Tag: Sports

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Running up the Score

By Jim Spiegel

In the world of sports it is common to hear people complain about teams “running up the score”—playing hard to score additional points or runs even after the outcome of the game has been decided. Some cases of running up the score in professional football and baseball are legendary. It is supposedly an “unwritten rule” that such superfluous scoring is unsportsmanlike, impolite, or even immoral. I have never been moved by this complaint, which, as a huge sports fan, I have heard hundreds of times over the years—about athletic competitions at all levels, from pee-wee soccer to NFL football.

To those who make such complaints I have often asked why they take offense at teams who run up the score. What exactly is wrong with playing your hardest even when your winning the game is no longer in doubt? The standard response is that this humiliates the losing team or that scoring “needless” points makes the other “look bad.” Some even appeal to the Golden Rule—would you want the team you’re playing to run up the score on you?

None of these arguments have ever moved me, and I’ve often wondered why. I was prompted to reflect a bit more deeply on the question after my son’s high school soccer team was on both ends of blowouts in consecutive games, losing 9-0 and then a few days later winning 8-1. In each case I was made aware that some parents were bothered by the winning team’s piling up the points long after the game’s outcome was decided. But in neither case was I personally bothered by this. Why not?

First, to address the standard arguments, it could be said that any outplaying of one’s opponent “humiliates” them or makes them “look bad.” After all, by defeating your opponent you literally make them a loser. Isn’t that humiliating in itself? So if avoiding humiliating situations is so important, then one should avoid competitions entirely. But, of course, that would be silly. And as for the Golden Rule, at least speaking for myself, this doesn’t enjoin me to stop playing my hardest because I have never wanted my opponent in any sport to stop doing their best. In fact, I would find it patronizing if my opponent decided to “take it easy” on me because they were beating me so badly. I would feel insulted and, yes, offended by this. So, for me, the Golden Rule dictates that I always try my hardest against my opponent. (Though I must admit that I have sometimes failed at this, such as when playing a vastly inferior racquetball player.) Of course, I am referring to contexts of serious competition, as opposed to when, say, playing a sport in an instructional context, when bowling or playing a board game on a date, or when teaching one’s kid how to play certain sport.

There are several positive reasons to keep doing your best even when winning big. First, to not try your hardest is to give your opponent a false sense of their own ability and level of achievement. To return to the Golden Rule, when I play someone in racquetball, among other things, since I am a serious player, I want to improve my sense of my own ability when playing them. If they take a big lead and then “let up” when a comeback is virtually out of the question, this invites me to think I am better than I really am, and this does me a disservice. It is not merciful to give me an inflated sense of my own ability. It is a deceit dressed in compassion’s clothes.

Second, there is the matter of discipline and self-control. When the win/loss outcome of a game is no longer in question, this tempts both teams to get lazy. If teams are only playing to win, then I suppose it might make sense for players to relax and not try so hard in such cases. But, as the old adage goes, it isn’t just about whether you win or lose. It is how you play the game. Even when losing by six touchdowns in the fourth quarter you can and should still strive to play the game well. And so it goes for the team who is on the winning end of such a blowout. In other words, no matter the score and no matter whether one is winning or losing, you should always do your best. This is to honor the game as well as your opponent. Playing your best is always the most dignified thing. But I would hasten to add that dignity and athletic virtue also demands that players not “rub it in” when winning big. Mockery or otherwise belittling one’s opponent when beating them badly is always wrong. And here is yet another way in which lopsided games provide opportunities for self-control. Such games challenge winning players to restrain impulses to be haughty or arrogant, and this is an important moral skill.

This leads me to my final point in defense of playing your hardest even when winning by a large margin. A severe trouncing provides the losing team with an opportunity to display poise even under adverse circumstances. Athletic competitions are a powerful and important training context for real life. They are most important as means to ends, not ends in themselves. The achievements of putting a rubber ball through a metal ring or hitting a cowhide sphere with a maple wood stick are essentially meaningless in themselves. But we contrive the games of basketball and baseball in order to develop character and provide entertainment for those who observe. This means that sports are most valuable as preparations for real life challenges, difficulties, triumphs, and failures. And among the many real life situations that we all experience are humiliating and failures. To have experienced humiliating losses in athletic contexts provides us with helpful, if painful, practice at maintaining our poise and dignity in such situations. And that is a moral good.

