Steven Truong Troop 299 Venturing Sportsmanship: Is it really Necessary in Todays Sports?

Sportsmanship is defined as an ethical aspect where participants of a sport have respect for each other, participate in the sport for the sake of the sport, and have fun, regardless of winning or losing. Now, imagine a world where sportsmanship does not exist. Winning would be emphasized as the main goal when sporting instead of having fun and enjoying the sport. Furthermore, athletes and competitors would adopt a Machiavellian perspective where the winning justifies the means to winning. The foundation of teamwork and collaboration needed to succeed in a team sport would also be dismantled due to the creation of an extremely competitive environment in sporting. Thus, sportsmanship is necessary and plays a significant role in games since it promotes principled behavior and makes sports fun and enjoyable and not an activity where people step on each other in order to win. Primarily, sportsmanship provides for mutual respect between athletes, regardless of rivalries and tension between athletes and teams. Soccer, being the preeminent sport in the world, spawns many tensions between teams due to friction caused by fans, patriotism, and simply club rivalries. However, the tensions amongst teams in soccer do not become fights or large disputes due to sportsmanship. The largest and most popular rivalry in soccer is known as El Clasico. This rivalry spans back to 1902 where Madrid and Barcelona were the two largest, most influential, and most successful clubs in Spain. Furthermore, in the 1930s-1940s, the tension was exacerbated during Francos regime and the Spanish Civil War. Basically, Franco was the central government in Madrid, while Barcelona- municipal of Catalonia- was the radical opposition to the government. Thus the Madrid-Barcelona rivalry can be classified as both a sports rivalry and a fight for patriotism. For more than a hundred years, this rivalry still lives to be the biggest competition in the soccer and perhaps the sports world. Despite the long lasting tensions among the two giants, players do not have bad intentions towards each other since they only

want to play the beautiful game and rise as stars for winning the rivalry. Sportsmanship is the main reason that the competitors remain controllable as all players on the field have a mutual respect for each otherunless aggravated by foul play or foul words of course. Therefore, sportsmanship has a significant role in todays competitions since it maintains a platform where conflict is suppressed- making the sport much more enjoyable to the participants. Despite the fact that sportsmanship is mainly concerned with sporting affairs, it also has a role in everyday aspects where contentions are present. Whether it is for a music/dance competition, race for a job promotion in the workplace, or even a $200 40 - inch television on Black Friday, having good ethics in the face of competition also reduces further chances of conflict and retains the peace of mind. Without sportsmanship in the real world, people who lose will become sore losers. Sore losers are defined in the vernacular to be those who do not accept their loss and complain about their loss and believe that they were the ones to win. Furthermore, there are also bad winners- those who win but brag about their winning and believe they are better than the losers. Both sore losers and bad winners have been frowned upon by society since the beginning of time since they disrupt the social ethics that keep equilibrium among people. Because the majority of all aspects in life can be interpreted as a win-lose aspect, sportsmanship is significant in all aspects to keep peace and moral goodness. Without it, people would be foul after winning or losing and disrupt the ethics that humans live by. Therefore, sportsmanship is significant in both the sporting world and in reality since it maintains moral integrity and dignity for others. Indeed, many may argue that competition requires a survival of the fittest doctrine and advocate that good sportsmanship only destroys the aspect of competition. However, good sportsmanship is necessary since it is not only involved in sports but also in life, it is an ethical quality that ultimately allows others to judge a person from good or bad. Therefore, sportsmanship is to be advocated since it maintains justice in sporting and competitive aspects of life.