Khatchadourian

Georgio Khatchadourain
Professor Vana DerOhanessian
English 115
26 November 2014
More Than A Game
Sports have been an important and essential aspect of society for some time. From
the Olympics, to sports arenas, and even your television at home; sports has been around
as long as anyone can remember. It has become a part of the American culture. People love
supporting their favorite franchises, dressing in their favorite colors, and covering their
faces in paint just to support their favorite teams. People arrange their schedules around
major sporting events, even if it means not attending or engaging in school or work
activities. Sports have become a great influential power. But the effect sports have on our
society is not always just fun and games. Popular American sports such as basketball,
football, and baseball can have a negative effect on society such as affecting everyday
priorities, changing morals, setting a bad standard for our youth, and even affecting
peoples health.
Sports have not always been as momentous and important in American culture as it
is today. It has become so popular that peoples everyday lives are getting changed and
altered. Sports cause people to call off work for a big game or skip class because of a rivalry
soccer game that will decide bragging rights with their friends. People are willing to spend
tens, hundreds, even thousands of dollars to watch their favorite players do what they do
best. This isnt necessarily a bad thing. As Brummet states, By becoming fans, spectators
engage in certain types of pleasure, fulfilling there own desires by fetishism, voyeurism,

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and narcissism (21). This is fine. However, there is a limit to everything. Leaving your
everyday priorities for a sporting event is not the logical choice. For example, if a father
missed out on his daughters first school play because of a rivalry football game, this very
occurrence is unethical.
Ethics, morals and principles are a large part of the sports system. The games
themselves are based on ethics and morals. There is no such thing as a perfect sport where
there is a rule for every situation. There are some regulations and rules that are decided
upon in order for players to follow those ethics and show respect for one another. For
example, in basketball if a person has a fast break giving up 2 points because of a mistake is
the moral thing to do. However, there are times where the opposing team will purposely
foul or injure players in order to prevent the fast break from occurring. Of course there is
no rule stopping this; it is known as an unethical play. Although this does not seem like a
big deal, there are many people, especially the youth, which look up to these players. Some
things that players do such as Meta World Piece elbowing James Harden, Mike Tyson biting
off his opponents ear sets an image that kids are seeing. According to ESPN GO, Meta
World Piece elbowing James Harden resulted in much more then a laugh for everyday fans.
It resulted in a full on war over twitter. People such as Shaquille ONeal and Charles Barkley
along with hundreds of fans were arguing about the incident and the morals and ethics that
came along with it. People started to question the standard and image incidents like this
result in. Things like that will eventually add up and make it okay for these young sports
lovers to do the same when they play. It may even lead to making unethical decisions in
their everyday lives.

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Sports have not always been as popular as they are today. People might even argue
that sports themselves have changed from an aspect of play to corporate business and
moneymaking schemes. Players have gone from playing sports for the love and enjoyment
of the game to playing the game to make money and become rich. A sport becomes
institutionalized, it has come to reflect the corporate/commodity model. Sports is more like
work then play, (Eitzen and Frey. 508). Sports were created for fun, to encourage
competition, and teach morals and ethics. But if sports are not being played for fun or
enjoyment anymore, what does that show? It shows the youth to grow up and base their
lives on getting money. Sooner or later, kids are going to play sports just to grow up and be
millionaires, and nobody will play sports for fun and enjoyment.
My argument should not be misunderstood, I am not stating that money is not
important and people should not want to make money; that is immensely incorrect. Money
is a big part of everyones life, and thats a fact. However, the way money is distributed in
America is broken and sports are a prime example of that. A professional baseball player
makes over one million dollars a year. An average professional football player makes over
5 million a year. Thats 50 times more then an average American. What does that show
about our society? A police officer that risks his life every day, and an emergency room
doctor that saves peoples lives makes nowhere near that amount. That is illogical.
American youth will grow up expecting to be professional athletes and millionaires. But
thats far from reality. They dont realize that less then one percent of all athletes make it to
the professional level, if all the youth wants to be professional athletes. This can create a
serious problem.

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The most popular and viewed sport in America as of today is football. Due to this,
American youth perceive an image that is not accurate. Football players in America have an
image of being the tough guys, having a muscular body, and having no mercy on the weak.
Football has set a standard for teenagers to be tough, resolve issues with physical fights,
and a must have muscular body. Football has some great ethics that come with it,
however, just like every other sport, it has its bad ones as well. Just in the last two months,
over 25 students were suspended in just two high schools. In both Pitsburgh High and
Tecumseh High, huge brawls have erupted in football games because of fights that were not
really necessary. These fights and brawls can lead to much more if people are not carful. Is
that the real standard that football sets for American teenagers?
An everyday game of any sport can be physically hard on a human body. Injuries are
very common and almost expected today in almost any sport. Some are worse then others.
However, it has become the most dangerous and life threating aspect of sports. Although
organizations have taken action on injury prevention by adding more pads, increasing
helmet safety, and adding more rules, there are still many things harder to prevent and still
are a cause of serious injury. For example, helmet to helmet hits in football are very serious
and very life threating. No matter how much football helmets are improved and how many
rules are added to prevent them. They are still going to happen.
Concussions are also a big life threating injury and are commonly underestimated
because they are not usually felt. Athletes today are also taught to fight through the pain. In
Timothy Jon Currys A Little Pain Never Hurt Anybody, Curry talks about an elite wrestler
and how he learns to accept pain and injury as an everyday role in the sport (273). That can
be a huge problem. If athletes are taught to keep the pain to themselves and accept it, when

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a serious injury comes along and isnt brought up to a doctor, it can turn from something
minor, to something life threatening. That is commonly the case with concussions. When
an athlete gets a concussion, it is commonly overlooked or kept to themselves, due to that,
athletes keep on playing. However, getting hit in the head a second time with a concussion
is much worse and in some cases, life threatening. These injuries are commonly ignored or
overlooked in many sports, and as a result of that, more and more athletes are paying the
price.
Without sports, America would not be the America it is today. Although someone
may argue that sports actually benefited society and made it into the society today, In some
areas that is true. By providing kids with a way to express themselves, helping teenagers let
their anger out, and some ways teaching proper morals that kids will grow up with.
However, there are also many ways that sports are negatively effecting society. They may
not be crucial and life threatening but they are all things that need to be brought to every
ones attention and are to big to ignore. Why not fix the little things for the good and better?
Some people claim that sports make America. If sports have as much influence on
America, we should put more emphasis on fixing the negative effects that come along with
it. Sports have many benefits, but it also has many negative effects. If these effects are left
alone can be a serious issue. Sports is setting an image that is affecting the youth, changing
people lives, and setting examples of a broken society. We need to be more cautious and
put more effort into fixing them.

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Work Cited
James H. Frey and D. Stanley Eitzen
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 17, (1991), pp. 503-522
|, Dave McMenamin. "Metta World Peace Discusses elbow." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 26
Apr. 2012. Web. 01 Dec. 2014.
Brummett, B. (2009). Sporting rhetoric: performance, games, and politics. New York: Peter
Lang.
"21 Tecumseh High School Football Players Suspended Following Fight." 21 Tecumseh High
School Football Players Suspended Following Fig. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
A Little Pain Never Hurt Anyone: Athletic Career Socialization and the Normalization of
Sports Injury. Timothy Jon Curry
Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Fall 1993), pp. 273-290