Ethics Under the Scoreboard
by Rev. Dr. Robert R. LaRochelle
The actions we take and the choices we make reflect if we are followers of Christ, children of God, doing the very best we can with our talents, gifts and strengths.
Last year’s Super Bowl drew the attention of millions, actually billions, of people throughout this country and around the world. Of course, not everyone was focused on the game. While so many millions of citizens were gathered for viewing parties in both public places and private homes; many others took advantage of the reduced traffic for a few hours to go out or just to stay at home quietly reading, resting, or simply enjoying something else.
Now this range of behavior on a day that many have declared an unofficial national holiday highlights the different attitudes that people have toward the role of sports within our culture. While it is fair to say, just looking at the numbers, that both participatory and spectator sports are immensely popular, for some, the enjoyment of sport borders on an obsession as fans are so willing to invest exorbitant money and incredible emotion in the play of their favorite team. Sadly, for some, this obsession, coupled with the aid of certain substances, makes for such a deadly combination that Super Bowl Sunday has become the day of the year for the highest number of reported acts of domestic violence. For many fans, the Super Bowl, World Series, March Madness, NBA Playoffs, and Stanley Cup Finals are events not to be missed, fulfilling the role of annual rituals. In many cases, gathering with others to watch the game is a treasured ritual of community and friendship. As a pastor, I can not help but to see strong parallels with the “Christmas and Easter Only” people whom we see in church exactly two times a year and the annual Super Bowl gatherings that define the annual high water mark in some fans’ social life.
At the same time that major sports competitions are embraced by millions of fans, there is something deeply troubling about their popularity. Some people would contend that the fanaticism of the fans is actually an unhealthy attitude that values sports way out of proportion to what their importance should be for all of us. They would look at the money spent and the money gambled and state, with conviction, that something really is not right here, even amid all the hype and hoopla leading up to “the big game.”
We are going to attempt to explore sports in this culture through the lens of Christian faith, with the understanding that what we believe about our relationship with God influences what we do with our lives and how we spend our time. Sports, I would argue, is an important topic for us to explore as Christians because, if you think about it, an incredible amount of money and time and energy is invested in athletic endeavors in our society. Just think of the money people spend on tickets to professional and college games, for registration and equipment for their children to play in local leagues, and on specialized camps that help children and adolescents build upon their skills. How much time and effort is devoted to sports in order to fulfill the dreams of young athletes (and their parents) or with the objective of to turning athletic success into either a scholarship or professional opportunity? It is an important topic for us to explore because, in many cases, the proliferation of athletic programs in local towns is so popular that their scheduled games compete with the Sunday morning worship services being offered in these athletes’ home churches. It is an important topic, too, when one thinks about how money is appropriated in educational institutions. Compare budgets for athletic facilities in relationship to many academic needs. The point is that whenever decisions are made about how to spend money, the decisions are really about what we value.
There are many athletes, coaches, and fans who would contend that participation in athletics builds character. They would point to the positive values that sports promotes. They would say that playing a sport can help someone learn commitment, not only to oneself, but to a team, and could be instrumental in teaching such necessary traits as sacrifice and resilience and teamwork itself. Some take it even further and argue that playing a sport is the ultimate preparation for meeting all of life’s challenges. For many of these aficionados, the very language of sports speaks to the most valuable life lessons possible. I have a friend who is a coach who really believes that all you really need to know about life — about battling back from hardship and supporting others in life’s trenches — you can really learn by playing football.
Others approach this differently. They look at sports through the eyes of Christian faith and they are immediately confronted by athletes who are paid orders of magnitude more than teachers, social workers, ministers, and all those who labor in factories and fields. They are greatly troubled by these relative values. They also look at the poor behavior of many sports stars with their substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, violence, and other anti-social behavior as poor role models for our youth.
