Sportsmanship

The Paralympic Games is a celebration of athletic achievement for those with physical disabilities. It has been marred by a growing concern: “classification doping,” (which borrows language used to describe performance enhancing substance abuse). Athletes are misrepresenting the extent of their disabilities to gain an unfair advantage over competitors.

Double amputee Oksana Masters, a prominent Paralympic athlete, believes officials are more interested in maintaining a positive image than addressing the issue. "They want to keep the warm and fuzzy narrative going," she said. "If they knew what's really going on behind closed doors, they'd be shocked."

The Paralympic classification system is designed to place athletes into competitions with others who have similar impairments. While some disabilities are easy to categorize, others are more ambiguous, relying on the judgment of medical classifiers and the integrity of the athletes themselves.

The most infamous Paralympic cheating scandal came at the 2000 Sydney Games, where Spain’s intellectual disability men’s basketball team won the gold medal despite fielding a roster with 10 players who did not have disabilities.

Physician Kevin Kopera, a volunteer in the Paralympic classification system, is cautious about dismissing the issue. "I don't believe anyone can say to what degree misrepresentation exists in parasports," he said. "Any statement in this regard would be speculative. Certainly, to say it doesn't exist would not be realistic. The stakes are too high."

In the fall of 2022, the fishing world was rocked by a cheating scandal. It happened at the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament.

Jason Fischer, the director of the tournament, became suspicious when the five fish he estimated to be about four pounds each—or 20 pounds total—weighed in at nearly 34 pounds. Mr. Fischer inspected one of the walleyes and felt a hard object in its stomach that seemed unnatural. “It’s not like they’re eating rocks,” he said. He grabbed a knife and sliced open the fish as Jacob Runyan, one member of the two-person team that presented it for weighing, looked on. The next moments rocked the competitive fishing world.

“We got weights in fish!” Mr. Fischer shouted, holding up an egg-sized lead ball he plucked from the fish. He then spoke directly to Mr. Runyan as if he were an enraged umpire ejecting an unruly player. “Get outta here!” he shouted, interjecting the demand with an expletive. Members of the crowd accused the men of theft and demanded that the police be called.

Mr. Runyan and his teammate would have finished in first place and scored a prize of about $30,000, but they were disqualified after the lead ball—and subsequently several others—were discovered in the fish.

Cheating in competitive fishing is more common than many people think. There are many ways to cheat: have friends deliver pre-caught fish to them; fish in prohibited areas; put fish in cages before the competition; stuff them with ice, adding heft during the weigh-in that melts and leaves no evidence. In some of these tournaments, ounces can mean tens, or hundreds, of thousands of dollars.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Original sin, greed, and dishonesty permeate everything and everyone—even the world of professional fishing!

Filmmaker Ken Burns won an Emmy for his nine-part PBS documentary Baseball. In the second episode set in the year 1900, the New York Giants traded for a 19-year-old rookie named Christy Mathewson. He became a two-time World Series champion and still ranks top ten all-time in wins, shutouts, and earned run average. He was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

The narrator refers to the Giants manager:

John McGraw may have championed the old brawling brand of baseball, but his greatest star was Christy Mathewson, a pitcher with a record for clean play so spotless that his wife once felt that she had to defend him, by saying that while he was a good man, he was no goodie goodie.

A writer then speaks to the camera: “He was so virtuous he would not give interviews to sportswriters who he heard cheated on their wives.

At a time when many professional players were gamblers and brawlers, Mathewson stood in contrast. The narrator says: “He was the perfect hero for his age. Sportswriters and fans across the country called him ‘The Christian Gentleman.’ No one did more to improve the reputation of the baseball player.”

Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack said, “He set a high moral code. He was (praised) by churches, ministers used his career as sermon topics, and he gave dignity and character to baseball.”

Just moments before crossing the finish line in third place, British triathlete James Teagle missed a turn and bumped into a metal barrier. Meanwhile, Spanish triathlete Diego Mentrida easily passed him to gain third place at the Santander Triathlon held in Spain on Sept. 13. But instead of crossing the finish line, Mentrida stopped short and allowed Teagle to retake his position and finish third. The pair shook hands just before Teagle crossed the line.

