Mike Kasdan moderates a Saturday Night Live style Point/CounterPoint Debate between Wai Sallas and Marty Josephson. More Cowbell!
—
Oh, Sports. You are quite the conundrum.
How are we to deal with your ascendant place in our society and culture?
- Do we revel in the good, marvel at the athletic feats of the human body and mind, and embrace the deep connections among ourselves as fans, as community?
- Or do we dismiss it as bread and circus, an opiate of the masses, a waste of money and resources, a symbol of all that is wrong with our infotainment rudderless culture, that worships and elevates the unworthy, while ignoring those that cannot throw a football 50 yards on the fly or run a 4.4 40 yard dash?
- Or … Is it a binary choice at all? Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Perhaps it is both a wave and a particle. Perhaps it depends on the context?
♦◊♦
Do not fear intrepid reader. Lest you think this is going to get too we are getting way too quantum physic-sy, or too serious for you to continue, we’re going to keep this debate light and breezy.
Sort of.
We will be adopting the Point/Counter Point format popularized by Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin in the heyday of Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s:
♦◊♦
For our purposes, Good Men Project Sports contributor, Wai Sallas, will be taking the Pro Goodness of Sports Point, while dedicated reader and commenter Marty Josephson, will be taking the Anti Goodness of Sports Counterpoint:
Josephson:
I can’t tell you how many times that I have promised myself that my moral disdain for how sports are run is stronger than my addiction to them. But, I fail every time.
I eat at restaurants owned by guys who fund positions repulsive to me and I buy things at Wal-Mart. Even so, I think that I have been a good influence on my kids. I have passed my Sunday, Monday and the occasional Thursday addiction on to my girls while fully believing that railing against the hypocrisy of it all will free me of my guilt from indoctrinating another generation into our unholy alliance with these Men Behind the Shield.
Last week we had family here on Thursday…including my daughters in from D.C. and Madison.., on Friday a couple we have known forever and their 20 something daughter, and on Saturday close friends and their 20 something son in from North Carolina.. What did we talk about after the initial..how is the family, your parents, work….We talked about sports, sports and more sports…Nuanced, deeply fulfilling, complex, emotional talks about the sports that are so woven into our DNA it is beyond cringe worthy.
It allows us common ground to connect so that we don’t have to to be too uncomfortable talking about anything important but yet gives us the feeling that we have done just that.
◊◊◊
GMPSports Editor’s Note:
Marty you ignorant slut.
I think we can do “Nuanced, deeply fulfilling, complex, emotional talks about the sports that are so woven into our DNA” AND talk about things that are important. I even think we can do both at the same time.
◊◊◊
Josephson:
We did. But talking about important stuff loses its edge because we all sounded like we got the same memo that goes around the MSNBC studios.
But when you have Wisconsin/Brewer/Packer/Bucks fans and Boston/Patriot/Michigan State/White Sox/Celtics fans, now that is interesting.
◊◊◊
Sallas:
It’s easy to focus on all the crap that floats to the top, but let’s not forget what all connects us as sports fans. I remember when I first started working in a newsroom and my boss said, the beauty of sports is News reports on man’s failures, Sports reports on man’s triumphs. In the roots of sports is unparalleled beauty.
◊◊◊
GMPSports Editor’s Note:
“Wai there’s an old saying: Behind every successful fan is a friend, a loving, giving, caring friend. But you wouldn’t know about that Wai because there’s no saying about what’s behind a miserable failure.”
Man’s triumphs? Really Wai? Throwing a football or a baseball? Dunking a basketball? This is what we value? For these skills, we put athletes on a pedestal of privilege?
◊◊◊
Josephson:
For the longest time sports and athletes were given a moral and ethical “Get Out of Jail Free Card.” What we have discovered is that sports and athletes are so visible that they are the easiest of targets to begin and continue discussions on social issues. Thank you for ESPN’s need to do this to build its brand.
But it is no small irony that ESPN’S thirst for uncovering the unsavory to promote itself might be obscuring the beauty of sports that you are talking about.
◊◊◊
GMPSports Editor’s Note:
You think I don’t know that? I know that. Why wouldn’t I know that?
