Philosophy of Sport class

This class overall was somewhat interesting but also not always the most productive in discsussion because there is so much bias that comes with the subject of sports. The point was made in class that maybe there are not so many philosophers of sport because those who study sport work actively in the sports field, coaching, writing, commentating, being part of a program, or are athletes themselves. I would agree with this and add to this that everyone has grown up with their favorite sport and their dispositions and much of the philosophy of sport is just opinion based on experience. Learning about play in general and thinking about how people act in sports was interesting and hearing other people's opinions on basic things that never really get discussed (like cheating, spoilsports, athletes as heroes etc) was valuable. To be forced to think about something that is so much a part of everyday culture and take it apart was a good thing, but again many discussions ended up being circular because people had set opinions that were biased by their feelings about a sport (people said they did not believe race car driving was a sport because they didnt like it). All in all, I am glad I got to think about sport in a more detailed context and I feel it will help me as an athlete, a spectator, and a thinker along the way.

Huizinga: We all need play

It is comforting to get some acknowledgement that play is an “interlude in life,” but it is also “integral to life.[1]” I completely agree that everyone needs play in their life, the interruption of daily life and the real world that is not so nice all of the time. No matter how grown up someone is, play is so necessary in maintaining sanity, especially in this day and age. We live in a society obsessed with work and money and business and material wealth, when really, what makes people most happy is going to that baseball game one time a year or playing with a small child in a park....Huizinga notes that play is completely seperate from other areas of life, but it is just as important. It is not a component of survival, like food or water, but is something that all humans experience,and inherently do. I want to always know that it is ok to play, and that even in graduating college and going out to work, that the real world is not the only thing I have to look forward to.

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[1] Huizinga, J. “Nature and Significance of Play,” 8

The Stance of Sport

HYLAND:

THE STANCE OF SPORT, Pages 73-78

In Hyland’s chapter he discusses four main components of “play” and why people play. These four ideas are what he calls “responsive openness,” finitude, possibility and freedom. He speaks to what sports offer us as humans, and what parts of ourselves we offer when we play. His main thesis seems to be that we use our “responsive openness” when we play within a combination of finitude and possibility that culminates in a kind of freedom. The anti-thesis to this could be that these dynamics Hyland uses to try to dissect why we play are not unique to sports, but are just different dynamics in life.

Responsive Openness

Hyland explains that there is a certain stance of play that we maintain while we are playing a game. He calls this “responsive openness.” The term is derived from being open but also being responsive. The need to be open and aware when playing a game is so important as games are inherently thematic, says Hyland. It would not be enough, though, to be open to what is going on around because this would allow for passive openness. When one is in their stance of play, they must also be responsive in their openness and be able to react. To engage in play we must be able to respond as well as be open. Hyland says that responsive openness is an essential part of sports and games but he acknowledges that it is not exclusive to them. It is also not his definition of sports or games because this would be far too broad.

Finitude

In life humans are always trying to avoid finitude—the limitations of everything around us, whether it be the finitude of time, space or abilities. Hyland points out that in play, finitude becomes a positive and is brought to the forefront. Sports are completely based on rules and people but these rules are embraced because it is what makes play fun. There are still the temporal, spatial limitations and finitude based on ability but Hyland claims that people acknowledge them as integral to play and not as a hindrance. The meaning of the game is derived from the finitude.

Possibility

The contrary of finitude is possibility. Hyland connects them, however, in that in order for there to be the most possibility in play, there has to be finitude. The openness and responsiveness also has to be focused within the boundaries of the finitude. To play is to have responsive openness within a context. “Humans need focus, which is to say, humans need finitude.” I did not agree with his strong linking of possibility and finitude. What he seemed to be proving was just that finitude gives meaning to play, but not necessarily that this creates possibility.

