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Sports vs. Sportsmanship

Think Tank Transcripts:Sports Versus Sportsmanship

ANNOUNCER: 'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient ofthe Presidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology, improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow.

Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation andthe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm Ben Wattenberg. The 1996 AtlantaOlympics are finally upon us. You know, the founding motto of themodern Olympics is 'Not to win, but to take part.' Really. DoAmericans live up to that principle? Sport seems to be more popularthan ever, but is the drive to win and to cash in spoiling the joyand opportunity to take part?

Joining us to sort through the conflict and consensus are: TomMcMillen, former college, all-American, Olympian, and professionalbasketball player and author of 'Out of Bounds: How the AmericanSports Establishment Is Being Driven by Greed and Hypocrisy and WhatNeeds to Be Done about It'; Richard Lapchick, director of the Centerfor the Study of Sport in Society and editor of 'Sport in Society:Equal Opportunity or Business as Usual?'; Wendy Hilliard, presidentof the Women's Sports Foundation and former international GoldMedalist in rhythmic gymnastics; and Drew Hyland, professor ofphilosophy at Trinity College, Hartford, and author of 'Philosophy ofSport.'

The topic before this house: Sports versus sportsmanship. Thisweek on 'Think Tank.'

We are taught as children that it's not whether you win or lose,but how you play the game. There are critics who say America isn'tpracticing what it teaches and sports are in trouble. Big money hascaused some of our best young athletes to quit school early or skipcollege altogether to go pro. Even at the Olympics, many majorspectator sports are dominated by high-profile, well-paid athletes.

Some athletes seem more concerned with how they look than how theyplay. The pressure to win at the grade and high school level isgrowing fierce, often driven by childish parents. That may be finefor spectators and good for the best athletes, but does it discouragethose who play for pleasure? And commercialism and other factors seemto limit opportunities for women and minorities to play sports.

Others don't see it that way. They say increasing leisure time hasallowed more Americans to get off the bench. And some numbers seem toagree. Over the past 10 years, the number of adult and youth softballteams has grown by over 40 percent. Over the same period, the rate ofparticipation in all sports has gone up almost 10 percent for womenand 12 percent for children. Overall, the rate of Americans sayingthey participate in athletics rose 7 percent over the last 10 years.Sports participation seems healthy, so what is the problem?

Lady and gentlemen, welcome to the only discussion in Washingtonthat is not about Whitewater. (Laughter.) And let us go around theroom, starting with you, Tom McMillen. Just a quick answer. Aresports in America healthy?

MR. MCMILLEN: I would see if you looked at the balance sheet, Ben,the answer to that would be no. And here's how I would judge that. Ifyou have a pyramid in society where more resources are at the topthan at the bottom, you have problems in your country. And if youlook at America, we have very few resources at the bottom for ourkids, for the disadvantaged across the board, but we certainly haveplenty of resources at the top. We can build mega-stadiums, paymega-salaries for athletes, but we're not doing enough at the bottom.And that's the test that I would say in terms of unhealthiness.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Drew Hyland.

MR. HYLAND: It strikes me that this question is a beautifulexample of Yogi Berra's old saying: 'It ain't like the old days andit never was.' That is, I would say that sports more or less is as italways was, a double-edged sword. Like love and marriage, it can beabsolutely wonderful if it's done right, and it can also be adisaster. And what we see in sports in the country as a whole, itseems to me, is both sides of that.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Wendy Hilliard.

MS. HILLIARD: Well, I think the Atlanta Olympics is going to be ashowcase for women's sports, and it's going to be very interesting tosee. But as Tom mentioned, the lower level, the grassroots level, isstill very weak. So when you say, are sports healthy, they have a lotof attention, but are the participants healthy, and our children arenot healthy.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Richard Lapchick.

MR. LAPCHICK: I think sports reflects society, and as Tom said,the disparity between the top and the bottom levels of sport are soenormous for people of color, for women, that that drives me toanswer the question that on balance, it's probably unhealthy. I thinkthat there are things that we can do to change that, and many peopleare working toward that end.

MR. WATTENBERG: So we have 3 1/2 pessimists. (Laughter.) RichLapchick, have these values in America changed in recent years, or isit, as Drew Hyland seemed to suggest, it's been ever thus that we'vehad this commercialism and hero worship and fierce competitiveness,and so on?

