Weiss Analysis

Over the past few weeks we have discussed sport largely from the spectator’s perspective, trying to discover the appeal and function of sport. Weiss’ reading discusses what it is to be the athlete and the transcendent experience one encounters on the playing field. It is important to remember that Weiss is discussing the ideal athlete, and much of what he says about the athletic experience is something I have never seen and find hard to believe, as I will mention later, but many of his points are relevant to real athletes today.
Weiss talks a lot about how most regular people are attached to a “multitude of tasks” and “the confusions characteristic of daily life,” and discusses how a few people are able to detach themselves from that material world and focus solely on the action itself without regard to the fruit of that action. He says that like artists, religious men, and intellectuals, athletes put aside their “economic demands and the satisfaction of appetites,” and immerse themselves in their own little world where it is just them against what Weiss calls “Actuality.” “Actuality” is like finality or truth, and according to Weiss all the artists, religious men, scholars and athletes are all trying to find it. The scholar studies and tries to find truth about his world through knowledge, and the zealot tries to find truth through being closer to God. Truth, God, real wisdom, whatever its termed Weiss believes that it is obscured and confused by the conventions of society and by our material world. Generally it means that when we do an action just for a reward, like when we do a job just with the paycheck in mind, we miss the point of the job itself. Weiss argues that the athlete is like this when he steps onto the court, separated from the rest of the world, and just tries to perfectly fuse mind and body together in athletic harmony. In this way he transcends himself and really finds the truth, the finality of the body. I think this is tremendously idealistic when we hear athletes like Latrell “I need to feed my family” Sprewell who are obviously motivated by the fruits of their action (reward) and not just athletic excellence in the action itself. But I think the idea that the athlete can separate himself from distractions in the real world and focus for a short time on pure action is definitely true. Something else I thought of:
Weiss would believe sports are played much more for arête than agon. Agon, the idea of “the fight,” implies a battle between two opposing forces, but Weiss writes that the athletes that oppose each other in a game are “intimately related,” and consider each other to be united in a common quest for excellence, which is evidenced by the “respect accorded [the competitors].” Obviously in real life that mutual respect and empathy is not always there and often the opposite is present, but to Weiss the ideal athletes consider their opponents as brothers with a common goal, that excellence that is arête.

Is Loyalty a Marvel or Myth?

This morning the Chicago Cubs' ace pitcher, Carlos Zambrano, announced that he leave the city and sign with another team after this season if Chicago did not sign him to a big contract before opening day. According to ESPN.com, Zambrano repeatedly said "This is a business" and proclaimed that "When you're a great pitcher and have talent, you deserve the money no matter who gives it to you." Obviously Zambrano felt no loyalty to the organization that signed him out of Venezuela at age 16 and brought him up in their system ever since, but he's far from the first athlete to chase the last dollar no matter where it lands. As a Cleveland fan I've seen hometown heroes Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Thome all leave town for the extra cash. Major League Baseball has such an economic inequity between teams that small-market teams are almost certain to lose their stars to the big-market clubs when they hit free agency; Losing CC Sabathia to the Yankees after 2008 is already a foregone conclusion for me. The NFL's hard salary cap forces teams to cut their franchise icons as their cap number gets too heavy, and turnover is as high there as in every sport. Basketball's collective bargaining agreement allows teams to sign players that they drafted and have played with them for over three years to more maximum money than any other competitor, and stars typically stay with their original teams, but their system is not perfect either; although Cleveland star LeBron James will be paid more by the Cavs than any other team, his sponsor Nike will pay him millions to play in a big-market like New York or Los Angeles. This turnover makes fans reluctant to attach themselves to their hometown heroes for fear that they will turn their backs on them when free agency arrives. The "hometown discount" that many stars gave their original teams years ago no longer exists in today's era. Too many players play for the name on the back of their jerseys, not the name on the front. But it never used to be this way.

In C.L.R James' piece "What do men live by?" he notes that in ancient Greece athletes had a fervent loyalty to the city they hailed from. He writes, "the Greeks believed that an athlete who had represented his community at a national competition, and won, had thereby conferred a notable distinction on his city. His victory was a testament to the quality of the citizens...for the rest of his life he ate at the public expense." Fans today wholly agree with this thinking; they feel a sense of civic pride and achievement when their team is victorious on the field. But in those times the athlete was part of the community. He won not merely for himself but for his friends, family, and neighbors. The athlete gave his all for that community, and the community gave back to him by worshiping him. A city would decorate a victorious competitor by erecting statues of him, penning poems of his glory, and showering him with respect and prominent positions. The athlete would be crazy to leave a city where he was blessed with such adoration.

Today the relationship between the city and the athlete has deteriorated like a bad marriage, and each side points fingers at the other. Athletes point out that when they perform poorly their fans don't hesitate to jeer them. Fans on their part characterize all athletes as selfish. What has resulted is an atmosphere without loyalty, where players will bolt out of town without hesitation and fans will turn their backs on the players. There are no easy solutions to the problem, but something has to be done to restore some loyalty back to sports. Without a connection between the fans and players, there really is no point in playing.