The Competitive Spirit
I was determined to beat him. Or perhaps it was more a case of me just being adamant that he was simply not going to beat me! It was only a friendly game of squash. So I didn’t feel it appropriate to let on how much resolve and determination I had. Much better that I just act cool and relaxed, pretending I didn’t really care what the outcome was, as though I was just out to have a bit of fun.
The rallies were long, the sets were tense. It was a game of cat-and-mouse. Drop shots here, hard screamers there, deceptive subtle flicks sliding off the sides of the court. The walls got a beating and the sweat was pouring off both of us within minutes.
Sometimes it’s a curse being a left-hander. However, in this game my deep serves regularly forced him onto his backhand, giving me the chance to dominate the centre spot. While his ability to retrieve was uncanny, he ended up doing more work than me and was quickly run ragged.
In the end, I did beat him. And boy, did it feel good. Of course, there was no gloating afterward – just a deep satisfaction mixed in with a fair degree of relief. If my mate had been able to see inside me though, he would have detected more than a little smugness. As it was, we shook hands, shared a few laughs, and acted as though it didn’t matter who won and who lost.
But it did matter to me. In fact, it made my day. I drove back to the office with a level of contentment I hadn’t had for some time. I felt confident and assured.
So what drove me to take the game so seriously? Why did I just have to win? Was it because I had some perverted sense that my manhood was on the line? And what did my friend really feel? Was he really as nonchalant inside as he appeared on the outer – as though the result had little bearing on how he was feeling? I never asked!
Competition
Competition. It’s the very thing that makes sport, well… sport! It’s the ingredient that drives us to aim high and seek excellence.
Competition gets the blood pumping, the veins in our necks protruding, the aching muscles moving.
The drive to win pushes us beyond what we thought we were capable of. It inspires great acts of perseverance and endurance.
However, in one sense competition also produces a zero-sum game. That is, only one person or team can win. In straining to achieve victory over an opponent, a player has to put his/her interests ahead of the other. By winning, they consign their adversary to losing.
Which leads me to ask a very uncomfortable question … is competition in sport compatible with Christianity?
Ouch!
Theologian Scot McKnight puts it this way, “Are sports inherently contrary to Christian ethics? Is competition itself a distortion of the divine order of community and cooperation?”
Part of the dilemma in even asking this question is that to question the validity of competition is to question the very nature of sport. For pitting ourselves against an opponent is central to most sports. Indeed, it’s what makes sport appealing and intriguing – for both players and spectators. Take away the competition and you rip the heart out of the body, so to speak.
Yet when we turn to the Bible it’s difficult to make any compelling case for competition – at least so far as it being something that is inherently human and good. While we must be careful not to assume too much, the picture of Genesis 1 and 2 is a world in harmony, where cooperation and community is the name of the game. To be sure, Genesis 3 is a game-changer, on all kinds of levels. As a result, the competitive streak ekes out of the stories of Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, and Joseph and his brothers. Though God makes good out of such rivalries, nevertheless it is clear that this is not way he intended things to be.
Overall, the biblical material seems to assume competition as part of the human experience without necessarily affirming it or condemning it.
If this is the case, then how should we treat the dog-eat-dog world of competitive sport?
Scot McKnight raises a valid point when he suggests that, “To compete within the confines of a game is not to cease being a cooperative person in society nor being a community-shaped person in the real world.” In other words, if we all know that a game is not real, that it’s only make-believe – simply a construction of our play – then it’s quite okay to play as hard as we can within the rules, because we recognize that after the game is over we return to the world that really counts. Whether we win or lose is of little consequence.
Of course, this line of thinking presumes that we are able to recognize and maintain this distinction. That’s easier said than done. In the heat of the moment we can lose all perspective. And as my story illustrates, our own personal egos and brokenness, misplaced values and a warped sense of what really counts, all tend to get in the way.
Nevertheless, competition does bring some positive benefits that are important to recognize and affirm.
Upsides
One of the things that make sport so enticing is its unpredictability. Each game or match is an open script. When the match-ups are relatively even, we really don’t know who is going to come out on top. And even when it appears predictable, surprises and upsets are still in plentiful supply.
Competition heightens the excitement of the play. The anticipation, suspense and intrigue lure us in. This is the magic of the contest. It sparks our play into life.
Competition can also bring out the best in us. Even in my casual participation in a game of squash, the quality of my play would often be relative to the quality of my opposing player. If I played someone with a higher level of skill, my shots would rise to the occasion. However, if the game was with a person of inferior ability, my play would suffer accordingly.
This appears to be true across the levels of competence. A triathlete wants to get regular competition with the best in the sport. They know that by doing so they’ll lift their own performance and learn much from those who are better. They’ll sharpen their skills and develop greater mental toughness and resilience. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with this.
