Warning Track Power

Many have undertaken to define Sport more thoroughly. At first, my enterprise was the same. I set forth by making a list of every Sport I though was a sport and every Sport I didn’t think was a sport. As I went along I realized I couldn’t really figure out why I was ruling certain sports out. That’s when I looked up Sport in good ol’ Webster’s, and realized that the word is flawed if it is used the way I use it. This is the definition: (1) physical activity engaged in for pleasure (2) a particular activity (as an athletic game) so engaged in.

As one may see this didn’t help for clearing things up. So I set out to find a better word and this is what I came up with: when I say sport I really mean contest.

Entry Word: contest
Function: noun
1 an earnest effort for superiority or victory over another
2 a competitive encounter between individuals or groups carried on for amusement, exercise, or in pursuit of a prize

3 a physical dispute between opposing individuals or groups

I am particularly concerned with definition numbers 2 and 3, because I think together they capture the definition of sport as I use it. When I made this distinction the lines between what is sport and what is not became clearer. So for me sport is no longer sport simply; it is now contest. So if sport is contest, then what is sport and what is not? It is easier to define theses parameters by taking the whole and trimming off the things that don’t qualify, thus building a set of qualifiers for what is a sport.

Does the “sport” require competition between individuals or groups?

This question trims off “sports” in which an individual competes against a course or some apparatus. Now some would argue that gymnasts and golfers do compete against each other, but they only compete against each other based on an individual performance against the course or apparatus. This also rules out events which are scored by judges based on presentation, such as figure skating, or freestyle skating or biking.

Does the “sport” require physical competition?

If one defines physical loosely then no sport is trimmed away by this qualifier, but as you might have guessed I define it strictly. A sport must have, as a friend of mine once said, hustle. I think that nicely defines the physicality of sport, but I will define further. Strength is the ability to exert force, and power is the ability to exert force quickly. Power is 90% of the physicality of sport, the other half is precision. Power is nothing without precision. Now think of these holistically in an individual and set a minimum, then you have what I think of as the physicality of sport. Moreover, concerning physical equipment, it is important for sport to have a certain ratio of individual physicality. I say that the majority of physical exertion needs to be done by the competitor over his/her equipment, thus NASCAR and horse racing are ruled out, while bicycle racing is not. So now we can also trim Poker, Billiards, Scrabble, and the spelling bee. I felt like I had to name everything I’ve seen on ESPN.

Now, these qualifiers are preliminary and meant to be conversational. Please add to me what I lack. Tell me what I haven’t considered.

    I’m not ashamed to say that I had more than a passing interest in the outcome of the Men’s Finals Match at Wimbledon. I’ve had a distaste for Federer since he shot back at reporters after being asked what he would do to prepare for a match against Andre Agassi. He said something to the effect that Agassi wasn’t the one winnig the major tournaments and maybe the reporters should ask Andre what he was doing to prepare for Roger Federer.

    I’ve always held in contempt those who disrespect the ones that laid the stones on which they stand. Federer’s comments were, from a sportsman’s viewpoint, unforgivable. But, as I was watching the Wimbledon Final I realized that Federer posses something less noticable that draws my disdain. When Roger Federer plays tennis he does so with such seemingly little effort. He almost floats across the court, and hits pin point precise shots with such small amounts of emotion that one is lead to believe that the man simply expected everything to go right. None of the best of any other sport convey a feeling of such little effort as Roger Federer. I guess I want to see in athletes I support a true struggle to be the best.

    Enter Rafa Nadal. The first time I heard about someone beating Federer it was Nadals name in the headlines. Nadal is the kind of athlete I can get behind. He pounds the court with every stride and bullys the ball to the spots he wants to hit. He always seems to be on the verge of over extension, of over exertion. One gets the feeling that at any moment his body won’t be able to take the strain any longer, but in the face of that adversity, when his body seems to give such protest, he presses on.

    I think the average fan wants to see athletes that grapple against odds, that overcome in some way. Fans weary quickly of the one with endless talent but limited tact, with efortless gifts, but no heart. I’m in the process of thinking of others that i see as having that detestable trait. Alex Rodriguez come to mind. While he has had his struggles, he’s always seemed not to care at all that he’s struggling. At anyrate it was eye opening for me, and I’m sure I’ll be rolling it around in the old noggin for a while.

RKW 

    If you don’t know by now there has been quite a controversy over a couple of Johnny Miller’s comments about Rocco Mediate during the playoff round at the U.S. Open. I thought, as an inaugural post, a quick tour these happenings and a good dose of my opinion on the matter would be just perfect.

    First, the facts: In the course of the broadcast Miller made two comments about Rocco Mediate that were deemed by some to be off color at best. According to the AP Miller said, "Guys with the name ‘Rocco’ don’t get on the trophy," and that Mediate, ""looks like the guy who cleans Tiger’s swimming pool." So there we are.

    I was listening to Eric Kuselias on ESPN Radio while he had a man from the OSIA (Order Sons of Italy in America), who was calling for the suspension of Miller and demanding a public apology as the comments that Miller made were an offense to all Italian-Americans everywhere. This is where I got interested.

    I’ll go ahead and say that I don’t think that Johnny Miller’s comments were racially charged. Not on purpose, and not for lack of tactfulness. They were off color and uncalled for, but not characterizations of the Italian-American community. If you remember what Fuzzy Zoeller said about Tiger Woods post Masters a few years ago then you have a perfect example of a racially charged comment. The winner of the Masters picks the menu for the post tournament dinner, and Zoeller said something to the affect that since Tiger had won he figured that fried chicken, collared greens and water melon would be the menu. This slur attached a single man (Tiger) to an unfair and offensive stereotype of the racial group Tiger is a part of, and therefore offended a large part of that racial group. But, Miller’s comments while lewd and without place in the broadcast, did not connect Rocco Mediate to any stereotype (fair or unfair, offensive or inoffensive) of the Italian-American racial group.

    That being said I would like to point out the following and give my opinion of why the world works this way. If Miller had made his comments, stereotypical in content or not, about an African-American golfer, or a Latin-American golfer there would have been a media uproar. I’ll go so far as to say that if the rolls had been reversed and Rocco was the guy who dominated the Tour and Tiger was the underdog that Johnny Miller would have never uttered a maligned word against Tiger for the risk of the sort of backlash that Fuzzy Zoeller had to endure. I wonder what it is in this world that makes folks so sober and tactful about one racial group; taking it so far as to never say an indelicate word about certain racial groups, while thinking wholly less tactfully about other racial groups. I don’t know if I’d call it a conundrum but it certainly is a curiosity.

RKW