. Judges are also needed for very aggressive sports such as boxing-if there is no knockdown or some of the martial arts.

Is NCAA Football a sport since the determination of championship games are voted in by the sports writers of America?

Quasi-Sports?

In Gymnastics and figure skating, there is no one-on-one or team competition. There is no getting a certain object from zone A to zone B. Time is only measured by the length of the song that the athlete is performing under. North Americans- particularly males tend to look at these sports as being under the “quasi” or pseudo variety. This is unfair.

What about mountain Climbing? Is this a sport? The level of physical endurance is beyond demanding. People die trying it all the time? If you consider this to be a sport, then how about hiking?

History and Precedent

Gymnastics and its winter cousin, figure skating, are artistic sports based on history and precedent- as have rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming.

Firearm related sports are modern day versions of ancient javelin throwing and archery competitions. Sure very little human energy is expended in pulling a trigger but just like shooting an arrow, skill, competition and measurable goals are involved. Using this logic then, throwing darts should also be considered as a legitimate sport?

Is Sport An “Art”?

In the eyes of purists, the martial arts is considered an “art” and not a sport. And yet, it, like figure skating, synchronized swimming and gymnastics is competitive and once again, history, from a Western culture perspective, has lumped it into the category of sports.

Auto racing is a modern day version of horse and chariot racing. I have a problem when some people argue that “anyone” can do a sport like NASCAR. They argue that it’s just an “endless series of left turns.” Really? These drivers move at g-forces along the same lines as fighter jets and at speeds twice or three times as fast as what we do on straight lane highways.

You tell me if tremendous skill is not involved in this sport. Here is NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon at work. Sort of. ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mHPo2yDG8

People like Gordon have driving skills that are off the charts and deserve a bit more respect than many non-motor sports fans give them.

Did you know that the average speed of an Indianapolis 500 race car is 380 KM/H? A 2012 ESPN report in which NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin was monitored for the Coke 600 that inside his car, the temperature was 130 degrees Fahrenheit [54.4 degrees Celsius] throughout the race. As a result, Hamlin “sweated 3.5 pints [2 litres] of perspiration an hour, lost 13 pounds (6 kilograms) of water weight during that event and that his neck supports g-forces of 40 pounds in the turns—in a 400-lap race, that’s 800 40-pound reps with his neck. His heart rate was 130 [beats per minute] for the event, which is comparable to an endurance runner except that the Coke 600 lasts twice as long as a marathon would.” (Pockrass, “Round The Track”).

This is also a team enterprise involving very fit pit crews that have to lift, carry and precisely attach very heavy objects in seconds flat. So, yes, driving a car around the ovals is not something that “anybody can do.” Just as an interesting side note, the cost to just go on a practice drive using an Indy car is $50,000 per day!

Pandora’s Box

If you don’t like this reality, blame it on the ancient Greeks. They opened up this Pandora’s Box (an uncontrollable precedent) thousands of years ago by making athletic art forms with judged matches, chariot racing, and archery into sports. And considering that this precedent has operated for millennia, who are we to argue with tradition?

O.K. then, what about ballet? Why shouldn’t this extremely physically demanding endeavour be considered for sporting competition? After all, ballroom dancing was allowed to be a demonstration sport in the 1994 Olympics.

Check Mate?

What about chess? Well it involves competition. There are time elements associated with it. But surely this sport resides well within the quasi sports category. If the International Olympic Committee ever approved this ancient game, then it would eventually have to allow Back Gammon, Monopoly, Battle Ship, Tetris, Scrabble, and Poker into its competitions.

Video Games?

Are video games sports? Like most of you, my initial reaction is to say no. However, as we increasingly move towards melding with technology, it might not be that farfetched to see such things as legitimate sports. Our bodies do what our minds tell us to do. In sports, that means move in certain ways. If our minds tell our “virtual bodies” to do likewise, perhaps, and let me emphasize, PERHAPS, that going forward into the future, video games will indeed be deemed legitimate sports. Right now, though, I like most of you, say no. This is just food for thought.

So what constitutes a sport? As you can see, it is not very easy to define. On our first discussion board, (the due date is in the “Addendum/Weekly Outline” document) you may want to give it your “150%” and expand on or debate some of the material covered here.

