Imagine that you overheard this:  "The way to bring people together is to beat other people." 
 
Aside from the sadists in our midst who would perk up the way Kenny Bania does in Seinfeld ("That's gold, Jerry!"), most of us would find that beating other people is a pretty weird way to bring people together. 
 
Then imagine that another person offered a more detailed alternative:  "The way to bring people together is to make them compete over the number of points they score.  But make them do that in an artificially limited amount of time so that they can declare one group the winner and the other group the loser." 
 
Even the sadists in our midst might back away and raise their eyebrows.  "Wow, that's pretty twisted.  But yeah, I guess, if you say so." 
 
And yet that's exactly what we say about sports.  "The great thing about sports is that they bring people together." 
 
So, does that make every sports fan a sadist? 
 
No.  When people say this, they're referring to a fun and shared interest that people gather to watch or to play.  Others might add that winning isn't the only purpose of sports:  it's about staying in shape, fighting adversity, embracing a challenge, doing the best that you can, and collaborating as a team toward a common goal.  These are all true. 
 
However, it's also true that none of these things are exclusive to sports.  Hiking, learning a language, gardening, volunteer work, and more can satisfy these demands. 
 
But in a way that's true of few activities aside from war, the purpose of sports really is to win. 
 
Politics might be offered as another arena where that's true.  "The Purpose of Government Is to Win" is either the title of Kim Jong Un's autobiography or a perspective of exactly what's gone wrong with American politics.  To approach society as a sports-like battle over a fixed number of units in a fixed amount of time does not necessarily help. 
 
For a politician amid a campaign, the sports analogy might be fair.  They must be ready to take the proverbial punches and stick that out to the election to achieve their goal.  But elections exist to serve the government, not the other way around.  And the government exists (or at least democracies exist) to guarantee the rights, freedoms, and resources of the people.  Whoever wins is supposed to serve all constituents, not just the people that voted for that candidate.  It would be a stretch to say that's just as true for sports, as the workers at the stadium who must collect the broken beer bottles can attest. 


Business might be offered as another arena where "the purpose is to win."  But in business too, the problem with that mantra is obvious.  If whoever wins does that by making the best product or by offering the best service, then sure, the purpose of business is to win.  But if the purpose of business is to beat competitors by cutting corners, polluting rivers, or screwing over employees and consumers, then to win is a dubious business. 
 
That's why the substitution of the arts with sports (or the mandate to choose one instead of the other) is such a troubling trend in schools.  This is done under the guise that sports teach us the harsh reality that "life's not fair."  But the unfairness of life is encoded in the genetic material we didn't choose, made by the parents to whom we didn't choose to be born, from the areas of the world where we didn't choose to be born.  We don't need sports to recreate that for us, especially in free societies where we do choose what to value and where we do choose what to reward. 
 
The struggle to be a good person is hard enough without declaring other people to be losers.  That's why no great teacher, faith, or spiritual guide ever tells us, "The purpose is to win."  And that's why the arts are essential.  Other than the struggle to be a good person, the struggle to be a good artist is the ultimate example of intangible greatness.  It is the shared interest without sides.  It's the challenge without point totals.  It's collaboration without opponents.  It's victory without a scoreboard.  It's beauty without a clock.  And until that greatness is as valued as "winners and losers," the competitive arena will continue to be an excuse for maladjusted desires to dominate our public life.
 
To the extent that sports are a harmless outlet for competitive impulses (a substitute for war), sports do bring people together.  We just shouldn't pretend that sports are a blueprint for a society.  The best things about sports can only thrive when we stop turning to sports for our values.  That's how we win.

Our connected world makes it a wonderful time to be a sports fan.  Information at our fingertips allows us to follow nearly whichever sport we like from the comfort of wherever we might have an internet connection for our smartphone.  Accordingly, fanbases can be developed anywhere in the world, not just in the communities in which sports teams operate.  Under the circumstances where a team can theoretically be financially sustained by outsiders, what moral duty do franchises owe the surrounding community? 
 
Fans are observing a case study in real time as the Oakland Athletics face backlash with their intent to leave the Bay Area for Las Vegas.  This is not to say that the citizens of Nevada do not deserve the highest level of baseball:  the Vegas fanbase is one of the most passionate as witnessed by teams such as the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, and the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders (the latter of which also came from Oakland).  But the A’s seem to be almost treating Bay Area residents with contempt, serving up a horribly noncompetitive squad and dismissing fans’ attempts at “reverse boycotting,” defined as filling stands with fans to make their displeasure with ownership (and their support for the franchise) known. 
 
