Conte drops the ball

So drop the damn ball. What does it matter? - Joe Cosgriff

The above is an exact quote from one Joe Cosgriff, who was not much of a sports fan. Oh, he'd watch something occasionally, and was even known, every now and then, to ask how the Tigers had done. So we're not saying that he had no interest in sports and games. But we do wonder whether he, perhaps, had the right idea about them.

His words came to mind after recent comments by Chicago Bears safety Chris Conte, saying that playing in the National Football League is worth losing 10 to 15 years of his life, even at the cost of injuries (including two concussions he has suffered this year alone) which will possibly haunt him in his older days. Yep, it sure looks like he views sports in the right light.

So let's ask Joe's question again: what does it matter if an outfielder or wide receiver drops a ball? What really can we take from a successful dunk or pretty goal or even an uphill 35 foot put with a significant left-right slope? Or in Conte's case, so what if you miss the tackle or have a potential interception bounce off your hands?

It could make millions of dollars to some people; okay, we get that. But that's only, we will say it, about the money. There's nothing wrong with that per se either. But the athletes who do not bag the extra cash still have friends and family, don't they, as well as more than the capacity to care for themselves and those who depend on them, right? So it hardly really matters, in any rational sense of value or virtue, what the outcome of the game or match might be.

Yes, yes, sports and games can be good recreation. Yet even that value seems a very minor one these days, especially when so many athletes aren't playing for recreation, are they? They're playing to show that they're better than the other guy. They're competing. It strikes us that such goes beyond recreation, so much so that any concerns about relaxation are out the window.

But sports teach us things, don't they? Things like discipline and doing your job and living up to the expectations of people who rely on you. They teach teamwork; they teach sportsmanship and respect for others.

Respect for others. That's are difficult point to take seriously when you're in a naturally, physically adversarial position. Indeed, arguably, such can't teach respect but rather the other side of respect: the idea that I'm better than you. I'll knock you on your tail because I can (we can't say must, because no one has that right inherently). Such extreme competitiveness cannot truly teach anything useful. It more likely only encourages jealousy and arrogance. Beyond that, so much of the discipline which comes from playing games can be learned without the games, and much more easily and directly. Get to school or work on time; get your job done; be there for people when they need you. If these and a great many other virtues aren't learned day in and day out as you live your life, it seems highly unlikely that the mere practice and play for a game will do it. At best, they are only part of the learning process, and a quite obviously unnecessary one at that seeing as they're a small part of most lives. Even the lives of most athletes.

We're not saying that sports and games are wrong. We're aren't saying don't do your best when you play them. But we are saying that they're become too much a part of our society considering their relative worth. At the end of the day, no matter how you doll it up, a game is just a game. Nothing more.

We will have good sportsmanship only when someone drops a damn ball and everyone simply shrugs and says, oh well. Until then, we will not have learned a thing about the real value of any given game.