Freedom

The last argument stems from finitude and possibility when they are put together. When combined, they produce a freedom that is the motivation for why we play. “Strange paradox, that subjecting oneself to constraints more limiting than those of everyday life should be experienced as freedom, the freedom of exhilarating play,” Hyland explains. Using our bodies to their greatest ability within given boundaries or rules or limitations is freedom. When a sort of alternate play world is made, people function within that world in a completely different way than the real world; the possibilities within the limitations of the game are endless. I think of it in terms of playing make-believe, where we are constrained to a world that is not real, but are in the responsive openness stance of play, seemingly able to do anything. Hyland’s last point in this section is that people would just float along bored in a day to day world, in a game “without an end” if it were not for play. We need this other realm with other rules and finitude to truly have freedom.

When We Were Kings

When We Were Kings was very well done. I had seen the movie "Ali," but it was really fun to see the real deal in this movie. There is really no one like Ali, he seems to embody much of what we have talked about in this class. He has the mental and physical, he is the agon and alea, he definitely has metis, the king of "sledging" and intimidation.
I think he is one of the best examples of the character building that sports give you; he grew so much mentally throughout his career and was able to find the will power to win always. One can see how he took that character building and used it to his advantage in the political world as well. I believe if he had not trained his body so intensly, his mind would not have been as sharp. His footwork seemed to go hand in hand with his quick wit. The way in which he spoke was almost like the way he danced. In my first paper, I talked about one of our first readings which spoke to the idea of "total participation." It emphasized learning through experience. Ali pushed his body so hard that his mind got pushed with it. Boxing is a sport that is so mental because you have to keep your head in it completely and not let pain affect you.
It is interesting that we had just talked about Metis in class and it was argued that it didnt exist because Ali's "rumble in the jungle." It was not just random when he timed out the fight and waited until the seemingly perfect moment to take out Foreman.

LADY WILDCATS get a win!
http://nusports.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/recaps/021107aab.html

The art of intimidation....

I thought the discussion we had about haka and intimidation as a form of sport was interesting and worth further thought...I was thinking about other factors that can make a team intimidating and uniforms were something that came to mind. As in anything, appearance defintely matters in sports. My high school basketball team was a poor public school and we used to play huge suburban schools with lots of money. We would walk into their huge beautiful gyms and they would not only have brand new uniforms, but matching bags, shoes, sweatsuits, water bottles etc... and we would immediately feel we were at a disadvantage. I think about us though and we must have looked pretty intimidating to them as well. Besides having a much more diverse team than any of those schools, we looked kind of thrown together and our gym looked kind of rough and tough. What is different can be scary and in sports, teams that have their own special warm up routine or uniform or look to them or do a haka dance can bring their team together and use these things as scare tactics...

Purdue game-- coaching seperating does not equal motivating

This past couple of days I was on the road with the women's basketball team. Being team manager has given me the power of observing the sport from the outside, but from as close to the inside as one can be. I understand the players when they get upset about the little things or have problems with the coach or a game or a bad practice, or can feel it when tension builds or they give up because I have been through all that. What is most interesting to me though, is to hear all of it and be able to look at it in an objective way.
The girls got beat really bad yesterday at Purdue, and I could see it coming. It started with a bad practice in which the coach was yelling at the team and I could see them looking defeated instead of turning it around. The starting five on the team has just been switched and this has completely changed team dynamic. My roommate on the trip was sick and coach was not giving her any alternative options: she would go hard in pre-game and start the game. All of these little things were mounting and Purdue being the #6 team in the country was not going to help.
The coach has been making all of these decisions which change team dynamic, and I have come to realize that if I ever coach, I think that keeping the team together is the most important thing. Instead of seperating the players, everything has to be open and truthful and all adjustments should be explained. The best coach I ever had told the truth about everything. He would sit us down after every game and tell us what we did right and wrong. He always called everyone out individually and would announce to the team when he was going to make changes and why. This made it so the team always knew what was going on and so they were able to stay together through it all.

trash-talking/ sledging??