MR. LAPCHICK: I think the stakes have been raised, but I thinkthat America itself has changed so dramatically in the past 10 years.We've seen increases in violence in our streets, or more exposure togender violence, more exposure to the problems of drugs in ourcountry. As individual athletes are accused of those acts, the mediahas tended to paint all athletes with the same brush when the realityis that the society itself is unraveling. We do have problems insport, but they're not unique to sport. I think that too muchattention has been paid to those individual athletes and stereotypingthem, and I think that's been true as more and more black athleteshave dominated our games and fit that stereotype that so many whitepeople have of black people.

MS. HILLIARD: I definitely agree, and when you talk aboutstereotypes, not just for minorities, but for women and when you'retalking about the image that sports has. And that's very importantwhen you talk about is it healthy, and what we try to do at theWomen's Sports Foundation is to get the parents to get their childreninvolved because the thing is, historically, they haven't beenparticipating. So now you have images of wonderful female athletes,and people are now asking me as a female athlete to go out there andstart the professional basketball league. And as softball gets morepopular, are they going to fall into the same type of risk that themale athletes?

And we said the first important thing is that you get your girlsout there, you get people out there playing, and don't focus on thenegative aspect. But as a minority and as a woman, the stereotypingin society is very strong and you feel it.

MR. HYLAND: The thing that strikes me, however, is that when Ihear, especially when I hear people talking about how the situationwith sportsmanship, say, in sports is getting worse right now,whenever I hear that, I think back to, for example, my senior year incollege when -- I graduated in 1961.

MR. WATTENBERG: From what college?

MR. HYLAND: From Princeton University, which was the last year ofthe notorious basketball point shaving scandals. And that was thelast year of a number -- in the previous decade, there had been anumber of point shaving, fixing games, that sort of thing. I wouldmuch rather have the situation that you see today with people sort ofshowing off more than we would like them to do when they score or thesort of things that are pointed to that it has to be stopped todaythan point shaving. So that's an example, I think, of what I'mtalking about when I say we have to be careful that we don't thinkthat things are sort of all of a sudden going down the tubes.

MR. MCMILLEN: You started the show out with the goal that it's notnecessary to win, but to participate. But when you put that testacross this country, you realize the severe problems that we have.You know, we can mobilize state legislatures to build these beautifulstadiums, but we cannot mobilize our governments to do programs forour kids in their schools, physical education programs. There's onlyone state in the country that has daily P.E.

MR. WATTENBERG: Which is? Which state?

MR. MCMILLEN: The state of Illinois. Our park and recreationprograms are declining. Our children are a third fatter than theywere 10 years ago. You know, the sports entertainment complex inAmerica is incentivized by people being sedentary, not peopleparticipating. They don't make money when the child is out thereplaying basketball.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, sports equipment manufacturers do.

MR. MCMILLEN: I would -- when I talk about the sportsentertainment complex, I'm talking about the content side of sportsand those who are distributing the content. And when you look at thatelement, it's a very unusual nation that that's the part that'sdriving this lack of participation.

MR. WATTENBERG: You know, I must tell you, I find thisconversation hard to believe. I mean, I have children who are 39, 37,35 and 12 1/2, so I've been through this on two differentgenerations. What I -- and I was once a child myself, actually. Andwhat I see now, just the evidence of your senses, first of all, interms of women, there has been a revolution. I mean, women when I wasgrowing up and even when my older children were growing up were in mycase almost never involved in sports, in their case a little bit. Andnow it is just -- it is part of growing up the way it was for boys.Are we all agreed that this has been basically a very sound change?

MS. HILLIARD: As far as participation, especially for women andgirls. What we are trying to fight, though, is once the girls get tobe around 12 or 14 years old, we don't want them to stop sportsbecause that's when it's most important. In our studies, if youparticipate in sports, of course you have greater levels ofself-esteem, which helps prevent drug abuse and unwanted pregnancies.So although our younger children are going on the soccer field --right, when they're 8 years old, girls' soccer teams, the numbers aregrowing -- they're still dropping out at great rates when they getaround 14, when they really need sports to give them lifetime skills.

MR. WATTENBERG: They drop out more rapidly than boys do out ofsports?

