what we oppose about the sports culture

[sparkle]

I go to a university where sports are very important. It can feel hard to make friends if u are not from here and u are not familiar. People take it in the wrong way when I say no thank you on invitations.

[greencom]

I never understood just how and when sports became an integral part of public and private schools, colleges and universities. It seems to me that scholastic achievement should be the primary goal of these institutions, it is in other parts of the world. I see engineers at my place of work from India, China, Korea and elsewhere, they are the new Americans, they come from societies that value learning above playing with a ball. Keep your standards high Sparkle.
Greencom

[The Quiet One]

This is a good topic so far. If anyone else has any more things that they oppose about sports or the sports culture, please bring it up. I want to hear as much as everyone wants to bring forth, so I can look into these views, and see if I can respond to them fairly, without defending the negative things that happen. I know that there's some unsavory stuff that people don't like, and there are a bunch of sports fans who do not support the negative things that happen.

[Indurrago]

This was a thread I made a few days ago.

Name an occupation you respect more than athletics, it wasn't necessary for people to say why but they did anyway.
http://www.sportssuck.org/phpbb2/viewto ... =11&t=4558

[i_like_1981]

This is a good topic so far. If anyone else has any more things that they oppose about sports or the sports culture, please bring it up. I want to hear as much as everyone wants to bring forth, so I can look into these views, and see if I can respond to them fairly, without defending the negative things that happen. I know that there's some unsavory stuff that people don't like, and there are a bunch of sports fans who do not support the negative things that happen.

It's good to have a pro-sports character on here who actually wants to understand our point of view. Many others have just come on and started opening up with the harassing, stereotypical comments (as Earl detailed in his post about Samdaman) without making the slightest bit of effort to communicate or sympathise with our opinions on sports mania. I myself just don't exactly know what the big deal is about sports. Yes, I don't mind people playing them or even going to see their favourite team play. What I don't like is how some people elevate them to the excessive status whereby they become the only acceptable way of life and anyone who does not show an interest in sports becomes the subject of abuse, ridicule and exclusion. I myself received many physical and verbal assaults during high school for generally being a nerd; openly favouring academia to physical activity. Near enough every PE lesson I had to do I would be humiliated or attacked in some way. I don't tend to go into my stories on here but I have mentioned a few in various other threads such as an incident where I was hit in the face with a cricket bat for striking out and had my nose broken. It really ate me up back then - what was the big fucking deal? What had I done to deserve this, other than being one of those boys who found more satisfaction in words and learning than playing competitive games? I accept the fact that some people in this world are just generally mean and take pleasure in the suffering of others. I believe that is called Schadenfreude. But I'd like to think cruel behaviour was justified to some extent. What really bugs me is how people get bullied, excluded and even driven to SUICIDE by others just over child's play games. Yes, being good at sports and sucking at them can make all the difference between being popular at school and being the guy who is on his own and gets given all the crap. I just fail to see what makes them so damn special and how performing poorly at them can result in such hateful, violent behaviour from those who are skilled at them. I have some form of respect for physical talent and ability. What I do not respect is people who use their physical and social power to harass and torment the weaker. I believe it is a combination of the over-competitiveness of sports like American football or rugby and the sadistic mindset that make the worst kind of school bully. To sum up - I just don't know how exactly some human beings could have their morals distorted by these "fun games".

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

Quiet, I was thinking how I was going to initiate my own discourse describing my views about sports culture. Before I begin my discourse, let me say that I donâ??t want to be misunderstood. I respect athletic achievement, as I would becoming proficient at any other endeavor requiring self-discipline and dedication. I view athletic guys as individuals. Some are decent; some are jerks or worse.

i_like_1981 has provided a starting point for discussion, and that is what has historically been the traditional sports-centered approach to P.E. in the schools. Iâ??m in a unique position to discuss this issue, since I went through the mandatory sports-centered P.E. experience as a nonathletic boy and for about the last two years have gone through a rather beneficial health club experience as a middle-aged man. These two experiences have been just as different as day and night; and no wonder, because the traditional approach to P.E. was fundamentally flawed.

In the United States, P.E. (thankfully) is going through a period of transition. Fat Man, greencom, and I are middle-aged men, members of the â??baby boomâ? generation. The mandatory P.E. of our generation was hellish for nonathletic boys, especially those who were physically weak or were overweight. My friend who played football at the university where he earned his degree in sociology calls that period of American P.E. â??the dinosaur age.â?

