I must confess that I like sports. Ok. Maybe that’s a bit of an understatement. I’m a huge sports fan. I have my favorite teams and players. I passionately follow professional football (that would be American football, not soccer), baseball, college football, and college basketball.

 

Besides that, I keep an eye on other sports like pro basketball, hockey, golf, and the occasional tennis match.

 

Some critics might say that our world is overly saturated with sports. We’ve taken competition to unhealthy levels and spend too much time and resources on something that should be a diversion. The word “sport,” after all, comes to us from Latin via Old French, and it means “diversion, amusement, or to carry away.”

 

And maybe we’ve taken sports a little too literally. We’ve gotten carried away. Instead of serving as a source of enjoyment, sports have been the cause of hooligan inspired melees. For instance, when a few fans inspired by too much liquid encouragement begin storming the field people end up dying. There’s nothing sporting about that.

 

It’s not just European and South American soccer matches. You may recall the riot at the Detroit Pistons basketball game in 2004. Monica Seles being stabbed. The 1994 Vancouver hockey riots.

 

Riots aren’t the only form of sports extremism. Doping mars the competitive balance in sports. Performance enhancing drug use has scandalized cycling, baseball, and track. To maintain their integrity, even the professional golf tours and auto racing are proposing drug testing for their participants.

 

Also, we’ve heard the stories—or witnessed—parents getting out of hand at their children’s matches. There are the never-ending sports camps for kids. Private coaches. Traveling all-star teams. Surely, some parents hope to live vicariously through their children’s sporting accomplishments, just as other adults try to live through their favorite teams.

 

This isn’t anything new. In 532, the Byzantine Empire erupted over chariot races. The supporters of the Blues battled the fans of the Greens in the Nika Riots.

 

Sports don’t always become matters of life and death. They offer the possibility of learning teamwork, tenacity, and gracefulness. Sports provides people from all walks of life to come together and enjoy athletic excellence. It allows equal opportunity to compete, cheer, and share in a cultural creative event.

 

Nothing compares to the inspiring athletes in the Special Olympics. These amazing people prove to us all that love of friendly competition and the pursuit of athletic excellence inheres in us all.

 

Perhaps the Olympic Games embody the ideal of sports. Following the ancient Greek model, the world’s top athletes gather every four years to crown the greatest competitors in a show of sportsmanship.

 

The International Olympic Committee states its purpose as reaching beyond sports to embody the best in humanity. “According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

 

Yet, we know that this ideal hasn’t always been maintained. Notably, the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games were affected by political considerations. Recently, well-know Olympic medalists have been stripped of their awards and records because they have been caught doping. Ice skaters schemed to assault their competitors while the skating judges were on the take. As chronicled in the movie Munich, the murder of Israeli athletes in 1972 shocked the world. Financial misconduct has impacted the IOC itself.

 

Today, another controversy surrounds the Olympics. Activists in every corner of the world are calling for world leaders to boycott their appearance at the Beijing games in order to protest China’s oppressive policies—not to mention the air pollution.

 

You’ve probably seen news clips of the torch carriers being escorted by hordes of security guards, while demonstrators show up to signal their disapproval. The most memorable demonstration came from the people who climbed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to unfurl a gigantic banner.

 

Maybe it’s because I live in Colorado Springs, the home of the US Olympic training center, but I believe that the Olympics—even and especially held in China—can be a catalyst for societal transformation.

 

Young athletes come from around the world to train here. They mix and mingle with other young athletes. They make friends and exchange ideas. My friend Kathy is a former judo Olympian who has lived in France, across the Middle East, and now in the US. She has been in the forefront of connecting people from diverse societies through sports.

 

The Jamaican bobsled team broke down racial and cultural stereotypes.

 

And most famously, in 1938 Jesse Owens stepped into Hitler’s Berlin and won four gold medals thereby shattering the illusion of racism.

 

Sports may not change the world overnight, but they can catalyze social change. By shining a spotlight on many of the world’s challenges, sporting events can change world opinion by helping us all see that people in every society love sports. How can you be “all bad” if you love the same game I do—even if you live in a faraway place? This opens our eyes to a share bond and passion. Sports can foster understanding by sowing seeds that bear fruit in a generation or even less.

 

Whether or not leaders boycott the Olympic Games, billions of people will continue to be inspired by the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. And in the process, billions of people will affirm or common humanity.

 

 

URL: http://www.presence.tv/cms/soc_olympic-sized-transform.php

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