Here at Discourse Blog, we're not exactly what you'd call "athletes" or "sporty types" or even, you know, "sports fans," per se. We do however have opinions about everything, and okay, some of us are sports fans (it's Crosbie).
For us, the real sport of life is usually the politics game, but that doesn't mean we don't occasionally enjoy some good ol' cowhide on the gridiron or whatever. So, inspired in part by an internal argument over the World Cup—we can get into it in the comments if the concerned parties wish to go there—we thought we'd have ourselves a nice little sports debate.
The age-old question at play here is: What makes a sport good? Is it lots of points? Uniforms? Duration? The way it hits on TV vs. in person? Speed of play? Likelihood of brawling? Very philosophical stuff, I know. I posed this question to each member of Discourse Blog and I'll let each of them tell you themselves which sports are a slam dunk and which cross over into foul territory.
And if you're wondering why these posts range from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, well, I'm not going to tell you the time constraints I put on this assignment, but let's just say not everyone here likes to follow the rules of the game.
Also we should note that most sports organizations and the culture around them are evil in some way, which we've covered many times before and surely will again. What can I say, we contain multitudes.
You can listen to each individual submission below, or hear them all together by clicking the podcast button up top. Okay let's play ball...aka hit the damn play button!
— Caitlin
Caitlin Schneider: “I’ll care if there’s a beer or several beers involved.”
Jack Mirkinson: “My main criteria for what makes a sport good is, I guess, uh, stuff happening.”
Samantha Grasso: “Hockey…the fighting…that’s fun to me.”
Self-proclaimed “Sports Guy,” Jack Crosbie: “I think all sports are good.”
Rafi Schwartz: “To me, a good sport is one that combines precision with extreme chaos.”
Aleks Chan: “Unfortunately for me—and you know I hate it as much as you do—it’s football for me.”
Katherine Krueger: “As wishcasting. I’d like to outlaw sports that cause catastrophic brain damage.”
This exercise was a beautiful Rorschach test, don’t you think? Let us know where you fall on the “what is sport” vs. “I love sport” scale in the comments!
What Makes a Sport Good?