{"id":278,"date":"2015-03-01T10:45:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T15:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/?p=278"},"modified":"2015-03-01T10:45:31","modified_gmt":"2015-03-01T15:45:31","slug":"they-are-just-like-us-or-are-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/2015\/03\/01\/they-are-just-like-us-or-are-they\/","title":{"rendered":"They Are Just Like Us…(or are they?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to win!…there, i said it…but then again, who doesn’t…we learn a lot about ourselves when we play sports but let’s be realistic, if I’m gonna play, I want to win!…Sure, I learn something when I lose but face it, winning feels much better…<\/p>\n

And so it is that we try to explain the role between sports and society…<\/p>\n

Whether you’re looking at the N-F-L, the Barclay’s Premier League, the National Hockey League or even here on the Boston University campus, there’s some good and there’s some not so good…It was with this in mind that we invited Northeastern Athletic Director Peter Roby<\/a> and Adam Naylor<\/a> of Boston University to join us at the sports journalism seminar series recently…Let’s just say the two schools are lucky to have these men associated with their programs and their athletes…<\/p>\n

All too often, we only talk about sports and its role in our culture when something goes wrong…Take Saturday night’s game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Minnesota Wild, for example…Sixty two minutes in penalties, including 32 handed out with just :04 seconds to go in the game…So, if the players can do it, why can’t the fans?…Check out the crowd<\/a> at the Pepsi Center!…I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out…<\/p>\n

But should we be surprised?…Probably not…Naylor points to the National Football League, America’s game, if you will…”There’s a lot of ugly stuff that went(goes) on but we still tune in, we still pay money to watch it, so does this reflect something about us because we are willing to watch?…Sports is wonderful and sports is horrible…That’s how it is, we live in the shades of grey.”\u00a0…No one condones Adrian Peterson or Ray Rice…But we’ll buy the tickets and the jerseys, high five after the touchdowns…<\/p>\n

In all fairness, it’s not all bad behavior…I was reminded of that Sunday morning when I turned on the E-P-L Manchester City – Liverpool match…They have a tradition at Anfield<\/a>\u00a0that before each game they sing<\/a> “You’ll Never\u00a0Walk Alone” to remember the ninety six fans who lost their lives at Hilsborough 26 years ago…It reminds us that sports can bring us together for a common purpose, if only for a little while each Sunday morning….<\/p>\n

Sports isn’t just fun and games, it’s not just something that takes us away from our daily lives….it teaches us countless lessons on fairness, competitiveness and what we want to be as people, as a society…we don’t always do it right, we don’t always stand up for what we think is right (and wrong)…But it’s a vehicle to try…<\/p>\n

Here on our own campus, we woke up this past week to images of our highest profile athlete plastered all over the internet…a video<\/a> taken at a post game celebration involving underage drinking… \u00a0 No big deal?…perhaps, but when you’re an athlete representing your team, you have a responsibility that goes way beyond scoring goals and getting headlines…As Roby puts it, “The learning is in the journey. \u00a0Part of what we want to do is treat them like adults, give them responsibility, but if they make a mistake and violate those values we espouse, hold them accountable (as well). \u00a0Where it breaks down, is, we say we believe in certain things but then the best player in the country makes that mistake and we give him a pass, that’s the problem that happens in sports. \u00a0Because you’re so good and people want to benefit from your talent, that they don’t have the will to say I’m going to teach you a lesson.” \u00a0Naylor took it one step further, “it’s tough to espouse the core values when you feel like there’s a gun to your head to win the next game.”<\/p>\n

And therein lies the problem on many levels…we want to set a good example but not necessarily if it means our best player(s) might miss the game…<\/p>\n

Journalists have an interesting place in all this…how much do they report, how much do they risk the ire of the team, the media relations people, the athlete him or herself if they publish what i’ll call “non-game related issues” \u00a0 Naylor talked about the relationship between the media, especially student journalists, and the players and holding them up for scrutiny, “They’re not different than you. \u00a0None of the guys (presumably ladies too) at B-U playing hockey are really that different from you with respect to how they were raised or what kind of kid they are. \u00a0The case may be they have the same insecurities that you may have, the same strengths, they probably enjoy the same types of things, they’re just really gifted, \u00a0I think it’s important that we don’t assume that these folks that you’re gonna cover (and write your stories) are so different than you. \u00a0In reality they’re probably very similar to you.”<\/p>\n

Maybe it really is true that it doesn’t matter who wins and loses, it’s how you play the game…As Robyput it, it’s all about the journey……<\/p>\n

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I want to win!…there, i said it…but then again, who doesn’t…we learn a lot about ourselves when we play sports but let’s be realistic, if I’m gonna play, I want to win!…Sure, I learn something when I lose but face it, winning feels much better… And so it is that we try to explain the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}