So there are good reasons to think that there is nothing wrong with “running up the score” in contexts of serious athletic competition, notwithstanding the common appeal to the “unwritten rule” that this is a bad thing to do. Indeed, perhaps there is a reason that this supposed unwritten rule is unwritten.

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A Theology of Sports—Part 4

By Jim Spiegel

Thus far I have extolled the benefits of sports, but it would be remiss of me not to note a few caveats:  First, athletic competition is not an end in itself.  Notice that each of the benefits I mentioned underscore this fact, for the moral, aesthetic, and social values of athletic competition and spectatorship are each good because of higher ends, such as personal character formation, the betterment of society, and acquaintance with God’s glory.  To return to Paul’s remarks in 1 Timothy 4, the value of physical training should be understood in light of the value of godliness.  This is central to a Christian perspective on sports and is a crucial antidote to the obsession with sports which is a growing plague in our culture.

To put this point positively, involvement in sports, as an athlete and as a spectator, is healthy part of a well-balanced Christian life.  The Christian mind must be fed from all cultural quarters, from the arts and sciences to civic engagement and domestic politesse.  Four-square cultural nutrition also includes sports, just as exercise—yes, even being an amateur athlete—is necessary for optimum physical health.  But we must, in the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes, avoid all extremes.  And focusing all of your spare time on sports by watching ESPN non-stop or playing fantasy leagues to the detriment of your work and vital relationships is just wrong.  And as a former Sports Center junkie, I speak from experience.

Because sports are so entertaining, they can become a distraction from the things that are most important.  Whether you are an athlete yourself or mainly a fan, there is always the temptation to overdo it, to allow your participation in or spectatorship of sports to consume you and cause imbalance in your life.  Beware of this distinctively American vice.  Just because it isn’t regarded as vicious in our culture doesn’t mean it can’t be a serious problem.

My second caveat would not have been necessary a generation or so ago.  But, sadly, today it is:  Winning is not the only thing that matters.  You are familiar with the old adage that what matters is not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.  This dictum sounds quaint to us these days, a relic of a more relaxed and refined time.  But it is deeply rooted in a Christian worldview which recognizes the proper role of athletics as a means to moral-social ends such as building character and enriching relationships.

Today’s American sports culture no longer accepts the old adage, and perhaps this is itself symptomatic of the demise of Christian values generally in our culture.  Today the catch phrases are “Just win baby” and the Lombardi-ism “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”  We find these expressions amusing and may even pretend to endorse them ourselves.  But  they are anti-Christian in so far as they place pride and vanity above the true ends of athletic competition—physical health, character formation, and social enrichment.

Here some will object, “If winning is not important, then why do we keep score when we play sports?”  In response, I would note that I did not say that winning is unimportant.  I do think it is one gauge that can be used to assess how well one competes.  And to this extent, winning is a valuable motivator.  Indeed this is why keeping score is a motivator.  We play harder when we keep score.  This shows that most of us do play to win.

But do most of us play to win just so that we can have objective proof that we are playing well?  We all want to be excellent at what we do, including sports.  And to win suggests that we are meeting that goal.  I admit that this motive is noble and idealistic, but it’s not a realistic answer for many, perhaps most, of us.  If we’re honest with ourselves we’ll admit that we can be quite happy when we win even if we don’t play well, and we can be deeply disappointed when we lose even if we did play well.  This shows that we are motivated by something more than just playing well.

So what does motivate us to win and not just play well?  I’m afraid in many cases what we play for is just the right to be able to say “I won.”  And if we are ever satisfied just to have won when we didn’t play well, this is proof enough that all we wanted was to be able to declare “I won.”  Well, obviously, this is a vain and prideful motive for playing hard.  To be able to tell others that you won is a braggart’s motivation and a sign of small mind, not Christian maturity.  But it’s no surprise that this prideful motive is so common, even in Christian circles, because it has been embraced wholeheartedly by the American sports culture.

