Go For The Gold

October 7, 1984
Lakeland

Introductory Remarks

The theme today may strike some of you as trifling when the celebration of religion should be serious. I will accept that criticism, although I will be unconvinced that the subject is trivial. When the Greeks, founders of the Olympic Games, gave the victor not money but a wreath of leaves, they were exhibiting the fact that in their scales of values (set forth by Plato), honor stood very high, higher than money.

Any activity so emphatically woven into our national fabric as sports, of necessity, reflects our values and priorities. In the talk-back I will gladly receive your rebuttals.

Sermon

“Go for the Gold.” That was a prevailing national attitude during this summer’s Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The United States was host to the world (other than the Soviet Union and most of its allies). There were chants: “USA! USA! USA!” We felt thrills of pride and admiration when Joan Benoit of Kennebunk, Maine, won the women’s marathon; when Carl Lewis won four golds; when the U.S. basketball team exhibited its mastery; and so on as the daily results tallied an increasing number of gold medals for the USA. Greg Louganis and Mary Lou Retton could have won national offices if elections had been held the week after the Olympic Games. We felt area pride when Rowdy Gaines of Winter Haven won the gold at the age of 25 when most competitive swimmers are “over the hill.” The Olympic Games of 1984 were an astonishing, spectacular pageant – and the USA won the most golds.

Gold has been humankind’s most precious and sought-after prize long before history began to be recorded, and still represents wealth and power. Cortes in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru destroyed unique civilizations to get their gold. The 49ers and the Alaskan gold rush are events in our history which not only meant great wealth for some and death and misery for an uncounted number, but also were powerful social impulses moving our population West and North. The myth of El Dorado – where large amounts of gold were reputed to be found – stirred men’s desires and expeditions for hundreds of years.

Go for the Gold – humans always have. In 1984 the Olympic gold was an El Dorado that we of the USA won more than anybody else. Not just incidentally, the 1984 Olympic Games made a profit of millions of dollars through sale of TV time to advertisers, souvenir sales, and many fund-raising efforts. Go for the gold!

Like millions of others all over the world, I spent many hours watching the contests, the spectacular opening show and parade of the athletes of many nations. Yet since the heat of patriotic blood cooled down, I have had some nagging thoughts that I want to share with you – thoughts about sports, big money and patriotism, the values and triumphs of sports contests, make a few comments about competition and cooperation, and in conclusion ask if our national values could or should be transvalued to the end that we will have pride in and support world values.

First of all consider the sports phenomenon. I did not take the time to check the TV programs to calculate the hours on the tube just this week which will be devoted to baseball, professional football, college football, boxing, and other games. Neither could I hazard a guess at the total number, perhaps millions, who have been and will be in the stands this weekend watching the athletes compete. Nor could I guess at the value of free advertising sports is given through the daily sports sections of newspapers and the sports time on the 11 o’clock news. Whether this is a natural or created obsession I leave to the social psychologists. But there is not doubt as to the fascination.

Consider the scandals which frequently surround college football, so-called “amateur” football. Somewhere I read that the charges of recruiting violations leveled against the University of Florida will cost that university’s sports program somewhere around 1½ million dollars because of ineligibility to play on TV or in the numerous bowl games which have become so much a part of our American Christmas [and] New Year’s holiday Saturnalia. Sports are big business. Jack Kelley, U.S. Olympic Committee Vice-President, and a one-time Olympic athlete, said “Let’s be honest, a proper definition of an amateur today is one who accepts cash, not checks.” [CJW note: CONTEXT]

Should you happen to begin thinking that I am so un-American as to condemn spectator sports, I am little different from many of you, particularly those of the male gender. I was taken, often, to Fenway Park to see the Boston Red Sox play, before I ever went to school. I knew the names of the players and how the game was played before I learned my ABCs. The Red Sox still cause me grief every August. I watch some football and baseball games on TV, but I hope not as an overwhelming pre-occupation.

No, I’m not anti-sports. What concerns me is the over-emphasis. A cartoon shows a group of little league baseball players clustered around their coach. He is saying to the little boys, “All right men, this is it. There is no tomorrow.” No tomorrow for 10 year old boys?? A colleague of mine, a few years back, was minister of one of our churches in the Milwaukee area, [and] preached a sermon on “The Religion of the Green Bay Packers,” criticizing the philosophy of the then-coach, the late Vince Lombardi, “Winning isn’t every thing, it’s the only thing.” However, my friend said he was careful to reserve his sermon until he had accepted another church far away and was soon moving. [CJW note: 8 o’clock Mass]

I had a dream – what if the millions of sports buffs had 1/4th the knowledge of political, constitutional, economic, disarmament, civil rights issues as they do about the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, the Gators, Seminoles, Hurricanes? Would our elected leaders then be compelled then to exhibit more informed and relevant leadership? But I’m afraid that’s just a dream.

Should we wonder about the connection between sports and gambling? The Ledger reported recently that betting on college football games is up 15-20% at legal sports books in Nevada. According to figures released by that state’s gaming control board, sports customers bet $807 million on sporting events in the fiscal year ending 6/30/84. That does not include all the millions – perhaps billions – bet and unreported in the 49 other states where such gambling is illegal. I am no blue-nose about gambling but: with assurance it can be said that when billions of dollars are bet on the results of games, there are sown the seeds of corruption, bribery, coercion.