OK, so now we know what sport is- well sort of. What impact does it have on society? I mean think about it. Governments give out billions of dollars in funding in stadiums and arenas for the games that we play and watch. Why is this? Well, the next section examines the sociology of sport. That is, the role of sports on society. This role is huge. Keep reading and you’ll see why.

The Role of Sports in Society

Sports serves a number of prominent functions within our society. Some of them are noble others can be disturbing.

Sport Is BIG Business

Street and Smith's SportsBusiness Journal has estimated that the sports industry in the United States alone generates $213 billion annually. The figure includes everything from advertising and media broadcast rights, to professional athlete salaries, ticket sales, gambling and facilities construction, making it larger than the U.S. auto industry, seven times the size of the movie industry, and bigger than the annual gross domestic products of 195 nations of the world! Did you know that the NHL, which ranks at around number 10 in terms of popularity in the United States made $1B in revenues on clothing and paraphernalia? This is an incredibly big business and is thus worthy of academic attention.

Business and Commerce

Sport Helps Promote National identity, Unity and Nationalism

National Identity

Excellence in a particular sport can help define a people or be a backdoor opportunity to introduce its culture to other nations.

For example, Canada’s passion for hockey has been exported to many nations. As a result, it has created interest in who we are as a people. The problem is that many Europeans who see Canada through this sport tend to view us as being huge, aggressive and white as opposed to a typically non-violent, polite and multicultural society.

One can also make false stereotypes of Brazil and its identification with soccer.

National Unity

Sport can unify us like few other institutions. One can be a liberal or conservative, black or white, male or female, rich or poor, separatist or federalist and still be unified in the celebration of an Olympic gold medal victory.

Nationalism

In the Cold War years, sport also served a propaganda tool where teams from the Iron Curtain had to outdo those from the Capitalist West and vice versa to show which system was truly superior. In order to achieve this object, the sport governing bodies of these nations subjected their athletes to some profoundly disturbing activities- as will be outlined in a future unit on the Ethics of Sport.

Sometimes, sport can also act as a safety valve. Shortly after Argentina’s humiliating military defeat by the United Kingdom from the War in the Falkland Islands, it had the opportunity to play and defeat England during the World Cup of Soccer. Argentina’s victory restored national pride.

Similarly, one can argue that it is in the best interest of the United States to sport a weak soccer team given all of its enemies around the world. Defeating this team just might ease some political tensions. In some ways, the Americans have taken on the role of the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globe Trotters. Each year though, the U.S. is sporting an increasingly competitive national soccer team.

What Makes People So Passionate About Sports?

“The sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page usually records nothing, but man’s failures.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, 1948

We can now see the sociological significance of sport. It is not a mere form of entertainment. Sport serves many purposes- both positively and negatively in society. Then next question that needs to be asked though is what makes people so passionate about it? Here are but a few explanations.

It’s Fun to Watch People Do Things That We Can Never Do

What some athletes are capable of doing goes beyond artistry. The more you know something about a sport, the more you can truly appreciate it. For example, I was never a soccer fan. I thought this was the most boring game ever devised. Then I had kids who played it. Week in, week out, I got to watch matches. A little while later, we started to see games on TV and were blown away by the level of skill exhibited. I now finally get why it’s called “the beautiful game.”

In this sport, the very best of the best are UNBELIEVABLY good. Think about it. Over a billion people play soccer. About 3,000 of them are on elite level team rosters such as Real Madrid. Now compare these numbers to hockey where about 20 million play this game. The odds of finding quality players that can do the same things with a puck as their soccer counterparts can with a ball are slim and none. For every Connor McDavid, there’s 1,000 of his soccer counterparts. These players are beyond AMAZING- even the very worst of them.

I shake my head in awe every time I watch a game and see players, control the soccer ball like imaginary ones do on video games. The ball stays on their feet or heads as if controlled by magnets. Remarkable. Simply remarkable.

It's a Soap Opera

The number of players in any sport are limited. We can easily learn their names and get some information about their “characters.” On the field, each one “behaves” in a certain way; some being “good guys” and others are cast as the “villains.” The interesting thing is that the moment a “villain” is traded to your favourite team, he then becomes one of the “good guys.”

The media tends to promote games as conflicts involving the forces of “good” versus the forces of “evil.” Another soap operaesque component of sport is that what happened in a previous game or series often influences what happens in the next game or “episode.”

