It’s not all about medals & trophies

opinion_awards_LSports are good for your health, you should do more.“ How many times have we heard that?

While there is no denying that being physically active will increase your life expectancy by lowering your risks for many diseases and also give you better self esteem and appreciation of your own self, the way sports are organized in the U.S. could actually be doing the exact opposite for a lot of people. In fact, the way it is managed these days might even be keeping many of us from actually doing any kind of physical activities.

“Have you ever been the last kid to be picked for a team in elementary or high school? How did that feel?” asks Rita Liberti, director of the Center for Sports and Social Justice and professor of kinesiology at California State University, East Bay. Liberti has a Ph.D. in sports studies from the University of Iowa.

I know exactly how that feels, because I was always the smallest in all my classes and this was never really considered an advantage when it came to playing volleyball or basketball in high school. It felt humiliating and made me hate sports for a long time.

“We are approaching sports the wrong way with all those organizations that are actually more exclusive than inclusive in America,” says Liberti. “Those organizations are based on performance, costs, sex, race, popularity, etc. Sport and physical activity should not be about medals and championships, but about trying to bring all communities together. It is supposed to make you feel better, by being able enjoy something that you love and share it with others. It should not be [as] formal and elitist as it is now.”

That elitist approach to sport is particularly damaging for poorer families. First of all, if they want to join a team, they need shoes, a uniform, a ball, and a membership. Then, either their parents or themselves also need to be able to travel for tournaments, gym memberships, and so on. All of that comes to a cost that keeps a lot of people from doing any form of physical activity.

The absence of sidewalks, or safe environment to walk to school or just to keep in shape is also mostly affecting the ability to be active, especially for lower income families. Time, money and environment are three very important factors to consider when it comes to sports and physical activities.

A study by James F. Sallis and Karen Glanz for the journal “The Future of Children” shows there is a relation between someone’s environment and his ability or willingness to be physically active.  So how do we make it better? According to Liberti, government needs to be aware of the reality of poorer families and make it available for them through investments or grants.

“Privatization is not a good thing when it comes to sports,” adds Professor Liberti. “We need more community centers and more accessible organizations for all. Sport and physical practice have a major impact on a child’s development and even on their ability to perform in school.”

While organization in sports may keep a lot of people from being active, when it comes to adults, there is also another factor that separates social classes when it comes to sports.

Carl Stempel, professor in sociology and social services at CSUEB has been researching the relationship between social classes and sports for the last few years. Stempel has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Oregon. Stempel came to the conclusion that the “prestige” associated to one sport can also influence who will practice it or not.

For instance, golf and tennis have always been associated with the upper class and businessmen in our society. But more and more high intensity sports such as biking and swimming are also now considered “elite sports.”

“The best anecdote [for] that,” says Stempel, “is this story of my friend who is a bus driver. He started riding a bike a few years ago, and all his friends and family kept asking him ‘but, why?’ because it did not fit in the idea of the lifestyle they had of a biker!”

The results of Stempel’s study seems to show that a lot of people stick to those unspoken barriers and would play baseball, soccer or no sports at all because they feel that this is where they belong, therefore adding an additional barrier to sports practice.

In the end, for both Stempel and Liberti, the goal to do those researches is to remind people that sport can be enjoyable and that all kinds of sports should be available for all kinds of people, no matter what social class you belong to.

For them, being aware of those social boundaries is the first step to making a collective effort to soften them through sport. Therefore making it the tool of inclusion it should really by, rather than the exclusive entity it is now.

Amarylis Proulx is a student from Montreal, Canada. She has previously contributed pieces to The Pioneer while taking classes at California State University, East Bay during the Fall 2013 quarter.