Sport, Game, or Activity?

I was single for quite a while before I finally met the one woman who could stand to marry me. As a result of this unforeseen term of bachelorhood, I had to find ways to fill my time. If you've never been a single, Christian man for more than three years after college, you will not be able to relate to what I'm about to say...but it's boring. I mean, everything in this world that is designed for that demographic (minus the Christian part) is meant to feed the flesh alone. Think about it what your average 29 year-old bachelor would do on a Friday night: go to the bar, then hit the strip clubs. Not necessarily in that order. Obviously this wasn't a lifestyle I could follow, so needless to say, my weekends could be pretty boring. Watch a movie. Go to Best Buy and Barnes and Noble. Eat. Then sleep. Pretty depressing, huh?

Well every once in a while, a group of like-minded friends (all guys of course) and I would meet at someone's house for a bonfire. During these "gatherings" (you couldn't call them parties without grossly mislabeling them) we would sit around the fire, eat junk food, and discuss deep, philosophical ideas...such as what to do if zombies attack. Or should I say WHEN zombies attack? Well, one night, we had about a two hour discussion on what defines a sport. This post will hopefully recreate that discussion (in a highly condensed form I hope) to the best of my ability, seeing as the original conversation was over four years ago, and the original transcripts have been lost...because unfortunately we weren't forward thinking enough to create them.

Our first attempt was to say that anything covered or broadcast by ESPN should be a sport. However, in case you've noticed, there are like 6 ESPN channels now, and they show things like bowling, billiards, and archery. We couldn't stomach the thought of those being classified with "real" sports like football, basketball and hockey.

So then we decided to determine the key qualities that are the essence of any true sport and here they are in no particular order:
1. Competition is present
2. Physical exertion
3. Athletic skill required
4. A real potential for injury

The first requirement is that competition must be present. This seemed like a no-brainer to us (it feels weird attributing the term "no-brainer" to our group because later on that same evening we started throwing aerosol cans in the fire to watch them explode, but I digress). Obviously, if there is no possibility of winning, you are just messing around in your backyard with a ball. Competition is the essence of sport.

Physical exertion was a difficult one for us, but we felt it had to be there. We had one member who was convinced that golf required physical exertion. The rest of us disagreed. Certainly there is a high level of mental strain in golf, but physical? Come on. So they have to walk a whole golf course, big deal. Their caddy's carrying their monstrous bags (seriously, why do they need such big bags?) But we all agreed that a real sport should require physical exertion. Baseball was another sticking point, because it really doesn't seem that baseball players are continuously exerting themselves. Oh sure, they may run 90 feet or so, maybe even 180 if they get a good hit to deep right field, but physical exertion...we weren't so sure about that. But we agreed, that while baseball certainly didn't require stellar athleticism in all areas (physical fitness, coordination, natural skill), it still could be physically taxing, unless you're the DH and your only job is to bat three times a game.

Next, we determined that athletic skill must be required to be good at the sport. Notice I didn't say everyone had to be athletes. We were very careful to not make that determination. After all, Babe Ruth was arguably the best baseball player of all time, but no one would mistakenly call him athletic. As determined in the previous paragraph, athleticism is determined by three areas; fitness, coordination and skill. Having athletic ability must be required to be good at the sport in question. For example, bowling does not require athletic ability. My grandfather proves that rule. He stopped bowling when he was about 85 and I believe his average game was around 200. That's would pretty much qualify him to join the PBA. My grandfather was no athlete, maybe when he was younger, but not when he was 85, and buzzed on Pabst. Maybe it was the Kielbasa grease on his bowling hand that made him so good...

Finally, there should be a real potential for injury for an activity to be considered a sport. In basketball, there's twisted ankles, broken fingers, smashed noses, and hitting your head on the rim (maybe that's just me). In baseball, well, let me just say there's a reason they wear cups...at least the smart ones who want to reproduce do. As for football...do I really need to list them? Before you whiners say "Well what about track and field?" Let me just say that running is the most dangerous exercise you can do, so back off. Also, notice I said a REAL potential for injury. I'm not talking getting a pool cue to the eye or yard-dart in the cranium. I'm talking real injury resulting from playing the sport the way it's creators intended.

Now, with these four rules you can classify any potential sport as either a sport, game, or activity. A sport meets 3 out of the 4 requirements. That's why NASCAR meets the requirements (much to my chagrin) because the only thing it doesn't explicity require is athletic ability. Sure, those guys have skills and are physically tough, but I'm pretty sure I could outrun Rusty Wallace. That's also why Golf does not make the cut for being a sport. There's no real potential for injury unless you're stupid, and you don't really have to be an athlete to compete. Come on, Angel Cabrera was smoking a cigarette walking to the 18th hole to win the Master's last year. Yeah, he's an athlete just like Kobe Bryant.

I almost forgot the uber-sport clause. If a sport has a realistic chance of killing you, then it is an uber-sport. Examples of uber-sports are Formula 1 racing, NASCAR (again, against my better judgment), boxing, MMA, football, etc.

So there it is. The next time you are wondering if you are playing a sport (meets 3 out of 4 requirements), a game (meets less than 3 of the requirements) or an activity (meets any of the requirements but there's no competition) you will be able to tell.

I am willing to discuss any arguments anyone may have relating to this methodology, but I believe it's rock solid.

Now who's up for a rousing game of Yahtzee?