After the race, Mentrida said the British athlete deserved the finish. Mentrida later said on Instagram, “This is something my parents and my club taught me since I was a child. In my view it should be a normal thing to do.” Race organizers gave Mentrida an honorary third prize of nearly $350 although he technically finished fourth.

James "Deacon" White played at the very dawn of professional baseball. In fact, on May 4, 1871, James White had the very first hit, in the first game, of the first professional baseball league. It was a double. He was the first catcher to use a mask and the first pitcher to go into a wind-up before throwing the ball.

Over his 20 year career, White played for teams in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Detroit, Boston, Pittsburgh, before joining the team that became the Chicago Cubs. White would eventually become the oldest player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's not an exaggeration to say that White helped create the game of baseball we know today.

The inscription on White's plaque in the Hall of Fame, however, doesn't begin with the words "19th century star of baseball," or "premier catcher of his era," or "led teams to six championships," although all three phrases are there. The first words on the plaque are "Consummate gentleman." At a time when professional athletes were seen as unsavory, hard-drinking, womanizers, James White earned the nickname "Deacon" for his commitment to Christian faith and virtue which were evident to everyone who saw him play.

For example, in 1878, the Indianapolis Journal reported that an umpire actually consulted with White, a player on the field, about whether the base runner was out. When the opponent complained, the ump declared, "When White says a thing is so it is so, and that is the end of it."

In 1886, the Detroit Free Press wrote:

No one ever yet heard Deacon White say dammit; no one ever saw him spike or trample upon an opponent; no one ever saw him hurl his bat towards the bench when he struck out; no one ever heard him wish the umpire were where the wicked never cease from troubling and the weary never give us a rest. And think of it! Nineteen years of provocation! Will anybody deny that Deacon White is a great and good man, as well as a first-class ballplayer?

Fran Tarkenton, a former All-Pro quarterback who led his team to three Super Bowls, wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal lambasting himself and other athletes for their shallow prayers. Tarkenton wrote:

My forays into hoping for divine intervention didn't work out. I prayed fervently before each of the three Super Bowls we Minnesota Vikings played in. We played against the Dolphins, the Steelers, and the Raiders … I was sure God would be on our side for the game against the Raiders! After all, they were the villains of the league, and it was hard to believe they had more Christians on their team than on our saintly Vikings. We lost.

Before every game, no matter what team I was on at the time, the coach would always ask the most devout player to say a prayer. This would happen after we'd already been out warming up—so we'd all seen the crowd, we were in full uniform (complete with eye black doubling as war paint), and the intensity of the week had built up to a near frenzy in the locker room … [Then] after this moment of devotion, the team would all shout in unison, "Now let's go kill those S.O.B.'s!"

In an interview with Ben Zobrist, then Kansas City Royals left-fielder and one of Major League Baseball's most valuable players (retired from the Cubs in 2020), Collin Hansen commented, "You played well, you got promoted fairly quickly, but baseball is fundamentally a failure game." Zobrist responded:

It's funny, I listen to those interviews after people win the Super Bowl or World Series and stuff and sometimes I'm like, we're missing it. If we are believers and we're telling people, look you work hard and do it as unto the Lord he's going to bless you and you're going to be successful, that's not what this life is about. … I hear people use Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" as like their pump-up verse that's gonna allow them to do things on the field they've never done before ... When you really look at that passage, the Apostle Paul is saying, "I can even do jail, and misery, and weakness through Christ who strengthens me." For me, I have to realize if that's the truth, when I fail I need to give God glory just as much as when I succeed. If through that people can see that my hope is not in my success or failure, it's in him, then so be it. Let that be for God's glory.

January 1969, two great quarterbacks faced each other from opposite sidelines in Super Bowl III. Both Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath were raised in the steel towns of western Pennsylvania. But they had grown up a decade apart and lived in different moral cultures.