Unlike the soaps, sports oftentimes is REAL drama. What happens both on and off court in sport is often as fascinating or compelling as anything one could conjure-up with from his or her imagination. Sport is filled with very real and gripping human interest and life lesson stories.

For example, some athletes appear to be destined for greatness only to blow-out their knees as they are about to seize the reigns- just ask Marcus Dupree and Booby Miles . Other so-called “sure things” let their poor attitudes, over-indulgences, and unwillingness for hard work take them down the path of underachievement- hello Alexandre Daigle and Ryan Leaf . Then there are those who through drug addiction, fall by the wayside. Such is the “tale” of Chris Herren - a recovering heroin addict who is trying to turn his life around by publicly speaking on the dangers of drugs. And what about the stories of the wrongly accused? Take the tragic story of Dewey Bozella who was wrongfully jailed for 26 years and denied certain boxing greatness. And yet, despite his incarceration, he held on to his dream of re-entering the ring to show what potential he had by incredibly fighting at the age of 52. This story, like those of Dupree, Miles, Daigle, Leaf and Herren, draw our attention to sport and its potential life lessons. And the ones briefly described here just scratch the surface. Indeed, there are so many similarly fascinating stories out there, that I could easily do an entire course on just this topic alone!

TV commentator Les Brown described sports as the “perfect program” for television:

At once topical and entertaining, performed live and suspenseful without a script, peopled with heroes and villains, full of action and human interest and laced with pageantry and ritual.”

What a dead-on description. Here are a few other things that I might add.

Media Saturation

The more you know about a team and its players, the more you can relate to it. This is why during the Olympics the television networks spend a lot of time and money producing 5 minute vignettes on unrecognizable athletes. Unless you know something about or country’s number one Tetris player and can see his or her “human” side, it is very difficult to be enthused about watching him or her compete. In professional sports, we are bombarded with stories about individual players and teams through the television, radio, print and internet media. The more that we know, the more “hooked’ we become to a sport. Given that the complete turn over of a team’s roster usually takes 2-3 years, there are always a few “characters” the we know something about even if we stop watching or attending games for prolonged periods of time.

Its Unpredictability

At the start of every season or playoffs, the impossible just might happen. Your team might win the championship. Anything can and often does happen on any given game.

Intermittent Reinforcement

Every time an “underdog” team wins a championship, the idea is planted in a sports fan’s mind that “if it can happen to ‘them’, it can happen to ‘us’.” Intermittently, the “impossible” happens. And every time it does, a fan’s hopes are reinforced. This is the route cause of compulsive gambling. By winning every once and a while, gamblers fool themselves into believing that pay dirt is around the corner.

Intermittent Reinforcement And Sports Addiction

Everyone needs a diversion from life’s problems or frustrations. Some of you obsessively run to digital villages such as Face Book for your escape. Sports addicts do this as well- except they not only go on social media sometimes every hour to comb for new, fresh talk on their favourite teams, but they also visit Google news, TSN.ca, Twitter and the like. They do this if they are nut jobs like myself in order to get their occasional “hit “of interesting news.

Identification

People, cities and nations sometimes pin their identities on players or teams. Bobby Orr is the pride of Parry Sound Ontario. Wayne Gretzky is the pride of Brantford. For the residents of Buffalo, New York, the four time Super Bowl losses of their beloved Bills has had a negative psychological affect on how the residents of this community view themselves. If Team Canada was no longer able to sport a championship calibre hockey team, this too would likely create some social tension. Never underestimate the importance of a community’s identity with the abilities of a team or player representing it in a sport.

Fantasy and Hero Worship

Children in particular love to pretend. Whether it’s with their Barbies or on their driveways playing basketball or hockey, they fantasize being someone else- usually their heroes. This is all a part of growing up and finding their own identities. Strong and successful star athletes are like “super heroes” that they pretend to like.

Sport Inspires Us

Closely associated with the concept of heroism, is the way sport inspires us. It can motivate us to emulate the actions of others. One of the most incredible athletes of all time has to be Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto who amazingly performed with broken leg and inspired his team to win the gold. This is an incredibly inspiring story. Please view this 4 minute video. Wow! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq-C5-vIim8

Its Application to the Real World

Another role that sports plays is in its applicability to our day-to-day lives.

