Why Sports are Vital to Society
By Quinton Hurdle
I struggled with where my passion, coaching youth football fit within the hierarchy of society. More specifically, where did coaching youth football fit within society’s occupational hierarchy? Does it rank below a school teacher? Every coach has heard that school is more important than sports. Does it rank above a garbageman? Only a naive person would disregard their contributions, and some would argue that their contributions directly benefit society more than a sports coach.
Most would agree that a doctor is placed higher in the hierarchy. When referring to occupational hierarchies, occupational prestige may come to mind. Occupational prestige refers to the admiration and respect that a particular occupation holds in a society. I care little of prestige or social standing, but more my contribution to improving the human condition. Doctors improve the human condition by saving lives which benefits society. So, how does a youth football coach improve the human condition? How do we improve our society? Would the Roman poet Juvenal view my pursuit as more “bread and circus”? If I am to devote my life to coaching youth football, I want to know that I am also devoting my life to improving society.
In my pursuit of purpose, I stumbled upon Daniel Lieberman's book “Exercised”. Where he exposes the myths associated with exercise. In his chapter Fighting and Sports: From Fangs to Football. He exposes Myth# 7, Sports Equal Exercise. He claims that we did not evolve to do sports to get exercise. Sports took on the role of providing exercise only when aristocrats and white collar workers stopped being physically active. Now, we market sports as a means of exercise to stay healthy. This differs from its evolutionary roots. Sports were developed by each culture to teach skills useful to kill and avoid being killed, as well as to teach each other to be cooperative and nonreactive. In every culture games and sports emphasize skills useful for fighting and hunting such as chasing, tackling and throwing.
He continues, “Sports evolved from play, an unorganized and unstructured activity with no particular rules or outcomes. Almost all mammal infants played to develop the skills and physical capacities needed to hunt or fight as adults. Humans are not different except our play uses tools like balls and sticks and like dogs and a few other domesticated species we continue to play as adults.” Sports differ from play in one key respect. Sports are competitive physical activities between opponents according to agreed upon rules for winning. “To be a good sport, you have to play by the rules, control your emotions and work well with others.” These foundational societal skills are present in the hunter-gatherer communities as well as your local football team. You simply cannot survive as hunter-gatherer without being highly cooperative. The same goes for a sports team.
To put it simply, sports are vital to society because it teaches cooperation, impulse control and planned aggression which are foundational to every culture & society. You as a sports coach are not only teaching skills specific to your sport, but societal skills that improve society and the human condition. You are the protectors, facilitators and educators of future societies. You are vital!