Others who care about Jesus’ values encouraging hospitality and love of neighbor as well as basic civility and kindness are deeply troubled by a behavior pattern that stretches from the schoolyard to the professional stadium. Competition has so often led to nastiness, cruelty and ludicrous behavior, not only among the young, but all too often by the adults responsible for their care. Nationwide, there is a sharp increase in the number of ‘incidents’ at our junior-high and senior-high school competitions. These instances, by adults, range from verbal assaults and foul language to parents running out of the stands to confront officials.
I have played sports for my entire life. I coach a varsity basketball team. I like to win. I play to win. Nonetheless, much of what I see in high school sports bothers me from an ethical perspective. I have witnessed up close a good deal of what I just described: parents out of control, under emphasis on academics, and overemphasis on athletics. I am troubled, too, by the superstitions around athletics such as praying for victory or an extra base hit in the clutch. At the risk of possible heresy, dare I say that on God’s priority list, I think a lot of things are more important than whether the Patriots, Giants, Red Sox, or Notre Dame win.
In saying I like to win and I play to win, I must also admit that I struggle with the competitiveness within me. Is my competitiveness incompatible with the Christian values I hold so dear? Many times I have thought to myself that I am never going to coach again, that I would rather spend more time doing something of more value with my life. To be truthful, so often when I look at sports through the lens of Christian faith, I think about how absurd a preoccupation with sports really is.
Take a look at baseball. I think of all the hours in life I have devoted to helping people do what with a baseball? I have helped people hit the baseball, so that they could do what? So that they could run and touch three bags and then eventually come back to where they started and by getting back to where they left, they score one point, peculiarly called a run. When professionals try to do this, as many as 60,000 people stand on their feet screaming. And in a typical professional football game there will be big men wearing pads trying to go at least ten yards at a time in three or four tries and to avoid being crushed by equally big men who are trying to stop them. The attendant crunching of bodies will be accompanied by young women in short skirts cheering each forward advance, the flow of alcohol and money at tables all over the land, and then when it is over unending analysis of why whatever happened really happened.
Would not time be better spent reading more books or spending more hours with those we love? Is there more at work here? Of course, spending time enjoying athletics is quite acceptable and even that wanting to win and playing to win is perfectly fine as well, if one comes at it with the right perspective!
You see, the beauty of playing games is that you know it’s a game. You do not attach more value to it than it has in and of itself. I refer to this as the willing suspension of reality. You enter the unique world of a game knowing quite clearly that it is a game. In other words, when I am involved in a game, I need to know that it is not of ultimate importance; other things are. From a Christian perspective, life’s biggest battles are between good and evil, so often exemplified by hunger, violence, poverty and the way we treat others.
Paul addresses this issue face on, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we are imperishable. Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to other I myself be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:24-27) Now, in playing a sport, in using all of your talents, as Paul just put it “to obtain the prize,” all the while we need to know that there is a bigger race for us to win. There is a vastly more important game going on. That is what Paul is talking about!
Paul tells us that athletes do what they do to receive a perishable wreath. In modern athletic parlance, they get the trophies, cups, pennants, and rings that signify what they have accomplished. To garner those trophies, it takes a lot of skill and, in the process, they compete both against other people and against themselves. They sharpen those skills, enjoy themselves in the process, and they are rewarded. But that reward is a temporal one. The real reward is yet to come and when it does, we are all going to lay those earthly trophies down. And the trophies that we lay down are not just the ones from sports but all those other trophies we have attained in running this race — wealth and possessions.
I have seen a lot of good in competitive sports. I have seen players I have coached in high school grow into wonderful adults and great role models. I have seen athletics be an anchor for young people during troubled times along life’s journey. I have grown to cherish the enduring bonds that have developed over the years between opponents. One of my dearest friends in the world of coaching is someone whom I try to defeat every time our teams clash, yet we have a lot of fun and laugh when we get together because we both know that in the end, we are suspending reality. What we are really doing is simply playing a game.
In the end, it is what is in our heart that counts. In the pew or on the playing field, in the voting booth or around the family table, it is the choices that we make that constitute our lives. In turn the actions we take and the choices we make reflect if we are followers of Christ, children of God, doing the very best we can with our talents, gifts and strengths.