There are reasons why Fat Man and greencom are particularly bitter. One of Fat Manâ??s knees was permanently injured in a car wreck when he was four years old, and he could no longer run and could walk only with a limp. Greencom was born with a congenital eye defect. He lacked depth perception, a condition over which he had no control. In other words, both of them were physically disabled. Despite their physical impairment, they were required to take P.E. anyway! This simply defies common sense. Despite the fact that there was nothing they could do about their physical impairments, they were bullied by athlete classmates while none of their coaches even cared. At least one P.E. coach of Fat Manâ??s enjoyed humiliating him in front of the whole class. Greencom finally got fed up with an athlete classmate in his P.E. class who had been bullying him for some time and slammed his head up against the wall. Guess whom the coach punished? Why, greencom, of course! Not the bully, because (after all) he was an athlete.

And let me make a comment about i_like_1981â??s experience when one of his P.E. classmates walked up to him and deliberately smashed his face with a cricket bat and broke his nose. If someone walked up to you on a street out in public and hit you in the face with a baseball bat and broke your nose, you would see him in court. But because this physical attack happened in a P.E. class, it was not considered a crime.

Iâ??m firmly convinced that more bullying has taken place in traditional mandatory sports-centered P.E. classes than all the academic classes combined. (I will say what I believe the reasons are for this in another post.) And for what good reason? There is none. I will also observe that nonathletic boys who were (or are) subjected to this kind of bullying in mandatory sports-centered P.E. are discouraged from becoming physically active.

The traditional approach does not even live up to the name â??Physical Education.â? In the mandatory P.E. I was forced to take, the assumption seems to have been made that all boys were already athletes. There was not even any instruction about sports. If academic classes had been â??taughtâ? this way, there would have been a national outrage. There was Remedial Math and Remedial English, but no Remedial P.E. for boys who were not good at sports. And there certainly were NO physical fitness or bodybuilding programs for nonathletes. In all the years I was required to take P.E. in school, I never even heard of physical fitness programs. But the claim made by the hypocritical adults who pushed for mandatory P.E. was that they were concerned about students who werenâ??t physically fit (oh, yeah, sure), yet no programs were EVER set up to meet their needs. And the reason this was so was because they were LYING. They really didnâ??t care about the physically unfit kids, who were humiliated and ignored. They just wanted the high schools to have winning football teams. What is truly galling about this hypocrisy is that their most cherished goal of having winning high-school football teams could have been achieved WITHOUT forcing nonathletic boys to participate in sports. The boys who wanted to play football did not need to be forced to take P.E.

For the record, I have no problem with high schools having football programs or any other sports program. I favor retaining the traditional sports-centered P.E. for the athletic kids and those who simply want to participate in sports AS AN ELECTIVE. True physical fitness classes should be provided for the nonathletic kids, or else just tell their parents to send them to a health club. As Iâ??ve said before many times, I get more exercise in a single workout session at my health club than I ever did in a single YEAR of mandatory sports-centered P.E. And Iâ??m not exaggerating. Iâ??m serious.

[The Quiet One]

...I myself just don't exactly know what the big deal is about sports. Yes, I don't mind people playing them or even going to see their favourite team play.

That's good to hear. I'm gonna be taking your quote and breaking it up to respond to individual points. I might skip over things, but I won't change your words.

What I don't like is how some people elevate them to the excessive status whereby they become the only acceptable way of life and anyone who does not show an interest in sports becomes the subject of abuse, ridicule and exclusion.

Yeah, I myself don't understand how some people can just take things too far and go all nutso about if someone dislikes sports.

I myself received many physical and verbal assaults during high school for generally being a nerd; openly favouring academia to physical activity. Near enough every PE lesson I had to do I would be humiliated or attacked in some way. I don't tend to go into my stories on here but I have mentioned a few in various other threads such as an incident where I was hit in the face with a cricket bat for striking out and had my nose broken. It really ate me up back then - what was the big fucking deal? What had I done to deserve this, other than being one of those boys who found more satisfaction in words and learning than playing competitive games?

I am sorry to hear that you were tormented due to your interests lying in other things besides sports. I think times have changed, somewhat. I graduated high school a few years ago, and though I wasn't the biggest fan, I wasn't exactly ridiculed for it. I was more anti-social and loner-ish, and I'd sometimes get picked on for that, but that happened outside of PE.

