Do you remember the days when as a kid, you got together with the other kids from the neighborhood and spent hours playing games like hopscotch, lagori, cricket or kho-kho. If anyone cheated or called each other names (which we often did), it was soon forgotten and everyone including the defaulter would be back in the game, enjoying every moment of it with un-ending passion.
Cut to the present day where we are no longer children. Many of us still indulge in sports- some professionally and others as spectators – but all with the same, if not greater, un-ending passion. The one big difference is something that we exhibited in our childhood but seldom do so now- sportsmanship.
Sportsmanship in sports has never been in lesser display than in recent times. The latest racial abuse row that kicked off during the India-Australia Cricket series, is ample evidence of this fact, where a referral to the word “monkey” snow-balled to a racist issue.
What is it that we have lost over the years, that makes seasoned players like Zidane to head-butt a payer of the opposite team in a world-cup soccer game? Why is it that even extremely talented sportspersons like Marion Jones feel the need to succumb to doping? What has gone so grievously wrong in sports today that has prompted Anil Kumble to make the statement, “ ..only one team was playing in the spirit of the game…”?
Agreed that the scenario is not the same today as it was years ago. All major sports tournaments involve min-boggling amounts of money- one of the repercussions of which, is the mounting pressure on players to outperform their opponents, many a time, comprising the spirit of the game.
Sports has become such a cash-rich venture that the endorsements of sportspersons piggyback their performance. In such a scenario, it is but natural for any human being, leave alone our celebrity-status sportspersons, to get carried away by the competition. The trappings of all this wealth and fame have made us forget that the mark of a true sportsperson is the spirit with which he/she plays the game.
The heightened media-scrutiny is another major factor that has led to this paradigm. It not only relays an amplified version of the behaviour of the players (both on and of the field), but also defines their actions into slots like “mild” or “offensive”.
The media is also responsible for sending out wrong signals by publicizing and at times even “glorifying” the display of un-called for aggressiveness on the field. It is indeed a sorry state of affairs that virtues like patience and respect for fellow-players are no longer as saleable as “offensiveness” or “boorish” behaviour is.
Sledging and other such un-gentlemanly activities are no longer scoffed at but are becoming increasingly accepted as game-playing tactics. Competition has been driven to such dizzying heights that players no longer feel secure nor do they have any faith in their hard-honed talent but are taught to rely on strategies such as “intimidation” and mental degradation of their opponents to gain an edge over them. But has anyone ever thought of coaching or merely advising our sportspersons on how to play the game with sportsmanship?
It is the need of our generation, as well as those to come, to revive long forgotten virtues like showing respect for the opposition, cultivating love of competition (as against love of winning), the value of trying ones’ best and most importantly, how to lose and win graciously.
It is high time we thought about where, the increasing intolerance and un-provoked aggression on the playing field, is taking us to. For this, we only need to look back into history to the time of the ancient Greeks who began the first Olympics with a view to celebrate the cultures of the people of various lands. Their custom of crowning the victor with an olive branch is symbolic of their faith in sports as a hope for a peaceful and better future. The great Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympics, sought sports as the way to bring nations and the youth of the world together and thereby dissuade them from fighting each other in war.
Fred Perry, the legendary Tennis player, once said, “Tactics, fitness, stroke ability, acceptability, experience and sportsmanship are all necessary for winning”. This is what we need to stress upon today where we no longer see the spirit of chivalry and the glory of sport on the field.
To quote Grantland Rice, the American sports columnist and author,
“ For when the one great scorer comes
To write against your name,
He writes not that you won or lost,
But how you played the game”
No comments:
Post a Comment