What is the value of youth and adult sports? The opportunity to learn to do battle in a contained environment with the enhanced value of striving for success and deepening our humanism. Sport participation has the potential to allow participants to learn to train (discipline actions, take on responsibility to self and others), be competitive ( yet civil, polite, courteous) and engage in sportsmanship, (sportsmanship respect for opponents, officials, teammates, coaches and for the game itself).
Seems simple and yet the recreational sport culture at times seems to have moved so far away from these values it is incredibly odd to observe. Example:
1) Four players playing a weekend tennis tournament. One player yells out a running stream of instructions to his partner as the ball is in play...."watch out.....he's gonna hit a lob." "Run back I'll cover the net"....."hit to his backhand." I personally find this a funny story but for the irritated team on the other side who is trying to play and is listening to this running dialogue obviously does not find this to be humorous.......You decide was the team who was doing all the talking during the point being.....
a) competitive
b) sportsman like
c) other
For those of you who chose (a)....borrowing from sport sociologist Jay Coakley's definition of
competition. "A social process that ocurrs when rewards are given to people on the basis of how their performances compare with the performances of others doing the the same task or partcipating in the same evenent."
The conflict in choosing (a) would be the assumption that talking loudly to your partner in the middle of the point is the same as the technical skill of observing and reacting physically to the situation during the course of the point. Yelling out instructions was pretty much considered a distraction to the process of the other team.
Did you choose (b) Sportsmanship behavior? Probably not many folk chose (b). Unfortunately lots of people have forgotten about the point of sportsmanship like behavior. D. Shields and B. Bredemeier, in their book, "Character Develpment and Physical Activity" (1995) define sportspersonship as, "involves an intense striving to succeed, tempered by commitment to the play spirit such that ethical standards will take precedence over strategic gain when the two conflict."
This brings the choice to "other." The irritated team confronted the talking team which resulted in a verbal dispute about player rights on the court. The irritated team that was listening to their opponents yelling instructions to each other during the point didn't go to find an umpire which is a choice they could have made but again this is social recreational PLAY.....
To win brings a team ranking points but no prize money, no endorsements, no free trips, gifts or giveaways......Where do players learn these traits? Is it learned, modeled or spontaneous form of attempting to meet another teams challenge during the heat of battle? The talking team now has a negative reputation and they ended up losing the match....
