The Role of Recreation in American Society - Sports: An Expression Of National Values

A Brief History of American Sports

From ancient times, sports have played a role in defining manhood. Powerful men displayed their status and wealth by building horseracing tracks or sponsoring sporting events, while humbler ones gained a sense of power, prowess, masculinity, and sometimes wealth as participants or spectators in games. Despite differences in social rank, sports united men in a shared patriarchal culture. Athletics encouraged men to display their competitiveness and physical abilities and motivated them to think in terms of winning and losing. Sports generally helped to support a vision of masculinity that emphasized aggression and physicality.

TABLE 8.4

In the late 1800s the advent of daily sports newspaper pages and telegraph lines to transmit baseball scores contributed to a growing sporting culture. The expansion of cities spurred the growth of sports, which developed most rapidly in urban areas, where a burgeoning manufacturing economy was producing huge amounts of wealth. As cities grew, recreation was increasingly transformed into entertainment, an amusement to be purchased with earnings.

Despite events that drew many thousands of fans and hundreds of newspaper reporters, professionalism in sports was still unusual, profits were secondary to pleasure, organizations were informal, and scheduling was irregular. Sports continued to be voluntary associations based on class, ethnic, or occupational background. Sports, like religion, politics, and business, became threads binding the tapestry of American culture.

Not only were sports changing and growing during the nineteenth century, but many Americans were also beginning to view sports as a moral force. Taking charge of one's physical condition became a prerequisite for a virtuous, self-reliant, spiritually elevated life. Moral improvement, self-mastery, and godliness were invoked in the name of sports. By the mid-1800s, even clergymen, intellectuals, and reformers took up the cause. As Henry David Thoreau declared, "The body existed for the highest development of the soul."

THE PROFIT MOTIVE EMERGES—PROFESSIONALIZATION AND COMMERCIALIZATION. In an era of urban overcrowding and strict labor discipline, leisure activities had the potential to blunt workers' rebelliousness. Reformers argued that sports refreshed workers' spirits, improved their productivity, and alleviated class tensions. If these benefits were insufficient motivation to participate, sports advocates claimed a moral high ground, contending that sports built character. Other people found they could earn money by teaching a game or hustling other players.

Sports became part of a new consumerism during the twentieth century. New technologies led to better sports gear and equipment, and as a result, improved performance. A sports team became an employer with a "bottom line." Unlike athletes who earlier participated because they believed it would improve their body or their character, players now threw a ball to earn a living. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, professional sports were generally recognized as commercial endeavors. Sports were big business, and those who did not compete in sports could pay to see other people compete or wager on the outcomes of competitions.

Amateur Sports

Following the lead of professional sports, amateur sports have also become big business. Some critics believe that the status of amateur sports, even at the middle school and high school levels, is threatened by an increasing emphasis on commercialization. They cite scandals involving recruiting, redshirting (holding a player back a year until he or she grows bigger, gets better, or a player in his or her position graduates; although the player attends school, he or she does not use up a year of athletic eligibility), phony courses, and inflated or bogus grades. There is even fear that the scandals plaguing professional and Olympic sports, such as steroid and drug use, sexual misconduct, and corruption, could derail the careers of promising high school and college athletes.

Looking Good

When Americans participate in a sports activity, they often buy the best equipment and gear. Beginning in the 1980s and continuing through the turn of the century, many Americans possessed a considerable amount of discretionary income, and many used it to support their varied sports and fitness interests. Sporting goods continued to be a thriving market, with new technologies and products arriving on the shelves weekly.

Many Americans not only participate in a sport or fitness activity but also increasingly compete against others. While many people still jog or run for health, growing numbers do so competitively—in marathons. A biker may not necessarily ride his or her bike to the grocery store, but he or she may enter (with a racing bike costing thousands of dollars) bike races or weekend group rides. Some cyclists take biking holidays or biking day trips.

National Values

Labor and play once overlapped more freely than in recent years because leisure time and work time were not so rigidly delineated. For example, sports were not necessarily played according to standardized rules—they were often a part of local culture, passed on by word of mouth, with rules varying from place to place. Today's sports include multiple layers of communication, transportation, professionalism, regulating bodies, records, statistics, and media coverage.

Sports respond to, and reflect, American values. It would be very easy to confuse a Super Bowl presentation with a Fourth of July celebration, with its veneration of nationalism, racial and ethnic integration, "rugged individualism," and hard work. Yet, some see the Super Bowl as more than just a big game celebrating athletic skill; they see it as an enormous commercial undertaking intended to sell advertisements and generate huge profits for owners, players, and television networks.

Violence in the Sports Arena

Although physical prowess continues to find a place in American society, it competes with an appreciation of, and need for, other qualities, such as intellect and cooperation. Furthermore, valuing and rewarding physical aggression in a civil society has sometimes presented serious challenges. When athletes and others are trained and encouraged to excel at physically aggressive pursuits, they are sometimes unable to harness those tendencies outside the sports arena. Hitting an opponent so hard that he has trouble getting up is a positive act loudly applauded in the boxing ring, while the same action in the parking lot after a bout could send an athlete—or spectator—to jail.

The Deification of Sports Figures: Who Are the Heroes?

The sudden flowering of a mass culture during the twentieth century brought about by the growth in media and communications produced a wealth of new sports heroes. Increasingly, the public world became populated by sports celebrities with national reputations and appeal—heroes such as Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Muhammad Ali, Joe DiMaggio, Sandy Koufax, and Chris Evert.

The Gallup Organization conducted a poll, reported in January 2000, that basketball player Michael Jordan, by an enormous margin, was considered to be the top athlete of the twentieth century. A sampling of adults, aged eighteen and older, were asked "what man or woman living any time this century do you think was the greatest athlete of the century, in terms of their athletic performance?" Jordan was chosen by 23%.

In 2004 ESPN.com asked its visitors to rank the top twenty-five athletes of the previous twenty-five years; Jordan was again ranked first, followed by hockey player Wayne Gretzky, bicyclist Lance Armstrong, golfer Tiger Woods, and football wide receiver Jerry Rice.

ARE THEY WHAT THEY SEEM? Celebrity athletes serve as role models for young people and aspiring athletes, and they can exert powerful marketing effectiveness. Advertising and public relations professionals quickly understood the benefit of linking these icons to products. The public's fascination with fame and glamour enabled heroes to mold the taste of their fans. Sports heroes gained widespread recognition and became known as marketing images rather than real human beings.

As a result, many people have come to revere sports figures, to regard them as heroes, and to credit them with attributes they may not possess. The American public holds its sports figures in high esteem, puts them on pedestals, and appears shocked when heroes demonstrate they are mortals who share the weaknesses of others. Although sports have always had their share of misbehavior, in recent years the media has been able to publicize the indiscretions, such as allegations of substance abuse and domestic violence, of a number of sports figures. Famous athletes who earned reputations as models of athletic prowess and success have sometimes disappointed and disenchanted admiring fans.