Unitas grew up in the old culture of modesty and humility. His father died when he was five and his mother took over the family coal delivery business. Unitas weighed 145 pounds while playing quarterback for his high school team, and he took a beating during every game. He went to church before every game, deferred to the authority of his coaches, and lived a football-obsessed life. After college he had a brief tryout with the Pittsburgh Steelers but was cut. Then he got a long-shot call from the Baltimore Colts. He made the team and spent many of his early years with the Colts steadily losing. Unitas was not an overnight sensation in the NFL, but he was steadily ripening, honing his skills, and making his teammates better.

He was a deliberately unglamorous figure with his black high-top sneakers, bowed legs, stooped shoulders, and a crew cut above his rough face. He was loyal to his organization and to his teammates. In the huddle he'd rip into his receivers for screwing up plays and running the wrong routes. Then, after the game, he'd lie to the reporter: "My fault, I overthrew him" was his standard line. Steve Sabol of NFL Films captured Unitas' character: "He was an honest workman doing an honest job." Unitas came to embody a particular way of being a sports hero.

In sharp contrast, Joe Namath was the flamboyant star, with white shoes and flowing hair, brashly guaranteeing victory. Broadway Joe made himself the center of attention, a spectacle off the field as much as on it, with $5,000 fur coats, long sideburns, and playboy manners. He openly bragged about what a great athlete he was, how good-looking he was. "Joe! Joe! You're the most beautiful thing in the world!" he shouted to himself in the bathroom mirror as a reporter looked on.

He created an early version of what we would now call the hook-up culture. He told a reporter, "I don't like to date so much as I just like to kind of, you know, run into something, man." He embodied the autonomy ethos that was beginning to sweep through the country. "I believe in letting a guy live the way he wants to if he doesn't hurt anyone. I feel that everything I do is okay for me and doesn't affect anybody else, including the girls I go out with. Look, man, I live and let live. I like everybody."

Possible Preaching Angles: Namath or Unitas—two great quarterbacks, two very different ways to live your life. They represent two different ways to approach humility, teamwork, service, or the use of our talents.

The high school basketball team for the Gainesville Tornadoes in Gainesville, Texas usually has a fan base of zero. One Gainesville player said, "My parents came to one game but they didn't come to the other ones because they didn't have time." The other students at Gainesville—a juvenile correction facility for felony offenders—don't come to the games either, mostly because they can't get out. One of the few perks at the facility—for very good behavior—is a chance to leave the prison a few times a year to play basketball.

They play against private schools like Vanguard College Prep in Waco. And it was before that recent match-up that two Vanguard players—Hudson Bradley and Ben Martinson—announced they it didn't seem right to play a team with no fans. So before their home game against Gainesville, Bradley and Martinson asked some Vanguard fans for a favor: To cheer for Gainesville instead.

The shocked Gainesville players walked onto the court to find their own signs of support, their own cheerleaders, even their own fan section. Half the crowd was assigned to cheer for Gainesville. But as the game went on, everybody started to cheer for Gainesville. One Gainesville player said, "When I'm an old man I'll still be thinking about this." Hudson Bradley said, "I mean every time they scored the gym was just lit up with cheering and clapping and everyone was on their feet. It showed me the real impact that encouragement and support for anybody can make."

Here's how journalist Steve Hartman summarized this story: "We all need someone to believe in us. We all need someone who knows our mistakes and loves us anyway. And for that, the Gainesville players can't thank those boys enough."

In the movie 42, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) is a Major League team executive with a bold idea. Rickey recruits Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), an African-American baseball player playing in the Negro League, to break the unspoken color line and become the first modern African American Major League player. As both anticipate, this becomes a major challenge for Robinson and his family as they endure unrelenting racism on and off the field, from player and fan alike. As Jackie struggles against his nature to deal with the abuse, he finds an ally in Ricky, who is also a Christian.

On their first meeting, Robinson asks Rickey, "You want a player that doesn't have the guts to fight back?"

"No. No." replies Rickey. "I want a player who has the guts not to fight back. People aren't going to like this. They're going to do anything to get you to react. Follow a curse with a curse and they'll hear only yours. Follow a blow with a blow and they'll say the Negro lost his temper; that the Negro does not belong. Your enemy will be out in force and you cannot meet him on his own low ground. We win with hitting, running, fielding—only that. We win only if the world is convinced of two things: That you are a fine gentleman, and a great ball player. Like our Savior, you're got to have the guts to turn the other cheek. Can you do it?"

