Amurikan Sports, Amurikan Culture
It’s game six of the American League Championship Series. I’m sitting in front of a bunch of baseball-crazed fanatics wetting their pants, because the Red Sox have just pulled ahead nine to six in the ninth inning. “Go Sox!” “Yankees suck!” “Dude, toss me another brewskie.” Americans are fans at heart. We root for the home team, wear their colors, jump up and down following a great play, and threaten the television after an absurd call. Sports have proven to be an integral part in the creation of community identity throughout the last half of the century. Furthermore, American sports both reflect and shape our cultural ideas. They are rarely considered “just a game.” Sports are packed with several meanings: they are displays of patriotism, consumer spectacles and even morality lessons. By observing sports and their impact on American society, we can learn much about consumerism, political developments (both domestic and international), racial relations, social classes, equality for women, and of course, community identity, including the condition of our cities. Since the 1950s, American sports are one of the most important institutions for us to raise and work through questions of race, gender, and class.
The corporations who control the media coverage of sports tailor their coverage to Joe Six-Pack; and thus there is a lack of coverage of elitist sports such as water polo, tennis and sailing. Because of the media's target population, we are besieged with commercials for beer, automobiles, athletic shoes and deodorant. Our hard-earned dollars are rarely tempted to go towards healthy food items or prudent savings (light beer is not a healthy food). Gas-guzzling SUVs, beer, chips and dip are the consumables that keep football, basketball and baseball on the airwaves. So it's no wonder that in my state of California, where budget cuts have become a cliché, high schools are drastically cutting back sports programs such as swimming, water polo, skiing, tennis, etc. These are expensive activities requiring lots of financial support, but they don't sell. I myself have played football, basketball, soccer and hockey throughout my childhood. However, not one of those sports (aside from college basketball) compares to the demands and excitement of water polo. I began playing my freshman year in high school, and ever since, I have been in love with the sport. It’s unfortunate to see the lack of respect water polo receives. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have been asked, “How do you get the horses in and out of the water?” My high school’s football team went two and ten last year, yet somehow the home games managed to attract just about the whole school. My water polo team went twenty and five, winning the league championship and earning a bid to regionals … and occasionally Eric’s mother would show up to a game. So while you'll never see varsity football, basketball or baseball being cut, you probably won't see fencing as a high school elective. Yet these sports are often the very sports Title Nine encouraged to offer better opportunities for women's athletics.
Title Nine was probably the most drastic step ever taken to promote women's sports. Mia Hamm brought the excitement of women's soccer into our living rooms, but did little to raise salaries of professional women soccer players. Is that because women watch sports less and therefore Maybelline can't produce the same revenue as Men's Nike shoes? Or are there even deeper gender bias issues that the male-dominated corporate sports world works to keep just below the surface of most people's radar. In the 1999/2000 season, the average NBA salary was 58 times greater than that of the WNBA. Professional women tennis athletes make 67 cents to every dollar their male counterparts make. Every two years women competitors seem to take equal staging during the Olympics. Is that because the Olympics represent a more worldly look at sports and the viewing audience isn't just "Amurikan?"
Perhaps the most revealing characteristic of American sports culture is its racial component. Rush Limbaugh's recent faux pas remark about black quarterbacks underscores the reality that racial tensions are very much alive in American sports. How many African American swimmers, water polo players, ice skaters or tennis players do we see today? Why do we perceive running backs as black and quarterbacks as white? Why do we categorize Hispanics as excellent soccer players but not basketball players? The economic unfairness of elitistism is clearly outlined by American sports. You can grow up playing football in your backyard or in the street, you can play hoops at any public school yard, you can bat a ball in any sandlot, but where do young people get experience in a pool or on a tennis court? Who can afford a round of golf? Tiger Woods is an enigma in a world of wealthy country clubs and green jackets.
Indeed, American sports are a metaphor for American culture. When viewed through the lens of peanuts and beer, one gets a gooey, nostalgic, "take me out to the ball game" sensation. But you only need look below the surface to get a more disturbing view of some of our culture's most serious ills. Corporate control and gender, race and economic bias run rampant in our beloved sports arenas. And the latest barometer that measures the health of our sports culture is the fact that our heroes hit the front page not for their abilities, but for their sexual indiscretions.
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