On Sportsmanship Thursday, February 14, 2008

Greetings to all you Booty and Fish readers out there. I’m a close friend and college teammate of that rangy and cagey southpaw most of you know as “Booty.” I, too, happen to be a southpaw, which may or may not explain the way I see the world.

Thanks for reading my first article. Sorry about the length and the academic style of it. It describes the college program that Booty and I and many of our closest mates played at in college. It might give you some insight as to who we are, where we come from, and how playing at Gustavus has shaped us as players, coaches, friends, and people. I actually wrote the piece while I was doing my masters in theological studies. This should explain why it’s written in terms of a “Christian practice.” Our program is not overtly religious, but I think most of who played there and are part of the GAC family would consider it sacred. Hopefully you enjoyed reading at least some of it. If you have any thoughts feel free to reply to me or the site.

From here on in I’ll try to be a bit less “academic” with my columns, but I think you’ll still notice a philosophical touch to most of my writing – I study sport philosophy and sociology/moral development/sportsmanship, and teach history and philosophy of sport at the U of Minnesota – so I’m sure some of that as well as my perspective as an assistant coach at Gustavus (yeah the same one) will filter into the column. Phil will handle all of your pop culture needs, and have you read a better story than Will’s take on Booty’s humble beginnings? I’m real excited about the variety of perspectives that the three of us will bring to the site, and hopefully you’ll like the different looks that we’re putting out there as we try to grow the game, add a little meaning to it, and entertain some of you in the process.

I intended to make this installment about friendship and sport, but I’ll save that one for later in light of the questions Booty and Fish have posed, and to which many of you have responded, about sportsmanship. I’m studying the hell out of sportsmanship at the moment, so I figure we should go there first. There’s nothing like a good ethical dilemma to get those of us who love sports chatting and even a bit fired up.

Alright, at the risk of being too philosophical, I want to ask you a simple yet important question: What is sportsmanship? The reason that I ask is because there are a lot of definitions out there, and your thoughts on when an ump should and should not over rule or whether Djokovic’s bouncing is excessive and in bad taste (as well as your take on just about every other ethical issue in sport – think steroids for those of you who follow Marion Jones or the Mitchell Report, Spygate for you Patriot fans or haters, or even trash talking, using the occasional well-timed “injury time-out,” or a fist pump in the face of an opponent at a key juncture in a match if you’re a simple tennis player or fan). There are many more contested issues that we could list, but how do we know what’s ok and what’s not, according to the guidelines of sportsmanship? We first have to be very clear about what we mean when we say sportsmanship. Are we talking about a universal code that applies across all sports and levels, are we talking strictly about following rules, or are we talking about something entirely different – like an ethic or spirit that may not be written but that we somehow learn, know, and “understand.” Sportsmanship is essentially the way we behave while doing sport based on one of these definitions, or an entirely different definition.

Of course there are rules – as the Dude has gone to great length to explain to his friend and bowling teammate Walter. If the rules put forth the guidelines that say one should be penalized for placing a foot over the line or video taping the other team’s signals, or taking too much time between points, or whatever, then common knowledge is that stated penalties should be imposed when the rules are transgressed. Most of us can agree that these rules should be followed and that those who break them should be penalized – if you were in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the 2000 NCAA III men’s tennis championships and saw our buddy Nick Crossley take on the raging Ed Rahn of Trinity U., you’re hearing what I’m screaming. If the letter of the law had been followed and executed as drawn up in the rules, Gustavus would be one national title richer. Certainly we should follow the rules, and there is no explanation for why they weren’t followed that day, but something tells me that sportsmanship is about more than rules.

Most definitions of sportsmanship go something like this: follow the rules, don’t act like a jackass, don’t cheat, and be respectful of opponents and officials. I buy it. But don’t you think there may be more to it than this? Haven’t you ever played a match or a game of any kind against someone who abided by all of these things, yet you knew or “felt” the match wasn’t played in the spirit of sportsmanship? How did you know? What the hell’s the big deal if Djokovic bounces the ball 78 times before he serves? Yeah he’s breaking a rule, but it’s more than that. Without question, the goal of athletic competition is to win. To the extent that the excessive bouncing prevents the opponent from having a fair crack at doing this, it is wrong. But I think it’s wrong for other reasons as well.

