Subdivisions, exclusion and communities in sports

I was reading Gary Smith's fantastic, tear-jerking piece entitled "The Wheels of Life" in my most recent Sports Illustrated magazine today, and it got me thinking. The piece is a superb tale of Dick Hoyt and his paralyzed son, Rick, and how they've worked together to compete in everything from marathons to triathlons for over 30 years. On one level, it's a great story of two people who have overcome incredible adversity to do things that many able-bodied people never will be able to, but I think there's a broader point there as well, and one that applies to our current sports world. Read this paragraph and see if you can figure out where I'm going with this:

Race day came a few days later. So closeted were the disabled in 1977 that many people, including Dick before the birth of his first son, had never laid eyes on a wheelchair or a quadriplegic, let alone one in a five-mile race. Dick's two other sons, Rob and Russ, wisecracked that the Hoyts' race number, 00, summed up their chances of making it to the finish line. Most people figured Dick would shove the kid as far as the first corner and peel off. None had a clue what happened inside Dick Hoyt's head when it bumped against a task.

What I take from that is that Dick and Rick's racing career isn't just a man-versus-himself conflict (them trying to overcome their physical limitations), or a man-versus-nature one (them trying to overcome the racecourse), or even man-versus-man (them trying to beat other racers), but also contains a profound element of man-versus-society. For them, racing is a way to prove that Rick in particular belongs and has value, despite the world's attempts to say that he doesn't. That point is emphasized more prominently in a later section of the piece, describing what happened after Dick experienced severe medical issues following their first race:

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Bob McCown doesn't stand for all of us

[Image: Prime Time Sports host Bob McCown]


Dear Mr. McCown,


I'm writing to inform you that your statements (go to 1:37) on yesterday's nationally-syndicated Prime Time Sports radio/television show are not only offensive and inaccurate, but are also potentially defamatory and libelous. 


For the record, you said, "The sole motivation for a man to watch any woman's sport is are they half-naked? Are they good-looking?" You then went on to say "Other than that, I don’t care if it’s a world championship or your next-door neighbour playing somebody. Guys are only interested in woman’s sport if it’s good-looking chicks."


Of course, it's mind-bogglingly stupid for a nationally-broadcast radio host to make those kinds of remarks on International Women's Day, but that's your own affair. What I'm more concerned with is that you're making a "statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group,government, or nation a negative image", that this statement is false, and that it was communicated to a large group of people coast-to-coast. I can inform you that your comments definitely have the potential to give a group (men) a negative image, and that they are untrue. There are many of us who watch and appreciate women's sports for the sport value, just as we do with men's sports. We appreciate the sports on their own merits, not just how attractive the players are. 


This isn't meant to seriously threaten a lawsuit, as I certainly don't have the time or inclination to bother with that, and I'm generally not a fan of trying to restrict speech. In my mind, you're perfectly welcome to express your troglodytic views on women's sports on your national platform; maybe that will help diminish your undeserved prominence. However, please don't claim to speak for all men while doing so; when you do that, you're ascribing your own misguided views to the rest of us and damaging our reputations in the process, and I don't think that's particularly fair. While you're stuck in the darkness and talking about leering at suggestive cave paintings, some of us have managed to move out into the light. It would be nice if you came to join us some day, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.