There’s a danger using “sports analogies” about life. They often treat life too simplistically, as if scoring a goal or committing a foul tells all about “real life” experiences. Life is so much more complex than points on a scoreboard, or a yellow flag on the field. And as a long time high school coach, I try to be very aware that the nuance of sport is my former profession, but not an innate part of everyone else’s life.
So with those caveats, let me try to draw an analogy between sport and life.
Sports and Life
I was a high school track and cross country coach, but what many people don’t know is that I was also a high school and middle school wrestling coach. Wrestling is a profoundly different sport than the others. In cross country, you are in a race with hundreds of others each time. Only a few have the talent and have put in the effort to run at the front of the race, the rest are working to improve “in the pack”.
And track is seldom “just you”, though it happens in the field events occasionally. But in wrestling, every time, it’s one on one. There’s no “field” to disappear in, no eight runners leaning at the line. It’s just two athletes trying to best each other in the most physical, elemental way possible. It’s about one imposing physical control on the other, against their will. The coaches yell, and the team cheers, and parents literally mirror every move in the stands. But on the mat, no one is blocking, no one passing the ball, no one is pacing. Out there on the mat it’s just you, and the other guy.
It’s About You
Wrestling and distance running are similar in one respect. While talent is important, the willingness to sacrifice yourself to work is paramount. Want to be a good runner? Start running, then run more and more and more. Want to be a good wrestler? You have to literally “live the life”. How many sports require teenage boys to restrict how much they eat? A good wrestler puts in seemingly unending hours of drills, exercises, conditioning every part of their body; their “practice” never really ends. And it’s all for those moments one on one on the mat.
Wrestling, essentially, is all about the wrestler. It is an all-consuming, often lonely quest to push your body to new levels of suffering, in order to conquer that opponent one on one at the center of the gym. The phrase goes that “there is no ‘I’ in team”, but in wrestling, there often is no “team” in “I” either.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read the “essential” book of conservatism – Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. But top level wrestlers remind me of her characters, succeeding or failing all on their own, without regard for who they literally have to pin to get to the top, and what damage they leave along the way. They are “Howard Roarks”; unbent and unyielding, convinced of their own individual superiority. And they have the record to prove it.
Cooperation isn’t Important
A good soccer team, or football team, or cross country team is just that – a team. Each member has a role, and should they fail in that role, the team fails. Sure a cross country team might have the “best” individual. But if five runners don’t cross the finish line, the team fails to score, fails to be a team. The fifth runner’s score is just as important as the first. A quarterback without linemen, or a soccer team without a goalie, all will ultimately fail. Cooperation is a key element in success.
Wrestling does keep a team score. But, much like track, that score is a compilation of individual results. The main impact of “team” on wrestling, is the level of competition in the practice room. Good wrestlers get better by wrestling better wrestlers. So the level of competition “in the room” determines the success of the “room’s” members.
In the Room
A National Champion or Olympic qualifying wrestler is a huge asset to any wrestling team, even if that individual doesn’t actually compete for the team. Their presence in “the room” raises the level of practice competition, making those team members who practice with them better. But it’s a tough “apprenticeship”; and often frustrating for the apprentice. Goals are marked in small increments: score a point, counter a move, don’t end up on your back. Winning isn’t really a possibility, at least at first.
A sport that places so much emphasis on the individual might well create a “mindset” for life.
Jim Jordan, now a United States Congressman, and former National Collegiate wrestling champion, was hired into the Ohio State wrestling room as an assistant coach. His role was to raise the level of competition “in the room”, first as he trained for the Olympics, and then simply to aid the college athletes. The fact that the wrestling team physician was molesting those athletes wasn’t really his concern, I suppose. If Dr. Strauss touched Jordan inappropriately, he’d kick his ass.
Institutions
But the athletes on the team didn’t have that option. Sure, they were Division I college wrestlers, and all of them were perfectly capable of defending themselves. But Dr. Strauss was the “institution’s” doctor. Strauss had control over who could wrestle and who could not. So while Assistant Coach Jim Jordan might consider resisting the doctor, for the members of the team, it was a totally different case. They essentially didn’t have a choice.
Some went to Jordan and head coach Russ Hellickson, to let them know they were being molested. They were taking the only course of action available to remedy the situation. Their only other choices were: be molested or quit. And when they were ignored, it fit right into the model of life Jim Jordan now stands for: you are on your own. You rise on your own abilities, and fail on the same. It is not the “institution’s” duty to protect you, even from the institution itself.
Model for Life
Doesn’t that sound just like his view of our government? Ayn Rand, the intellectual mother of modern conservatism, would be proud. The individual is totally responsible for their own fate. The institution, whether it’s a university or the national government or the coaching staff; doesn’t have much of a role. The fact that those being mis-treated don’t have a choice, that the institution doesn’t allow them any way out; well, that’s too bad. The individuals should have somehow been better to overcome the mis-treatment.
I’m not saying that all conservatives would allow sexual abuse of those under their authority. In fact, the coaches I know would absolutely stand up against such abuse, conservative or not. But I am saying that, for some at least, it fits their model of life, the same model they bring to governing America.
You’re on your own.
