Looking beyond the realm of team sports, it has always been the case throughout history that the physically strong and fit are held up as being heroes and treated as being superior. Back in the medieval era, the knights used to represent the highest point of masculinity. Yes, I know that there were the kings and nobles who were superior by blood regardless of physical strength but the fact is, for many centuries, society has admired the strong and held some level of contempt for the weak.recovering_fan wrote:Think much farther back than The Great Gatsby. I'm thinking of the Regency era or even earlier, although it's unlikely that sports dominated culture in the Victorian era either, and team sports almost certainly did not.
Back in the medieval era there were crowds of people gathered around watching jousting matches in which one or more men would be killed. People would flock to these games in droves. Not only that, they'd also flock to executions to watch prisoners being killed... I hope you're getting my point here. The herd mentality that is key to the sports-dominated culture has existed in people for many centuries - even millennia. The gladiatorial combat in Rome was a perfect example - thousands of people flocking to a huge arena built for the purpose of the masses being able to watch men fight each other to the death. And now, 2000 years later, the EXACT same mentality exists in violent sports like boxing and wrestling (yes, they're not killing each other, but it's still violence which draws crowds of thousands to it) - the more things change, the more things stay the same!
Best regards,
i_like_1981