It Is About Doing What Is Right

“Game over,” your team just lost. What do you do? Your team was actually expected to win and the winning competitors are known for their poor ability at the sport. Do you accept your loss and go home? Do you pick fights and make them know that your team is actually better than theirs? You have choices, but all choices have consequences. That is why even in sports, there is a moral way to approach situations. It is a concept known as sportsmanship, and it is way more than simply knowing how to play a sport. It is what allows athletes do what is right before their impulses take over.

Sportsmanship is defined by the Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary as “a conduct (as fairness, respect for one's opponent, and graciousness in winning or losing) becoming to one participating in a sport.” It is like the chivalric code for athletes. You do not just know the rules, you actually live by them and respect them like a way of life.

Just like the chivalry code for knights explained the duties a man had to follow in order to be considered a proper knight. Samurais in Japan had to follow the Bushido—or “Way of the Warrior”—which stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor until death.

Sportsmanship is the cause why sports can be taken to an international level. It allows players from all the corners of the world get together, and be able to practice the sports they love. It is a set of moral rules; and rules look for nothing more than to keep order. Wherever there are rules (and reasonable human beings), there is supposed to be order and respect among those who are lined by the rules.

Rules can be looked upon as oppression. They can surely can and, depending how they are created and forced, are considered sometimes to be domineering. When referring to sportsmanship, rules cannot be seen as oppressive. They are not an imposition to anyone. They are a moral code, an etiquette, which every single athlete decides to follow, or not when the moment is appropriate. No player can actually complain of being oppressed or being required to be a good sportsman in order to practice a sport. They are expected to follow them when the situation requires maturity, courtesy, and reasoning.

Like every single event in life, there can be a positive or negative deviation from the concept of sportsmanship. Humans are supposedly entitled to commit mistakes, because they are not perfect. Therefore, sportsmanship can be divided into good sportsmanship or bad sportsmanship. It could also be referred to as moral or immoral sportsmanship.

The “good” sportsman is the “ideal” sportsman. He or she is the athlete who reasons before acting. He or she decides when an action is compulsory and when it would be considered unnecessary. When talking about sports, they could be compared to a roller coaster. There are times when you are going up and feel like nothing can stop you. But then you realize that gravity exists, and that you will not always be on top of things and will suffer from losses or disappointments. Like I like to say: “only on the field do you get to really know someone as they really are.”

A great example of what a real sportsman is was recently to be seen on ESPN.com in a story about a senior who arrived to her last softball game without ever having hit a home run. Unbelievably, she hit her first home run to give her team the lead. As she went around first base, she forgot to step on it and as she jogged back to touch the bag, she fell. She could not stand up. To her misfortune, the umpires ruled the only option available was to overrule the home run and score it as a single, leaving the senior without her only home run. All of the sudden, a player from the opposing team asked the umpires if they could carry her around the bases, for it was an important moment in the injured girl’s life and they would not let an injury damage it. When the incident was over, the media asked the girl why she helped the opponent take the lead on her team. She answered that it was not about winning or losing, it was about doing what was right.

This is an excellent display of what good sportsmanship is. Like the softball player who helped the injured girl said: “it is not about winning or losing. It is about knowing and deciding to do what is right.” This sometimes is difficult to follow, but it is what distinguishes the true athlete from the bunch. The real athlete is the one who not only integrates sports into his or her life, but also takes morals and lessons from every experience sports give them.

Unfortunately, there is a bad side for sportsmanship, and I have to admit that athletes do not always decide to follow the moral code that should guide them. In baseball, it is a rude and dangerous move to hit the batter at all. But when the pitch is sent to the head, a message is being sent: it was on purpose. Baseball brawls are famous for their large numbers of participants. They are a true royal rumble and display of immaturity and lack of reason. It starts with the bad sportsmanship by the pitcher who decided to put the game and the batter’s health in jeopardy by hitting him on such a fragile place. The batter may have been bothered by the action of the pitcher but fighting is never the only or correct option. One can choose to keep walking and look at the bright side: you are getting—although it will hurt—a free ticket to the bases. Sometimes emotions get in the way and, thus, this is when irrationality seems more appropriate than logic. The batter chooses to charge the pitcher and get in a fight that may cost him money, game suspensions or, if things get out of control and mayhem dominates, end his career.

Just as the Geneva Conventions set up a protocol for wartime behavior, sportsmanship goes beyond the sports. Actually, it may have nothing to do with sports; it just a way of acting when certain situations occur in sports. It is a conduct guide that allows us to act like reasonable human beings and not like animals.

The main reason why sportsmanship is so essential is because it is the spirit of sports. All sports were created to compete, yes, but even the most aggressive athletes (like boxers) hug and express respect for each other at the end of the fight. Every time we see adversaries exchange respect after a confrontation, it shows how sports are more than a battle. Every single game that ends with the acceptance of loss, or the show of maturity from those who are victorious is a sample of how sportsmanship is more than just a batter. It lets fans and prospects know that there is a good reason for them to follow the sports they love and practice it.

Roberto Clemente would be the perfect example of sportsmanship. He was a baseball player and a humanitarian. He once said: "I want to be remembered as a ballplayer who gave all he had to give.” He lived to demonstrate that he was as good a player as he was a human being. He respected teammates, adversaries, and everyone around him. He was a true sportsman.

As we have been able to see, sportsmanship expands the barriers of sports. It permits athletes to have a life outside the field, court, or course. It is because of sportsmanship that legends from different sports are immortalized in our memories. We do remember those who do not choose to be as smart as they should be. Still, we remember those who actually decided to make a difference, showing that sports are about competition, about winning, about losing sometimes. But we remember those athletes because they decided to act not for what they needed to do to win or be famous; they decided to do what was right.