Sports and Shalom

Christian community aims ultimately at peace or, in theological terms, Shalom.  This is a feature of our purpose as a Christian society in the eschaton.  God promises to reward us with rest.  (cf. Heb. 4:10-11)  Because of this, theologians properly recognize the significance of leisure, as a pointer to Shalom.  In recent years more writers have addressed this topic explicitly, which is a much needed foil to our workaholic culture.

Sports are a worthy leisure time activity for spectators.  And to kick back and relax by watching a game can be itself a gesture toward our future Shalom.  I say it “can be” because sometimes we take our games too seriously and turn our spectatorship into something quite the opposite of peace.  We are all familiar with the tragic news stories of riots at soccer games, brawls between parents at little league contests, and the drunken rowdyism at football games.  These are sad confirmations that in this fallen world sin has managed to corrupt even leisure and relaxation.  Indeed, human depravity has left no activity untarnished by sin.

But the good news of the gospel is that Christ is a thorough redeemer.  He has come to transform human nature itself and thus to redeem all of our undertakings, including our work as well as our leisure.  By the power of the Spirit we can demonstrate how to be balanced and virtuous athletes and sports fans.  And we can demonstrate grace even in athletic competition.  That God has blessed us, even in this fallen world, with the privilege to engage in and observe athletic competition is an aspect of his common grace.  We Christians should respond in kind by being gracious in competition and when rooting for our teams.  Even in such apparently small ways, we can live redemptively.

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A Theology of Sports—Part 3

By Jim Spiegel

In the first two installments of this series, I discussed how sports have aesthetic value and provide clear examples of excellence.  In this post I want to highlight another significant way in which sports are valuable.

3. Athletic competition builds character. It seems to me that the most significant benefits of sports pertain to the impact that athletic competition can have on the competitors themselves.  By participating in sports athletes develop leadership skills, teamwork and dedication to a shared goal, an attitude of service and mutual submission, discipline and poise under pressure, and many other virtues, including patience, courage, and self-control.  Athletes also learn how to graciously deal with disappointment and to persevere through difficulty and pain.  We might even say—if it’s not too melodramatic to put it this way—that athletes learn that grief is the price you pay for love.  This is true for fans too, as any Chicago Cubs fan knows.

Every sport provides a microcosm of the human experience, and this includes the fact that it is our lot to suffer in this life, as Moses reminds us in Psalm 90.  The sooner you grasp this fact, the better your chances to make it through to the end without losing your mind.  You don’t have to be a fan of the Cubs or Detroit Lions (I happen to be both!) to know that the love of a game or a particular team carries with it both joy and sorrow.  While the joys and sorrows on the field or court pale in comparison to the birth of a child or loss of a loved one, they do provide healthy metaphors for these and other more serious life experiences.  And I would even say that to have been exhilarated or disappointed in these less significant ways provides valuable preparation for life’s greater joys and sorrows.

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A Theology of Sports—Part 2

By Jim Spiegel

In the first installment of this series, I discussed how sports provide clear examples of excellence.  In this post I want to highlight another significant way in which sports are valuable.

2. Sports have aesthetic value. Why is it that we are so drawn to sports as spectators?  Why are we willing to spend hours of our valuable time going to games and watching them on TV?  And why are we so enthralled by game highlights, even of plays that we’ve seen hundreds of times, from Franco Harris’s so-called “immaculate reception” in the 1972 NFL playoffs to Bill Buckner’s booted groundball in the 1986 World Series?  Why are Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, Maria Sharapova, and Tiger Woods household names, even celebrities?  I can sum up the answer in one word: beauty.  No, I’m not referring here to the physical appearance of these people.  The point is that their athletic performances are aesthetically pleasing.  We all are naturally drawn to things that are beautiful, and the best athletes satisfy this longing by the precision, efficiency, and even elegance of their performances.