Furthermore, games that carry higher (perceived) stakes may also improve the contest. If there’s “more to play for” then a competitor or team is more likely to push themselves to their absolute limit in order to win – though it’s true that sometimes the magnitude of the occasion can work against peak performance, such is the pressure.
Downsides
Of course, there is more to excellence and quality than just performance. And it’s here that the competitive drive can produce the very opposite of what we would hope for.
Indeed, in it’s unhealthy state, such competition leads to an obsessive win-at-all-costs mentality, along with a tendency to relate to one’s opponents as “the enemy”. And of course these temptations don’t just apply to the participants, but also to the supporters. David Montgomery believes that, “The problem is not the desire to compete but a temptation to win at all costs and to bend the rules and a distorted perspective that views all of life in terms of winners and losers.”[1]
If this is true then we have to find ways of determining some boundaries and limits for our competitiveness.
The development of professional sport and the huge commercial interests that go hand-in-hand with operating sport as a business have made it even harder to establish those limits. The stakes have escalated to unprecedented levels. Sometimes the line between “success” and “failure” is remarkably thin. And the players, coaches, administrators, and even supporters, know it. No wonder things get so out of perspective. Media coverage, sponsorship dollars, market share, and the importance of developing a winning culture add immensely to the pressure to win. To play is certainly no longer just “for the love of the game”. It’s the big business of entertainment.
The “killer instinct”
One of the real areas of tension for people wanting to place some limits on the competitive spirit, is the pressure to develop a “killer instinct”.
In order to do this, an athlete really has to depersonalize their opponent – that is, rid themselves of any sympathy for them. Why? Because such feelings will only get in the way of the steely resolve to win. Compassion for the other player is a liability. In fact, it is much more effective to think of the opposition as “the enemy”
In a sobering and thoughtful article on the tension between competition and love of one’s opponent, former tennis player, Andrea Jaeger, explains how she eventually gave the game away because she couldn’t muster up the necessary drive to beat her opponents into the ground. After one particular win, Jaeger recalled her internal angst – “Well, everybody thinks I’m great because I won the match, but what about the person I beat? How’s she feeling tonight?”
She found she just didn’t have the key, “take-no-prisoners” ingredient necessary for the elite athlete to win. “She minded losing less than her opponent.” And in certain big games – such as the 1983 Wimbledon final against Martina Navratilova, she simply struggled to give her best.[2] Jaeger realized instinctively that she was compromising the game itself by not giving her best. There were simply more important things to life.
Andrea Jaeger’s story is immensely challenging to me. For in the end, she found the tension between her Christian values, and the drive to win, too great. Top-level sport and loving her neighbour seemed incompatible to her.
Only room for winners
The “winning-is-everything” attitude is not just dominant at the professional and semi-professional levels. Breeding such single-minded focus happens early on in life. Some parents justify the hardnosed approach to sport by encouraging their children to do whatever it takes to win. “Life’s all about winners and losers, so I figure my kid better get used to it by learning this on the sports field.”
The “winner-takes-it-all” culture is alive and well across our society. Its gospel is even promulgated through the great anthem of sports finals – Queen’s “We are the champions”. It can be heard reverberating around stadiums the world over. We all know the words. This massively popular song says it all. With Freddie Mercury belting it out in his characteristic high-pitched scream, the climax of the chorus goes: “No time for losers – cause we are the champions – of the world.”
No time for losers. We are the champions. Here’s the ugly side of sport.
It’s as if those singing are staring the vanquished right in the eyes, rubbing it in so deep that it’s impossible for the recipients to ever feel good about themselves. In other words, “Just in case you hadn’t picked it up folks: you’re not the champions – you’re the losers!”
Apart from the fact that such gloating, arrogant, and small-minded attitudes completely miss the point of sport and make it out to be far more consequential than it really is, we do a great deal of damage to ourselves and others. They bring out the worst in us – fuelling arrogance, aggression, spitefulness, hate, violence, and an “us and them” mentality that spills over into the rest of life.
Love thy opposition
Shirl Hoffman suggests that finding, “How to keep competition, an indispensable organizing principle of games, from becoming an exercise in self-interest remains the most pressing problem for evangelicals in the sports world.”[3]
If Hoffman is right, then a starting point may be Christian athletes, coaches and supporters reflecting long and hard on the question, “How should I/we treat my/our opponent/s?”
Put another way, what might it mean to love my competitor – or opposition supporter?
If we are called (in all of life) to treat others with dignity, value, respect, love, thoughtfulness, humility, kindness and compassion, then what do these look like on the sports field?
For example, is there any place for sledging or trash talk? Many sportspeople are encouraged to engage in verbal abuse to their opponents, testing their mental toughness, attempting to unsettle them and put them off their game through a mixture of intimidatory language and put-downs. And spectators can be just as bad, or even worse.
