Elizabeth Lambert kicked, punched, and even pulled a BYU player to the ground by her poneytail. Cameras caught it all, and even though Lambert received only a yellow card, she was suspended for the game. Later the University of New Mexico suspended her indefinitely. Predictably Lambert apologized. She excused her bad behavior as due to the intensity of game: I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation. This is in no way indicative of my character or the soccer player I am." Really? Lambert’s comment appears to fly in the face of conventional wisdom embodied in Heywood Broun’s famous saying (often attributed to John Wooden), “Sports do not build character, they reveal it.” It is discouraging enough to concede that sports don’t build character, but are we also willing to accept Lambert’s denial that they don’t reveal it either?
Lambert didn’t just blow up once during the game, nor was there an indication that she was acting in retaliation. If the “heat” of a close game can excuse her whole pattern of behavior, then one wonders whether character has anything to do with sports. Perhaps athletes’ behavior is, as Lambert’s statement implies, situation specific. Once our emotional arousal gets too high, it is very difficult to maintain control. But isn’t character all about self-control? Even those with the strongest characters have lapses of self-control but these are generally momentary.
Lambert believes that she is a better person and a better soccer player than her actions revealed. Perhaps she simply had a tough game. Although it may be true that we are all better people than our actions at any one time may reveal, character has no meaning except in relationship to our behavior. What was objectionable about Lambert’s play was a whole pattern of bad actions throughout an entire game. Lambert’s play wasn’t simply “outside the lines” or “unsportsmanlike,” it was violent and could well have resulted in a serious injury.
We are left with a puzzle. If Lambert is right and her actions were not indicative of her character, then should we throw out the concept of character as meaningless? If Lambert is wrong and her actions reveal her character, should we blame her for being a bad person? Perhaps we can keep the concept of character without unduly condemning Lambert. It is easy to well up with righteousness indignation when others’ act in blatantly offensive ways. It is even easier to come down on others for failing to own up to their faults. It is far more difficult, however, to acknowledge that Lambert’s behavior and subsequent denial that it had anything to do with her character reflects something about a toxic sports culture of our own making. Does anyone believe that Lambert didn’t resorted to dirty play until the BYU game? How long has Lambert been pushing, punching, and pulling hair? When did it start and what did her coaches and teammates say and do when it started? How did Lambert rise to the level of a starting D-1 player without others along the way intervening? Isn’t it a bit hypocritical for the University of New Mexico to suspend Lambert indefinitely for playing the way she had been playing before the bad publicity came? Why not punish the coaches and other players?
Character development is a complicated process. It involves emotional control as well an understanding of the right way to behave and a commitment to behave that way. Most importantly character grows out of community. Who I am as an individual player depends very much upon who we are as a team. Until the sports community makes a commitment to creating a culture that takes character-building as seriously as it takes it winning, we should be the ones who are ashamed.