In one sense, this is another facet of excellence within sports which, given Paul’s mandate in Philippians 4, warrants our attention as spectators.  But beauty is a particularly important biblical category and thus deserves special attention.  This is evident in the Genesis creation account, where God’s first recorded value judgment is an aesthetic judgment.  When he declares of his creation “it is good”—repeated no less than seven times in the first chapter—he is calling the world beautiful.  Divine concern for aesthetics is also clear from the construction of the tabernacle, as he makes painstaking artistic requirements for the workers and specially endows Bezalel and Oholiab with artistic talents to bring the plans to fruition.  Thirdly, the form of Scripture itself is a testament to God’s concern for beauty and aesthetics.  The Bible is an artistic masterpiece, a showcase of literary genres, including poetry, parables, song lyrics, and even drama (cf. Ezekiel 4:1-3) and featuring a wide array of literary conventions, including irony, metaphor, simile, and hyperbole.  I should add that even the phrase “the glory of God” is aesthetic language, as this refers to divine beauty in its most expansive sense.  It appears that the whole point of human existence—to glorify God—is itself an aesthetic concern.

So what does this have to do with a Christian view of sports?  Simply this:  If beauty is a fundamental biblical concern, then the fact that sports provide vivid instances of beauty should draw our interest as Christians.  This, of course, is a strong argument for Christian involvement in the arts (though, given divine creativity, this should need no argument).  To lack involvement in the arts is to live a truncated life (and, I would claim, also to be morally stunted).  To recognize the significance of aesthetic values is also to see the significance of sports for this reason.  I suppose there will always be those who fail to see the beauty in an alley-oop, a triple-axle, or a perfectly executed suicide-squeeze play.  But then again, there are also those who are unmoved by Pachabel’s Canon in D, Shakespeare’s Henry V, and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.  In each instance the failure to perceive beauty reveals a flaw in the observer, not what is observed.  What such a person needs is to be educated about the subject, whether it is film, a fugue, baseball or badminton.

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A Theology of Sports—Part 1

By Jim Spiegel

In my previous post my alien friend challenged the notion that sports are inherently valuable.  My actual view is not quite as extreme as that of this unrelenting extraterrestrial (who enlightened me on many other subjects, I should add).  I do believe that athletic competition has value in many respects, even if this value is always, or usually, instrumental in nature.  In this post and several others to follow, I will count some of the ways that sports are valuable.  In so doing, I will ground my reasons in biblical values.  So my analysis will constitute a sort of Christian theology of sports.

1. Professional athletes provide clear examples of excellence.  Whatever your own vocation might be, whether you’re a teacher, carpenter, dentist, social worker, accountant, or auto mechanic, you will only excel if properly inspired to a high level of performance.  Professional athletes in particular inspire us to excel at whatever we do.  For one thing, the fact that someone is a pro baseball, tennis, or basketball player tells us that he or she is one out of a million.  Consider how even those baseball players that we criticize as among the worst in Major League Baseball are still in the top percentile compared to all baseball players in the world.  And so it goes for all professional athletes.  When we follow professional sports, we regularly expose ourselves to excellence, and this is all the more pronounced among the superstars, whose feats on the field or court often leave us shaking our heads in amazement.

In Philippians 4:8 the Apostle Paul tells us, “If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”  I take this to be a strong endorsement to appreciate many things in the world of sports, since there is so much excellence to be found there.  Dwelling upon excellence of any kind is inspiring, motivating us also to aim high and require of ourselves similar self-mastery.  Paul implicitly recommends this in 1 Corinthians 9 where he compares spiritual discipline to athletic competition.  And elsewhere he recognizes the significance of sports at least as a powerful analogy for “training for godliness” (cf. 1 Tim. 4:7).  This point should not be lost on us Americans, who glibly declare “no pain, no gain” when it comes to becoming better physical specimens but balk at the idea of hard work in the spiritual life.  Let’s admit it—prayer, Bible study, fasting, and the other disciplines of the faith are hard work.  But the payoffs are great.  Athletic competition provides a wonderful image of this truth, as Paul explains.  If only for this reason, sports have value for the spiritually devout.