Sports can teach us important lessons in character building, hard work, perseverance, determination, loyalty, organization and scientific principals.

Some have argued that sport tends to pioneer issues of equality. This is partly true. Success in sport is ultimately is based on merit. It the closest thing we have in this world to a meritocracy. It is hard to place a team owner’s nephew on a club’s top line because of who he is rather than what he can do and hope to win a championship. Denying the best to be the best is counterproductive and ultimately leads to a team’s demise. Inevitably, some team realizes this and signs a Jackie Robinson or more recently, breaks the Russian or Cuban barrier. As fans see players integrated into all positions of importance, their resistance to this integration in the real world inevitably diminishes.

Boring Sport or Personality Differences?

What kind of sports draw you in the most? Is there a sport that bores you to tears? Some people love baseball others passionately hate it. Many Canadians love hockey. Most Americans would rather watch paint drying on ceilings than sitting through this game. Why? Seriously, hockey is such an amazing sport. What’s wrong with these people? ;-)

A great degree of the sports that we love are derived from our upbringing. Few grown adults become instant cricket fans but if you are raised either in the U.K. or parts of Asia, Australia and the Caribbean, this sport is LIFE unto itself.

Here in Canada, we are exposed to a variety of sports. There are so many options that the ones that we choose to be most passionate towards often reflect our personality types.

Hyper?

For instance, is your personality more on the flamboyant and aggressive side? If so, you generally are a person who loves action.

If you grew up as a soccer fan, you probably love watching the Brazilians play their game. Hockey is also your likely cup of tea. If you watch baseball, which is unlikely, you want to see teams play the “long ball” homerun version, not short ball which is more strategic but less exciting.

Emotional?

If you love chaos, unpredictability, emotion and aggression, then hockey again is for you- old “fire wagon” style that is, not the neutral zone trap variety. If you live in Australia, you would likely be a huge fan of Australian Rules Rugby.

Self-Controlled?

Conversely, if you are a lover of discipline and team oriented play, you probably love watching the precision-oriented Germans and Italians in soccer. You are also more than likely, a big fan of either “bump and grind” hockey or defence-first oriented basketball.

Intellectual?

If you love “thinking person’s” games, baseball is for you. This is the sport where field managers have with the greatest control of the elements. It’s a game based on very sophisticated calculated risks. If you are a diehard baseball fan, you probably have an inner desire for detail, order and logic. You get a kick out of thinking through the logic of “if player A is on first base and so and so is on third and player B gets the fly ball from player C then….well you do the math. This same personality disposition combined with an aggressive side, best describes hard core NFL football fans.

So rather than denounce a sport because you feel that it is boring, first consider you personality type and see how much of it is or is not a reflection of who you are as a person.

A Common “Language” and Our Interpretation of Reality

The English language is filled with sports idioms. Much of the way in which we interpret our world comes from terms used in sport.

Here are just a few: “he won fair and square,” “don’t change the rules mid way,” “above board,” “call the shots,” “dark horse,” “from scratch,” “against all odds,” “game plan,” “get the upper hand,” “hitting below the belt,” “jockeying for,” “learn the ropes,” “minor leaguer,” “off base,” “play hardball,” “playing it close to the vest,” “slam dunk,” “time out,” blue chip prospect,” and “home run.”

Sports journalist and academic Leonard Koppet argued that our society’s increased interest in sports has also created a “win” mentality in terms of the way that we approach our lives.

“We think and talk so much about games that we end up thinking about the real world as if it were a game, and even those who have paid no conscious attention to the sports mystique fall into the traps set by this kind of false reasoning.” (Koppet, 187)

How often have you heard of a person being described as being either a “winner” or “loser?” Politicians for example, now “win” elections rather than “receiving a mandate from the electorate.” In this way, then, sport has made our culture increasingly aggressive- something that is very alien for instance to most Asian societies.

Koppet though, points out that the world we live in is very complex and that sports think can be very limiting. For example, take for instance the expression “the game of life.” How much real life does sport actually reflect?