MS. HILLIARD: Oh, yes. Because -- well, it's -- just talk aboutthe numbers. In high school, women are now one out of every threeparticipate in sports as opposed to one in 27 in 1971, so the numbersare great. But still, the opportunities for boys are greater, theopportunities in college are still greater even though we've done alot of work with Title IX and it's come a long way and it's 23 years.

MR. WATTENBERG: Could you explain to our viewers what Title IX is,where it comes from, what it says?

MS. HILLIARD: Right. Well, Title IX basically says that if you'rein college as an athlete, you have to offer the same amount ofopportunities, athletic opportunities, to women as you do to men. Andthis was a ruling back 23 years ago. And I think the reason why it'sbeen getting so much attention is because, unfortunately, we didn'treally move on it very fast back in the '70s, and many of theathletes have started challenging the rules.

But as a result of Title IX, there have been more opportunities.As a result, the soccer programs for women, basketball is of coursealways strong, softball. But, you know, men still get 179 millionmore dollars than women do in college scholarships, okay? So there isstill a long way to go. So there are still more opportunities formen.

MR. HYLAND: I think one of the problems with the dropoff inparticipation as the students grow up is the fact that so much ofsports in America is driven by organized sports, college teams and soforth. So that as you continue to grow up, the elite level becomesthe focus of our attention. And if, you know, fewer kids can play ona college team, for example, than on a high school team, well, whathappens to all the kids who played in high school but can't make acollege team? There doesn't seem to be anything there for them, andthis is especially true of women athletes.

I think what would be a wonderful thing if it ever happened wouldbe for the United States to develop a more active sports club systemof the sort that you see in Europe where folks keep on playingactively in leagues and so forth right on into full adulthood.

MR. WATTENBERG: Isn't that happening organically? Where I work, wehave all the younger people and all the interns who come in for thesummer involved in an informal softball league, boys and girls oryoung men and young women playing together, which is not somethingthat I ever would have dreamed of when I was that age. And I thinkthat is a -- it's partly social, obviously, but what's wrong withthat? Isn't that more prevalent than ever? That's after the allegeddip.

MR. LAPCHICK: I think the biggest problem is in that teenage-yeargroup where kids don't make the high school team or the junior highschool team and then drop out. I think there is a tendency amongadults to think consciously about being physically fit, toparticipate in leagues like you're talking about. But we see kids whothink that if they didn't make the team, that their career is overand therefore they should stop competing or playing or doing anythingthat would make them physically fit.

MR. WATTENBERG: What will the Olympics do to all this? What do weknow about the Olympics? Does it increase the desire to participateor does it increase the desire to spectate?

MR. MCMILLEN: The affirmation of the Olympics is that millionswatch and few play. That should be inverted where millions play andfew watch. And what we're doing and the symbolism of the surgeongeneral's report coming out before the Olympics is to point out thatstark contrast. The Olympic movement is about mobilizing people totry to participate, not to sit on their TV set and, you know, adulateover a great athlete.

Now, you know, Atlanta -- it's great for this country, it's greatfor the city of Atlanta, it's great for the Olympic movement. But itfundamentally brings to question, what are we trying to accomplishfrom sport? And I don't think that we've truly answered that and Idon't think Atlanta will answer that.

MR. WATTENBERG: I want to come back to that, but let's just goback. You know, in the setup piece, we had some statistics thatshowed overall participation and participation among women andchildren as a rate, not as a number, has gone up substantially in thelast 10 years. Now, how does that square with what you are saying,that people are not participating? Are those bad numbers?

MR. MCMILLEN: Well, the statistics on physical inactivity areinversely different from that, where the incidence of activity hasgone down over the last decade.

MR. WATTENBERG: You mean that more people are participating less?

MR. MCMILLEN: I mean, it's a very interesting question. I think if--

MR. HYLAND: No, I suspect the increase is probably the increase inparticipation in some kind of organized sport.

MR. WATTENBERG: Oh, I see. I see.

MR. HYLAND: And again, I think that's, if anything, part of theproblem is that more and more and more, we think of involvement withsports as necessarily involvement in some kind of organized sportsinstead of pickup games.

MR. WATTENBERG: Drew, again, isn't that a situation that hasalways existed? In the late 1950s in Texas, I covered for 'The SanAntonio Express News' Little League, Pony League, Babe Ruth, andAmerican Legion baseball. And we had those same problems then. Therewere all these stories in the magazines about how the parents areferociously pushing their kids and they want to get them up to bepros and they wanted this and they're beating up on other kids.