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The Real Meaning of Sports (Or Things I Learned From An Extraterrestrial Acquaintance About Athletic Competition)

By Jim Spiegel

The other day I was walking across campus, minding my own business, when there came a sudden flash of light and the low, pulsing hum of something other-worldly.  I ducked and covered my eyes.  When I looked up, there it was—a giant spaceship.  I stared incredulously, as a sort of door opened from the bottom of the ship, and out walked three aliens—each with a large head, tiny mouth, and inky-black eyes.  One of them approached me, while the other two remained near the ship.  Either out of fear or curiosity (or both) I just stood there until I was face to face with the alien (well, almost face-to-face—he was about a foot taller than I).  Here is how our conversation went:

Alien:  Hello.  Don’t be alarmed.  We’re scientists from sector 1781 of Elzork Onjkoglion.  We want to learn about your species.

Spiegel:  Wow, you speak English…and with no accent!

Alien:  Yes, we have rather advanced translation software.  Its pretty nifty—downloaded directly into these giant brains of ours.

Spiegel:  Really?  Very cool.  I always wondered what—

Alien:  Apparently you have a modicum of intelligence, seeing all of these things your species has built.  Tell us about of your kind.

Spiegel:  I’d say we have more than a modicum of intelligence, sir.  We might not have spaceships like that—very nice, by the way—but we are quite rational.  Anyway, I’d be happy to give you more information about us.  Hmm…where to start…  Well, as you note, we do like to build things, as you aliens obviously do.  But you can observe those things easily enough, I suppose.  What you can’t directly observe are our various institutions—legal, educational, medical, and so on.

Alien:  Yes, good.  We have these institutions as well—all crucial for social flourishing.

Spiegel:  Exactly.  We also have various art forms—like music, dance, poetry, film.

Alien:  Yes, for the sake of beauty and learning, correct?

Spiegel:  Absolutely.  And we also love our sports—like football, baseball, soccer, and basketball.

Alien:  Right, we have observed some of these.  We have our frivolous activities as well.

Spiegel:  Frivolous?

Alien:  Yes, they have no inherent value.

Spiegel:  What do you mean?  Of course they do!

Alien:  Describe one of your sports.

Spiegel:  Like what?

Alien:  Oh, any of the ones you mentioned.  How about… ‘basketball,’ as you call it?

Spiegel:  Sure.

Alien:  What does it involve?

Spiegel:  Well…you take a ball—

Alien:  A bounceable spheroid?

Spiegel:  Yeah, that’s right.  And you try to shoot it into a basket.

Alien:  A metal ring?

Spiegel:  Uh, yeah…right.

Alien:  And what purpose does this serve?  What is the inherent value of putting the spheroid through the ring?

Spiegel:  Well, it’s good physical exercise, for one thing.

Alien:  But many of your people watch when just a few others play, right?

Spiegel:  Yeah, when pros and other really good players play.

Alien:  And watchers just sit there?

Spiegel:  Yes.

Alien:  They don’t get exercise.

Spiegel:  Okay, good point.  But it has value in other ways.

Alien:  Such as?

Spiegel:  Competition.

Alien:  Competing to do what?

Spiegel:  To score and win.

Alien:  To win at placing the spheroid through a metal ring?

Spiegel:  Yes, that’s right.

Alien:  Why care about winning at this?  It is frivolous.

Spiegel:  No, its not.

Alien:  Are hungry people fed by watching others do this with the spheroid?

Spiegel:  No.

Alien:  Are people educated?

Spiegel:  No.

Alien:  Are sick people healed by watching?

Spiegel:  Of course not.

Alien:  Then where is the value?

Spiegel:  The value is in winning…or trying to win.  And playing as a team.  Yeah, there is huge value in that.

Alien:  If there is no inherent value in placing the spheroid through the metal ring, then why is it any more valuable to do it together?

Spiegel:  Hmm….well…because it makes you learn certain skills, like how to cooperate with people and unify around a goal.

