The Sideline

When watching certain sporting events, I begin to question what the definition of “sport” actually is.

The best definition I could find from Merriam-Webster is “physical activity engaged in for pleasure.” Hmmm. Not going there in this column.

Is that really what a sport is? Any physical activity we do to make ourselves happy? It’s time to set some boundaries here.

The best way I can begin to define a sport is the concept of a team. Any team sport, whether it be rugby, hockey, or football, is in. When one group of players tries to defeat another group of players in a physical game setting, that is definitely a sport.

From there, the lines get hazy and the gray area expands. What about individual sports? Tennis is definitely a sport; a one-on-one game where athletes score points to defeat an opponent. But how about bowling? It could be defined in the exact same way, yet I don’t consider bowlers to be athletes. The same could be said for other “skill games” such as darts, shooting or even bass fishing. What these have in common is a well-practiced set of skills, but I hesitate to call an event a sport if I can’t view the participants as athletes.

Running is definitely a sport because it takes an athlete to train that hard and exert that much energy in a competitive setting. If you can define the participants as athletes, it is a sport.

Which brings me to the two biggest ambiguities in the sports world today: golf and racing. I’m going to try not to step on any toes here as I break these down.

In golf, you play individually, not so much against other players but against a set course and your mind. The average golf round consists of swinging a set of clubs 72 times, which I define more as a skill than an athletic activity. I mean if John Daly can be a professional golfer, it is tough to view golfers as athletes. Many consider it, in fact, to be a leisure activity, something to do while vacationing at the beach.

Two things keep me from simply filing golf in the “activity/game” category: the fact that it can be considered a team sport at the high school and college levels, and Tiger Woods. When members of a golf team play to lower the overall score of their team, it says “team sport.” However, on the PGA Tour, golfers are on their own and paid millions of dollars a year for playing for themselves. This is truly a dilemma. Not to mention, Woods has redefined golf itself, bringing a more athletic image to the game, along with a new younger generation of in-shape players.

Basically, I simply cannot put golf into either the “sport” or “not a sport” category. My feeling is that it started out as a leisure game, but has progressed into a more competitive, athletic-esque game that Tiger and the younger players will push toward definite “sport” status.

Now what about racing? I define racing as any activity in which a vehicle is used, which a driver, pilot, etc. uses to try to beat the time of another vehicle. This includes bobsledding, crew (rowing), car racing, and yes, even plane racing or dogsled racing.

This may actually be easier than I thought, and I think I just changed my mind about car racing based on my explanation above. Racing is only a sport if the participant is an athlete for doing that type of racing. Lance Armstrong is an athlete, thus bicycle racing is a sport. So is rowing, bobsledding, and any other type of racing that requires the participant to be in top athletic shape to be the best in the world. Car racing is then out by default. While some drivers are in fantastic shape (Carl Edwards in NASCAR, many F1 drivers), it is not necessarily the drivers in the best shape who win more often.

So here’s my semi-definite description of a sport: A physical activity performed by an athlete to defeat other athletes based on a given scoring system, using a set of practiced physical and mental skills.

So, I’m sorry guys, while I realize you consider yourself amateur athletes, beer pong is not in fact a sport.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 23 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry