Steven Murphy, a Notre Dame Senior on the varsity Lacrosse team, and member of Play Like a Champion Today's "Social Foundations of Coaching" Course guest blogs for us today.
In
some individuals lives there is a time where sport rolls over into our
“grownup” years and we have to take into consideration our financial stability
for ourselves and our families. Playing a contact sport, such as hockey, is a
very demanding occupation that takes an extreme toll on one’s personal health.
It seems only right then that the players would form a conglomerate to ensure
their financial needs to the risks that they put themselves in while being a
professional athlete.
Most
of society will tend to view the players as greedy individuals demanding more
compensation then what they really deserve. Thus is the conundrum in which the
professional athlete lifestyle evokes; far gone is the idea of playing sport
for the sake of doing so. Salary and compensation is begged to performance, and
most intriguingly showmanship. Teams want the “player” who is going to attract
the fans to fill the stadium seats, buy the jerseys and team merchandise, and
win that oh so coveted championship trophy.
All
of these thoughts come at the expense of the athlete to make sacrifices. The
general public puts professionals on a pedestal, almost as if the positives
come without some sort of price to obtain them. In any job or occupation there
have been lockouts or refusal to work, this is no different than the current
NHL lockout. The clear misunderstanding is that current economic conditions are
limiting each sides stances regarding allotment to NHL revenues. Keeping it
consistent with the ideals that sport is based off of, the easiest way is to
understand that if each side can sacrifice some power they will be able to
preserve Hockey as an outlet in which society demonstrates its core virtues of
competition, mutual respect, and fairness to promote our collective goals of personal
excellence and understanding of individual potential within society to improve
the greater good.
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