 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
||||||||||
Every week in winter one of my sons plays a game of Australian Rules football for his local junior club. The club plays in the name and uniform of an outstanding AFL premiership team. They play four quarters on full-sized grounds.
Unlike the champions after whom they’re modelled, my son’s teams go season after season with barely a win. Sometimes they fail to register a score. In a recent encounter, my son—he plays at fullback—was voted “best on ground” despite having 20.11 (131 points) kicked against him!
I try to remain positive for his sake, but I needn’t bother; He loves his club and hates missing a game. Every week he trudges from the field, muddied and thrashed, but vows to play better.
n Sport allows us to do things other kinds of activities don’t. Through it we vicariously participate in each other’s struggles, and we can glorify the human spirit as we do. Through it, we engage emotions that other endeavours hint at, or allow by accident or good fortune. Only in sport can we struggle, applaud and conduct business simultaneously.
As business, sport can bring out the worst. For threading a round ball into a net, Kewell, Ronaldo and Beckham command millions. Players who bounce, kick and pass an oblate ball around a similar field or oval get much less, but are no less revered. For bouncing an oversized ball on an undersized court with the aim of potting it through a hoop barely out of arm’s reach, lanky giants are paid sums most of only dream about.
Whether it is basketball, Rugby Union, Aussie Rules or soccer, obscene amounts of money change hands in the name of name-players, rewards, market value, gambling and advertising.
One of the myths of sport is that elite sportspersons have always been managed by bureaucracy, lionised by the public and accorded sponsorship payments of a magnitude that would feed a Third World African nation for a year. It hasn’t. The deification of sports “stars” through money and accolades began with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
Mass sport such as seen today commenced with cities that sprang from the urbanisation demands of new manufacturing methods. Sports clubs correspondingly grew out of the past-time pursuits of factory labourers. Breweries cashed in on creating crowds by sponsoring fixtures and competitions. Towns built on industry and accessible to others with the advent of rail and motor transport soon became household names associated with teams and events. The village game—still played in global corners—was rationalised into theoretically bloodless rituals engulfing mass crowds: a new religion was founded.
Television and drug cheats now threaten the purity of this religion. We’re rationed our fix of sporting identities, glories and ritual competitions according to the demands of scheduling, advertising.
For the sake of that winning margin, athletes pursue chemical masks in their bloodstreams. Sport more perfectly matches their values, and theirs are in danger of becoming ours. Heroism from humble beginnings, individual excellence and commitment to the competitive ethic risk being swamped by justification for unequal rewards, passive adulation by a mass audience of fixated consumers and victory at any cost.
This may all prove true, but there is still Cathy Freeman stretching to win gold and wrapped in her ethnic flag. There is still that America’s Cup win and that Robert DeCastella marathon. That Shane Warne flipper and that Muhammed Ali jab. That George Gregan tackle and John Eales’s conversion. There is that bending Beckham ball, that come-from-behind win. That suffering for a moment of achievement. And my son’s failing team (again).
Sport may be corrupted by its humanness, but heaven without it is unimaginable. Forget the diadem, the harp on Cloud Nine, and the streets of gold; most would still want to see someone like Cathy Freeman come from nowhere to find salvation in that last gasp for the finish line. And I’d love to see my son’s team rise off the bottom of the ladder—just once.
Extract from Signs of the Times, October 2003.
Home - Archive - Topics - Podcast - Subscribe - Special Offers - About Signs - Contact Us - Links
Copyright © 2006 Seventh-day Adventist Church (SPD) Limited ACN 093 117 689
Unassociated
advertisement:
This article comes from a
regular column in
Signs
of the Times.
