“Professional” Athletes

Dr. Robert Butcher and Dr. David Cruise Malloy

6-Jan-05

Visit www.truesport.ca for more articles and information on sportsmanship. The following was taken from the True Sport Resource centre.

National Basketball Association Incident

The following is a conversation between Rob and Dave in response to the events involving Detroit fans during a National Basketball Association (NBA) game between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers on November 19, 2004. Shortly after an altercation between Detroit’s Ben Wallace and Indiana’s Ron Artest a fan hurled a cup at Artest. Artest and several team members proceeded to enter the stands.

Dave: Hello Rob, I suspect that you have been involved in discussions with co-workers and students about the NBA incident that transpired in November. One of my students actually sent me an email and requested that we discuss it in class – believe me this does not happen as often as I’d like. Anyway, the image that I keep seeing is of a little boy crying as he’s being held by his parent – presumably in some significant terror as a result of witnessing the violence on the court.

Rob: How do you plan to address this subject with your class?

Dave: Well, I thought I would begin my class, oddly enough, with the story of King David and Bathsheba. David, as the story goes, became so powerful, as a function of his successes as a warrior and as an efficient king, that he perceived himself to be above the law – so far above the law that he sent the husband of Bathsheba (after whom he lusted) to certain death at the front lines of the war. The point of this story is as true today as it was then - power has the potential to corrupt (i.e., the so-called “Bathsheba syndrome”). While power in itself is not the issue, the problem arises when those who acquire power are not prepared to use it wisely – the outcome is usually a disaster.

In our North American context (though primarily in the US), impressionable young athletes (age 17 and up) are recruited to university programmes – often by a variety of questionable tactics (the list of ‘respected’ US universities who have committed recruiting violations is lengthy!).  These young people are then placed into a situation of notoriety as varsity athletes - promoted, by the way, by the university because varsity sport translates into significant revenue (for the top schools) that can be used for other institutional expenses. The athlete is immediately in a position of status and power – monetary and social. More profound still, are the extremely gifted athletes who are drafted out of high school into professional sport with multimillion-dollar contracts. In this situation, an individual may have jumped into extreme wealth (and fame) overnight with absolutely no guidance on how to deal with this immediate and overwhelming power (like King David) and no wisdom to draw upon – the outcome is a skewed sense of moral obligation and ethical boundary.

My second thought for my class was to throw out for discussion Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein. Who is to blame for the havoc the monster caused – well the good doctor of course! Who is to blame for the athletic monster we have before us? Perhaps the blame lies with us for wanting (or needing) the cult of sport in the first instance. These “heroes” would not be placed in this context in the first place if the public was less inclined toward the cult of sport and had a bit more perspective.  The evidence of our decline… adults are paid millions of dollars to play a game – so who is to blame for the athletes’ warped sense of themselves – it’s us!!!

Back on track, my two points are as follows:

• Athletes are given overwhelming power and money with little guidance as to how they ought to deal with it.  The outcome – they perceive themselves outside the moral realm of the rest of the population; and
• Athletes are placed in this Herculean situation because we, the adoring and hero-worshipping fans, allow it to occur.

Rob: Dave, you are making lots of points, you know me – I like to separate them out – and have a go at them. First – on the idea that some athletes view themselves as somehow “above the law.” I think you are right. Young athletes are often accustomed to viewing themselves – and being viewed -- as ‘special’ from a very early age. Since these athletes were kids they would have been fawned over, watched and praised. Their mistakes would have been forgiven and they would have been encouraged not to worry too much about taking responsibility for their actions – as long as they performed on the court, the pitch or the ice. I’m not sure this is just a problem for the professionals. Does the star peewee hockey player get out of homework, or get treated more leniently in terms of discipline (at home, at school and on the ice) just because he plays sport well? (And here’s a puzzler – does this issue arise in the same way for elite female athletes?)

Dave: Rob, I agree with you here. Young athletes learn to expect special treatment, almost as a right, rather than recognizing it as a privilege.

What I am getting at is this incident is a reflection of a more fundamental problem – and like good physicians we need to find and treat the cause of the illness and not focus on the symptoms (i.e., this or any other particular incident). As a function of the cult of professional sport, individual “professional” athletes may perceive themselves to be answerable to a different set of norms, values, beliefs, and laws than the average person. The athletes themselves may feel that their behaviour, for example, as demonstrated in November, was somehow justified as a function of their perceived elevated status as sport ‘gods’ – status we created.  We create the problem and then blame the creation.  We foster the cult of an Olympian morality (i.e., the lawlessness of the ancient Greek gods living on Mt. Olympus) yet expect the athletes to behave in a mortal yet exemplary fashion.  It seems like we can’t have it both ways. In other words, there seems to be a ‘disconnect’ between our moral expectation and theirs.  Does it have to be so?

Rob:  I’m going to worry a bit about the “we” here too.  It has been argued by some commentators that there is a real disconnect between the values of corporate North America – the team owners, those who can afford the seats and other middle class viewers everywhere, and the attitudes and approaches of those who come from an urban, street-focused, hip-hop or rap background.  The latter emphasizes a highly aggressive, in-your-face, deliberately confrontational approach to life and the people around you.  Maybe many of the athletes in question identify far more closely with that hip-hop, urban set of values than they do with the values of the middle class or corporate elite.  This is not to excuse or to explain away, nor is to condone – I’ll happily rail against violence in almost all circumstances – however, it is worth identifying that the values in question may not be so simply shared by a universal “we.”
 
The third point concerns the violence itself. It wasn’t just any old law-breaking event that went on here – it was an act of violence – and one which occurred in the context of a sporting event. There are all sorts of puzzles about violence in sport – especially on the ice, but also in other sports too, and those puzzles include issues around confining the violence, sometimes euphemistically called “aggression,” to the game. We allow some violence – within the rules – in many games and condone violence against the rules in many more situations. That all takes place within the context of the game. However, this is different, the violence spilled off the court – though it took place within the stadium. One way of thinking about it would be to say that the players got the boundaries wrong – violent (aggressive) physical interaction may be permissible against opponents, in the game – but not against non-opponents even if provoked.

Next – who’s to blame? That’s not a great way of putting it – but we can’t get solutions until we work out responsibility. Clearly the athletes themselves are responsible for what they do – and they need to be sent – in no uncertain terms – the message that this is totally beyond the pale. But what about the teams, the coaches – the owners? The owners profit from the work of these players, I’d say they should also take their share of responsibility for their negative actions. Similarly for the coaches – they have failed in their jobs if they have not managed to get their athletes to realise that one shouldn’t hit the spectators!

Anyway – I’m still shaking my head – it’s bizarre, but if it gets people to think a little more seriously about the absurd pedestal upon which elite athletes get placed – then that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Note: In the end the NBA issued a wide variety of suspensions as follows,

• Pacers forward Ron Artest has been suspended for the remainder of the season.
• Indiana guard Stephen Jackson has been suspended for 30 games.
• Pacers forward Jermaine O’Neal has been suspended for 25 games. (reduced to 15 games)
• Indiana guard Anthony Johnson has been suspended for five games.
• Detroit forward/center Ben Wallace has been suspended for six games.
• Pistons forwards Elden Campbell and Derrick Coleman and guard Chauncey Billups have each been suspended for one game for leaving the bench during an on-court altercation.
• Indiana guard Reggie Miller has been suspended for one game for leaving the bench during an on-court altercation.

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