At the same time, while sports can be accessed worldwide with the help of apps, the live product seems anecdotally more inaccessible to the average fan in the United States.  Tickets to games are outrageously expensive, and price-gouging is running amuck with the food and beverage choices.  Taking the entire family to a game is a once-per-season event at most.  Promotions for inexpensive tickets to weeknight games have been relegated to last-minute ticket resale platforms in recent years. 
 
While recognizing that professional sports are businesses run for profit, is there a point at which this pursuit becomes counterproductive because local fans become alienated?  Does this also cause new fans (like young people or families) to not be created?  If we agree that sports have the power to shape young lives for the better by imparting concepts like sportsmanship and fair play, is it good for professional sports to become ever more inaccessible or for franchises to pull up stakes and move at the expense of long-suffering but loyal fans?  Expecting corporations to cut profit margins voluntarily in the name of accessibility is perhaps naïve at best, but it may behoove them to do more to make their product accessible to the local community of fans from which they draw their goodwill and, ultimately, their value.

My daughter started playing volleyball three years ago when she began high school; this year, she was fortunate enough to make the varsity team.  I always enjoy watching her play, and I go to her matches as often as possible.  Varsity tends to be a little more intense, as the stakes are seemingly supposed to be higher.  I find myself cheering for my daughter and her teammates in her varsity matches just as I had done in her first two years, encouraging them in a positive manner to do their best.  However, that changed halfway through her first varsity season.
 
A rival school was hosting my daughter's team for a match on a random weekday afternoon.  I attended the match and cheered for her and her teammates as I usually do.  Being that my daughter is one of the taller girls on the team, she plays on the front line quite a bit, making her responsible for defense near the net.  One of my usual utterances of encouragement for my daughter in this position is to shout, "Block, block, block, block, block!" which is what I did as the opposition prepared to set someone for a kill early in the match.  Such an exclamation would probably be akin to what a coach might shout in the same scenario.  It didn’t appear to be negative, intimidating, or threatening.  There was no reference to race, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, or religion in anything muttered.  And my intent was certainly not to purposefully disconcert someone, like what basketball fans sitting behind a basket might do while free throws are being shot by the opposing team.  From what I can recall, I have been doing this for as long as my daughter has been playing volleyball, including during her club (non-scholastic) seasons, without any complaints or protests.  At this day's match, however, a player on the opposing team took great exception to my encouraging utterances to the point of tears.
 
The officials stopped the match, and the opposing coach insisted that my daughter's coach tell me to leave the gym.  My immediate reaction, and that of the parents sitting around me, was to ask, "For what?"  Out of respect for my daughter's coach and to avoid embarrassment of being asked to leave, I agreed not to make any further utterances in support of my daughter or her teammates, although I felt like I was being bullied for something that had been normalized over a two-and-a-half-year period.
 
To add insult to injury, the opposing team sent an administrator to stand near me to make sure I stayed in line for the remainder of the game.  I politely asked the administrator if he was sent to make sure I didn't hurt anyone else's feelings.  He gave no reply, perhaps out of embarrassment that he was forced to guard me.  However, one of the opposing players, overhearing my comment to the administrator, started shouting at me, yelling, "Shut up!  You're, like, fifty!"  (I took this as a compliment since I will turn fifty-five next month, so I'll take a five-year haircut off my age anytime.)
 
I admit that these student-athletes are technically children, which can invoke a new set of standards.  However, the lesson I took away from this experience is that the upcoming generations may not be properly prepared to handle the adversity that they will face in the real world.  I was told that my utterances, which I viewed as encouraging for my daughter, were "distracting" and "annoying," not rude or unsportsmanlike.  If that was truly how members of the other team felt, wouldn’t it be a smarter move for the coaches to quietly and politely conference about the situation and choose words properly?  I still may not have agreed with it, but I’m sure my defenses wouldn’t have gone up the same way if my daughter’s coach had approached me in the spirit of compromise after a civil conversation with the other coach and said, “Tom, for today, would you mind toning it down a bit?  That girl is apparently struggling with some personal stuff, and we’d like to show a little empathy as a team.”
 