◊◊◊
◊◊◊
Sallas:
Whoa! Did we just take a hard right into religion?
As a sports fan, I’ve never understood atheism. The Holy Roller, The Hail Mary,The Miracle on Ice, Lebron’s Hairline all make me a believer in a higher power; but I digress.
I’m sorry you’re a Bucks fan, but unless your city begins with Cle or ends in alo, you don’t get to play the tortured fan base. I think more and more sports fans are educated to a fault due to the mass of information that streams into our phones on a daily basis, which makes it so hard to understand how we can continue to consume “fast food.” Did no one see Super Size Me? Hint: It doesn’t turn out well.
I do agree, however that sports, emotions and life are intertwined, but I don’t think it gives autonomy for ESPN to interrupt “two guys yelling at each other” to tell me a friend of Johnny Manziel got popped for a DUI. ESPN seems to be going the route of MTV, alienating its base and roots for more money and more entertainment.
ESPN has the right to report whatever they want. We don’t have to consume it. But, we do.
I have been calling ESPN the big evil for quite a while, because I have allowed them to take way my ability to believe that all those uniforms are worn by guys who are there solely to entertain me. Of course, I have known that all along, but it has been made much more difficult. Now, I have to make an informed judgement as to whether or not some of those uniforms are worthy of my attention.
I have enough to do without doing that, but it feeds into my sports addiction. However, I accept their faults more readily if they are part of my team. Kind of like accepting that crazy uncle in my family.
◊◊◊
GMPSports Editor’s Note:
I’m not certain how to segue from that one Marty, but I think we may need more cowbell!
And so, here I am on a Tuesday night watching the Milwaukee Bucks play Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, while I am reading about the University of Alabama-Birmingham shutting down its football program. A 30 million dollar per year program that survived with a 20 million dollar per year university subsidy, or the same amount of money that Lebron James will earn this season.
So, while I am thinking about the insanity of those numbers, thinking that possibly what UAB is doing will be a precursor for Universities to be more responsible, I am checking on the the latest college football rankings that are all about which universities will earn the most money in the college football bowl season.
I am not sure how far back one has to travel to find the time that sports reminded us of the beauty of man’s triumphs. Maybe I will rewatch Chariots of Fire or reread Daniel Brown’s The Boys In The Boat to get an inkling, because I for one sure have abandoned that notion.
◊◊◊
Sallas:
There was a time in America when contests of athletic prowess were a metaphor for the nobility of man. Historic moments forged by the love of the game celebrated the human potential to achieve excellence. But as time passed, and the country neared the millennium, something went awry.
The ideal of sportsmanship began to take a back seat to excessive celebration. The athletes caring less about executing the play that planning the vulgar grandstanding that inevitably followed even the most pedestrian of accomplishments. The games themselves became subordinate to the quest for money. Stadiums and arenas became nothing more than giant billboards to promote commercial products. Players sold their services to the highest bidder, much like the hired guns of the Old West.
Soon it was commonplace for entire teams to change cities in search of greater profits. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where there are no lakes. The Oilers moved to Tennessee, where there is no oil. The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City, where they don’t allow music. The Oakland Raiders moved to L.A., and then back to Oakland. No one in Los Angeles seemed to notice.
I’d like to take credit for this, but it was from the classic cinema masterpiece, BASEketball!
I could show you quotes from the 20s of professional athletes expressing a deeper concern for money rather than the love of the game.
The point I’ve been trying to make, and the point I think is most crucial to the evolution of sports and social commentary is that sports, at its core, has the unique ability to teach us all of life’s lessons under one umbrella. Is there bad in sports? Yes. We can spend our time looking at the corrupt Universities and the greed that has tarnished professional sports, or we can look at John Wooden, Rhode Island Little League coach Dave Belisle, Jim Valvano, Brian Piccolo and Rudy Ruettiger and realize we are lucky to be sports fans.
◊◊◊
GMPSports Editor’s Note:
That’s the news. Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow!
—
Photo Credit: YouTube Screen Capture (Saturday Night Live – Point/Counterpoint)
—
Like The Good Men Project on Facebook!
The post Point/CounterPoint: The Ethics of Being a Sports Fan appeared first on The Good Men Project.