In class yesterday we started to talk about the aspect of talking trash in sports. I think that the mental part of sports is extremely interesting. To me, sports are at least as mental as physical, if not more mental. If you are in the wrong mind set for whatever reason, you will perform poorly. The most talented athletes are always able to get into a zone on the court or the field that blocks out everything else except their goal and their game. Sometimes you can actually tell that someone is "in the zone" by the almost possesed way in which they are playing. I can point to a few of my basketball games where I felt like the hoop belonged to me and like no matter what I shot I could not miss. This does not occur very often for me, but I would argue that for the most elite athletes, it happens much more frequently.
"The zone" can also have the opposite effect on an athlete. If your mind is on something else or if someone is bugging you, it becomes much more difficult for your body to do its job. An example of this is when one of the other players is able to throw you off of your game. They can do this by talking smack, being extra physical, or even just looking at you in a certain way. Many athletes are very susceptible to the "sledging," and it can screw them up. Other athletes say it motivates them. In class we talked about how it is an important part of the game because it teaches you to become stronger mentally, and turn it into motivation. I believe that this is why sports are just as mental as physical. Even if you are not flustered by trash talk or the coach yelling at you or the fans booing, athletes are constantly forced to push things out of their brain so that they can focus. Even your own thoughts effect your play every second. If you are having a bad day and you do not feel like playing, you have to mentally push yourself to pick up the intensity. If you miss a shot you have to re-center your own thoughts and not let yourself get into a slump.
Pressure is also a mental feeling that gets turned into a physical result. Everyone reacts differently to pressure, and pressure can be put on an athlete by their coach, their team, themselves, the fans, or just a big moment. For me, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself, and I had to teach myself not to get really nervous before every game. If a coach added pressure to that and had extra expectations, it would actually help, because I would focus on that instead of my own pressure.
There are tons of social science projects that one could do to look at mental effects in sports. It is a key component of sports, whether it be trash talking, your own mind or pressure of some kind. Hopefully an athlete's mentality can be manipulated to push them to do better in a game, or get them in "the zone," but all those detractions from the game seem to end up to be just as important, if not more, than the game itself.

Minnesota Sports....echhh...

I was excited to move to a new city and get a fresh set of sports teams. Although I will always loyally cheer for the Twinkies, Vikes, T-wolves, gophers and the Wild, I have to say that Minnesota teams have a nack for choking and letting people down. The twins this year were actually a fabulous suprise, and although they got trounced in the playoffs, I maintain that they did better than they should have. The Vikings have become one of the most depressing teams in football. We had that incredible season where we went 15-1 and that song "welcome to Miami" was written practically just for us, and then Gary Anderson( who had never missed one) missed that field goal in OT ....why?? The Timberwolves have the NBA's best player in KG yet we can never find him any kind of support or another go-to that can work with him. Ever since Stephon Marbury left us we have been jinxed, and Kevin is just not Allen-Iverson-enough to do it on his own. My question is--what is it that makes teams choke? How much of sports actually is physical and how much has to do with our "minnesota-nice" teams not being able to toughen up and get the win? I know this sounds bitter but I am more just genuinely curious....how can one state be so good at choking?

first post

So, this being my first post, it seems I should contextualize my reasons for wanting to be in this class so that people can better understand the sports background that I come from. I have always loved sports, grew up in a sports family and always played sports. I played soccer, softball and ran track, and living in Minnesota, also loved and still love hockey. The sport I fell in love with was basketball and from first grade on I played all year round. During the summers I would go outside and shoot hundreds of freethrows and dribble around the block. I was captain through high school and just always loved the atmosphere that surrounded the game. The people who play basketball understand the atmosphere: the crowd, the uniforms, sitting on the bench, the huddle, the big games, the swoosh of a perfect shot, the game plan and your role as a player on any given team. I always have tried to observe and take in as much as that atmosphere as I can.
I am also a sociology major and love to observe different cultures and subcultures and how they work and their habits and traditions. Sports have some of the most fascinating subcultures to me and I wanted to further explore sports and the bigger mysteries of what they are and why people play them.
I am one of the managers of the women's basketball team here at NU and am really interested in the sociological aspects of sports and teams and why certain types of people like certain sports and what sports do for people in general. I would like to incorporate the world of sports into my career somehow and hope that this class will help me discover more.