Sports God

When all that a community has left to hope in is a high school box score, the community begins a descent into hopelessness. I have come to believe this as my rural community embraces a culture of sport above all else.

By now you have, no doubt, pigeon holed me as on of those guys who detests sports. The truth could not be further from home. I enjoy almost all sports… (with the possible exception of cricket, badminton, curling and professional bowling.) In fact, went to State as a runner. I was able to play college basketball, went to and participated in two national track and field championship meets, lettered in four different sports through college and loved it. I have a fantasy football team, which I will admit leaves me in a bit of a quandry when I am watching my team (The Detroit Lions) play a team with one of my fantasy players on it’s roster. I have started watching NASCAR and actually got to a race this last summer. That experience was pure adrenaline and testosterone. I have and do enjoy sports.

I just have watched a rural society lose any balance in its love. Kids these days, if fortunate enough to be an athlete (and in the rural community it is a golden ticket of sorts) may be involved in one sport after another. Parents have made church, God, as well at times, family, music, art, jobs and hobbies all servants to a ridiculously obsessive commitment to high school athletics. I’ve watched as league play for kids as young as 4th grade has become a “winning only” pressure cooker into which we throw our little boys and girls. I see parent-coaches, who have never seen it done any other way, set starting rosters for ten year olds while others learn the cruelty of sitting the bench. I need to say, “There is not a single coach in the world who has the ability to discern a kids athletic potential at the age of ten.” These coaches simply have no way of telling which kid is going to develop late, bigger, faster, stronger or simply smarter that others. And yet, kids are weeded out early. Stupid!

It is how we end up with high school varsity basketball teams of 6′ 1″ players or below, while the hallways are filled with sophomores who are now 6′5″ and growing! These kids learned at an early age to give up. They struck the chord of “I don’t care”. Now, with new state mandated laws governing High school athletics for the sake of gender equity, we have schedules that are at best… Random. I used to be able to count on a few nights being protected for the sake of family. The State, which by the way, does a fairly poor job of managing it’s own affairs, doesn’t place too much thought as to how these arbitrary rulings will affect the dwindling number of healthy families. They just want to make sure that girls have as much pressure on them as the boys do. Stupid.

I go to the games. I cheer the wins and rue the losses. I just am tired of watching a world go mindless over the entertainment of sport. I know that it is too little for me to be concerned. I am actually at the point where I want the government to butt out of kids sports. For that to happen though, the rest of the adults may need to show that they are capable of making balanced decisions. I believe that I’ll send a copy of this tirade to a few friends I have on the Hill or in Lansing. I want kids to “get to play” again. I loved it when I got to play.

This sports god serves only about 10% of our students. Why do the other 90% worship it so? The answer is found, again, in the fact that most adults only worship a convenient god. This one is as good as most.

Here’s a radical, and controversial statement. It’s a hand grenade, if you will? Muslims may take over the world, but they’ll always lose at the olympics. Forgive the nature of the statement. Mull it over a bit though.

~ by Doug Routledge on December 17, 2007.