In time of crisis, sportsmanship reminds us that grace in defeat is crucial to society
In nearly a full year of chaos since the pandemic began to convulse the country in mid-March, sports has provided a beacon.
Even with the death toll still surging, how many more would have died if the NBA hadn’t taken bold action to hit pause and compel others to follow?
Many athletes, including Patrick Mahomes and Tyrann Mathieu of the Chiefs, used that time — and beyond — to lend substantial voices to social justice efforts galvanized by the brazen killing of George Floyd.
Then consider how the largely cautious and remarkably responsible rebooted versions of sports have provided broad diversion and even some doses of positive mental health. Perhaps that’s particularly so in Kansas City, where the Chiefs delighted countless fans by making 2020 the best calendar year in franchise history and will play host to the Cleveland Browns in an AFC Divisional playoff game Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium.
But now we need to heed another momentous example of what sports offers us — as it pertains to our bubbling national crisis that is technically over politics but runs much deeper in so many ways.
Part of that example transcends politics and is fairly simple:
The false and incendiary insistence of outgoing President Donald Trump and his enablers that he won the election despite infinite evidence to the contrary is the antithesis of the most shining, enduring ideals of sports.
Some may misconstrue this as a political point. It’s not.
Whatever party would have unleashed such havoc, and for that matter, everyone seeking a way to reconcile it, would be well-served to borrow from the principles of sportsmanship: fair play, respect for one’s opponent, graciousness in victory or defeat. And so much more.
The particular contemporary relevance of these points was so well-expressed last week in a column by my friend Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it left me thinking all the more about it.
Thinking again about the fact that our competitors aren’t our enemies, at least not unless you deceitfully incite hateful action against them at every turn to let loose madness.
Thinking about that the ends don’t necessarily justify the means, especially if they make a farce of fairly conducted events.
Thinking about why Mahomes likes to tell opponents “good hit,” as you typically hear him do when he’s mic’d up, and otherwise reach across the aisle and graciously accept defeat — rare as that might be.
When I asked him about why that mattered to him and how he defined sportsmanship, Mahomes smiled and said this:
“For me, I just love the game. I respect everybody else just as much as they respect me. And being able to go out there and play the sport that we love, I understand everybody’s grind, everybody’s putting everything they have every single time they’re on the field.
“I mean, trust me, I want to win. But I respect everybody’s grind of getting out there. So I’m going to do what I can to show that I appreciate them as much as I appreciate the guys on my team.”
To be absolutely clear, this question was put to him purely in the context of sportsmanship and his answer should be understood as such. But it still has broader resonance.
Likewise, I recently asked Royals general manager Dayton Moore about the role sports can play in these times without specifically alluding to the chilling events in Washington, D.C. two days before.
“There’s never been a point in time in the history of our country where sports, I believe, has been more meaningful,” he said. “We’ve got to come together, and look at it for what it is:
“It’s two teams coming together as one, competing, giving their best to win the competition. And at the end of the day leaving it on the field and going our separate ways. And then pulling for each other as hard we can off the field in all aspects of what we do.”
Along the same lines, I asked Mizzou men’s basketball coach Cuonzo Martin on Wednesday about how the lessons of sports might be applicable in these hard times.
“I think sports have always been a safe haven (for) peace of mind and also to get away from real-life issues,” he said. “But I think in our society now we can’t run from those issues any more. We have to deal with them.”
Practically radiating anguish, he added, “What happened in D.C. is unfortunate. For me as a Black man you sit there and you look for answers. It’s hard. It really is hard. I just don’t understand where hate comes from. It’s one thing to dislike an individual or dislike somebody that harms you.
“But it’s just hard. There’s so many things we can be dealing with, and when you don’t know if your days are numbered and don’t know how long you’ll live on this earth, if you’ll die of cancer so many other things, to have somebody hating you and you’ve got to look over your shoulders … it’s not a good way to live.”
Life as sports, sports as life.
Of course there’s so much more at stake in politics than sports.
That’s all the more reason politicians of any party should try to live up to the standards of decency and integrity hard-wired into sports.
The kind of right stuff that nearly always prevails on the field and so often informs and inspires a thriving locker room.
When my friend and former colleague Terez Paylor of Yahoo Sports asked Mathieu earlier this week about how the Chiefs maintain a healthy locker room in trying times, Mathieu began by saying it starts with an appreciation of each other.
“I think in our mind, we understand who we are and what we represent. It’s all about us showing that bond, showing that commitment to one another. It’s an open floor,” he said. “All of us respect each other, appreciate each other and I think that’s the start. That’s how you continue to grow.”
Not that the sports world is any paradise. That mirror on society comes with some warped images. We know people cheat sometimes and behave boorishly at others.
But they also typically are penalized or shamed for doing so. Because there is a fundamental code, a virtual rule of law, that has to be honored to make it work, and without which it would implode.
To flip this a bit: Sports would be impossible to conduct if every time a call that was replayed and verified — much like this last election — led to a participant’s attack on the integrity of the game, if not an actual riot.
Or consider how untenable any sports event would be, the mayhem, if every loser proclaimed themselves the victor over any invented grievance or, you know, just because of the power vested in them.
Like Nero, the Roman Emperor who in 67 A.D. changed the Ancient Olympic calendar to accommodate his own self-interest. Then he competed in the four-horse chariot race using 10 horses … only to be thrown along the way (and nearly suffer death) but nonetheless be declared the winner.
Sound familiar? This would-be emperor still wears no clothes despite his demonstrably appalling disposition every … single … day, something we could see merely through the lens of sports long ago.
While it’s certainly true that sports tend to build character, behavior often also can reveal it.
In this case, let’s start with the fact that Trump is a well-documented cheater at golf, a sport that relishes having an honor code, as chronicled in Rick Reilly’s book “Commander In Cheat” and elsewhere.
And it sure says something that the prevailing habits and inclinations that Trump has taken from sports appear to be those derived from the outrageous aspects of pro wrestling, including belittling name-calling.
So here we are, days from what is normally a cherished scene in the United States of America: the peaceful transfer of power — sportsmanship in real-world practice.
Instead, alas, a cloud hovers amid fears of further violence in the wake of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that was stoked by a refusal to accept reality and inflammatory accompanying fabrications.
All of that could start to dissipate if Trump could somehow muster a shred of the decency of good sportsmanship.
Unlikely as that is and regardless, though, we’re all faced with how to meet this pivotal moment in our history now.
And regardless of party affiliation, at least we know the best part of sports still can provide a guide.
This story was originally published January 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.