And I mean, is this -- are you all making the case that it's moreprevalent now?

MR. LAPCHICK: Well, the stakes are higher in the parents' view. Ifthey think their child can become a multi-millionaire by reachingthis unattainable level, but for them seemingly attainable level,they might put a lot more pressure on their child to get there. Wehave parents all over the country moving from school district toschool district so their kid can play in a more competitive leagueand get a better chance at a college scholarship, showcase theirtalent and move on to the NBA.

I think it's fantastic that we're going to have women'sprofessional basketball now, but I have no doubt that that's, unlesswe control it somehow, going to create some of the same problems forwomen athletes at the college level, who will begin to dream thosedreams and start to let slide some of their academic --

MR. WATTENBERG: Would you be against a parent moving a child to adifferent school district because it had a better science curriculum?

MR. LAPCHICK: I would not.

MR. WATTENBERG: But you are against --

MR. LAPCHICK: -- if that was the strength of their child andthat's what the child wanted.

MR. WATTENBERG: Right. But so what is wrong with a parent moving-- suppose the kid wants to be a professional athlete. Alas, about 90percent of kids want to be professional athletes. But if they'reserious about it, the movement to a better league where he canaccomplish more?

MR. LAPCHICK: Actually, 55 percent of African-American high schoolstudent athletes believe they're going to play in the pros. One in10,000 is going to make it. That science student can get a degree inscience at some point. That basketball player is very rarely going tomake it even to the college level, let alone on the pro level. Sothose moves are built on an illusion, or a delusion. The other isbuilt on a real possibility.

MR. MCMILLEN: They're better off moving to Huntsville, Alabama, tobe an astronaut to go to the moon. They have a better chance of it. Imean it's delusional. I mean you're selling a delusion.

I used to do a poll when I was in Congress of young kids whenthey'd come up to visit the Capitol. I'd ask them, how many want tobe a professional athlete? And all of them raised their hand. Howmany of them wanted to be an actress? They'd raise their hand. Howmany want to be a PBS broadcaster? No one. How many want to be acongressman? No one. How many wanted to be a doctor or lawyer? Noone. It's a delusion and we've created it. A pathway goes rightthrough our school systems in this country.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, wait a minute. Let me ask this question.What is wrong with spectating? I mean, you know, this is a freecountry. You got 60 channels on there. If people want to tune in thegame of the week or ESPN or Monday night football or whatever it isthey're watching, what on earth is wrong? Would anybody here preferthem to watch the sex and violence on the sitcoms? I mean, what doyou want, egg in your beer? I mean, this is a -- what's wrong withkids watching sports?

MS. HILLIARD: We're not saying anything -- or I'm not sayingwatching sports. It's just that they're not participating. The thingthat's wrong is if you're only watching sports, if you're only aspectator.

MR. WATTENBERG: But who are those kids? A hundred percent of thekids in Tom's congressional office raised their hand when they say,do they want to be professional athletes? They must have beenparticipating. I mean otherwise, then they really are delusional, Imean, if they, you know, don't participate. (Laughter.)

MR. HYLAND: One of the things that the United States has done as arather interesting experiment in this regard is tied sports veryclosely to our educational systems. We organize sports largely aroundour educational systems until we get to the level of pro sports. Webegan at one point at least by having physical education inclassrooms, in schools, so that we tie physical education to theclassroom, which by the way, in this Olympic year, is something thatthe ancient Greeks emphasized very, very much. For the ancientGreeks, the two foundational aspects of education to full humanitywere what they called Gymnastik -- physical education, and Musik --training in the arts.

I mean, one of the great ironies, it seems to me, is in ourcountry whenever a school system gets into trouble, what are thefirst two things they look to cut? These two.

One of the problems is we've associated sports with education, butreally failed to do that well, to really see the educationalsignificance and value in sports and to exploit it, if I can use thatterm, in ways that will really benefit our students, both in terms oftheir physical health, but also in terms of their personaldevelopment.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let me talk about that for a bit, about just whatthe joy of participatory sports is. Tom and I were talking in theGreen Room before about this and he used a really good word that hadnot occurred to me, that participation is transcendental, that youreally get -- I guess there's even a biological root to this, thisflow of endorphins or something like that. But people who go out andplay sport, I mean it is one of the great human experiences, in myjudgment. Is that -- I mean, you've all been participatory athletes.What are we talking about? What is the essence of this ratherremarkable --

MS. HILLIARD: Personal fulfillment. I mean, I work with kids, Ihave a program in New York City, and we have 8- and 9-year-old girlscoming to try rhythmic gymnastics for the first time. And the factthat they can have a skill presented to them and try it on their ownand be successful, it's personal fulfillment. I really do think so.

