I think that competitive sports make people crazy. During an impromptu speech, a student said that he didn’t like or participate in any sports…and then told a story about a rock climbing adventure with some friends. Another student said that football is the “only real sport”…but missed several days of my class for this year’s baseball playoffs. Two factions of colleagues at the college squared off against each other in defining what is and isn’t a sport when the whole campus was participating in a team fitness contest...walking, no matter how slowly, yes. Yoga, no matter how vigorous, no. Some say cheerleading, with jumping, running, and dancing, isn’t a sport, but bowling, which some pros do between pitchers of beer and plates of nachos, is. Golfers want people disqualified if they use a cart, even if they have permanent disabling damage to their legs. And the most insane example of competitive-sports-gone-wrong--Oscar Pistorius, a South African double amputee born with no bones in his feet, having to fight for the right to compete for a spot on the Olympic team. Why is th
is a problem? If I’m an Olympic-level runner and I am worried about the competitive edge a pair of non-motorized prosthetics gives a person who has had their lower legs removed, I should feel a little reality-check shame. Like I said, sports and crazy seem to skate a very thin line. In Charles Reasoner’s Who Plays This Sport?, all the players are solo. Which is why they don’t fight.http://www.paperbackswap.com/Who-Plays-Sport-Charles-Reasoner/book/0843179910/
http://www.jacketflap.com/persondetail.asp?person=25543
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