Whither Sportsmanship...and Why?

I rarely watch much of sporting events anymore, since they’ve been thoroughly compromised by the television industry, with the help of universities, coaches, athletic directors, league honchos – in short, anybody inordinately interested in huge profits, which, of course, is just about everybody. Football games seem virtually endless, not least because of, for instance, the using of extended periods to simply place the ball after a punt, an action that might require 15 seconds. Coaches don’t have to worry about timeout-strategy anymore, since play is stopped periodically so everything from soap to lingerie can be hustled to the viewing public on TV while the in-house viewers can just sit in the stands and freeze, stare at the sky, girl-watch or whatever. I’m likely to depart the TV scene during the first “referee’s timeout” when watching a basketball game. I can check a couple hours later and see the finish.

I stayed with much of the annual Army-Navy game last week, though. The distortions caused by TV were noticeable, though perhaps not as time-consuming, since neither team is considered anywhere near number one and therefore not worth the spending of valuable advertisement dollars for appealing to an expected smaller viewer audience, as compared to that with regard to a game including USC or Texas. The thing that caught my attention more than most anything else was the demeanor of the players. Navy does have a fine team this year and trounced Army, but that wasn’t what was so remarkable. Actually, it’s what I didn’t see that made the game remarkable and differentiated it from all other football and other games, either collegiate or professional. I didn’t see the usual hot-dogging, egotistical, duck-walking, breast-beating, chest-thumping, teasing, taunting, trash-talking, skipping, end-zone-dance- frenzied histrionics (or their equivalent) that have now become a major component in all sports, except perhaps baseball and golf.

The athletes played the game as gentlemen once did, playing hard but observing impeccable behavior and a respectful attitude toward the opposition. They played as team members and, with few, if any, exceptions did not draw attention to themselves individually. They did not grandstand – they just played the game. They didn’t appear to trash-talk…they did no end-zone celebrations fit for a vaudeville show or perhaps a circus, maybe even the chimp-zone of a zoo. They didn’t taunt and tease. They conducted themselves in a manner one would expect of highly disciplined and unselfishly oriented cadets in the military academies, where respect and hard work are both demanded and earned and humility is a virtue, perhaps enhanced by the young men’s relative certainty that they might soon be facing life-and-death situations, things the hot-doggers can’t even imagine.

In any case, high school and college coaches should take a page from the academies and require that players conduct themselves with decency and mutual respect, cut out the hey-look-at-me histrionics and learn how gentlemen approach sports. Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to happen. With respect to the professional leagues, disgusting behavior is all just a part of the entertainment – bad taste, to be sure – but entertainment nevertheless, and part of the hype. It’s disgusting, but it’s here to stay.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark