I suppose if you came right down to it , you could say Sports and/in Society goes as far back as the Roman days when emperors put on shows at the Colosseum for their own glory and pleasure but just as much for entertainment of the masses…There was wrestling, boxing, racing (think chariot races in Ben Hur) and what movie glorified the slaves versus the lions better than “Gladiator”…
Today you could easily compare NASCAR and MMA with the earlier games but what’s more relevant to remember is that we’ve always looked for a way to express ourselves physically and that’s where sports does it best…And then there’s the fans…Interestingly, a definition of the word fan-atic, from which fan is derived looks something like this;
“a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause.”
So just how did it become so associated with sports?…Why did it become so important?
“You’re trying to give it meaning, you’re trying to see yourself in it, you’re trying to sure up your identity, says Professor Todd Crosset of the UMass Isenberg School of Management and the Director of the Sport Management Program…Crosset and Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe joined us recently as the Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series and we spent a couple of hours kicking around the age old question, “does sport imitate society or does society imitate sport?”…I’m not sure we answered it but we gave it the old college try…
I’ve played, followed, covered sports for more than sixty years now and I’ll be the first to admit I may be too close to it…I love it, it’s fun (to play and watch), it matters to me and I make a living from it…So maybe i’m biased…But is Sport any different than any other group in society?…Don’t lawyers work as hard at it, don’t doctors practice for years, don’t educators climb the ladder to get to the highest rung? Or is it just that there’s people covering what happens in sports and publicize every facet of it?
“If it’s out there, it’s gonna come in here, Crosset said, But it’s gonna come in in different ways. It’s gonna be re-shaped and re-formed, there’s gonna be some uniqueness to it.”…
Much of that notoriety falls back on our need for immediacy…”Social media, Instagram, Snapchat, all that has just polluted everything, mentioned Washburn, What is appropriate, what is inappropriate, what people want, what they don’t want. It has throw everything into a frenzy.”
One of the more compelling topics we discussed, and there were many, centered around Charles Barkley’s now famous line and Nike commercial “I am not a role model”…”We’re fooling ourselves when we say athletes are role models, Crosset told the group, that’s a way to try and get them to behave.”
Let’s face it, all of us has played sports at one time or other, something we picked up, something our moms and dads thought was important, something, perhaps, we were good at and stayed with…
But what turned out to be the most important lesson we learned from sports, is that it’s a mirror of our lives and the way we choose to live them..Sure we’d rather win than lose, but learning how to lose, learning how to be a part of a team, learning how to share are far more important exercises than the scoreboard….
“It’s all about respect” Crosset left us with…a perfect way to sum things up….
12 Comments
Chris Picher and Jarett Leonard posted on April 4, 2017 at 3:14 pm
Seminar Strategists Episode 8: https://soundcloud.com/jarett-leonard/seminar-strategists-episode-8-sports-and-society
Shelby Reardon posted on April 4, 2017 at 7:01 pm
https://soundcloud.com/user-128935005/the-w-column-episode-6-sports-and-society Marisa and Shelby’s podcast.
Curtis Stoychoff posted on April 5, 2017 at 10:29 pm
I agree with what you say about Sport not being any different than any other group in society. I also understand what the people who do disagree with you are saying. One could make the argument that lawyers and doctors and teachers are necessities for a thriving society, while sport is not. But I tend to disagree. Sport is a way for people to enjoy themselves, by either playing watching or reporting. Sport keeps people healthy both physically and mentally. I find it hard to believe that society would be in the same place it is today without sports.
A notable part of class in my opinion was at the end when we got up and introduced ourselves. Usually these 10-15 minutes are filled with people squeezing in to get closer to our guests, trying to get their question asked. This seminar was a bit different. People were rather hesitant to begin one on one conversations with our guests and I think that shows how important of a topic they covered. Talking X’s and O’s of sport with someone is easy. But it definitely gets a bit more uncomfortable when you’re talking about sport in society and the factor that race plays in all of that. We warmed up after a while, but I couldn’t help but notice the contrast to every other week.
I think this seminar was extremely important because it got us looking at sport in a way we haven’t yet in this class. We didn’t really talk in-game specifics in this seminar. It was more about the overall culture surrounding sports and those who play and those who cover it. This is a topic we will need to be aware of and able to acknowledge and discuss going forward in our careers.
Channing Curtis posted on April 5, 2017 at 11:08 pm
The Sport in Society seminar was definitely the most thought provoking seminar that we have had so far. I really enjoyed the conversations that stemmed from Professor Shorr’s questions.
I found myself agreeing and disagreeing on several issues that were brought up during the panel. I ardently believe that college athletes should be paid and not just meaning their scholarship money. The funny thing is that I have heard my entire life that the reason college athletes aren’t paid is because it allowed institutions that previously refused to accept people of color, to accept them but on their own terms. It sounds like a stretch however NPR released a study that UMass Amherst recently did that proves that race does play a factor in the “play for pay” debate. (http://www.npr.org/2017/03/26/521550390/out-of-bounds-new-research-on-race-and-paying-college-athletes )
I also liked the topic regarding sports figures as role models. While I’ve never thought of any athlete as someone I hero-worshiped, I also never thought about the fact that expecting them to act like role models is a form of controlling them. It makes total sense when you think about it. You never hear about anyone say that an athlete is supposed to be a role model until they’ve gotten in trouble for something.
It’s always interesting to me when class topics turn to matters such as racism and sexism because there’s a part of me that is intrigued by how uncomfortable people get when it’s brought up. I noticed that no one asked a single question about how to combat racism or sexism in sports when the class was over
Cassidy Kelly posted on April 5, 2017 at 11:11 pm
Sports holds an important part of society. I still vividly remember my first Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins games and the magic it all seemed to hold walking into each arena or stadium. 22 years later and after working countless hours and sleepless nights in sports, I’m happy that going to a game or working a game is still just as magical as it was when I was a kid.
Professor Todd Crosset and Gary Washburn discussed many different controversial topics in the field of sports: college pay for play, sexual and domestic assault, race, politics, and the NBA 1 year rule. The one year rule states that all players must attend college for at least one year before entering the professional league. Washburn noted that the NBA has been trying to up this to two years to try to protect itself in terms of player physical development. One of the articles in this week’s readings was about this topic and was a study to compare NBA player’s arrests with the season that it happened in. Notably, this study found that most players arrested were well beyond his first few seasons in the NBA. This goes against Crosset, Washburn, and my own opinion of being in favor of this rule. I think that college helps develop a person’s character and one year is not nearly enough.
Another one of the readings for the week was a subject that was also brought up in the discussion – assault allegations in football. The NYPost was an article about questioning the environment in college and whether that was what was producing these football players who later go on to become entangled in assault cases during their career. Phil Mushnick points out that either these athletes develop this behavior in college, or even more dangerous, the colleges recruit these players out of high school already knowing the risks they came with. The Patriots recently came out to say they would not consider drafting RB Joe Mixon due to an assault charge on his record. However, they also just had a visit with Adrian Peterson, which seems extremely contradictory. In the seminar, Washburn pointed out that maybe these players shouldn’t have their careers ended due to one mistake, but as a society we do put athletes on a pedestal and having people worthy to look up to is important.
Overall, this was a seminar that was unlike the others. The topics that were discussed seemed at times uncomfortable, but I think that just goes to show the importance of it. Working in sports, you can easily be blinded or completely confronted by these issues, and having discussions like last week are important.
Dylan Jones posted on April 5, 2017 at 11:27 pm
The topic of sports in society is one that garners a lot of attention, particularly in today’s polarizing world. We’ve seen athletes such as Colin Kaepernick and the US Women’s hockey team take stands for what they believe in, and consequently, it’s led others to feel more comfortable expressing their opinions and speaking up about important issues.
The discussion that Todd Crosset and Jared Washburn engaged in during this week’s seminar addressed the issue of whether society follows sports, or if sport follows society. The biggest thing I got out of it, and something that I generally agree with, is that we shouldn’t look to these athletes to be role models. For as much power as they have, not all of them are going to embrace it, and frankly, they shouldn’t have to. Jared explained it well when he talked about how, in the NBA in particular, these players have so many other things to worry about: people asking them for money, trying to have fun, social media and all the downfalls with that, not even getting into actually getting better at and doing their job.
While I agree with the idea that sports is an profession and in many ways isn’t different than the lives of a teacher or a lawyer, or any other normal job, the biggest difference I find is that of expectations. Being from San Antonio, I’ve been a Spurs fan my entire life, and I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that many people believe that the Spurs don’t just represent our city, but are a focal part of it. As I’m sure is the case in many other places, Boston in particular, we use sports in a lot of different ways: a distraction, a safe haven, a medium to let out our passion. Sports can turn a good day into a bad one and vice versa, and can generate moments of pure joy and pure agony. Just ask the citizens of Vancouver after the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.
While our families, our mothers and fathers in particular, should be our first choices, I do look at someone like Tim Duncan or Greg Popovich as a role model, and while I disagree with that viewpoint, I can understand why I got there. Consciously or subconsciously, we do try to model ourselves after these figures because they have some sort of importance in our daily lives. Nobody says they want to grow up and be the guy at the snack bar, they want to be the quarterback with the rich mansion and the model wife/husband.
As much as social media, particularly in this time of overreaction, hot takes, and overanalyzes, I’d argue that sports figures have even more importance. There are plenty of people who have the same opinions as the major athletes who speak out, but most of them don’t have a platform to share it on. I have the same opinion as Colin Kaepernick does on racial inequality in this country. The difference is that nobody cares what some regular college kid at BU thinks about racial tensions.
This seminar we didn’t really talk much about jobs, getting into the industry, or really any of the topics we approached with our beat reporters per sé, and frankly, it was refreshing. I thought both our guests given the topic at hand gave incredibly thoughtful answers to questions about serious issues. I thought Todd’s thoughts about the college pay-for-play system, and how it indirectly is racist, is fascinating, albeit it’d be hard to prove it.
Yet, the anecdote from the seminar that made me think the most was Gary’s about his time at UC Berkeley. He talked about how at the football and basketball games he would see people in the stands from all backgrounds, with various ethnicities and backgrounds cheering for one common purpose: winning the game. He said while maybe these people didn’t hang out afterwards or whatever, but at least in that moment they were together.
It made me think about the Erik Striker incident at Oklahoma. Striker, a black All-American linebacker, in the wake of a racist frat incident that I won’t get into, talked about the struggles of being an African-American in a place like Norman, Oklahoma; yet, every Saturday, they would be screaming his name. Putting the incident, and generally the state of Oklahoma aside, what Striker just described is to me the beauty of sports. It won’t solve any of society’s problems. It won’t cure cancer, it won’t solve world hunger, and it definitely won’t solve race and gender inequality, but it sure as hell will bring people together. It helps people of various cultures, beliefs and backgrounds, people who from all accounts are totally different people, integrate, and find common ground, and generate a common culture. No law office, or hospital can do that.
Eric Getzoff posted on April 5, 2017 at 11:34 pm
Let’s start with the big question of the seminar Does sport imitate society or does society imitate sport?
My opinion is that this answer isn’t one or the either. It’s more colorful, more nuanced. This question confused me, though, because isn’t sports a part of society? It’s not like “here you have sports, and here you have society.” I get it, a sporting event is different than say, attending a Political rally. The biggest difference I believe is that sports more fun. Political rallies or attending a speaking event on how Trump’s new economic bill will impact Real Estate brokers is not fun – to me, at least.
And I say that because you don’t feel a part of both of those things. Yeah, an attendee at a Political rally is chanting and screaming, but most likely, a decision made by a Politician is not going to be based off of the reaction of a crowd. The Politicians’ decision for what bill to vote on or what bill to bring up at the next meeting is not based off of what a crowd at a rally thinks.
People who attend sports games, on the other hand – at least I believe – feel that they are a part of the game. The screams they make while a player shoots free throws impacts the players’ ability to make the free throw. The Colorado Avalanche blasting a strobe light into the penalty box surely impacts that players’ ability to see once he reenters the game…and that is the team getting involved in the game! – not a fan. And not to mention, fans booing a manager or a general manager impacts the general manager or owner’s decision on the job status of such people.
Sports are similar to society in that the players, coaches, fans, and everybody involved in the game want to win. Doctors want to win – they want their patients to be better. TV producers want to win – they want ratings. Painters want to win – they want people to buy their paint.
There are too many gray areas. It’s not black or white.
I’m biased and I’ll admit it. My opinion of what society is (outside of sports) is totally, one hundred percent based off of sports and the society that it creates. Since I grew up on sports (watching it, listening to it, reading it, playing it, arguing over it, etc..) all I ever knew of life is what sports are. Wanting to win at all costs. Getting dirty on the basepaths. Not taking any elbows to the face in basketball without a nudge or saying something back to that player. It’s what I grew up on and what I thought society was based on – and still do, to a way.
So, which one is based off the other? They’re based off each other. Sports permeates into the non-sports world and the non-sports, outside world permeates into sports. Each one wants to live by their own values and beliefs. I feel like sports people say non-sports talk is too serious and they say sports is about having fun, and we don’t want to be involved in your serious talk. And people in the world outside of sports say sports doesn’t make a difference in life, I would rather care about a Health Care bill affecting hundreds of millions of people.
David Souza posted on April 5, 2017 at 11:59 pm
Sports have always mattered in societies, from the days of the chariot race in the Roman Coliseum, to the millions of people that poured into the streets of Chicago to watch the Cubs celebrate their first World Series title since 1908. Sports unify people, they bridge the divides and differences that people have. HBO came out with a documentary several years ago titled “Sport in America: Our Defining Stories,” which attempts to relay that same concept through personal anecdotes of the people involved.
Using experts such as Frank Deford as well as individuals such as the man who visited his father’s gravestone the night the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, the documentary taps into why we love sports so much, both individually and as a society. The documentary has been taken down from HBO’s website, unfortunately.
The evidence of this fandom taking over our lives is evident everyday. Newspapers have their back pages completely dedicated to sports, every time you walk down Comm Ave., someone is wearing a hat of a team they support. I write this fresh off of a four-hour stint at Fenway Park where people who all have jobs or school tomorrow stayed well past the ninth inning to see the Red Sox try and win the second game of the season (thank you Sandy Leon).
Sports have become an integral part of our society. In doing so, they have forced athletes into the spotlight. In our discussion in last week’s sports seminar, Professor Todd Crosset of UMass touched on our view of athletes as role models. He posed that the statement was simply made to get athletes to behave. I disagree.
I think athletes in the spotlight have the responsibility to lead the way for viewers in how to carry themselves. Many people around the world today don’t have role models in their own homes, but still turn on the television at night to watch Lebron James or Bryce Harper control their respective leagues. With this fascination we have with sports and athletes, those who draw the eyes of millions have the duty to carry themselves in a way that will lead others to doing good.
We have seen countless political gestures from athletes, whether it be Kapernick kneeling for the National Anthem, Lebron wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” shirt, or the Rams players walking out with the arms raised in solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement. These signs were all done by the sports world to highlight issues that are important. But that should not be where positively influencing viewers ends. Athletes have the duty to conduct themselves in a manner that shows others how to do and be good.
Crosset ended his talk with a statement that sports are “all about respect.” And while that is true, that is not why we love them or need them in our society. I think the best way that need and love can be described is by a quote from Frank Deford at the end of the aforementioned documentary, “It doesn’t stop wars, it doesn’t build fellowship, but it minimizes the problems of the world…and that ain’t bad.”
Daniel Choi posted on April 6, 2017 at 12:49 am
I love sports. It’s direct and ‘no bullshit’ honest. Especially on a pickup basketball court. Both sides want to win. It’s a head to head matchup. So one has to lose. Sounds good. Let’s play. The game plays itself out and a verifiable, fair result emerges. Daps are shared between both teams. Next.
A supermajority of people who play pickup basketball know the rules of the sport, and the rules of pickup, which vary court to court but by small degrees. A nearly uniform, unspoken rule of great import is to respect your teammates and your opponents. Never overestimate or underestimate either group. Don’t play dirty to the point of risking harm to others. A respectfully played game typically produces a fairer result.
Pickup basketball shares no equivalent commonalities with USPS mail delivery or legal work. It’s just play. No monetized value. No tangible value on the line. It’s not a job. And much less time is involved. Etcetera.
Yet strangers and familiars alike do make a determined and physically taxing effort to deliver a basketball through a hoop more times than an opposing party. The involvement of strategy, assumption of tasks, and a cohesive operation make the effort more productive. And most players comply with the letter and spirit of the game’s rules. Everyone, including qualified people on the sidelines, is a potential witness, litigator, judge, or jury member. A fair and reasoned call is usually made by consensus.
Some players will bend the rules through constant cherry-picking (regulated in professional hockey and soccer as an off-sides but I don’t know their recreational statuses) or some other misuse of gaps or omissions in the rulebook. The opponent can attempt to minimize and enforce through preventative and retributive means.
For example, sticking a defender on the cherry-player (or cherry-player’s teammates ignore Cherry’s call) – or – by cherry-picking in turn (another retributive option is to remove cherry-player from the game but never witnessed or seen a need for it).
Sometimes a quasi-restorative justice process will be employed. To illustrate, all qualified and interested parties may participate in resolving the issue and do so expressively and inquisitively with a reduced emphasis on prosecutorial principles. Players may share how they think and feel about the cherry-picking. All materially affected parties may participate. Cherry-player must genuinely absorb an adequate level of will and desire to take accountability, and offer or agree to stop the madness. The cherries are restored and the games go on.
Much of what was discussed about pickup basketball is hyperbole and impractical. Nevertheless….Like art, a game of sports inspires raw and natural expressions that invoke collective, appreciative wonderment. Players more freely express raw emotions, reactions and judgment. A person’s style of play and priorities on the court often mimic off-court traits and preferences. Or…they simply surface on the court as well.
Shelby Reardon posted on April 6, 2017 at 11:53 am
In response to David: Marisa and I briefly talked about athletes being role models or not. I don’t think they should be. They’re people. People in the spotlight, but still people. I didn’t even think to bring up the ability athletes have to make a statement because they’re in the spotlight. Athletes and any celebrity has this ability because they are being watched. What they do with it can cause commotion. While I don’t think they should be role models, I do think they should be aware of what they do in the spotlight and only use their ‘powers’ for good.
Jake Reiser posted on April 6, 2017 at 12:42 pm
You can thank everyone but Sandy Leon for a late episode of To Be Frank!
https://youtu.be/AdXjuWnUh_E
Stephanie Schalago posted on April 8, 2017 at 11:28 am
This seminar was more intense than the rest that we have had. It was emotional and made us think. What do sports mean to us? Why are they so important?
I remember growing up my dad didn’t give me an option: I was born into a Giants family, therefore I would be a Giants fan. But the Giants are such an integral part of my family. We go to at least 3 games a year, tailgate, and throw watching parties for away games. For me, the Giants symbolize my family. Sports are important to society, just like any other group is important to society. They have a following; they bring people together.
This seminar was difficult because we spoke about assault in sports, college for pay, race, politics, etc. We spoke about the topics that no one wants to address. Everyone was tense because this was not what we expected. Although I was afraid to say so in class, I completely disagree that student athletes should be paid. They are already receiving an incredible education for free, why do they need more money. A lot of the times, the student athlete wouldn’t have been able to get into the school in the first place without said sport, so why should we reward them. I worked hard to get where I am. I studied, and got great grades. I don’t think it’s fair that some student athletes just get to go to great schools. Also, why should we pay them more, they’re technically already getting paid 60 grand or more a year.
When we spoke about sexual assault in sports you could feel the room tense up. It also showed after when no one wanted to speak to the guests, we didn’t know how to or what to say. It’s a tough subject to bring up to 15 college students. It’s something we hear about, but hope it doesn’t happen to us. Then you take this thing, this idea, sports, something we all love, and attach a negative connotation to it. It’s something that we hear about, but never want to admit it happens. For me, this made me upset. I didn’t want to think that this idea that brings my family together could be so detrimental so someone else’s family.
Something I didn’t think about, that Dylan pointed out, is that we didn’t speak about jobs in this seminar. We didn’t talk about how we’re going to further our careers, or make a name for ourselves. This seminar was strictly to show us the other side of things. The things that we will have to report on, and listen to. We were shown the downside of sports, instead of the upside. Overall, this seminar was difficult to listen to. It made us think of sports in a bad light. It made us see that this idea of a game that makes us so happy, could literally ruin someone else’s life. I love sports and always will. Maybe that’s why I choose to ignore the bad media, but maybe it’s time to listen to it. Maybe it’s time to actually pay attention to the news and make a change.