Discussion on Sports

     Sports, which worldwide are replacing war and/or religion, have an immense international importance. Our debate about sports has revealed wide differences, from those who paint an idyllic picture of amateurs playing the game, accepting defeat, and then enjoying conviviality together, to grinches like myself who view human activities with suspicion and esteem cooperation and compassion higher than conflict and triumphalism. I admit that I am a victim of childhood abuse. At school, as is usually the case, the heroes were the top athletes, whereas academic winners were enviously dismissed as "swots," about on the level of the modern nerds. One of the students I most admired was a long-distance champion; the solitude of the long-distance runner makes it one of the least competitive sports.
     Despite our polarization about sports, I have remained excellent friends with people like Dwight Peterson, and and I graciously acknowledge my numerical defeat. At school, days began with a religious service, and I remember lustily singing the New England hymn which ends with the words
     "They are slaves who would not be
     In the right with two or three." I remain true to that principle, head battered but unbowed.
     There are some points of agreement. Not all sports are of equal merit, bull-fighting being at the bottom. We have not discussed fox-hunting. Sports are better than war war, but, I repeat, jaw, jaw is even better than war, war. Sports are also better than crime. Brazil has some horrible, crime-infested slums. A team of young delinquents has been sent to Japan to play soccer with their counterparts. They seem like nice kids, although we must wait to see if victory or defeat being out their atavistic passions.
     The role of religion in school sports is a matter of dispute, prayers for victory (Gott mit uns) having been declared unconstitutional in the U.S. The issue has now arisen in Brazil, where God is invoked for everything (Deus é brasileiro). The Flamengo soccer team, desperate for a victory, prayed to a statue of Saint Judas Thaddeus, the saint of lost causes. Other teams charge that this is not playing fair. My extensive research library has no information about this saint, so I am wondering if he is one of the saints declared fraudulent by the Vatican, in which case the issue becomes mute. The Vatican has not yet returned by call.
     I remain firm in my conviction that competitive sports can bring out the worst in people and that the millions spent by fans could better be spent on humanitarian causes. I have just had a conversation with a WAISer for whom I have the greatest admiration. He is bright, well informed and compassionate (the quality I rate highest), but he is also a football fan. Entering the debate, he said that the millions spent by fans kept the money in circulation, and claimed that he was quoting Milton Friedman. I replied that the money could be kept in circulation by humanitarian activities. The jobless?, I asked. They just don't want to work! The homeless of San Francisco and Los Angeles (where super stadia are being built)? They prefer to sleep in the streets! The thousand hospital workers who have been unjustly fired? They should go to their union! I did not ask him about the hungry, knowing that the answer would be "They don't want to eat!" He was getting more excited, and I expected him to burst out with his team's war cry, a hark back to the times when savages ate their conquered. I shall not bring up the subject again.
     Soon will come the time of big games, preceded by tailgate lunches and followed by copious meals. As the Romans said, bread and circuses. That these meals are never vegetarian reveals the ancient roots of this custom.

Ronald Hilton - 11/16/99