Sports & Objectivism

[Hat Trick]

I am, and have always been a big hockey fan. I grew up watching NHL (GO WINGS!), NCAA (GO UNH!) and junior hockey (to this day I am a Spokane Chiefs season ticket holder) and have never stopped. Does anybody else believe that the practice of athletics is essentially an objectivist principal? I mean, here you have a competition in which there are clear winners and losers, where it takes a lifetime of achievement and training to even be allowed to compete, and to the victors go the spoils (LOTS of spoils, millions in spoils).

I was thinking about this during the NHL lockout. It is to me a clearcut example of why objectivism works and why altruism is a lost cause. The owners were losing money due to the players inability (the on-ice product was far less exciting than it had been in past years) so they instituted a salary cap. The cap sounds like a pretty communist solution, but bear in mind that it still allows for bonuses given by the league based on production and of course advertising revenue which goes only to players who are good enough to reap such advertising contracts. So essentially, the league has put the players in a sink-or-swim position: the best players will get huge bonuses and the players who aren't good enough to be in the NHL to begin with are going to be cut due to the low overhead on the cap.

Any other sports fans out there?

Do you believe the current state of the game is by nature objectivist?

[Styles2112]

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once and a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be the first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he's got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But, more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.

Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization - an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win - to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds harsh or cruel. I don't think it is.

It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there - to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules - but to win.

And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something really good in men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

I don't say these things because I believe in the 'brute' nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But, I firmly believe that any man's finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he's exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

-Vince Lombardi

Outside of the "God" part, tell me that's not objectivist.

I'm a die hard Green Bay fan.