Sports really helps your confidence, it helps you achieve things,it helps you set goals -- all the good things with sports, especiallywhen you're participating as a child. So it's a very exciting, as yousaid, transcendental kind of experience for kids to participate insports. And as you get to a higher level and you're able to reachsuch unattainable goals, it would seem like, then it makes it evenstronger.

MR. HYLAND: Sports is one of those activities where your entireperson is involved -- your body, your physical ability, your mentalability. You're not just sitting there thinking and God knows what'shappening to your body or vice-versa.

MR. WATTENBERG: That is one of the great oxymorons of all time,dumb jock, isn't it? I mean, this is a game that requires --

MR. HYLAND: Right. Your whole self is involved.

MR. WATTENBERG: -- every one of these sports requires split-secondthinking and --

MR. HYLAND: And we love that. That's a wonderful experience, tohave your whole person involved in an activity.

MR. WATTENBERG: Mr. Lapchick, you grew up in a sports family. Yourfather was a legendary player and coach, Joe Lapchick. How does thistranslate into a sort of a lifestyle of sports, both as something youenjoy and something that is the family business, in a sense? In yourcase as well.

MR. LAPCHICK: Well, I had a fairly unique experience as the son ofa coach. He directed me to do everything but play basketball. Iwanted to be in the NBA, there was no question I was going to be inNBA. Unfortunately, I stopped growing at age 14 and the gene pool gotshuffled in a way that I didn't expect. But --

MR. WATTENBERG: How tall was your dad?

MR. LAPCHICK: He was 6'5'. He was the first great big man inbasketball back in the '20s.

And I'll always remember, I was convinced to go to Europe in 1960as a 14-year-old instead of staying home and working on my game,which I desperately wanted to do. And my father got me tickets to goto the Rome Olympics if I would go to Europe, so I did. And on theway, we stopped -- this guy who thought about nothing but playingbasketball stopped in Dachau on the way and I began to see somethingdifferent about what life had and began to then think about whatsports can do to kind of bring people back together.

And I think that's one of the great joys of sports is it's one ofthe few places where people who could never get together on an equalplane get together and compete with each other. Whether it's Jews andChristians or blacks and whites or sometimes men and women, it's oneof the few areas where we look at each other as equals because wehave to depend on each other.

MR. MCMILLEN: You know, I can't help but make a point here becausewe have been negative about sport. I don't think -- speaking foreverybody, I would like to say that I don't think that we're negativeabout sports. My negativity is the disparity in sports, the fact thatthere's so much at the top and not enough at the bottom. And thoseare the things that we bringing into question, not the fact thatsports intrinsically is great, but you know, I am very positive aboutthe feelings that you talked about, the transcendental feelings ofparticipating.

But when I look at a nation in sports, I have to evaluate it inthe context of how we are doing compared to other countries in theworld. And when you look at -- when you go to Korea and you see kidsexercising on the top of a roof every day or Japanese children takingtime to exercise and factories stopping to exercise, you begin towonder that there is a different appreciation of activity in othercountries than there is in this country. And maybe we ought to givesome thought to it, that's all.

MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Thank you, Richard Lapchick, Drew Hyland,Wendy Hilliard, and Tom McMillen.

And thank you. Please send your comments and questions to: NewRiver Media, 1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20036. Or we canbe reached via e-mail at thinktv@aol.com or on the World Wide Web atwww.thinktank.com.

For 'Think Tank,' I'm Ben Wattenberg.

ANNOUNCER: This has been a production of BJW, Incorporated, inassociation with New River Media, which are solely responsible forits content.

'Think Tank' is made possible by Amgen, recipient of thePresidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen, helping cancerpatients through cellular and molecular biology, improving livestoday and bringing hope for tomorrow. Additional funding is providedby the John M. Olin Foundation and the Lynde and Harry BradleyFoundation.

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