Sports is a microcosm of society - winners and losers, emotion, cost-benefit, money, passion, and compassion (JJ Watt raising over 37 million for hurricane relief).
We analyze and overanalyze what cements team greatness - GOATs, talent, money, culture, and coaching. We bolster opinion with facts, sculpting the facts to suit our needs.
We argue the merits of players, teams, coaches, ownership, and the interface between technique and tactics. Is the analysis of the Dallas Cowboys so different than how investors choose Home Depot and Lowes or Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts?
We question whether college athletes should be paid and how much assistant coaches deserve to be paid.
We ask how concerned professional sports are about their athletes' health (e.g. CTE) while celebrating sports where the goal is to concuss your opponent (boxing, MMA). A previously convicted murderer, NFL tight end Aaron Hernandez, is found to have severe (Grade 3) CTE at autopsy. Should high school players' parents be concerned?
A major college football program is rocked by a sexual abuse scandal. Years later the family drops a lawsuit over the use of the Freeh report.
We see ads where athletes shill for copper-infused braces and sell books about diet and stretching. Then we shake our heads as they decline to want to speak about merchandising and commercialism.
Players are told not to compromise the integrity of the game. One calls out the NFL about the hypocrisy, citing injury reports and gambling. "Daily fantasy sports appeared to be a virtual cash machine. The companies were valued at more than $1 billion each. Their investors included Major League Baseball and the N.B.A.; the Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and the New England Patriots owner Robert K. Kraft; and major media companies like NBC."
A girl is expelled from school for wanting to play for the boys' team where there is no girls' team. A high school baseball player sues a coach for benching and harassment. Fewer than half of women's college basketball players strongly trust their coach.
Some fans protest players for standing up for social justice by not standing. And the NFL defends an athlete, guilty of nothing but fleeing a club for HIS safety.
We hear talk about "black quarterback" as though it's a separate and unequal position on the field. Who talks about "white linebackers"? A Korean-born kicker makes the NFL and struggles early. What does that all mean?
We hear about how college coaches make too much money and how one (Geno Auriemma) offered to forego his salary.
We can go on and on and on. Donald Sterling. Mike Rice. Ray Rice. Ray Carruth. Alan Eagleson. Expecting a firewall between sports and society seems arbitrary and capricious.
Life is messy, beautiful, and corrupt. So are sports. We cannot turn our eyes away.