“Keep Politics Out of Sports” but not the Sport Out of Politics?
Picture this.
Your opponent is leading you, but you know there’s still ways to go in this game.
Your heart is racing. You want the win. It’s everything you’ve worked so hard for.
All of a sudden, you win some points! You’re gaining ground. And you do it again. And again.
Just like that, before you know it, the lead is yours.
Your opponent tries, but there’s nothing that can be done. Soon, the game is over. You’ve won.
Here’s something to consider: what was just being described? Super Bowl 51? Game 7 of the 2001 World Series? Javier Fernandez at the 2016 World Championships?
Possible answers, yes. But here’s one more: the 2020 US Presidential election.
Politics and debate have always been the realm of the academically-inclined. These are the stereotypical high school overachievers who take pride in filling their hours with resume-padding activities (see: “debate club”, “Model UN”, “student government”) and getting a higher-than-perfect GPA.
Needless to say, it is not the world for “jocks”.
It’s not surprising, then, that many politicians-in-training not-so-subtly look down on sports-inclined individuals, especially those who dare to do it for a living.
Sure, they may be blessed with God-given physical abilities and remind us of the meanings of grit and determination. But at the end of the day, they are those who have to rely on their brawn, for lack of brains. Their only significance is to entertain us on the court or field, and their opinions on other non-sport matters are irrelevant.
And there’s the other side of this conversation — one that isn’t exactly more pleasant.
In a season defined by athletes using their platforms to highlight social injustice and political issues, many were none too pleased.
As professional sports both in America and elsewhere were swept in the chaos of the outside world, athletes spoke out and demanded better. They took part in protests, used their platforms to call attention to their causes, participated in voters’ registration and civic engagement programs, and many more.
To this, the common responses were:
“Keep politics out of sports.”
“I’m tired of this SJW bullsh-t.”
“I’m never watching [insert league/sport/sport network here] again!”
Setting aside (1) the initial premise of politics having no place in sports being fundamentally flawed in the first place (that’s a discussion for another time), and (2) that this reveals exactly what a lot of people think of the athletes they stand in awe of (only worthy of respect when shutting up and dribbling), many on both sides of the aisle don’t seem to realize one fundamental thing about the relationship between politics and sports: Politics is — in a way — a sport of its own.
Competitive sport is fundamentally based upon just that — competition. At the end of the day, there will always be a winner and a loser (even when there is a tie or draw, someone still wins out eventually). At its core, it’s a game, one that judges who is better and who deserves the reward for displaying such.
While there are a number of things in life like this (see: class rankings, job hunting, soulmate finding), what makes sport unique is that it’s a spectacle. It’s a public show. People get to see the competition and the action play out in front of them. They get to watch people battle it out. They get to see the moves that each side makes in order to one up their opponent.
Believe it or not, that’s exactly what politics is all about.
Politicians are masters of strategy (supposedly). They battle it out with their opponents on the campaign trail and in government offices. They make moves in order to get what they want.
And yes, it can be its own kind of spectacle. Just ask anyone who’s had to watch a presidential debate. In fact, it’s easy to argue that the public should be more invested in the game of politics than they currently are. After all, they get to actually influence its outcome beyond cheering and providing moral support.
And yet — it remains difficult for both politics aficionados and sports lovers to find common ground, much less respect for one another.
In every single sport, there is always a score that determines who wins and who doesn’t. And any real fan knows the thrill of keeping track of it.
It’s what makes your heart race during a game. It’s what makes it impossible to turn away. It’s what makes sports, well, sports.
All throughout, you’re calculating what your side needs to do to take the lead, or win outright. Each point scored is a beacon of hope, and each point conceded only makes your heart race faster.
And you won’t really know how it ends, until it does.
If you’ve ever turned on a TV or followed social media during an election week, you’ll know the exact same things apply.
For a night, or maybe even a week, you stay glued to a screen, following live updates of election results as they come in. You follow the needle and keep count of how many more votes your candidate of choice needs to grab or maintain the lead. You keep abreast with all the related stories as they happen in real time.
Just like sports, though, there always remains the possibility of a comeback.
Nothing is ever final until you reach the end. Sure, in both sports and elections, there are blowout leads, where one doesn’t give their opponent even a chance to pull ahead. When the point deficit can’t be overcome. The clock runs out. The end.
But as long as there is a sliver of a chance— as long as it is still possible to win — you keep hoping for the best.
And of course, what is an election cycle — or a game, or life — without the triumph of a win and the heartbreak of a loss?
At the end of the day, only one person will walk away the winner. And yes, it can be soul-crushing to be on the receiving end of a loss.
But such is life.
After a loss, all you can do is pick yourself back up and try harder. You keep working for your goals. You still aim to be the best. But you have learned. You have been humbled by defeat, and the best thing you can do is accept it and keep moving forward.
And that is something we can all learn from being involved in sports or politics. Nobody likes losing, but losses are universal. Everyone will endure losing — in one way or another — at some point in their lives.
But a loss is not the end of the world. It is just another opportunity to learn, be better, and improve.
Sports and politics have so much more in common than most think, or are willing to admit. They are united in teaching us so much more about ourselves as humans and our own nature than you’d expect.
But until people see this and recognize the validity and importance of both worlds, well, athletes will have to get used to more “shut up and dribble” rhetoric. And the rest of us — politicians and politicos, in particular — will have to get used to them protesting exactly this.
