GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP

By James Wilson

            When I played Little League ball I was good at everything – fielding, throwing, stealing bases – except hitting.  When I finally made upper division I didn’t get a hit the entire season.  The humiliation was hellish; I would have done anything to avoid it, but it made me strong. And I can promise it would have been doubly humiliating had a rule been laid down that pitchers had to lob the ball to players like me for our self-esteem.  Yet the powers that be in youth sports have discovered the supposed immorality of permitting one team to dominate another – whether in football, baseball or soccer – without sparing a thought for the emasculation of players given a forced pass when the score reaches a certain point. 

            Men – and boys – need to compete to be who they are created to be.  They do not need to be cruel; they do not need to bully, but they do need to seek and contest a prize.  Each quest carries the risk of loss.  Each one carries the potential for learning to cooperate, growing from the experience of victory or defeat, and the value of going after victory again with the benefit of lessons learned and skills honed.  What is not needed – or helpful – is a bunch of adults grimly determined that defeat will not be tolerated even if victory must be artificially limited.  A growing body of research is beginning to show that a principal way in which irresponsible boys become responsible men is for parents and other authorities to back off when they make risk-embracing decisions that can result in skinned knees or severe defeat.

            The rationale advanced for forbidding lopsided scoring is that such winning teams bully the lesser skilled.  I am not supporting absentee parenting, much less school authorities who look the other way when the kids in their charge are being bullied.  I have no use for bullies of any kind and I have fought them as a boy, as a man, and as a parent.  But my father taught me to stand up for myself and I taught my son to stand for himself.  When my son did stand up I backed him all the way to the superintendent and got justice for him.  In another school when there was no administrative relief for an unfair punishment I sat in detention with my son before telling the headmaster I was pulling him out of the school – with my son’s concurrence.  He learned the world is not fair at the same time he learned he was not alone in it.  Yet in this season coaches are threatened with suspension and fines if they allow a game score to pass a certain point.

            Do I hate it when children are on the wrong end of a lopsided score?  I hate it as I hated that hitless season when I was twelve.  But that is when a parent or other authority figure comes alongside the child and bears his burden with him.  It is not the time to artificially shield children – through rules rather than relationships – from burdens they must carry with or without preparation as adults.

            Jesus knew this when he sent His twelve principal disciples out with neither bread nor money nor extra clothing (Luke 9:1-6) to do what they had seen Him do, like healing the sick, casting out demons, and proclaiming the Gospel no secular authorities wanted to hear about.  When that first foray worked out well he sent seventy-two – armed with his authority and His message.  On Pentecost Sunday His Spirit sent out the whole Body and here we are two billion plus later.

            Efforts to shield children from pain and embarrassment are commendable on their face.  But in this case the shielders weaken one group while bullying another.  What the kids need a whole lot more than shielding – when we are not talking about serious injury – is relationship with adults who love them enough to stand with them, to help them pick up the pieces, to demonstrate their real value that transcends a bad day at the ballpark.  I had no one to stand with me when I was twelve, and I still came out stronger for the experience.  I learned how important it is to stand for and with others, and that the things that hurt my pride are not the things that kill my person.  I received the most important redemption for this time when I met a God who will always stand for me and with me a decade later.  Rules – however well meant – teach none of these things.  Only relationship can do that.