Sports Competition

     In yesterday's post I spoke against the Get Out of My Way or I'm Gonna Run Over You mentality.  I knew as I wrote it that it could be taken as a swipe against sports competition.  That's not what I meant at all.  In fact, in football, you're supposed to run over your opponent.  I support that.  The difference is in the underlying attitude.  One attitude is demeaning and belittling, the other shows respect for your opponent.

     It has become common for football players to want to gloat and to perform elaborate celebration rituals after scoring a touchdown or making a good play.  Some even want to stand over a knocked down  opponent and to glare menacingly at him to produce intimidation.  

     Football leagues have rightly established penalties for such behavior and the punishments are  appropriate not just because the behaviors delay the game.  The actions are demeaning and insulting to the team and/or players against whom they are directed.

     The legendary football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was certainly no stranger to rough, physical football and he was not, to my knowledge, particularly religious.  There were rumors about his personal failings, but, as a coach, he knew how to train young men in the proper attitudes for sports competition.  He taught them how to be proper men and most of his players came to remember him as almost a second father.

     When a player scored a touchdown, Bryant told him to act like he had done it before and as if he planned to do it again.  Players who would not comply lost playing time.

     Players who gloated over a successful quarterback sack, or a great block, or a brilliant interception, lost playing time.

     Coach Bryant was no stranger to the tactic of intimidation, but it was an intimidation which paradoxically showed a respect for the opponent.  He told his players to knock their opponent down and then to offer him a hand up.  Then to turn around and knock him down again.  After a few rounds of this process, the opponent would begin to expect to be knocked down.

     There are people who would like to ban competitive sport altogether because they say it crushes the spirits of the less talented.  The reality is that properly administered sports can teach teamwork, self-confidence, how to deal with failure without loss of self-esteem, how to deal with success, and how to engage in equitable and honorable competition without malice toward one's opponent.  The lessons which can be learned in competitive sports can be applied to one's work career and interpersonal relations.

     The Apostle Paul saw nothing wrong with competitive sports and even used a sports analogy to make a point.

"Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?  So run, that ye may obtain."  1 Corinthians 9:24.