Life and Sport
For Queen and Country - Exploring Nationalism and Loyalty in Sport
Author: Bryan Davies
Our son Thomas has many sporting enthusiasms, a good thing at age 15. Some of them, like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, are the sort of televised brawling that leaves the old man a little cold. These huge UFC warriors are brave and the fighting is clearly real, but I have my suspicions that the UFC does not have mandatory drug testing.
Thomas and I have loudly debated the merits of the UFC many times. He says sport, I say spectacle. My wife tells us that if this is our biggest issue, father to son, she has few worries about either of us. This heartens me.
Thomas and I are on the same page with the pending World Cup soccer tournament. He has a remarkable knowledge of the 32 national teams that qualified, based upon his encyclopedic study of the various world elite leagues, from England to Italy to Brazil, and back again.
Like the successful businesses in our post-NAFTA world, Thomas has become a sports internationalist. He has no particular allegiance to one country over another. It is the soccer, pure and beautiful, that has captured his sporting soul.
Two weeks ago, one of Thomas' favourites was struck down. Wayne Rooney, the dynamic English forward, was on the receiving end of a hard, clean tackle as he blasted to the net for his club team, Manchester United. Rooney sustained a fractured right foot and he is a doubtful starter for England when they commence their World Cup play on June 10, 2006 versus Paraguay.
I admire Wayne Rooney as a player. He is fast and resilient, with a drive and a passion for his game that pulsates from an otherwise cool and indifferent television screen. Rooney is as emphatic with the game officials as he is with his opponents, blunt and unyielding. If you can read lips when Rooney goes off, he is a creative debater.
Rooney is England's best player. As recently as 20 years ago, a player in Rooney's position would have moved heaven and earth to be available for the national team.
The honour of representing one's country was beyond a duty or an opportunity, it was a spin on the old notion of noblesse oblige – those with the talent have the obligation.
Manchester United is a sports megalopolis, as powerful a city-state as ancient Sparta. Manchester United has made it plain concerning Rooney's injury that he is their commodity, not England's. Man U pays Rooney's considerable salary, and Rooney is one of the underpinnings to their global commercial appeal.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager who embodies every caricature of the dour Scot, told the world press that the shareholders of his club were the only people he answered to; Rooney has stated his agreement with Ferguson. English soccer fans are disconsolate.
Rooney is the latest athlete in the trend to place personal or corporate interests above national ones. Goaltender Miika Kiprusoff of Finland declined to play for his national team at the 2006 Olympics, citing a desire to heal from an injury and to therefore assist his professional team, the Calgary Flames, who pay his $6M annual salary. The Finns won Olympic silver without him, and the better rested and rehabilitated Kiprusoff and his Flames lost in the first round of the NHL playoffs.
Steve Nash, the only iconic Canadian basketball player, has cemented a future enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in winning a second straight NBA Most Valuable Player award. Nash gives great hope to all athletes who do not fit the conventional mold of the physically dominating player. Steve Nash is a sublime talent – he would elevate the level of play of any basketball team in the world. Steve Nash will never play again for Canada.
Why? Steve Nash is an economic engine that is now the size of Nova Scotia and he may be gaining on Quebec.
He earns almost $10M per season, plus endorsements; national team play means that Basketball Canada must insure his future income against the threat of injury in international play; the insurance premiums are stated to be as much as $500,000 or more. The supposed imperative to cover this injury contingency is a recent development; it is now expected by all players who represent their national team. I suspect that Nash may have the funds to cover his own insurance needs; he chooses not to do so. Basketball Canada cannot afford the cost of having Steve Nash play and they cannot win without him, an athletic Hobson's choice.
John F. Kennedy once said: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." The modern international athlete would scoff at such sentiments. Elite sport in its final distillation is about money.
Nationalism in sport is not dead so much as it is retired and redundant.
For Thomas, sport can come from anywhere so long as it is good. He cheered against the Canadian Olympic hockey team because they had selected the thuggish Todd Bertuzzi to their roster, a move that offended Thomas' sense of fair play. Bertuzzi had ended the career of an opponent, why should he get any glory? It does not make Thomas less of a nationalist; it makes him more of an objective and critical consumer of sport where the quality of the product is more important than its place of origin. Thomas is reflecting the same values that are exhibited by the players – I will act in my best interests, not the interests of others. I will support and I shall cheer for any athlete, team or country that I like. I want to see the best.
Thomas says that cheering for a team out of duty makes a true sports fan blind to the talents of others. He is profound. I know of many hockey fans of my vintage that cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs because the Leafs have "always been their team." With seemingly limitless free agency in every professional sport, truly organic teams with a continuity and character year to year do not exist.
My son is of the new age, the free agent fan. I wonder how his views of loyalty to a sporting cause will play when he enters the working world. I suspect he will be a perfect fit.
How stressed are you? Are you at risk for complications due to stress? You can find out. Take the Free Stress Test. PLUS, get exclusive access to a FREE 7-day stress course so you can begin living your life how YOU want, happily ever after. Take the FREE Stress Test now!
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Published: May 11, 2006
