Are Sports Making Us Dumber?

Arthur Solomon

It’s bad enough that sports broadcasts are saturated with commercials equating drinking beer with having fun.

It’s bad enough that for decades the National Football League lied by saying there was no evidence that concussions could lead to brain damage.

The league execs would also fail in courses of quantitative analysisas a masterly researched New York Times story (3/25/16) revealed that the league omitted over 100 concussions from its studies.

It’s bad enough that Major League Baseball condoned the use of steroids because fans liked moon shot home runs until Congress got involved.

It’s bad enough that it took Congressional hearings for the NFL and MLB to reluctantly change their lying ways.

It’s bad enough that while supposedly being holier than thou about preventing gambling on its games, the NFL announces injury reports prior to their games and MLB does the same when teams announce their starting pitchers and line-ups prior to a game. Giving bookies enough time to change the lines?

Certainly, the powers that run the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA and the IOC would fail courses in ethics.

Certainly, the powers that run the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA and the IOC would fail courses in language comprehension because they obviously don’t know the meaning of good sportsmanship.

However, spokesmen and executives of the IOC, NFL and MLB certainly would receive an A+ in the most advanced courses of fiction writing, based on their statements over the years. In fact, they could give master classes in the subject.

Most sports fanatics just let the lies emanating from sports cabals role off their shoulders.

But when the sports universe starts messing around with our children’s education, enough is enough. It’s time for parents to take to the barricades and shout, “We won’t take it anymore.”

No wonder our students are falling behind other advanced countries in math when they read that the Big Ten is composed of 14 teams and the Big 12 0f 10.

It must be confusing to students not interested in sports when they see that the NFL’s Giants and Jets are called New York teams, when they both play their games across the Hudson in New Jersey.

Studies also show that our students are deficient in geography. What does that have to do with sports? Everything to our sports-crazed students, who forever heard that the winner of a best of seven game baseball series is the World Champions. That’s only true, as I have frequently written, if you think that the West and East Coasts and the land mass between the borders of Canada and Mexico comprise the entire world.

And many youngsters no longer know the days that differentiate the four seasons since baseball people started referring to “extended spring training,” that can last for months into the summer.

Courses in philosophy were once taught at the college level. But sports writers and commentators deserve credit for popularizing philosophy for students still in primary education, as well as those who never took philosophy courses. Countless sports fans have heard the philosophical saying of the New York Yankees’ Yogi Bera, who is oft quoted as saying

“It’s like déjà vu all over against” and “It’s not over till it’s over.”

Or Casey Stengel, the Yankees and New York Mets manager, who said, "You have to have a catcher, otherwise you will have a lot of passed balls." Philosophical truisms all.

But, perhaps, the most profound philosophical quote was uttered by Joaquin Andujar, who pitched for three major league teams. He said, "You can't worry if it's cold; you can't worry if it's hot; you only worry if you get sick. Because then if you don't get well, you die...”

And no one can dispute that. Not even Aristotle or Plato of Hellenic World times or our most current quoted political philosopher, Donald Trump.

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Arthur Solomon, a former journalist and senior vice president/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller, is a frequent contributor to public relations and sports business publications consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected]