Sports politics are worth consideration

Kyle Nelson Columnist

Beginning with the Olympics, which were and still are overt displays of nationalism, sports have gradually evolved into a sphere through which legitimate social change can occur. Since many view Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball as a more important event in Civil Rights than The Little Rock Nine desegregating Little Rock Central High School in 1957, it is clear that sports do play a significant role in the formation of history as well as in the recollection of politics. Therefore, our campus’s well-documented apathy of the sporting world is confusing.

While many students at Vassar openly dislike sports, there is no denying the influence of sport politik in American society. Considering the way that we analyze the socio-political implications of hip-hop, film and popular culture, the absence of sports in these discussions is both confusing and frustrating.

How many students display posters of John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s legendary raised fists at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City without even realizing the symbolism behind this gesture? Both Carlos and Smith were members of an organization called The Olympic Project for Human Rights, which considered a boycott on the 1968 Olympics to protest apartheid in South Africa.

Their salute was a show of solidarity with impoverished and oppressed blacks all over the world. They wore gloves so they would not have to shake the hands of the notoriously racist International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage; they did not wear shoes with their black socks to protest black poverty, and Carlos wore beads around his neck to protest lynching culture and honor its victims. But it makes one great poster, right?

While we’re talking about posters, how could we forget one of American sports’ most famous poster-children? Muhammad Ali is one of the most influential sports figures of all time and a true American icon. The last time most people saw Ali was at the controversial torch lighting ceremony before the Athens Olympics, where Ali, stricken with Parkinson’s Disease, appeared far from the strong, defiant hero of old.

What many forget is that there was a truly radical political mind behind the icon. Ali refused to fight in Vietnam because he did not believe in the war. He continued to oppose the war even after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated for doing the same. Ali was a man of principle and an icon inside of the ring just as much as outside. Yet even though his likeness decorates the walls of Vassar campus, students are still apathetic to the sports world’s very obvious relationship with American political history.

We learn about the world’s very political relationship with and nationalist implications of international soccer (football to the rest of the world) in political science classes, yet we only watch the World Cup and Olympic championships with fleeting interest.

For baseball fans, the fact that Venezuela is no longer allowing Major League Baseball (MLB) to extract players for its farm systems (and the MLB’s subsequent boycott on Venezuelan baseball players), should be a cause for concern about our society’s morality; yet when it comes to issues of Killer Coke exploiting workers in similarly dehumanizing ways, the apathy somewhat fades away.

For a campus that once prided itself on being political and progressive, our campus’s relationship with sports is showing a very disturbing trend: increased apathy and political neutrality. This trend is most visible, though, in the way we watch and treat sports.

As of late, such parallels have been undeniable, as countless students flocked around televisions to watch Tom Petty and the United States military perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, yet would rather watch Lost or America’s Next Top Model than the Democratic Party Candidate Debates.

Speaking of debates, it seems fitting that Senator Barack Obama’s favorite activity on the campaign trail is to play basketball. I cannot think of a past candidate that has connected more to the athletic community than the Senator from Illinois. Obama has shown the ability to drag professional athletes out of their notorious sociopolitical apathy. How has sport politik not infiltrated our conversations if the campus majority’s presidential candidate has a very strong sports consciousness?

The message is simple: The campus may not enjoy sports, but it should at least respect them and understand the ties to American society that can be witnessed purified in the sports world.

Nobody is expecting the College to fund campus-wide excursions to Knicks games, but is this campus-wide athletic apathy legitimate? There are only two sport-related classes in our course catalogue: the Sociology of Sport and The Psychology of Sport.

This is a deceiving representation, however, as neither class was offerred last semester and Professor of Sociology Gayle Green will not be teaching The Sociology of Sport in the future.

I have often been asked why I care so much about sports instead of focusing my efforts on film, literature or music. My answer is simple: If sports are a microcosm of society, then sports politick is just as legitimate as the legions of Vassar students who consider political activism debating hip-hop or Lost.

There is a sense on this campus that sports are not a thinking person’s sphere, but if athletic icons are allowed to grace a dorm wall, why can they not compliment our campus’s diverse academic discourse?

—Kyle Nelson ’09 is an English and Africana Studies double-major. This semester he is editorializing on issues in national athletics.