If we attempt to remove every possible distraction and annoyance from interscholastic competition, how are these student-athletes being prepared for a future filled with those very things?  Yes, outstanding sportsmanship is paramount, but the pendulum can't swing too far in the other direction, or we risk raising a generation of individuals unprepared for the true obstacles one can (and probably will) face.
 

It was around 2011 when I was in my third year of managing a summer baseball team for kids aged 15 to 19.  After completing a difficult regular season, we had reached the playoffs and were about to start an early-round single-elimination game that would send the losing team home for the summer.
 
After the exchange of lineup cards with the other manager and the umpires, I noticed something that seemed incorrect.  Some of the names of the players listed on the lineup card for the other team were unfamiliar.  The league had provided teams with finalized rosters, so I decided to crosscheck.  Sure enough, there were names in our opponent’s starting lineup that were not listed on their roster provided by the league.
 
I asked the umpires for a moment to confer with my coaches before starting the game.  We wondered if this oddity was a clerical error by the league or an illegal attempt to use better players to win.  While debating with my coaches, the umpires came over and asked about the concern.  We looped them in and explained the situation.  After a few moments of questioning and debating, I informed the umpires that I felt the correct thing for me to do was to play the game under protest, which invokes a baseball rule that forces league officials to examine the situation and adjudicate if the game was played properly or not.  I justified it by saying that if it was a simple clerical error on the part of the league, then there would be no issue; however, if something nefarious was afoot, I wanted to put a stop to it.
 
The umpires understood and went to discuss the situation by themselves.  While my staff and I remained outside our dugout wondering if this was the correct decision, I verbalized my concern with a feeling of guilt.
 
“You know,” I said, “I really don’t want to come across as someone who wants to win at all costs.  But I’m afraid that’s what they’re trying to do, and I don’t want to put our kids at a disadvantage.”
 
“Don’t worry,” said Dan, the first base coach and bullpen coach.  “It is your fiduciary duty and responsibility to make this determination.  You did the right thing.”
 
Dan was right.  If the other team was truly trying to cheat, I would be doing my own team a disservice if I didn’t defend my players from a blatant violation of the rules.  Further, I could relax knowing I had chosen to address the situation calmly, coolly, and collectively.  I wasn’t throwing a tantrum or embarrassing anyone, nor was I arguing with an umpire over a judgement call that would likely not result in anything positive; I was merely fulfilling my duty to put my kids in the best possible position to win.  If we were going to lose that day, we should lose fairly, not because our opponent had an illegal advantage over us.
 
The umpires came back to our side and agreed that we could play the game under protest.  Their rationale was the same as mine:  if it was a clerical error by the league, then none of this would matter.  However, if the other team was cheating, the league would be required to step in.  I thanked them again while restating that I didn’t want to come across as the bad guy.  They understood and went to the other team to tell them of their decision.
 
It wasn’t a few moments into their discussion with the other team that one of the opposing coaches started yelling at us from across the field.  “You think we’re cheaters?!?  You don’t have the guts to come over here and say that to our face!!!”  Immediately, I felt like I had made a mistake.  I became ridden with guilt and embarrassment because I had caused a conflict primed with bad behavior and poor sportsmanship, and yet, I was the one questioning whether our opponents were cheating.  I wanted to run and hide.
 
My players began to ask why the opposing coach was yelling at us.  I gathered them around into a tightly packed group so they could hear me over the shouts from across the field.  “Guys,” I said quietly, “I need you to listen to me carefully so I can explain what just happened.”  A serious tenor came across the faces of these young men.  “I crosschecked their lineup card with the roster provided by the league, and I saw names in their lineup that were not listed on the roster, so I asked the umpires to play the game under protest in the event that the other team is trying to cheat.”
 
A tense silence grew among the kids.  They were already nervous because of the weight of this game.  Now, I couldn’t tell if it was worse.
 
“I didn’t want to make that decision,” I continued, “But I wanted the playing field to be level.  You have all worked so hard to get to this point.  If you don’t win today, I want it to be because the other team was better, not because they cheated.”
 
Some of the parents of my kids were gathering near the dugout and could hear what I was saying.  I let them stay purely because I didn’t want to have to explain myself a second time.  It was difficult enough to verbalize it once.
 
“You guys have what it takes to go out there and win, regardless of who is on the other side,” I said.  “The most important thing right now is that you have fun, play hard, and leave everything you’ve got out there today.  I’ll be proud of you no matter what happens, and all I ask is that you win and lose with grace, dignity, and respect.”
 