It is true that in both sports and life there are rules. However, in sports they are few and simple, very clear-cut, and have to be followed. In life, rules are numerous, complex, not necessarily clear-cut. Indeed they are often ignored. There are less “referees” in our day-to-day lives than those found in sports. Life does not necessarily produce clear-cut results such as “winners and losers.” (Koppet, 190)

How much of our lives though are actually based on “victory” or “defeat?” How much of it is “numbers” driven?

Koppet makes some very valid points. There is a group of social scientists known as “symbolic interactionists” who argue that our reality is shaped by the words that we know. Words are basically our “eyes” to reality.

For example, when you are “thinking,” you are basically having a conversation with yourself. And how do you communicate with yourself? Through words. Most of you see two things here: two people or a chalice. What if you have never seen a chalice before? What if you have no word for this container? All that you see then is two people. This is just one example.

Words allow you to think. North Americans with their incredible awareness of sports idioms, terms, and words therefore tend to see the world from a lens shaped by sports. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Koppert describes this phenomena as “sports think.” He points out that prior to the 1950’s before the widespread availability of television and sporting contests, this concept of winning and losing “sports-think” hardly existed.

We have already discussed some of the reasons as to why sports appeals to so many of us. But Koppert adds that:

“Sports is hugely popular because it is very easy to comprehend…Sports language thus becomes a ready-made medium for simplified simile formation.” (Koppet, 197)

For these reasons and more, it is critical that you expand your vocabulary beyond sporting terms in order to not limit your mind’s ability to process reality in the world around us.

As an additional incentive, did you know that 90% of all C.E.O.’s possess a superior vocabulary? Do you want to increase the odds of making an additional $20,000 per year? Simply expand your vocabulary.

At any rate, Koppet’s arguments on sports speak is interesting food for thought.

A Need for Tribalism and Belonging

In a world where we are increasingly becoming “numbers” rather than people, where alienation (isolation or disassociation) is commonplace, sports allow us to gather and belong to a cause no matter how shallow it might appear to be. Given online services like YouTube, Instagram, Netflix, on-demand programming by the major networks, and social media in general, it’s getting harder and harder for people to have in-common conversations of what they saw the night before. The viewing of live sports events on either TV or online is one of the few “communal watching experiences” that remains in our society.

You are not going to watch all 82 games that the Leafs played in a season on Netflix to find out how they ultimately did. Most of you can’t even PVR a game. And if you do, you can’t watch it without fast forwarding to the end. The live experience is just way too over powering. (Believe it or not, I’m actually one of those rare people who watches live event programming by recording it then starting 45 minutes from when it started to skip the commercials. I still finish like everyone else but I get to avoid the ads. The only drawback to doing this is that I miss out on the whole Face Book/Twitter experience during the game. For an old school guy like me though, that’s not much of a loss).

What other modern day social institution gathers as many people once or twice (in baseball’s case 5 or 6) times a week where people can scream, shout, cheer and expend all manner of emotional energy on such a regular mass scale? Perhaps places of worship for some- but certainly not on the same scale (in terms of attendance) as those who go to sporting events. Is this a positive phenomenon or an issue of social concern? You may want to state your perspective in the discussion board.

Role Modeling

Sports teaches us lessons- particularly for those who are young and impressionable. Whether they want to accept this reality or not, star athletes are role models. The lessons that they “teach” based on their behaviour both on and off the field has the potential to produce greater citizens or promote socially unacceptable behaviour. In a future unit we will place considerable focus on this theme.

A Diversion from the Real World- A Great Escape

Imagine how boring life would be for most of us if we did not have things that help us escape reality. Sports is a great outlet to focus on enjoyable trivial stuff for a few hours. Sometimes, it can make our day such as our favourite team winning a championship or making a great trade. Other times it can crush our spirits. Sports has a tremendous emotional pull on our hearts and souls.

We live in a troubled Post Modernist world where there are few moral absolutes and instability reigns supreme. Rules are not necessarily “black and white.” Sports provide us with sharply defined rules more or less free of loopholes and manipulation. They are an escape from the “grey” world that we live in and cheer for something that has some finality to it.

Sport can be an oasis for those who crave order, simplicity and meaning. The team with the most points on any given night wins. There is a great finality to this. After seven games, for instance, a series is decided. When a team wins a championship, it’s over. Mission accomplished. Next season, the slate is cleaned and everything begins anew- including hope for something better for the majority of fans whose team did go all the way.

