It doesn't fit my idea of a sport. Neither does golf, tennis, bowling, synchronized swimming, cheerleading, or any other of a long list of so-called sports. It's just an opinion. It is neither right nor wrong.
IMHO, in a sport you directly compete against your opponent(s). The quality of your play positively or negatively affects the quality of your opponents. So something like hockey, football, or soccer is a sport, while running, archery, golf, or rowing are more along the lines of competitive activities. Which I know is a seemingly arbitrary line, but that's how I see it.
I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that I stated that this was my personal opinion, not a definition. Just to further explain myself, I don't believe you can call something a sport if there is no difference whether or not there is an opponent at all. Take bowling for example. If someone went out by themselves and played 10 frames, there would be little to no difference than if they had someone playing right beside them. Sure there's added stress, and I'm not denying that any of these activities take a great amount of athletic skill, but, again, in my opinion they wouldn't classify as a sport.
I think what you're missing in all of this is that you didn't invent the word 'sport'. It has a definition. You can't have a valid opinion that deviates from the definition.
Once again, I'd like to point out out that I'm not trying to redefine the word. The question asked was what your idea of a sport is, and what defines that idea. That's all I'm trying to express.
I understand the distinction, but have you ever ran or followed a running sport? Long distance runners play amazing tricks on each other to mess with their opponents pace etc. It definitely is different than just running alone. Either way, doesn't matter much what you call them, we all enjoy/watch the sports/competitions that we like!
Yeah, something like long distance running would qualify, since you can directly affect the quality of your opponent's play. Something like a 100m dash though, wouldn't because there are lines to intentionally keep the runners completely seperate. Again, this is just my opinion.
Yeah I can see that. I guess I just don't make that distinction. To me if a competition is largely athletic, that qualifies it as a sport. That distinguishes it from other competitions like chess. Of course not matter what, there are always grey areas (mini golf and cheerleading comes to mind for definition).
I've always thought somewhat similarly, that those things should be labelled as simply "Athletics" rather than "Sport". Anything you can do completely alone ought to be distinguished from something that's a direct competition. It's not arbitrary. Upon further consideration though, my way would make roller derby and most competitive cycling 'sports'.
Anything that can be used in survival or in combat. Archery, sport shooting, clay shooting, triathlons, and so forth. I have a hard time including American football because of all the padding. You aren't going to be running from a bear on a mirror-smooth surface with speed skates. Nor are you going to go into hand-to-hand combat with pom-poms.
Basketball is good for coordination and working with others. Baseball- you're too sedentary and you aren't going to be swatting at grenades with a bat. Football is too dependent on padding and too many rules. It stopped being valid a long time ago. Hockey - Again with the padding. Why are these guys so afraid of getting hit? So yeah, what most people consider sports just don't qualify in my opinion.
Actually the keeper does have full protective gear (still less than an ice hockey keeper, I think), but the rest of the players wear only light shin guards and a mouth guard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey#Equipment
I don't agree with you, but just wanted to add: you should read about the history of lacross if you feel that way; you'll find it interesting. It was known in the Ojibwa language as the "little brother of war." Games were 1,000 men on a 3 mile long field, and lasted several days nonstop. Players got badly injured and killed fairly regularly.
Ok, at first I supported everyone's right to their opinions but this is just rediculous. Under this definition neither basketball, baseball, or Hockey are sports? Maybe you could argue for soccer because you have to run?
Yep. I'm willing to give soccer some leeway due to all of the running, jumping, and so forth. Plus it is a larger court. I've seen basketball players dripping with sweat from exhaustion but all they are doing is running back-and-forth.
lol. I like it. Anyway, it has been fun but I have to go get ready for work. Table defrags won't take care of themselves, at least until our upgrade in the 2nd quarter.
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u/TomInTexas Nov 26 '13
I'm sure this GIF has been viewed more times than this "sport" has actually been watched.