Alien:  But there are many ways to do this that involve inherently meaningful actions like educating, healing, and doing other services.  Why bother with a frivolous task?

Spiegel:  Because people like to watch it and be entertained.

Alien:  Then your people are entertained—by the millions as we understand—by watching groups of people do inherently meaningless tasks, such as putting spheroids through metal rings.

Spiegel:  You make it sound so silly.

Alien:  Because it is silly.

Spiegel:  No, its not.

Alien:  Why not?

Spiegel:  Because the best players do it so well.  They are truly amazing athletes.

Alien:  But if a task is frivolous and inherently meaningless, then why should anyone care, much less be entertained by watching others do it well?

Spiegel:  Well, professional basketball players get paid enormous sums of money for doing it.

Alien:  More than your teachers and healers?

Spiegel:  Yes, a lot more in most cases.

Alien:  So let me get this straight.  Your basketball players are paid enormous sums of money to do a frivolous task that has no inherent value, while your teachers and healers who do the most inherently meaningful work are paid much less?

Spiegel:  Yeah, that’s the situation.

Alien:  And you call your society rational?

Spiegel:  Okay, look pal—I’m tired of your questions.  You’re going to have to find someone else to interview.  I’m leaving.  I have an appointment anyway.

Alien:  To do what?

Spiegel:  To play racquetball with a friend.

Alien:  What is racquetball?

Spiegel:  Arrgghhh!!

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The Bankruptcy Plague Among Professional Athletes

By Jim Spiegel

With the start of another NFL season, I’ve been thinking about an alarming statistic associated with the league:  78% of  former NFL players either go bankrupt or experience severe financial distress.  This is astounding because the base salary for rookies is $310,000, and this is bumped up to $460,000 after two years.  The statistics for NBA players aren’t much cheerier: 60% go bankrupt within five years of retirement.

There are many ways in which individual athletes squander their wealth—e.g., gambling, drugs, prostitutes, bad investments, etc.  But what it always comes down to is a lack of self-control.  Managing personal finances, no matter how much one earns, demands self-discipline on a sustained level that goes far beyond what is required in the gym or on the field.   So when you consider that most NFL and NBA players are coddled and pampered from their early teens (thus handicapping them in their development of self-control), it makes this figure less surprising.  Sad and even tragic, yes.  But not surprising.

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Literally

By Jim Spiegel

People abuse the English language in many ways, but I am never more bothered than when I hear the word “literally” misused.  Take a perfectly good idiomatic hyperbole like “scared to death,” for example.  Why do some folks insist on trying to add emphasis to this phrase by saying “I was literally scared to death”?  No, my friend, you were figuratively scared to death.  Had it been literal, you wouldn’t be here now.

Some of the most striking abuses occur in the context of sports.  Several years ago I was listening to an NFL playoff game involving the Pittsburgh Steelers, who were trying to mount a last-minute comeback.  As they drove down the field, the announcer declared, regarding their quarterback at the time, “Cordell Stewart is literally trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”  Naturally, I wondered why he would do that while playing football.  In another case, an ESPN radio commentator was discussing the poise of a particular basketball player when he said that this player “literally has ice water in his veins.”  Uh huh.  But my all-time favorite—if you can call it a “favorite”—appeared on a website advertising a student development conference.  The blurb about the keynote speaker asserted that this person’s work had “literally turned the world upside-down.”  Hmm.  Now that is impressive.

Other common linguistic mistakes, such as mispronunciations (of words like “nuclear” and “asterisk”) and confusions of terms (such as “jealous” for “envious” or “sarcastic” for “caustic”) are annoying but excusable.  However, faulty uses of “literally” are on a different level because they typically spoil a perfectly serviceable metaphor or hyperbole.  And it is even more disturbing when the offender is a professional broadcaster or academic.

So, gentle reader, I beg you to be responsible in your use of this word.  Or, if you must abuse it, please do it in private so that others won’t be corrupted by your indiscretion.  My hope is that we can put an end to this error, because if I hear the word abused again I am going to lose my mind.  Figuratively speaking, of course.