In the real world, life does not work this way. What happened 20, 30, 100 or even 500 years ago might be the underlying reason why you might be blown to pieces while shopping for groceries or flying in an airplane.

Sports is also a big part of our 24/7 smart phone world where we are a newsfeed or tweet away from things happening away from the stadiums. Again, this constant feeding allows us to escape reality for a few minutes through the day.

A Dangerous Diversion?

In the National Film Board documentary, Manufacturing Consent, social critic Noam Chomsky argued that sport is a “diversion” employed by the elite to prevent us from solving the “real” problems of our society. This Marxian view looks at sport as being “an opiate of the people. (qtd. in “Manufacturing Consent”)

This perspective though, seems a tad on the extreme side. Human nature is such that we crave recreation in the same way that we desire many other diversions from day-to-day living. A few hours of watching a sporting contest is a great way to relax and recharge for the following day -as would be a good meal and get together with friends or family. Surely, these recreational pursuits are not the result of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by the governing elite. Nevertheless, we should not totally dismiss Chomsky. For example, tyrannical governments often use sport as a “safety valve” to maintain their control their populations.

Of course, anything when taken to an extreme has the potential to no longer be viewed as a diversion but rather, an opiate from reality. For example, in a future lecture, we will cover the topic of sports addiction. This is a REAL problem that can cause all kinds of harm things.

Post Modernism, Sports And Children of the 1980’s and 1990’s

An entire generation of children born in the mid 1980’s and onwards are now adults who were raised in an era of massive upheavals in the world of sport. For instance, prior to the 1980’s, it was a given that star players were basically assured of playing on same team for life. The values of loyalty were deeply ingrained in sport. This was economically possible because team pay rolls were quite low. In addition, sports clubs were owned by a single person rather than a corporation. Individual owners had strong relations with their players. They were not seen as “assets” – though a strong case can be made that they were treated like “prized horses.”

All this changed literally overnight with the rapid growth of cable television and the explosion in team revenues and salaries combined with the emergence of “downsizing” in the regular workforce in the late 1980’s.

This new generation of fans has seen the end of team dynasties. Team salaries are too high to have their rosters filled with star players. Consequently, they have grown watching rosters with watered down talent. These fans also witnessed the end of management’s disloyalty to players and vice versa. Star player’s allegiances became strictly based on the all mighty dollar. Owner’s loyalty to aging players was not “fiscally responsible” and reflective the new trend in the workplace known as “downsizing.”

For the first time since professional sports attracted mass audiences, parents had to explain these changes to their children. How do you explain to a 7 year old that his favourite player refuses to play despite having 2 years remaining on his contract because he is not satisfied with making $4M a year? How can actions like these not help to produce more jaded children? Especially those challenged with few “real life” role models. If their “heroes” have let them down and can’t be trusted with loyalty, who can?

How these changes will be sociologically translated into the values this generation will definitely lead to interesting analyses by academics.

Summary

As you can now see, EAC 955 will be a thinking person’s observation and assessment of sports. We have begun this process by first trying to define sports- clearly this is far from a simple task. Sport has had a profound impact on our modern society. It has and continues to affect the way we think, act and behave. Its significance impacts both fans and non-fans alike. For these reasons and more, it’s is a psychological and sociological phenomenon well worth studying.

Works Cited

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. Videotape. Dirs. Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. National Film Board of Canada. 1992.

Denny Hamlin Sport Sciences ESPN. Prod. John Brenkus. Perf. John Brenkus. ESPN, 2012. Youtube.

< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkKKMI9laIU >.

Koppet, Leonard. Sports Illusion Sports Reality. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981.

Pockrass, Bob. "Round the Track: It Might Look Simple, but Racing Takes Athletic Skill." Sportingnews. November 19 2013.

< http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar/story/2013-11-19/are-nascar-drivers-athletes-donovan-mcnabb-jimmie-johnson-fox-workouts >.

Westhead, Rick. “Confidential files reveal fortunes of Leafs empire.” Toronto Star, October 27, 2007.

< http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/271086 >.

Summary Checklist

Did you:

· Read the online materials for this unit?

Are you now able to:

· Define “what is sport?”

· Understand and appreciate the positive and negative role sports plays in society?

· Understand and appreciate what makes people so passionate about sports?

If so, you are now ready to proceed to the next unit.

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