Is the Goal to Have Fun or Humiliate?

Today's blog entry was written by Andrew Brock, a senior Accounting major in the Social Foundations of Coaching course this semester.  Andrew is a member of the Notre Dame Track and Field team, competing in the shot put and weight throw.

This past weekend a news article came out about a Texas high school under scrutiny for “bullying” another high school after beating them 91-0 in a football contest. This seems ridiculous in a high school game, doesn’t it? However, in the realm of college football, it’s almost a weekly occurrence for some teams and there is never a word mentioned about it in the press. Alabama has won all of their games, with the exception of one, by more than 25 points this season - their biggest mark of victory resulting against Arkansas with a score of 52-0. Baylor won a game this year 71-7 against Iowa State. Oregon, another team that historically puts up a lot of points against its opponents, has won each of their games by an average of about 40 points this season. In fact, when it comes to college football, blowing one’s opponent out actually tends to receive positive press for the most part, while the Texas high school team was being scrutinized for it in the national media.

This story seemed to be featured on just about every network last week.

Has the goal of competition in college and now even high school football become to have fun or to humiliate? It appears that in a world of votes, media, millions of dollars, and rankings that the point is to humiliate.   At least the teams that are blowing their opponents out each week are having a lot of fun in the process. Now, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the teams that our losing by 40, 50, 91 points… Do you think that they are having fun?

According to Play like a Champion's GROW model, sports are played for the purpose of having FUN! In fact, it is only at the end of the GROW model that we see the word "winning" and this is not a coincidence. Coaches who disrespect their opponents by blowing them out and humiliating them in front of all their fans are not abiding by the GROW model. Winning is an outcome of the game. There has to be one winner and one loser--that is the way the game works. With this in mind, we should remember that competition should and can be fun, win or lose. Success in competition is found in putting ones best effort on the field, court, track, diamond, etc.  When winning becomes more important than the outcome of the game, true competition is lost. Athletes compete and coaches coach for the love of the game. Why should we crush someone else’s love by humiliating them during competition?

Therefore, when our only goal of a competition is to win and destroy all who stand in the way of us winning, we have lost our love of the game. We have become too caught up in the outcomes and have lost sight of the intrinsic reasons of why we started playing the game in the first place. We all began playing for the love of the game. Consequently, out of our love for the game we should practice good sportsmanship and respect our opponents by not humiliating them. The real joy of sports comes from the competition itself, not from the outcome.