Then, too, there are the injuries and fatalities in sports. Just 40 miles away last week, Mike Olivenbaum, the quarterback of the Clermont High School football team, died last week as a consequence of brain injuries suffered in football. In Eugene, Ore., Ed Reinhardt, a player for the University of Colorado lies comatose with little chance of recovery. He suffered a head injury in a game, September 15. Now there can be a reasonable response that such tragedies are a tiny percentage of the large number who play contact sports, but that statistic does not ease the sorrow for the Olivenbaum and Reinhardt families and their friends.

The Olympic Games – “Go for the Gold” – have become political weapons. The U.S. boycotted the Games in Moscow in 1980; the Soviets boycotted the games in 1984. I fail to see how the action of either nation contributed anything to the solving of international tensions. And trained athletes of each nation were deprived of the chance to compete against their peers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “If there is one test of national genius universally accepted, it is success.” However, he wrote that in 1847, long before the sports era and the passionate urge to win.

But the priority of values, the principles we hold dear, are seldom utterly plain and clear when practically applied. Athletic contests, games, meets, bowls, are no more all bad than their absence would be all good.

There are many who by their athletic strength and ability have been able to climb out of ghettos or share-cropping to become affluent and recognized. Particularly members of the Black [CJW note: or Hispanic] minority – a Willie Mays, a Wilt Chamberlain, a Reggie Jackson, a Walter Payton [CJW note: Roberto Clemente, Juan Marichal] have achieved recognition, admiration, and wealth. Maybe the would have “made it” without professional sports, but the fact is that’s where they did. In most cases they became persons to emulate; they motivated others. Even when one recognizes that the percent who make great achievements is small, nevertheless they did – and through professional sports.

The recognition of the human dignity and worth of all persons is basic to religion. Consider Jesse Owens in the 1936 Games in Berlin. Not only did he become an American hero, but he thoroughly humiliated Hitler, and that dictator’s poisonous belief in an Aryan master race was publicly discredited.

Or, think of the late Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier of Major League Baseball. To be sure, he had to have the skills – speed, a batting eye, baseball instinct, mental acuteness. But more than that he bore the burden of bigotry with courage and restraint. Jesse Owens [and] Jackie Robinson were early lights on a dawning awareness of what is just and what is unjust in this nation, an awareness which led to the later civil rights actions and legislation. That is religion in action.

Charles Dickens once commented (in the foreword to WORLD’S GREATEST MAN) “If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.” The rhinoceros of bigotry had power, but the power of truth and recognition of human dignity was authority exemplified in the courage of those who led the way.

One thing more – competition. Preceding this talk, Pat played the theme music from the movie, CHARIOTS OF FIRE. If you missed that movie, watch for it on TV. It is a story of a competition, but also cooperation. The athletes were fraternal, even to their peers from other countries. It is a movie of striving for excellence, but more than that, the fast sprinter from Scotland refuses to compete on Sunday because of religious scruples, resisting pressure even from high places. Then his teammate, a British Lord who already has won a gold, takes himself out of another race so that the Scot may compete and win on another day. I found it a movie of values, religious values, if you will, in the sense that Josiah Royce wrote:

“Since the office of religion is to aim toward the creation on earth of the beloved community, the future task of religion is the task of inventing and applying the arts which shall win men over to unity, and which shall overcome their original hatefulness by the gracious love, not of mere individuals, but of communities .... Judge every social device, every proposed reform, every national and every local enterprise by one test – does this help towards the coming of universal community?” [THE PROBLEM OF CHRISTIANITY]

There is support for the idea that cooperation is not only desirable but natural.... In an article given me by Keyno Hicks...

[Magazine clipping, from World Press Review, August 1984, p. 55: Science & Technology Section, Biology, Cooperation and Competition, by Patrick Bateson. It details the value and mechanisms of cooperation in evolution. E.g., mammals huddling together for warmth, mutual assistance in hunting, etc.]

Thus, from my point of view, sports have both flaws and virtues. Sports can be both disillusioning and inspiring. At the present time, there is overemphasis both in exposure and dollars. Sooner or later, the public will become saturated of the over-load and there will be adjustment. After all, the University of Chicago abandoned football in 1936, but remains a distinguished university. Sports are highly competitive, but team sports require a high degree of cooperation, and most sports are team sports.

A British historian once noted that “the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” The spirit of team play, physical conditioning, development of leadership, and cooperation encouraged by sports had far-reaching and favorable consequences for that nation.

Distinctions must be made. The rules ever-need modification to meet new temptations and block fresh avenues of selfishness. Common sense is required. On the whole, our nation is composed of pragmatic people. I’ll continue to hope. Baron Von Steuben, when he came to America to train our raw Revolutionary soldiers, came to believe that no European army would be held together under equivalent hardships. He wrote a European friend, “The genius of this nation is not to be compared with the Prussians, Austrians, or French. You say to your soldier ‘do this’ and he doeth it, but I am obliged to say to these Colonials, ‘This is the reason you ought to do that’ and THEN he does it.” [Flexner’s WASHINGTON, p. 118]

That spirit in any area of life is a tradition to be maintained, and [is] where the gold of values is ever found.