A new determination was beginning to set in among the kids.  Maybe they were motivated by the fact that someone thought we would be easy to fool.  Perhaps they were strengthened by the idea that another team thought the only way they could defeat us was to cheat.  Regardless, they broke from the huddle with a confidence and a unity I hadn’t seen in them that season.  I sat down and didn’t leave the dugout all game, scared that someone from the opposing side would hurl more hurtful comments my way.
 
We demolished the other team that day, advancing to the next round and eventually to our second consecutive championship.  When the teams shook hands after the game, the same coach who had been yelling prior to the game refused to shake my hand; I still felt horrible that I had to do what I did, but I took some solace in the fact that it was time to go congratulate my team.  The protest no longer mattered since we had won, so it was much ado about nothing.
 
The league president called me the next day to inform me that the situation was, in fact, a clerical error on his part:  he had forgotten to publish the last version of their roster when it was submitted a month prior.  On the one hand, I felt better knowing that nothing nefarious was afoot.  However, on the other hand, I felt bad that I had to make a decision that was interpreted as an accusation of cheating.  I didn’t have the courage to reach out to the other coach because I was afraid that he would misinterpret me again, so I asked the league president to please pass along my apologies if he spoke with him.
 
To this day, I continue to feel bad about having to make that decision and upset the other coach.  But the competitive climate is ripe with people who subscribe to a categorical philosophy:  Win-At-All-Costs (or WAAC).  To the WAAC mentality, no competition is too big or too small:  anything that’s not a victory of the highest caliber is a failure, no matter the cost.  Morality is easily sacrificed for success, and yet, the definition of what is moral is easily distorted.
 
But here’s what’s so crazy about this example:  I felt like I was the WAAC coach, a feeling that didn’t sit well with me.  Obviously, I didn’t know at the time that the situation was just a clerical error, but I genuinely wondered if winning at all costs included my responsibility to ensure the game was played correctly and within the rules.  What would I have sacrificed or ignored if I had kept my mouth shut?  Even stranger is the question of wondering how I would have reacted if I was the coach who was being accused of cheating.  I suppose it worked out in the end, but not without consternation.
 
The WAAC mentality has become so problematic in competition that there is no longer a consistency to who blatantly subscribes to it.  Yes, there are people who stick out like a sore thumb as WAAC competitors, and there are situations where it is obvious that something must be done to combat this.  But there are also people who only dip their toes into the water of this pool to test it out and utilize what they can before succumbing to the dark side of this mentality, perhaps armed with the counter mechanism that the best defense against this is a formidable offense.
 
A similar conflict would arise just prior to the following season when some of the parents of kids on my team saw an opportunity to live vicariously through the victories of their children and demanded they start their own team in the league.  When I opposed the plan because of how it wouldn’t be fair to the other kids on the team, the parents formulated a mob mentality that resulted in one mantra being thrown at me:  they accused me of only caring about winning championships (essentially being a WAAC coach), not the experiences of the kids.  In less than twelve months from the first incident with the opposing coach in the playoff game, the parents who had witnessed my plea for fairness had forgotten what had happened and decided instead to feed off their own WAAC mentality, leaving me to feel like the bad guy in both situations.  They had succumbed to Achievement-By-Proxy Syndrome, a corollary to WAAC where parents experience success as their own when it, in fact, belongs to another person (usually a child).
 
The pain felt by this mentality goes beyond whether a trophy gets raised at the end of the day.  It leaves a deeply psychological stain that damages the desires and outlook of the innocent.  Following the season where the select parents broke away from my team, I stepped down as the manager of my own team because I saw the writing on the wall:  the WAAC coaches would fight harder because of their desire to win, and I didn’t have the energy to oppose them.  It was time to move on and take my talents elsewhere.

As a college professor, I find myself feverishly grading copious amounts of assignments and tests to meet the ever-looming deadline for final grades when the semester begins to wind down.  Around the same time, however, I reflect on the overall performance of my students and their contributions to the wider field of academia.
 
College is a different beast than high school (or at least it’s supposed to be).  Almost all college students are legal adults and are given sole responsibility for their work.  Qualities such as class participation, attitude, and punctuality fall solely on their shoulders, rather than connecting home to parents or guardians who may assist along the educational path at lower levels.  The communication required between students and professors is valued so differently in higher education that it can literally impact and influence grades.
 