I have reservations (mostly because I’ve looked at this from so many different angles and from the perspective of so many different authors) about saying that there is an overall way to act in all sports at all levels in all times. I do, however, think that there is a spirit of sportsmanship that each of us in a given sport gets taught, comes to understand, and learns to embody (if you want to read my dissertation on this and how it works, it should be ready by fall of 2009!). We think that Djokovic should know this ethic or spirit. His bouncing leads us to believe that he doesn’t, and that bothers us because this spirit is only as good and useful as those who follow it. Sportsmanship is sport specific and to a great extent level specific – meaning that what is accepted as sportsmanlike on the ATP tour likely differs from what goes in the 12s at the Rochester Junior Open. Mostly, though, those of us who know tennis know that taking too much time before serving is poor form. We might want Nole to be penalized, but more than that, we want him to uphold the spirit of sportsmanship in tennis - the spirit that we know and by which we abide.

The lynchpin here is our thought on what sport is all about. Without digging too deep, I want to suggest that to a large extent it’s about play. Play is a non-serious endeavor (meaning that it really doesn’t matter a whole lot compared to the serious things in life – we have wars, drugs, hate, guns, and all kinds of other problems to worry about), but an endeavor that absorbs us and requires great seriousness. How many of you think about war or bombs or love or hate or drugs or any other of the “serious” things of life when you’re playing tennis? Exactly. I think sportsmanship means that we take our play seriously in that we give everything we have to win and be at our best, but that we also maintain balance by not being overly serious about it. This goes for all of us – talk to Booty after he loses his next tour match and you’ll see this balance. He gives the game its due. He takes it seriously and works tremendously hard at it. At the same time, he has enough sense to respond to Steve Ulrich as he’s described because Booty is a balanced individual who understands that as seriously as he takes his tennis, he’s taking it too seriously if he berates Ulrich over an un-timely over rule. It’s unsportsmanlike to not be serious enough about the game (for all you tankers out there), but it’s also unsportsmanlike to be over serious – this is the side that usually leads to cheating, hooking, faking injuries, taunting, etc. I’m not saying don’t compete. I am saying we need to keep the spirit of play alive and well. Competing hard is at the heart of this because competition is tied to sport. But this lack of balance in our maintenance of the spirit of play is what we consider to be most problematic and unsportsmanlike. Think of all the “unsportsmanlike” acts you’ve seen, heard, or been a part of. I’ll bet you can attribute most of them to folks missing the balance on one side or the other.

How do we learn this balance? Well, that’s the topic of a whole ‘nother column. For the moment, let me suggest that we learn it by doing and that this balance is (once again) specific to a given sport and that sport’s culture. Oh, yeah, it gets even trickier in that this culture is constantly changing and being re-created as old members leave it and new members enter.

In the end, though, I don’t think we’ll end up with a culture of excessive ball bouncers. Why not? Because even though the culture changes, I think there are a few values in it that don’t change, namely justice and care. We want to know that there is some sense of fairness that will be applied when we take the court, but we also want to be cared for, especially by our opponent. This might sound weird, but how can we play without the opponent? Certainly the game would be a lot less interesting and enjoyable. We need each other to play the game, and we know that the true meaning of the game can be realized only if we treat each other with a sense of care (remember this doesn’t mean you don’t compete with all of your effort. I could and eventually will try to prove to you that making every effort to play your best and win is the most respectful way to care for your opponent. Don’t believe me? Ask Booty about playing #1 singles for Rochester John Marshall). Sure Djokovic’s ball bouncing breaks a rule and should be penalized. No question or dispute there – no matter what the stage of the match. But the lack of justice is only half of the reason why it bothers us. The other half is that he’s demonstrating a lack of care for his opponent, Jo-Willie Clay Tsonga in this case, but also to the rest of us who create, embody and uphold the balanced spirit of sportsmanship.

Nole doesn’t seem like a selfish guy – Booty and Fish would know more about this than I do – but maybe he would tone down the ball bouncing a bit if someone explained to him that it’s as much (or more) of an issue of care than it is of justice. Breaking a rule doesn’t seem to bother most of us as much as being told that we don’t care about others or that we’re selfish. That’s why I think sportsmanship is about people and care in addition to justice and rules. What do you think?

Until next time, peace.

T.