But put-downs are put-downs regardless of whether they draw a laugh at someone’s expense, or are said in the heat of the moment.
Perhaps the line between being entertainingly clever and sledging is a little thin at times – for both players and spectators. When a rugby flanker gets penalized for hands in the ruck just five minutes into the match and someone in the crowd yells out, “Well done ref. He’s been doing it all day”, everyone gets a laugh. A gnarly old player’s remark to a young buck in the other team, “Does your mother know you’re not at school?” might be borderline. But when a spectator or player questions an opposition player’s parentage, a line is crossed.
Some sports codes often have an unwritten rule – “What’s on the field/court, stays on the field/court.” Whatever verbal abuse, intimidation, or dirty tactics are employed in the heat of the match, are to be forgotten after the whistle has blown. A code of silence is expected to be abided by. Hands are to be shaken, a drink to be shared.
While this sounds good and reasonable, sometimes it’s simply cover for some pretty ugly behavior – from which the recipients are just expected to forget and forgive, and even laugh about.
The truth is that if certain behavior and talk would not be considered acceptable in the rest of life, there is no reason to believe that it is okay because it’s a game. For example, if I don’t consider it fair to yell abuse at someone in my office when they make a mistake, why do I think it’s reasonable to do so on the sideline when a referee or umpire gets it wrong?
One helpful, though imprecise, measure of determining what’s okay might be to reflect on the classic question, “What would Jesus do or say, if he was playing or watching this game?” My gut instinct is that he would certainly enjoy himself and may well sound off witty comments, and even attempt to bluff and deceive, where that was part of the game. However, I find it hard to imagine he would engage in cheap shots (either verbal or physical) in order to get an edge. Nor would he condone such stuff from opposing players.
Another way of seeking to love our competitor is raised by sociologist Dennis Hiebert, who suggests that a Christian sportsperson should “…be able to visualize Jesus as being his opponent just as easily as being his teammate, and have confidence that in either case Christ would smile at him regardless of the outcome.”[4]
Now there’s a challenge!
Ultimately, if as both Christian players and supporters, we find ourselves unable to discover ways of genuinely loving our opposition, it may be better to take a break from competitive sport – at least for a time – in order to loosen the grip the competitive spirit has on us. Otherwise we risk becoming two different people with two quite distinct ethics – one for our involvement in sport and the other for the rest of life. Clearly, this is not how it should be.
Does sport build character?
A longstanding argument for competitive sport is that it builds character. In other words, participating in sport has some moral benefit or value. This view proved popular in the nineteenth century – particularly in England, where the emergence of a kind of “muscular Christianity” promoted physical recreation and sport as a way for young people to, “acquire virtues which no books can give them.”[5] The theory was that the playing field was particularly useful in learning values such as self-discipline, loyalty, humility and good sportsmanship – all virtues that would hold young people in good stead for the rest of their lives.
But does sport actually build character?
The answer may depend on what we mean by “character”.
When a top sportsman played on in a game of rugby even though he’d broken a bone in his arm, a newspaper article commented that, “he had shown great character”. What the journalist was really saying was that he was impressed by the young man’s absolute commitment to his team even though he was experiencing excruciating pain – and may have been risking further damage to his body.
Character has become a synonym for dogged determination and commitment to the cause – particularly when all logic would suggest leaving the field. Some might call this courage and self-sacrifice – though where it involves players continuing to compete knowing they are doing further damage to their body, it borders on stupidity and blatant irresponsibility.
Does sport build this type of character? Yes, I think it does generally. But so do many other things in life – including war.
However, if the question is “Does sport build Christian character?” that’s a whole different question. The proponents of muscular Christianity certainly thought so.
While there are certainly plenty of examples of Christian virtue on the sports field, including ones we might describe as acts of sportsmanship, there are an overwhelming number of cases where the opposite is true. In fact, as William Baker observes, “…we are now inundated with vivid refutations of the belief that sport builds character.”[6]
When I reflect on my own experiences – both as a player and supporter, I’m not sure it has brought out the best in me. In fact, there have been many times I have not liked what the competitive environment has done to me. Rather than exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, I have often displayed symptoms of short temper, egocentricity, and impatience.
Perhaps these displays of poor character demonstrate just how difficult it is for those of us who follow Jesus to keep the competitive spirit in check?
[1] Montgomery, “Sports” in CBEC, 959.
[2] This may have been due to the fact that the previous night after being locked out of her parents’ accommodation, one of Navratilova’s staff kindly offered her a bed.
[3] Hoffman, 286.
[4] Dennis Hiebert, “Sport: Competitive relationships”, The Messenger, 4 (1984, February 24).
[5] Credited to Charles Kingsley, one of the key proponents of the muscular Christianity movement.
[6] Baker, 256.
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