Robinson replies, "You give me a uniform; you give me a number on my back; and I'll give you the guts."

Elapsed Time: Chapter 2; Scene beings at 0:11:11; Scene ends at 0:12:52. NOTE: Just a few seconds prior to this scene there is profanity.

On December 2, 2012, a Spanish long-distance runner named Ivan Fernandez Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in the Spanish countryside. Anaya was running in second-place, well behind the race leader, the Kenyan runner and Olympic medalist Abel Mutai. As they entered the finishing stretch, Mutai, the certain winner of the race, suddenly stopped running. Apparently, he mistakenly thought he had already crossed the finish line.

A Spanish newspaper reported what happened next: "Fernández Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first."

When asked what motivated this kind deed, Anaya said, "He was the rightful winner. He created a gap that I couldn't have closed if he hadn't made a mistake. As soon as I saw he was stopping, I knew I wasn't going to pass him."

Surprisingly, Anaya's coach, the famous Spanish runner Martin Fiz, was disappointed with Anaya's display of sportsmanship. Fiz said, "He has wasted an occasion. Winning always makes you more of an athlete. You have to go out to win."

But Anaya stood by his decision. He told reporters,

Even if they had told me that winning would have earned me a place in the Spanish team for the European championships, I wouldn't have done it either … because today, with the way things are in all circles, in soccer, in society, in politics, where it seems anything goes, a gesture of honesty goes down well.

Most athletes believe that god/fate is on their side …. Indeed, when they win a championship, talk of "destiny" fills the postgame locker room. What must be confusing to these highly trained, well-paid professionals is when they lose the game. Does it mean that God doesn't like them, that he wasn't for them, that they weren't as special as they thought? Indeed, would any of them have the guts to admit they were destined to lose?

I'm sure many have noticed that we never hear athletes during the postgame interviews thank God for their loss. It seems the god of athletics only shows up when players win. But … [the apostle] Paul believed that the God of Israel delights in showing up in the midst of loss—the resurrection of Christ proves it. God turns losing into gain, death into life, sorrow into joy, weakness into strength, futility into glory ….

So I can imagine Paul throwing his arm around the athlete who's just lost the World Series [or the Super Bowl] and saying … "Son of Adam, life is a game and we're all destined to lose. Let's go celebrate the good news."

Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius depicts the story of the legendary golfer. In the early 1920s, Jones retired at the age of 28 as an amateur, yet captured golf's most elusive prize, the Grand Slam. To accomplish this, Jones triumphed over his bad temper, self-imposed perfectionism, and some painful medical problems to earn the title "Best Golfer in the World."

In this scene, Bobby is playing his second U.S. Open Championship, and he feels pressured to win in order to prove that his first win was not a lucky accident.

Visibly upset, Jones calls for an official.

"I caused my ball to move," Jones tells them.

The officials confer with one another and with his opponent, Walter Hagen (Jeremy Northam), and then call Bobby over.

"Bobby, we've talked with Walter, all the officials, and several people in the gallery. Nobody saw your ball move. Seems a matter for you to decide."

The official takes Jones aside and asks, "Are you sure you caused that ball to move?"

"I know I did."

With this response, the official nods with some hesitation. "You're to be congratulated, son."

Jones gives him a surprised look, "Sir, that's like congratulating a man for not robbing a bank. I don't know how else to play the game."

Walter Hagen and the officials look on with amazement as Bobby Jones walks over to finish his shot.

The scene shifts to later that evening where reporter O. B. Keeler (Malcolm McDowell) is typing his story: "Bobby Jones lost the U.S. Open by one stroke. In calling a penalty on himself, he demonstrated the highest ideals of sportsmanship for all of us, and personal honor. I'm prouder of him than if he'd won. There are things finer than winning championships."

Content: Rated PG for language

Elapsed Time: 01:19:11 to 01:20:55, DVD chapter 17