Politics and Sports: Present at the beginning

In various sports forums over the past couple months, an argument is being seen more and more. It’s a typical argument and it’s been seen well before the current social situation. The argument is “There is no place for politics in sports, so political discussions need to be moved elsewhere.”

This makes my teeth grind because it means social studies teachers haven’t been doing their job–because politics and sports have been together from the very beginning. I don’t mean 1968, I don’t mean 1980, I mean the beginning. That’s because sports are simulated war and war is politics by other means. The distance from something like volleyball to covert warfare is far closer sociologically than people would realize or believe.

15,000BC: Archaeological evidence suggests archery competitions were held by early groups of men, likely to show hunting prowess…and just as likely to determine who would be group leader. you also have wrestling though no real date can be put to this… Physical strength. No different than animals brawling to determine the alpha-leader. Wrestling determined leadership.

2000BC: Ancient China created cuju, the ancestor of soccer/futbol. Teams represented various organizations, bringing prestige to their sponsors. While we’re here, this is about the point polo is created along with jousting–both games revolving around horsemanship and played by men who commanded military units or served in cavalry forces.

776BC: The ancient Olympics are held–to honor Zeus and promote adherence to religious beliefs since those had been lacking…it was decided sports was a way to get people back to religion. Quite quickly, physical control of the host site at Olympia became a point of political advantage and soon enough, cities would compare the results of their athletes to those of other city-states to determine civic ‘vigor’…sound familiar to today’s medal counts by nation? Yup.

490BC: 26 miles, 385 yards celebrating Pheidippides, messenger who died reporting the results of the battle of Marathon. A type of event run worldwide whether in the Olympics or something like the Boston Marathon–it’s named for a successful battle.

Get the idea? Let’s skip a couple thousand years now.

Modern organized sports start in the 19th century. Why? To give workers in newly industrialized areas where workers were paid poorly and lived in crappy conditions something to root for, something to do other than agitate for political change. Bread and circuses–just like Rome (sorry, I guess I didn’t skip 2,000 years). Anyways, team sports are put in place to prevent revolutions and uprisings. They do this quite well as a generalization–and when there is social upheaval, many sport fans lash out in celebration of victory for their team rather than at their causes of misery (riots after US pro sports titles or the acts of British soccer hooligans for instance).

Politics not a part of sports? Ri-ight.

In 1832, the biggest horse race in the US was between “Andrew Jackson” and “Nullifier”–paralleling the Nullification Crisis of that year and whether South Carolina had to follow laws made by the federal government. It was rigged to favor “Nullifier” but “Andrew Jackson” won anyways. Across the first century of the US, horses would regularly be named to endorse political parties or ideas. It wasn’t just horses–George Washington and John Adams would host competitions and give free beer, Jefferson and Jeffersonian Democrats would sponsor shooting contests to show their support for the frontier.

Throughout the 19th century sports were openly used to show virility–and then used as a comparison to politics. A manly man at sports was therefore considered an ideal man to run for office. It was a clear line–> ability at sport = ability to legislate

When baseball started, blacks played in the various professional associations…until it was determined blacks were gaining too much confidence, getting ‘uppity’. At that point, Cap Anson used his influence as a baseball star to get blacks banned from competition with white players. That was in 1887 and that decision held until 1947 when Jackie Robinson and Larry broke the pro sports color barrier. Anson’s act carried over across all sports. It was political from Day One. Breaking it was no less political.

Jack Johnson–legendary boxer. He was blackballed for having the audacity to marry a white woman. Nope–no politics here.

Jack Trice–a black football player at Iowa State…trampled by University of Minnesota players and killed. Iowa State refused to play UM for 66 years because of that. Politics/race. Of note, the Iowa State football stadium is named for Trice, the only NCAA D1 stadium named for a black athlete in America…no other blacks with stuff named for them…I’m sure there’s no race/politics here.

Get the idea? Need more?

1936 Summer Olympics: Jesse Owens, Adolf Hitler, the greatest athlete in the world was a black man 1936.38: Louis vs. Schmeling, two boxing matches between an American black man and a “Nazi”. (I put Nazi in quotes because Schmeling and Louis became friends and Schmeling saved Jewish lives during WW2) 1954: Hungary destroying England at soccer…proving the ‘superior’ socialist system of E. Europe 1967: “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.” –Muhammad Ali 1968 Summer Olympics: Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Peter Norman. 1970s: Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs in ‘the battle of the sexes’ 1971: US vs. China in ping-pong, leading to US acknowledgment of China’s existence 1972 Munich Massacre of Jewish athletes 1972 Summer Olympics and the mysterious case of the men’s basketball championship 1974: World Cup West vs. East Germany 1980: Do you believe in miracles? 1980: US Summer Olympic Boycott 1984: Soviet-led Olympic Boycott 1998: USA Wrestling travels to Iran in an official capacity 2012: “We are Trayvon Martin” 2013: Creation of the Gay/Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame

See? Sports and politics are unavoidably intertwined. I could easily provide another 100 examples, enough to fill a book (but this is a blog). These are examples covering race, sexuality, and geopolitics. To deny the link is to bury your head in the sand.

So we get another question–instead of denying this link, instead of resisting it, why not embrace it? As a coach or teacher, use sport to teach your athletes how to express themselves, to learn leadership skills. The objective of sport is not to create robots (no matter how much basketball coaches micro-manage games)…just as the military wants intelligent, thinking soldiers, so, too, should coaches.

What can you do as a coach to help your athletes? Are you learning? –If you aren’t constantly learning, how can you be teaching. Knowledge changes in ALL endeavors…if you don’t keep moving forward, you WILL fail. Are you being patient with questions? Are you playing devil’s advocate to their ideas–not to shoot them down, but to help them flesh their own thoughts out?

Remember what the objective of sports is supposed to be, especially at the youth and collegiate levels. It isn’t about travel-team fees, it isn’t about the scoreboard. It is about life lessons and the skills required for young people to move on and become the leaders of tomorrow, to become the people THEY want to be…