However, it feels like more and more students are failing every semester.  Sure, a substantial part of this comes from changes in culture that make students lazy or entitled.  However, what’s concerning is that these students lack the skills and ability to be an effective member of a class.  In other words, they don’t know how to be a student, a role that requires the ability to listen, take notes, organize, adapt, think critically, and, perhaps most importantly, ask questions.
 
Liken the setting of a college course to any sports team and you’ll begin to see similarities.  It’s no surprise that the players on the team usually want to be part of the team!  They understand what it takes to participate, both as players and as teammates.  Players who don’t want to be there (or who lack the understanding of their role and responsibility) find themselves either not playing, losing, or removed from the team.
 
Good players also ask questions.  They seek to better understand the strategy so they can do their part.  They choose a tone that emits an innocent curiosity and desire to succeed, not to be the center of attention or question the authority of the coach.
 
Sound familiar?
 
Students in a college course need to do the same thing.  They need to want to be part of the class (or at least understand the responsibility of partaking in the class, even if they might disagree with the requirement to take the class).  They also need to hold up their end of the bargain by participating and completing assignments.  Students who don’t do these things end up failing.
 
Good students also ask questions.  They seek to better understand the material.  They have a genuine desire for information, not for being insubordinate or usurping the authority of a professor.
 
Curiosity, when supported by solid communication skills, has the power to foster a strong connection between students and professors, much like it can between players and coaches.  Is it surprising that the students and players who participate in this manner are more likely to succeed?  Is it a coincidence that those who succeed can then help other students or teammates succeed?
 
I like to end every class meeting by asking my students, “What kind of question might someone have regarding what we discussed today?”  At worst, it forces students to review and reflect on the material.  At best, it gives an outgoing student the chance to help someone who might be too timid.
 
In closing, to quote David S. Pumpkins, “Any questions?”

The attention span of sports fans has dwindled over the years, resulting in professional leagues making alterations to their games to force action and keep viewers intrigued through a consistent pace of play.  For example, gridiron football added the play clock; basketball added the shot clock; and tennis added the serve clock.  Baseball made the most recent and most drastic changes, adding a pitch clock that forces both the offense and defense to be ready for play (whereas most other clocks put the onus only on the offense).
 
One sport that doesn’t always come up when discussing pace of play at the professional level is golf.  Sure, there are rules that govern pace of play, but the chances of coming up against one with risk of penalty are slim.  A news story may pop up from time to time about the pace of play during a major tournament, but most professionals are conditioned to work at a pace that never truly results in an issue regarding the pace of a round.
 
However, as golf is an accessible and recreational sport played by so many people of so many ages, the pace of play at the amateur level (such as at your local public course) becomes more of a social issue than one that might result in a stroke penalty.  The traffic jams that result in slow play do more to affect customer service and business than the actual competition within the sport.  The resulting stories of aggravation tend to revolve around the group ahead or behind that skirt etiquette, resulting in golfers feeling things like anxiety, frustration, and/or anger.
 
Some pace of play issues simply cannot be avoided at your local course.  If it’s a beautiful day when most people don’t have to work, the number of golfers who flock to the course can be quite high, resulting in a natural backup that happens like the ones during rush hour on major highways.  However, even when these issues arise, golfers can take precautions to ensure they’re part of the solution, not part of the problem.
 
Most golf courses try to govern the pace of play so that everyone’s game can be more enjoyable.  Groups of golfers are capped at four, and golf carts can be required in high volume situations.  Some courses book better golfers earlier in the day and not-so-good golfers later in the day so that handicaps are more uniform and dictate a more proper pace of play.  Different colored tees and their placement can change the difficulty of each hole, allowing a golfer with a higher handicap to start closer to the green than a more experienced golfer.  Perhaps most importantly, many golfers have adopted the policies of “ready golf,” meaning the etiquette of waiting for golfers who are farther from the hole to go first is waived in the name of speeding up the game; in other words, if you’re ready to go, just go!
 
And yet, some golfers are still oblivious to these guidelines and their slow pace.  Some players believe it is their right to take as much time as needed since they are paying customers, and if that means taking an eternity to line up a putt, then so be it.  Others believe that the golf course is the perfect social opportunity to consume alcohol or smoke marijuana, altering their behavior and state of consciousness while ignoring the consequences this might have on others around them.  This behavior can be reflective of the same obliviousness towards people elsewhere in life, demonstrating a lack of general courtesy for their fellow man.
 
Acting this way, though, isn’t just reserved for the golfers.  Many courses employ rangers whose responsibility is to drive around the course and ensure that golfers are adhering to the rules, especially regarding pace of play.  There are many rangers who do a great job, but there are also plenty of rangers who align more with the oblivious golfers, believing it is their job to treat the course like sacred ground and reprimand every person who so happens to commit even a minor infraction.  Ultimately, both golfers and course employees have the power to do the same thing:  create undue conflict for the public because of a lack of common sense and the inability to choose the proper words to communicate.
 
Regardless of our role on the course, the sportsmanship involved with our words and actions can significantly alter our experience and the experience of others.  Walking the fine line between taking our time and keeping a good pace can take practice, but a simple awareness for others around us might be the catalyst to finding that balance.  Course rangers might see a better pace when they ask for help from golfers to assist with their desire to improve the pace, rather than demanding change to adhere to the rules.
 
Public and amateur golf has the potential to become a powder keg of pretentiousness and arrogance that breeds contempt rather than enjoyment.  The game of golf is already difficult, and yet everyone involved with the game can make it harder than it needs to be due to poor sportsmanship, poor communication, and a lack of awareness for others.  Imagine how much more enjoyable a day on the course could be if everyone embraced the personal responsibility to be conscious and empathetic of the others present.

It is now widely accepted that sports, at least on the professional level (and collegiate level in the United States), is hyper-commercialized and considered to be big business.  Tune into any professional sporting event and you’ll get a glimpse of millionaire athletes who get their checks signed by billionaire owners.  You’ll also see advertisements galore, including the numerous television commercials, the large billboards around the stadiums, and, in some cases, advertisements on players’ uniforms.  As cynical as it might sound, the sports we love have turned into massive profit-making operations.
 
This monetization of sports on a massive level has opened the door for large sums of money to be poured into sportswashing, the term used to describe individuals, corporations, or governments using sports to rehabilitate their public image.  It is one of the most common forms of reputation laundering.  For example, the 1936 Olympic Games, held in Berlin, Germany, is considered an early example of sportswashing.  Among other reasons, the games were used to portray the image of Nazi Germany as a forward-thinking and orderly society.  Similarly, in the modern day, 2022 was branded “The Year of Sportswashing” after the Beijing Olympics, the emergence of the Saudi government-backed LIV Golf Tour, and the FIFA World Cup held in Qatar.
 
Ultimately, sportswashing is a gamble that claims one will overlook human rights abuses and conveniently forget about other larger issues in favor of the glory of sport.  Here’s the thing, though:  it works.
 
For example, soccer (or football, depending on where you live in the world) has become a juicy target for individuals and governments in need of a public relations campaign to clean up their image. The FIFA World Cup, soccer’s showcase event and the most watched sporting event in the world, has been hosted on numerous occasions by countries with repressive governments. These include the 1934 World Cup hosted by Mussolini’s Italy, the 1978 World Cup held in Argentina under a military dictatorship that was responsible for the disappearance of anywhere from 9,000 to 30,000 political opponents, and the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar, which was held in venues built by migrant workers forced to work in inhumane conditions, causing the deaths of an estimated 6,500 of said workers.  The intrinsic glory of a country’s athletic pursuit of excellence and the national pride associated with it can easily outweigh and overshadow other issues that might have more importance than entertainment.
 
State ownership of soccer teams is another sportswashing tool.  Once upon a time, Manchester City were a team that was average at best.  They were dwarfed in every conceivable way by their crosstown rival, Manchester United.  Since being taken over in 2008 by the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, an authoritarian theocracy which operates in a similar manner to Qatar, Man City have won six English Premier League titles and one European Champions’ League title.  The attention paid to what is happening on the pitch dwarfs the attention paid to what issues might be plaguing the people of the UAE.
 
The end goal of sportswashing is to get ordinary people to defend, excuse, or refuse to acknowledge the actions of individuals who crave nothing more than money and power, usually to the detriment of others.  (One might submit that it becomes a corollary of the “fanboy phenomenon” discussed previously in OSIP’s publications.)
           
What can one do to combat sportswashing?  Specific victories have come through the coordinated organization of larger groups of people.  Earlier this year, FIFA dropped Visit Saudi, the Saudi Arabian government’s official tourism board, as an official sponsor of the Women’s World Cup after an outcry from soccer players taking part in the tournament. 
 
