I might have said this before, but every sporting encounter is unscripted theatre. Like plays on stage flash the various human emotions and paradoxical behaviors on the connoisseur's rapt eye, so do sporting spectacles. There are plans and schemes; noble jousts and subterfuge; capricious occurrences reminiscent of the vagaries of life; skills choked by nerves; knowledge and intent apprehended by anxiety before they can breed action; overwhelming grief and unmitigated joy; gasps of expectation as the action peaks, and the sighing and smarting at the anti-climax; love that isn't seasonal and hatred, equally well-trenched; veneration and vilification; trance and delirium; and, perhaps, most importantly the clash of the ideal and the real.
That the sporting arena is held to be an anomalous area within the admittedly cut-throat world is best borne out by the attitude of fans of franchise sports that allow an athlete to switch allegiances through trades and transfers. Consider football. The new signing is unveiled – yes, as if the sportsperson is a work of art secured at an auction to add to an already exotic collection – and he speaks of his long-cherished desire's having come true, of a love consummated. If and when he scores his first goal for the club, he celebrates with the fans, pointing to, even kissing the badge on his shirt. (The ones who don't play in scoring positions mimic the celebration with the goal scorer.) After a few months or seasons, the player may wish to play for another team because he has reached a stasis with his current team, fallen out with the manager, or simply found new love. The unveiling, scoring and kissing the badge at his new club follow a divorce from his old one that could be bitter or benign depending on the alimony dubbed the transfer fee. Many fans of his former club, though, will never forgive the player, who to them, has lived up to the philanderer sense of the term. The irony here is of a culture that finds it perfectly all right for an individual to end one romantic relationship in favour of another exhilarating alternative, demanding of the sportsperson an ideal, 'till-death-do-us-apart' union with a team, with him standing by the team in 'sickness and health' – financial, administrative, even sporting. If life is short and one therefore gets to seek happiness in the company of a new mate if need be, a sporting career that is but a part of one's life and thereby much briefer should come with a greater freedom of choice to pursue happiness, shouldn't it?
Then, there is an intense scrutiny of the athlete's comportment, how he carries himself on and off the field. He cannot mouth expletives, whether they are audible or not – kids today are apparently very good lip readers, make offensive gestures or challenge the game's arbiters irrespective of his situation. As a professional, it is incumbent upon him to not give into emotional outbursts, lest his young fans should imbibe his response to frustrations that so freckle life. That the parents of these kids might honk incessantly in slow moving traffic and utter cuss words, jump signals and lanes and lines, and berate the maidservant only enhances the responsibility of the sportsperson as a role model.
Equally, a sportsperson must be humble in victory and gracious in defeat – an epitome of equanimity. He should never delight in the misfortune of his opponent or elate in a win without empathizing with his challenger, however hegemonic his own performance might have been. And never should he protest or sulk at being defeated by a better man, even if the latter's superiority is solely suggested by the scoreboard. Again, that fans might indulge in sparring over the greatness of their respective idols and adored teams, verbally and, at worse, physically, necessitates that the idols be divinely elegant and civil whatever the cauldron, calabash or crucible they are in, for the sake of the kids who look up to them, of course.
Also, the athlete must at all times play for the team and never pursue records and recognition for himself. The parents might goad a kid to be the star of the school play or the MVP of the school sports team, intervene on the kid's behalf to have her lead the dance troupe on stage, but the athlete, because he influences and moulds the kid's character more than anyone around her, must uphold and inculcate in his young fan the virtues of unity and sacrifice.
Well, if a drama thrills you by accentuating the ideal and the existential, sports are a must watch. But, do watch them with commentary. If discourses and epilogues help you identify the idea that fleshes out a skeletal plot, commentary subtitles sporting situations in the absence of soliloquies and verbal exchanges between the protagonists, and sometimes in spite of them.
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