I accept the fact that some people in this world are just generally mean and take pleasure in the suffering of others. I believe that is called Schadenfreude. But I'd like to think cruel behaviour was justified to some extent. What really bugs me is how people get bullied, excluded and even driven to SUICIDE by others just over child's play games.

It doesn't make much sense to me honestly. Going into my freshman year, the coach noted I had a build which would probably make me ideal for the football team, probably on one of the lines, but I couldn't go for it, as I have a younger brother who I needed to babysit a lot when my parents needed free time. I wasn't picked on for it, and the PE teacher wasn't the football coach. In fact, he was a basketball coach, a real nice guy from what I saw.

Yes, being good at sports and sucking at them can make all the difference between being popular at school and being the guy who is on his own and gets given all the crap. I just fail to see what makes them so damn special and how performing poorly at them can result in such hateful, violent behaviour from those who are skilled at them. I have some form of respect for physical talent and ability. What I do not respect is people who use their physical and social power to harass and torment the weaker. I believe it is a combination of the over-competitiveness of sports like American football or rugby and the sadistic mindset that make the worst kind of school bully. To sum up - I just don't know how exactly some human beings could have their morals distorted by these "fun games".

Best regards,
i_like_1981

And there at the end, the morals distorted by the games, it boggles me too. I don't have a response to it because there's no real justification for it.

I thank you for your post, 1981, it's been a good read.

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

I think times have changed, somewhat. I graduated high school a few years ago, and though I wasn't the biggest fan, I wasn't exactly ridiculed for it. I was more anti-social and loner-ish, and I'd sometimes get picked on for that, but that happened outside of PE.

I'm not sure if times have changed completely. There still are brutal things happening in schools. Just a couple months ago my friend had a socket wrench thrown at his eye with little provocation. It was no accident, the kid who threw it was kicked out of the class permanently, but my friend was hurt pretty badly. And when I was in grade seven, the group who I hung out with because I knew no one else at the school would play brutal sports. During our break, we'd go to the creek, and play a brutal version of the game "Tag" where someone would be carrying a giant log and would have to beat people with it, and to make them "It", you'd have to make them bleed. Yes, that was the rule, it doesn't count until they are bleeding. Whenever I was "It", the game would be rigged against me so they were allowed to throw rocks at me. There were also several other brutal sports that we'd play, many of them also involving beating others with logs.

[i_like_1981]

Violence in schools has always been and will always be a problem that can't be stopped. Why? Well, the school can't be expected to have complete control over all its students and every single thing that occurs within its boundaries. In every large educational establishment there will be hidden areas, areas removed from the sight of adults where people will go to smoke, deal drugs and even have fights. It is unstoppable and the sad truth is, no amount of snitching or anti-bullying programs will do away with this problem completely. Some youths are just thugs. Some young people just naturally have a violent mindset and the physically-weaker yet academically-stronger are going to have to suffer as a result, like I did. The schools can do all they can to clamp down on violence and bullying on their grounds but they can't take out the natural urge for violence that exists inside some youths. Not even these people's parents can. There are just some brutal, aggressive people in this world and violence is always going to exist as a result. Some people just are this way, and nothing can be done to stop that. It is one of the negative sides to human existence...

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[blackdog4444]

The fact that sports has brainwashed a lot of the sports fan population also makes me worried about what the next trends in society are going to be.
The people who have to put up with the nonsense these brainwashed fans throw are definitely very tolerant. In days where important events are being diluted by the more unimportant events such as affairs and spouse swaps, every worthy article about the troubles of the world outside Hollywood helps keep those of us that are inclined to read them headed in the right direction.
Like I like to say: "Standing right-side up in an upside-down world."

[i_like_1981]

I also get easily bored by all this showbiz and celebrity gossip crap that the world's news industries seem so dependent on for material. Over here we have some right attention whores who you never hear the last of; a particularly notorious example is a woman called Katie Price or 'Jordan' who seems to be on the front cover of our local trashy papers like the Daily Star every day. It's strange - last week she appeared to be falling out with her new husband and wanting a divorce. Now they appear to be all right again and even expecting a baby, apparently. I'm sorry, I have to say this, someone really needs to shoot this woman. Her stories are nothing but a waste of coverage and paper; I pity the poor sods who actually get made to write about her irritating life. But thankfully our society does manage to get its priorities sorted out in the right way every now and again; over here we're all very much conscious about the upcoming Prime Minister election which will be on next Thursday. That has been getting a lot of coverage too, and I am glad. This is important as it shall define how the next few years of our country play out. People should concentrate on things that are important and have an effect on the population of the world. We really don't need to hear the same old garbage over and over again about some woman who really can't keep her legs shut. I mean, at least the sport pages of the paper are liked and serve some sort of use. People want to read them; not including myself, of course. But I don't think anyone would be that upset at all if Jordan and her antics were to be banned from the pages of the country's papers. I know I wouldn't.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

Quiet, since I suspect you don't like long posts, I'll cut to the quick. One particularly pernicious aspect of the sports culture is to define masculinity solely on the basis of athletic prowess. At this point sport ceases to be a form of recreation and, instead, takes on a compulsory aspect that becomes oppressive. Nonathletic boys are bullied simply for having no interest in sports. Some coaches of school sports, especially those that are the most popular, actually look down on nonathletic boys and men. They say that the school athletes are better than the rest of the students. A childhood friend of mine who played football in high school recently told me that most of his teammates looked down on all the nonathletic guys at their high school. Is this an attitude I shoud respect? I call it intolerance, pure and simple. I have always respected athletic achievement, but respect is a two-way street. A formerly active member of this forum who is a high-school football player and a critic of this website (good guy) said (unless I've not remembered correctly) that many, if not most, of his teammates referred to the nonathletic guys at their high school as "fags." Oh, really? I guess they never heard of David Kopay, Brian Sims, or Esera Tuaolo (not to mention others). There is no real correlation between sexual orientation and whether one is an athlete or doesn't like sports. Of course, this fact is inconvenient; so, it's denied. Even though I'm working on a bodybuilding program at a local health club, I find this bigotry to be particularly repellent. The fact that there have been men of great courage who never had an interest in sports seems to have been completely (and, I think, deliberately) overlooked.

Am I saying that sports should be banned? Of course, not. That's ridiculous, and anyone who would assume that I would take such a position would have to be really stupid. All I'm saying is that the attitudes of some people need to change. As Bill O'Reilly says, "What say you?"

[Snesgamer]

I don't really have any antagonism towards athleticism, per se. In fact, a personal philosophy of mine is constant self-perfection - which includes trying to keep my body as physically fit as possible. I involve myself in karate, kickboxing, and weight lifting to keep myself in shape.

However, when sports become such an integral part of society that one is completely exempted from the social atmosphere merely because he did not watch the football game the previous night, or when athletes are not held to the same social standards and expectations merely because he plays a GAME - there are serious problems.

[Indurrago]

Hello snesgamers(probably the best console I never had). Nobody here disagrees that one shouldn't do sports because it can keep you healthy(with a good diet and proper hygiene also). A number of us we work out daily like Earl who's been into body-building for I think almost twenty years(correct me if I'm wrong Earl ). What we do oppose is the bs that sports industry feeds to generation to generation of fans.

Here's an example:

Three myths of masculinity: that men need to possess athletic ability, that they need to have sexual conquests, and that they have to have economic success. Athletes have all three of those lies embedded within their lives.

[i_like_1981]

I don't really have any antagonism towards athleticism, per se. In fact, a personal philosophy of mine is constant self-perfection - which includes trying to keep my body as physically fit as possible. I involve myself in karate, kickboxing, and weight lifting to keep myself in shape.

However, when sports become such an integral part of society that one is completely exempted from the social atmosphere merely because he did not watch the football game the previous night, or when athletes are not held to the same social standards and expectations merely because he plays a GAME - there are serious problems.

Hi, Snesgamer. I haven't seen you round here in a while. Welcome back. I agree with you on the point of not having disdain towards physical activity itself. I go to the gym on a Monday evening every week, not really to build immense amounts of muscle but to improve my fitness and motivation. I have found that working out in a gym can really help with relaxation and stress later on when I'm back at home. I feel I've actually used that evening for a good purpose and it really puts my mind at ease. So I'm glad to go there. It's the intolerant morons who harass and insult people about not sharing the same manic passions for "their" team that ruin it for us and as a result I feel inclined to tar everything to do with sports with a broad brush at times. However, I guess I'm the one who can feel the most smug now towards these fans who have excluded and mocked me many a time, as "their" team has just been battered 4-1 by Germany! I shall sure look forward to using some of my German skills to the people in my office tomorrow morning; I'm sure they'll love it!

Best regards,
i_like_1981