However, such a victory may not give off the feeling that the fans have made a dent in this conflict.  The fact of the matter is that we must accept that sportswashing isn’t going away anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that we need to boycott or refuse to watch our favorite sports.  Simply acknowledging that it exists can be the first step to a better understanding and consciousness as we lobby for a culture with better sportsmanship.  We can appreciate the glory of our favorite sports and root for our favorite teams while also acknowledging the shortcomings of those in power who cause this phenomenon to occur.
 
Further, we can use sporting events to shine a light on issues that some would like to be swept under the rug.  For example, in Germany, fans of the soccer club Bayern Munich have been particularly critical of their club’s relationship with Qatar due to the team’s annual midseason trips since 2011.  Because the fans spoke up, that relationship was not renewed earlier this year.
 
Although money and power will always talk, people can rise above it.  The intangibles of sports such as the pursuit of excellence and the association with winning do not have to direct the narrative away from facts; in fact, both can exist simultaneously.  The power to send a message exists even with the conscious awareness of the truth.

It was doubly late:  late on a Wednesday night in late August when I went to my favorite watering hole to relax before calling it a night.  The radio that was on throughout the restaurant caused the television sets above the liquor bottles to be muted, leaving me with only the away video feed (no audio) for the game between the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks and the host Los Angeles Dodgers.
 
Diamondbacks first baseman Christian Walker was at bat when home plate umpire Alex Tosi called a strike.  Using the inaccurate graphic box that simulates the strike zone for visual context, the pitch was outside; it was a two-seam fastball that purposefully started outside the zone and sunk back towards the plate, but it was probably two inches away from the outside corner as denoted by vertical line superimposed on the screen.  Tosi’s strike mechanic triggered displeasure from Walker.
 
Shortly thereafter, Walker grounded out.  When the camera panned back to Walker putting his batting helmet away in the dugout, he was still yelling at Tosi for that call.  Walker then slammed his batting gloves against the wall, shook his head again, and planted himself against the dugout railing overlooking the field.  His eyes were fixated solely on Tosi as anger and displeasure emanated from every orifice on his head.  The sweat that glistened on his bald white scalp wanted to turn into steam or smoke simply to escape the awkward tension, like a scared child that didn’t want to be around an inappropriately angry parent.
 
The camera would switch back to its normal angle in centerfield to televise each pitch, but the ten seconds of downtime in between each subsequent pitch would be filled with another shot of Walker.  Without hearing the audio, I began to wonder about the impetus that would require the camera to continue its intent focus on Walker following his routine groundout.  Was a director at the network controlling the broadcast and barking orders to keep focusing on Walker, encouraging the commentators to speak in favor of Walker and against Tosi?  Or were the Arizona broadcasters going on an anti-umpire tirade that led the director to simply follow their voices with the appropriate visual shots?  Regardless of whether control belonged to the director or the broadcasters, the schtick became saturated, causing me to silently beg the broadcast itself to focus on to the next batter and forget about Walker’s plate appearance.
 
The raging testosterone fueling Walker’s reaction became secondary to the fanning of the flames being done by the technicians controlling the video telecast.  Even without audio, I was being told by the moving pictures to focus on Walker’s frustration and empathize with him, which might then manifest into a detesting of Tosi and perhaps all umpires.  I wondered if there was a subconscious protocol being implemented by the director to truly influence the feelings and emotions of the viewers in a way that elevated one party on a pedestal and demoted another for the purpose of gaining ratings and revenue.
 
I considered myself lucky that I had the ability to abduct such information; the average viewer (especially with alcohol introduced into the equation) probably would never reach the same conclusion without being lectured.  But the entire ordeal points to the potential that the media wields to control the narrative of the public.  A simple repeated visual focus on an angry ballplayer yelling at an umpire, even without audio, can influence the way people feel, usually by invoking anger or a general uneasiness that points to conflict rather than resolution.
 
We may not be able to control what is put in front of us as we try to watch a game.  After all, the media truly can control the narrative, regardless of whether the context is sports, politics, business, or anything else.  But we do have the ability to consciously recognize these sleazy tactics.  Perhaps the path to peace requires the vulnerability needed to acknowledge this social engineering, relying instead on our freedom to formulate our own opinions without subscribing to a phony gospel.