Sport, Society & Me

a) I did not get seriously involved with sports until high school, which seems to be pretty late compared to my other friends who love sports. It has definitely influenced me in many ways and shaped me into the person I am today. My favorite sport is volleyball, and I started playing my freshman year of high school. I transferred to a small private school after 8^th grade, and I honestly only began playing because it was the only extracurricular activity my high school offered. My parents had signed me up for elementary league volleyball when I was younger, so I decided to pursue it in high school. Since I was at a new school and I was extremely shy, volleyball provided the environment I needed to make my first close friends. Making conversation with strangers was so much less awkward when we could talk about the sport and cheer together when someone had a good hit or block. It also gave something to look forward to each day after class, and it provided motivation to study hard and enjoy school. My high school coach and teammates were integral to my socialization process, encouraging me to keep practicing even when I wasn’t the best player on the team.  A big part of my decision to continue pursuing success in the sport was the social aspect of being on a team. I liked being surrounded by people trying to achieve the same goal, and it was fun at the same time. After I began to invest more time into volleyball, my parents became concerned that I was playing too much and not spending enough time studying. This was especially true in regards to my father. He grew up in Hong Kong, where his family defined academics as the only acceptable and valuable avenue for success. I had to convince him that playing volleyball made me a well-rounded person and contributed to my maturity and growth as an individual with a good sense of self-worth and happiness. I also had to make sure I kept my grades up to live up to the expectations he had of me as a daughter. However, I think I got the best of both worlds in the end.  My desire to keep participating in sports provided better motivation for me to study hard than just getting good grades.

b) I think sports (like everything else in life) has both positive and negative effects and roles in US society. I think it is valuable to study sport because it reflects the values of US society and sheds light on issues and controversies that people might not be aware of. According to Eitzen, sport is a paradox because it can unite but divide people, contain heroics but involve violence, and can promote health but cause injury. Depending on where on this spectrum a sporting experience falls, it can be more negative or more positive. Depending on the culture one grows up in, sports can be very important or meaningless. If one grows up with different values (eg. Success rooted in academics or music or a different skill), sport may not play a part in one’s life at all. From personal experience however, I believe sport has a high value in American society. My friends are constantly spending large amounts of money to go to NBA and MLB games, and they do as much as they can to stay involved in the sports world, including watching ESPN and playing fantasy football.

We often determine the importance of something based on the amount of money and time that goes into it. If sports were evaluated the same way, I would say that sport is very important in US society. In Eitzen’s “Duality of Sport,” he mentions that more Americans watched the Superbowl that the number of Americans that voted in the 2004 presidential election. I have no doubt that people care more about the Superbowl than the election.

According to ESPN, professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. has a salary of 73.5 million, whereas the president of the United States has a 400,000 dollar salary. I know that Americans don’t always directly choose where our money is allocated, but if money and time spent was an accurate reflection of our values, we definitely view sport as important, and we see athletes worthy of being paid this much to entertain us.

Reference:

Eitzen, D.S  (2006).  Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport (2^nd Ed.).  Oxford,      Rowman & Littlefield: Chapter 1